This perpetually trying year has scrambled a lot of traditions for everyone. Usually, my beloved college radio alma mater stages its biggest fundraiser — which happens to also be one of the biggest community events of the year — every … Continue reading Trivia Answer of the Day — Burgers
443. Santana, Zebop! (1981) Zebop! represented a return for Carlos Santana, in more ways that one. In the simplest, most measurable sense, the album brought the band bearing his name their greatest commercial success in years. The album was the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #443 to #441
America’s postal service is a rural lifeline—and it’s in jeopardy by Sarah Smarsh One of the most frustrating elements of the headlong scramble currently underway to demolish the U.S. Postal Service is that the effort is being led by the … Continue reading Outside Reading — Small Town, USA edition
What am I supposed to do? Not be enthralled by performer who’s tapping into to tuneful grin of Veruca Salt and poppy brashness of Letters to Cleo, but updating the whole sound to feel shiny and new as we careen … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Beabadoobee, “Together”
Blue Hearts, the new album from Bob Mould, opens with something of a fake out. “Heart on My Sleeve” is Mould with little more than his acoustic guitar, strumming a muscular but lean melody as he sings out a weary … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Blue Hearts
Little Monsters (Abe Forsythe, 2019). This comedic horror romp doesn’t have much to recommended it beyond the bright charisma of Lupita Nyong’o, but that just might be enough. Nyong’o plays Caroline, a sweet kindergarten teacher in Australia. A field trip … Continue reading Then Playing — Little Monsters; Underwater; Like a Boss
#10 — Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) Part of the progression of cinema during the twenty-tens involved an ongoing discussion — and corresponding recalibration — of who gets to tell which stories. Cultural appropriation wasn’t an entirely novel concept ahead of the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 10s — Number Ten
Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson, 2016). A reminiscence in the form of a cinematic scrapbook, Kristen Johnson assembles footage that represents her work across a couple decades as a cinematographer for documentaries. Less a greatest-hits clip show than a procession of moments … Continue reading Then Playing — Cameraperson, Wild Rose, Women Who Loved Cinema
446. Neil Young, Trans (1982) Neil Young was living through a strange time in the early nineteen-eighties, so it makes sense that he made some strange records. A cranky iconoclast often misconstrued as a folksy troubadour, Young simultaneously came upon … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #446 to #444
Voter Fraud Is a Right-Wing Fiction by John Nichols It can’t be put much plainer — or more accurately — than it is in the headline to this article by John Nichols, published by The Nation. The cheap hand-wringing of … Continue reading Outside Reading — Postmarked Democracy edition
Coffee for Two 