Hearing Curtis talk about that huge subject, that huge building, that brink-of-madness, reality-blurring feel, there are a few unmistakeable parallels with Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman's recent film, in which Philip Seymour Hoffman takes control of an infinitely huge Manhattan warehouse and attempts to stage a boundary-shattering show that will sum up the entirety of human experience.
One was a party promoter in Washington, DC, and the others were Michaele and Tareq Salahi, a Virginia couple now on the brink of a reality TV career.
MORE than four months after losing Côte d'Ivoire's presidential election, Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent who had stubbornly refused to step down, was finally, as The Economist went to press, on the brink of accepting brutal reality.
America, once again, took the familiar road from the height of dysfunction to the brink of default – until reality grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and slapped it straight, before it did itself and others grave harm.
Thanks to a string of hints from ECB officials that they are considering "unconventional measures" to stop inflation falling further, there is a growing expectation that the ECB is on the brink of cranking up the printing presses.The reality will probably be much less dramatic.
By then, JFK had taken us through many Triumphs and near Tragedies, including the Brink of Nuclear War, a very Real Reality then.
The next time worst-case thinking threatens to distort your perception of reality, use Ockham's razor to bring you back from the brink of victimhood.
2. Mistaken Spiders/Animals/Zombies trying to kill me: I have woken up mid-sleep, certain a zombie was on the brink of gnawing off my foot when in reality, a purple Loom Band was stuck around my toe.
An explosion of reality".
Of reality television shows.
