Kris Lane is conscious

“ Among the brand-name French theorists of the mid-20th century, Roland Barthes was the fun one. Foucault was the tough one, Derrida was the dreamy one, Lacan was the mysterious one — I like to imagine them sometimes as a black-turtlenecked, clove-smoking boy band called Hors de Texte, with the hit album “Discipline ’n’ Punish.

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“ Certainly few middle-class people, or at least anyone from any “middle class” that Loman would recognize, are among the audiences attending this production. What was once a middle-class entertainment has become a luxury item. Tickets for the original run, in 1949, cost between $1.80 and $4.80; tickets for the 2012 run range from $111 to $840. After adjusting for inflation, that’s a 10-fold increase, well beyond the reach of today’s putative Willy Lomans.

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“ These days, memes spread faster and wider than ever, with social networks acting as the fuel for mass distribution. But it’s possible we may see less mutation and remixing in the near future. As internet usage shifts from desktops and laptops to mobile devices and tablets, the ability to mutate memes in a meaningful way becomes harder.

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“ You see, all I need to do is be self-referentially about the technology you all use and I’ll replicate like the virus in “Contagion,” a movie that, if any of you saw it, will inspire you to now post me to the “Contagion” Facebook page. Look: “The Hunger Games,” “The Smurfs,” “ ‘The Smurfs’ Meets ‘Shame.’ ” This is too easy.

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