{"id":93059,"date":"2015-12-22T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=93059"},"modified":"2015-12-21T11:49:36","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T16:49:36","slug":"the-way-the-world-ends-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/22\/the-way-the-world-ends-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Way the World Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. Please enjoy, and have a happy New Year!<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_82419\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/in-the-mouth-of-madness.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-82419\" class=\"wp-image-82419\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/in-the-mouth-of-madness.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/in-the-mouth-of-madness.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/in-the-mouth-of-madness-300x146.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/in-the-mouth-of-madness-768x374.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-82419\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From <i>In the Mouth of Madness<\/i>, 1981.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Being the last man on Earth.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On a recent Sunday evening, trying to relax, I turned on the television and saw an ad for a new comedy series called <em>The Last Man on Earth. <\/em>It wasn\u2019t clear how everyone else had died.<\/p>\n<p>I had learned what I needed to know, or had remembered it: television does not relax me. I turned the television off, took an Ativan, and listened to<em> The Teddy Charles Tentet<\/em>, a terrific jazz record.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Phil Miller is the last man on earth\u2014which makes him the world\u2019s greatest handyman\u2014world\u2019s greatest athlete\u2014[<em>etc<\/em>.]<\/p>\n<p>The last man on earth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But of course one is <em>not<\/em> the Last Man on Earth. There are other people, equal claimants to the Earth. It can be vexing to share it with them. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/05\/the-way-the-world-ends\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read More &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re away until January 4, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2015. Please enjoy, and have a happy New Year! Being the last man on Earth.\u00a0 On a recent Sunday evening, trying to relax, I turned on the television and saw an ad for a new comedy series called The Last Man [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20653],"tags":[16920,9517,16915,16917,79,207,16919,16918,16921,16399,7481,81,16916,8656,16913,7592,997,16914],"class_list":["post-93059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2015","tag-alpha-male","tag-apocalypse","tag-charlton-heston","tag-fantasies","tag-film","tag-freud","tag-i-am-legend","tag-in-the-mouth-of-madness","tag-janine-chasseguet-smirgel","tag-john-carpenter","tag-mothers","tag-movies","tag-omega-man","tag-richard-matheson","tag-the-last-man-on-earth","tag-tv","tag-vampires","tag-will-forte"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Being the Last Man on Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why do we want to be the last one alive? 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