Author: Dan Seeger

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My Misspent Youth: Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth

Dan Seeger

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. As I must on occasion, let me preface what follows by conceding that I am about to abuse the word “youth” in the title of this feature. Stumptown, written by Greg Rucka and drawn by Matthew Southworth, debuted in 2009, well past the point that I could claim any dewy upon mine eyes. My mild justification for highlighting it under this regular banner is that the series — while hardly a … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Stumptown by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth

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Laughing Matters: George Carlin, Class Clown

Dan Seeger

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. It’s not accurate to call the nineteen-seventies the heyday of comedy records, not when the prior decade saw the smash-hit album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, elevating a guy who’d recently been a Chicago advertising drone to both Best New Artist and Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. That doesn’t even get into the likes of Vaughn Meader and Allan Sherman tying … Continue reading Laughing Matters: George Carlin, Class Clown

FilmLeave a comment

Now Playing: It Comes at Night

Dan Seeger

I feel compelled to write about the audience I was in midst of when I saw the film It Comes at Night. The second feature from writer-director Trey Edward Shults, It Comes at Night is being positioned as a horror film for promotional purposes. That’s entirely fair. All the elements are in place, including a constantly mounting sense of dread, allusions to a devastating and unexplained phenomenon that has ravaged the populace, and a wary appraisal of the intrinsic darkness of desperate people. And yet the film is primarily notable for its colossal restraint more than its vivid shocks. In … Continue reading Now Playing: It Comes at Night

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 34 – 32

Dan Seeger

34. Sinéad O’Connor, “Mandinka” It didn’t start with a picture of the Pope on live television. Sinéad O’Connor was at war from the beginning. “I had no illusions that there were such things as record deals — I just happened to be lucky enough to get one,” O’Connor noted shortly after the release of her 1987 debut album, The Lion and the Cobra. “I didn’t realize there were such bastards in this business.” Her famously shaved head — a look especially out of step with late-eighties fashion trends — was O’Connor’s rebuttal to label attempts to impose a more MTV-friendly style … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 34 – 32

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From the Archive: Grizzly Man

Dan Seeger

This originally appeared in my former online home. I was still getting back in the swing of writing movie reviews when this posted. The new film from sorta nuts German director Werner Herzog is a documentary about Timothy Treadwell, a failed actor who spent years in the Alaskan wilderness observing, bonding with, obsessing over and serving as self-proclaimed “protector” of a large group of grizzly bears. An inveterate ham, Treadwell documented his experience with a video camera, shooting hours of footage which Herzog merged with new interviews to give us a potent picture of a damaged individual who sought some … Continue reading From the Archive: Grizzly Man

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One for Friday: The Soup Dragons, “One Way Street”

Dan Seeger

After I graduated from college and was underway with the slow, sad process of detaching from the student-run radio station, I did the best I could to compensate for no daily exposure to the waterfall of new music that came through the doors. After initially insisting my break would be clean, I eventually signed up for a weekly on-air shift as a community volunteer, and I scoured music magazines with the intensity of a conspiracy theorist looking for the clue that would bring down the menacing shadow government. When I found a song that I believed had similar stuff to … Continue reading One for Friday: The Soup Dragons, “One Way Street”

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The New Releases Shelf: Goths

Dan Seeger

I have a lot of affection for the Mountain Goats, but I was disappointed with their last album. Released in 2015, Beat the Champ was a concept album, awash in songwriter John Darnielle’s abiding affection for professional wrestling, and not the kind that takes up hours of national programming hours with intricate stories and flashy production values. Darnielle was writing for the hardscrabble, downscale grapplers who shed blood and sweat (but no tears in this manliest of sports) in half-filled municipal coliseums and on static dappled UHF stations in his younger years. Much as I appreciate Darnielle’s conviction that absolutely … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Goths

FilmLeave a comment

The Art of the Sell: “Fargo” movie poster

Dan Seeger

These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art.  By the middle of the nineteen-nineties, I was becoming dismayed with the state of movie posters. I have no empirical evidence to offer to prove my theory, but it truly seemed as if attempts at creativity and artfulness were dwindling. There was little evident willingness on the part of studios to bring memorable images to their promotional efforts. Instead, they wanted great big pictures of the movie stars with as little other information as possible. If they … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “Fargo” movie poster

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Now Playing: Wonder Woman

Dan Seeger

AT LAST, IN A WORLD TORN BY THE HATREDS AND WARS OF MEN, APPEARS A WOMAN TO WHOM THE PROBLEMS  AND FEATS OF MEN ARE MERE CHILD’S PLAY — A WOMAN WHOSE IDENTITY IS KNOWN TO NONE, BUT WHOSE SENSATIONAL FEATS ARE OUTSTANDING IN A FAST-MOVING WORLD! WITH A HUNDRED TIMES THE AGILITY AND STRENGTH OF OUR BEST MALE ATHLETES AND STRONGEST WRESTLERS, SHE APPEARS AS THOUGH FROM NOWHERE TO AVENGE AND INJUSTICE OR RIGHT A WRONG! AS LOVELY AS APHRODITE — AS WISE AS ATHENA — WITH THE SPEED OF MERCURY AND THE STRENGTH OF HERCULES — SHE IS … Continue reading Now Playing: Wonder Woman

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Beers I Have Known: Founders Brewing Co. All Day IPA

Dan Seeger

This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. There’s no denying it. We’ve reached the point in the year when considerations around which beer to reach for are dictated by the weather as much as anything else. Sure, there are also certain embedded urges to indulge in different styles in accordance with other meteorological adjustments conveniently aligned with the calendar, but there’s nothing quite as compelling as the summer sun to tip the taste buds in a particular direction. The other … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Founders Brewing Co. All Day IPA