I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. The eagerness Marvel Comics creators displayed in glomming onto cultural trends … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Master of Kung Fu by Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy
I feel genuine sympathy for screenwriters tasked with — or even who task themselves with — providing expositional dialogue in a film with a densely complicated science-fiction premise. While there are some ready-made tactics, such as building the narrative around … Continue reading The Unwatchables — Reminiscence
Lucy in the Sky (Noah Hawley, 2019). I think Noah Hawley has presided over some dandy television in recent years, and it makes sense that he’d bring his squirrely urges for narrative and format tinkering to his feature directorial debut. … Continue reading Then Playing — Lucy in the Sky; Married Before Breakfast; Bill & Ted Face the Music
These posts are about great acting performances sustained across the full run of a television series. Even more than the slightly more famous line that follows it in the pilot episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, “You know what? … Continue reading The Long Haul — Edward Asner in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant
308. Utopia, Adventures in Utopia (1979) Utopia was regarded as the side project Todd Rundgren started to give him and some like-minded cohorts a chance to make highly experimental music, separate from the commercial expectations tied to Rundgren’s solo outings. … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #308 to #306
Even Billy Joel Mocked ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ I Loved It. by Lindsay Zoladz The Number Ones: Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire” by Tom Breihan This was quite a week for new writing about Billy Joel’s last … Continue reading Outside Reading — Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray edition
If the likes of Haim can create elegant throwbacks to nineteen-seventies pop that somehow sound modern and fresh, then surely there’s a vast tract of fertile ground in reviving and reinventing the R&B groove of the same area. That’s what … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Amber Mark, “Foreign Things”
I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. When last we left out heroes, all hell was breaking loose. … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Ghost Rider #20 by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne
I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. I remember the first time I ventured into a comic book … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Daredevil #138 by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Once again, without emotion…. … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Flight of the Conchords, “Robots”
