In Popular Culture
Frank Zappa, in the liner notes of the Mothers of Invention album We're Only in It for the Money, recommends reading the short story before listening to the track "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny."
Ian Curtis of the band Joy Division was inspired by "In the Penal Colony" to write the song "Colony" from the album Closer.
The execution device is similar to the Blood Quill utilized by Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series. The magical quill, however, writes with the blood of the user as ink, and what is written is carved onto the user's hand; scars are left with continuous use. It is considered a brutal device of torture.
Read more about this topic: In The Penal Colony
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It’s become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute.”
—Malcolm McLaren (b. 1946)