The annual Fiesta Oyster Bake, in San Antonio, Texas, takes place every mid-April on the brochuresque liberal arts campus of St. Mary’s University, the oldest Catholic university in the American Southwest. Established in 1916 by […]
We Need To Talk About Lionel
Two weeks ago, at The Brisbane Writers Festival, the novelist Lionel Shriver was scheduled to give an address on themes of “community and belonging,” a lustrous irony in light of the speech that the writer […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Blond/Blonde
Midway through “Nikes,” the first single from Frank Ocean’s sophomore album, Blond, the song transforms suddenly into another song, swapping simple drums for intricate guitar, sky-pitched auto-tune for a total lack thereof, the abrupt shift […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Suicide Squad
Suicide was once deemed the lone truly serious philosophical problem, but that was well before the advent of the superhero blockbuster. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes, “What is called a reason for living is […]
The Strawberry Criterion: Lady Ghostbusters
A bust of Harold Ramis’s head appears early in Lady Ghostbusters, his wry grin preserved in bronze, as if pleased that death has excused him from the proceedings. Were only the living so blessed. Co-written and directed […]
BPoFD Presents: Songs of Summer 2016
Like the ephemeral season they soundtrack, summer songs flare up suddenly, burn to a brightness, and vanish seemingly forever from our lives. What makes a song sing summer has little to do with its release […]
The Official BPoFD Presidential Endorsement
For the past painful year, the Republican presidential contenders have been bombarding Americans with empty propaganda slogans and competing, bizarrely, to present themselves as the least experienced person for the most important elected job in […]
BPoFD Podcast Episode #21: Oscars 2016 with William Glick
In Episode #21 of the BPoFD podcast, managing editor Carmen Petaccio sits down with playwright and Oscars historian William Glick to discuss the 2016 Academy Awards. Highlights include predictions for all the major categories, a dissection of the […]
The Strawberry Criterion: The Life of Pablo
“The Life of Pablo,” the fourth title of Kanye West’s seventh album, remains conspicuously vague in the specifics of its reference, a curiosity given the levels of transparency otherwise afforded to the recording process by […]
baby pictures of famous dictators 