The Emperor is Dead’ screamed the front-page headline of the San Francisco Chronicle on the morning of January 9, 1880. “On the reeking pavement,” the ensuing obituary lamented, “in the darkness of a moonless night under the dripping rain, Norton I, by the grace of God, Emperor of the United States, departed this life.” If you were to believe the history books and the immigration records, Joshua Abraham Norton was born in 1818 in the London borough of Deptford to parents John and Sarah. Two years later, he and his young Jewish family disembarked from the vessel La Belle Alliance at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa as part of the group now referred to as the “1820 Settlers” — Africa’s first…
Fiction & Opinion by Jeff Campagna
Posts from the “Opinions” Category
THINGS ARE CHANGING. For the past fifteen years the Web has been a catch-all. A landfill. A place where people came to dump their opinions, thoughts, concerns and drama — and where other people came to enjoy those things for free. All the while, major media outlets and corporations vied for a share of the attention. But there were very few rules (if any). It was an anything-goes affair. A frontier town with the usual suspects: the obnoxious tycoon, the corrupt sheriff, the painted whores, village idiots, drunkards and beggar-bundles slouched in dark doorways. No one really knew what the Internet was — or how to act inside of it — they just knew it was the place to be. In this ‘Wild West of the Web’, the concept of…
Yesterday I downloaded the June 2014 issue of National Geographic on my iPad. At almost 200 megabytes, it took over an hour to download. After swiping through the issue that is filled with editor’s notes, tables of contents, app instructions, advertisements, photo contests, user instagram showcases and single-page micro-features, I found only three long-form, in-depth articles that I could really sink my teeth into. And the issue cost $4.99. What’s with all the noise? What if I just wanted those three meaty articles? Why do I have to pay for content AND look at interruptive advertisements? I can’t even find refuge in the travel sections of mainstream media websites. Outlets like The Huffington Post and The Guardian seem hellbent on publishing Top 10 round-ups,…
After 15 years of development, ten years of construction, four Panamanian presidential administrations, countless project delays and $100 million dollars spent, Panama’s Biomuseo, designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, is at last open to the public. Slowly but surely, the building, much like the isthmus upon which it is perched, has emerged from nothingness, pushing itself up into being. As I crawl along the Bridge of the Americas in a stream of heavy Saturday morning traffic, it’s impossible not to notice the beast in the distance, with its technicolor shell lazing on the banks of the Canal, basking in the sun.
The Cannibal Club: Racism and Rabble-Rousing in Victorian England
Jeff Campagna
Posted on July 18, 2014
Bertolini’s restaurant was cheap, but charming: perfect for the creatures who roamed 19th-century London after the sun went down. On Tuesday nights, in Bertolini’s backroom, respected judges and doctors, esteemed lawyers, admired politicians and award-winning poets and writers drank heavily, smoked cigars and secretly discussed what they thought they knew of the British colonies, more specifically polygamy, bestiality, phallic worship, female circumcision, ritual murder, savage fetishes and island cannibalism. The gentlemen would trade in exotic pornography and tales of flogging and prostitution. If, by chance, a pious, God-fearing bloke were to accidentally stumble into the Fleet Street backroom on a Tuesday night, the tips of his Victorian moustache would’ve certainly stood on end.