I haven’t been watching the vital Congressional testimony taking place today, but I have been following it, largely through the lens of social media and online news sources. Particularly when considering the courage it took for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford … Continue reading Programming Note
A Simple Favor is precisely the film Paul Feig needed at this point in his directorial career. The filmmaker will always have an honored place in my personal pantheon thanks to his efforts on the practically perfect television series Freaks … Continue reading Now Playing — A Simple Favor
“I found myself remembering the day in kindergarten when the teachers showed us Dumbo, and I realized for the first time that all the kids in the class, even the bullies, rooted for Dumbo, against Dumbo’s tormentors. Invariably they laughed … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
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. If the flaming disaster … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Funny or Die, “Non-Voters Anonymous”
856. David Bowie, Lodger (1979) In the relentless fertile field of David Bowie studies, it’s probably accurate to say that Lodger represents the closing of an age. The cycle of constant reinvention of Bowie’s nineteen-seventies output — the decade’s equivalent … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #856 to #853
For a time at my former online home, I devoted the last day of the work week to “Flashback Friday” posts. Going year by year, the idea was that I’d find cause to write about cultural ephemera that might be … Continue reading From the Archive — Destroyer
Thirty years ago, in the late summer of 1988, Sam Phillips released her debut album, The Indescribable Wow. That’s an accurate statement and yet not entirely true. Under her given name of Leslie Phillips, she released a series of albums … Continue reading One for Friday — Sam Phillips, “I Don’t Want to Fall in Love”
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 I was a younger, so much younger than today, I … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Mockingbird by Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemcyk
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 between answering to Steven Demetre Georgiou … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Banapple Gas”
Mitski’s new album, Be the Cowboy, is the white flowers that freckle up on scorched earth. It is beauty and anger and disappointment and resilience. It is a tremor that signals life in a wounded form. It is a mural … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Be the Cowboy
