In Praise of Phoebe Bridgers, a Thoroughly Good Celebrity by Madeline Ducharme Writing for Slate, Madeline Ducharme offers an accounting of Phoebe Bridgers’s contributions to the culture in recent months, and it’s a welcome compendium of good things in a … Continue reading Outside Reading — If We Make It Through December edition
It’s a tricky time to be an emerging artist. Arlo Parks started 2020 with a headlining tour through Europe that couldn’t be completed because of public heath lockdowns, prompting the need to find other ways to keep her name out … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Arlo Parks, “Caroline”
I was standing in a bookstore in Chicago when I first encountered the words of Tommy Orange. His debut novel, There There, had already been out for some time, gathering rave reviews, awards, and other accolades. Browsing for a new … Continue reading My Writers — Tommy Orange
Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983). Lizzie Borden’s riveting experimental film is set in a fuzzily defined near future following a revolution that presumably created a more equitable society. Instead, women are still regularly belittled, persecuted, and attacked, and different … Continue reading Then Playing — Born in Flames; Beau Travail; First Cow
#5 — The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot, 2019) At the beginning of The Last Black Man in San Francisco, the main characters are waiting. Jimmie (Jimmie Fails) and Mont (Jonathan Majors) are sitting at the side … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Five
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. Now that our regular Sunday diversion around these here digital parts has shifted to a spot on … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — “Then Came the ‘Reckoning’”
428. The Boomtown Rats, A Tonic for the Troops (1978) The Boomtown Rats were getting big in the U.K. and it was time to conquer the bigger, more lucrative market on the other side of the Atlantic. A Tonic for … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #428 to #426
The kids aren’t alright: How Generation Covid is losing out by Federica Cocco The cataclysmic failure of national leadership — and, to a more varied degree, state and local leadership — has wreaked havoc on communities coast to cost, including … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Unreal World edition
“The Spirit Of,” the new track by Cloud Nothings, cracks open my id and sluices in everything my younger self ever wanted in a song. It’s guitars and drums and bass, and producer Steve Albini making a lovely smear of … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Cloud Nothings, “The Spirit Of”
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. Antonio Jeffries went nearly as high as … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Like a Woman”
Coffee for Two 