I’ve spent the last few days knocked to the canvas by a cruel summer ailment. Maybe it’s a summer cold or a bout with the flu. Maybe it’s something yet worse that I, a stubborn fool, should have already gone … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Dedicated
Martin Scorsese’s side career as a documentary filmmaker has largely been a verification of all the stuff anyone would suspect he adores, from the Rolling Stones to erudite New York institutions. A director with nothing truly left to prove, but … Continue reading Now Playing — Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
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. I’ve tried to think … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Strange Planet, by Nathan W. Pyle
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955). The debut feature from Bengali director Satyajit Ray is a marvel of deep empathy and refined visual storytelling. Based on a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Pather Panchali focuses on the struggles of a rural family … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Pather Panchali; Pocketful of Miracles; Free Solo
708. The Special AKA, In the Studio (1984) Using the most straightforward explanation, In the Studio is the third album from the Specials. The fact that the band is billed as the Special AKA tells a significant story. This wasn’t … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #708 to #705
The Unexpected Profundity of Curious George by Rivka Galchen I’m always going to susceptible to a smart story involving Curious George, and this piece is smarter than most. For The New Yorker, Rivka Galchen explores how well the adventures about … Continue reading Outside Reading — Ever So Curious edition
The press release connected to “Superbike,” the new single by Jay Som, states her goal was to sound like Cocteau Twins and Alanis Morissette. I can’t say I hear everyone’s favorite jagged little Canadian on the track, but the honey-soaked … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Jay Som, “Superbike”
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 started my tenure as a buyer, reader, collector, and near-addict … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — X-Men #137 by Chris Claremont and John Byrne
I got my first sense of the sound of I Am Easy to Find, the new album from the National, from a track released by a completely different band. For the album Love is Dead, which came out in 2018, … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — I Am Easy to Find
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. In the late nineteen-nineties and into the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Whiskey Lullaby”
Coffee for Two 