Author: Dan Seeger

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: The Beloved, “Hello”

Dan Seeger

Occasionally during my tenure at the college radio station, a song arrived that was so very, very, very, terribly British. Given that our station was largely populated by staff members who defaulted more to the angry blasts of Hüsker Dü than the artful, lolling heartache of the Smiths, a decidedly U.K. feel to a song was no guarantee of such on our charts. I was one of those who craves loud guitars more than intricate synths, but there were times when a song proved irresistible. “Hello,” the breakthrough 1990 single by the Beloved was one of those. Even if the … Continue reading One for Friday: The Beloved, “Hello”

FilmLeave a comment

Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals

Dan Seeger

There are many flares of ingenuity in the sophomore directorial effort of Tom Ford, but perhaps the most important and telling is the title he chose. In adapting the 1993 novel Tony and Susan, written by Austin Wright, Ford opted for the title of a work of fiction within the fiction: Nocturnal Animals. Not only is that a far more elegant name to hang on a film, it offers an intriguing insight into the darkness that exist in and around the characters that move across Ford’s meticulous images. The film stars Amy Adams as Susan Morrow, an art gallery director … Continue reading Now Playing: Nocturnal Animals

FilmLeave a comment

Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

Dan Seeger

Deadpool (Tim Miller, 2016). And so we’ve reached the point in the superhero era of cinema that allows for a caustically deconstructionist take on the genre to become one of the biggest hits of the year. There might be no better methodology for tracing the chronology of the genre’s takeover than measuring the comparative impact of Mystery Men (a dud in 1999) to Kick-Ass (a solid hit in 2010) to Deadpool (a sensation in 2016). Technically, Ryan Reynolds first played Wade Wilson in the dismal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, release in 2009. Besides the smirking countenance of the actor, that iteration … Continue reading Dominik, Howard, Junger, Miller, Wolchok

TelevisionLeave a comment

Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”

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. NBC programmed a lot of disasters on Friday nights in the fall of 1983, including a show about a talking orangutan and the notorious Manimal. And yet it was a show that arrived as a mid-season replacement on that night which proved to the biggest dud of them all. Amazingly, it was produced by Lorne Michaels, the creator and current producer of Saturday Night … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 109 – 107

Dan Seeger

109. Heaven 17, “Let Me Go” While many bands are dogged by comparisons to other acts while they try to make their way in the wild of the music business, Heaven 17 endured an especially sharp version of that burden. Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, two thirds of Heaven 17’s most enduring lineup, were both founding members of the Human League. They left that band and ceded the name to lead singer Philip Oakey after the creative relationship became unendurably fractious. “Sometimes it’s hard to give us something that appears to be your entire life, but we all knew … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 109 – 107

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One for Friday: The Cigarettes, “Paul Westerberg”

Dan Seeger

More so than other music fandoms, I believe, having a heavy emotional investment in the college rock of the nineteen-eighties puts a person in a specialized, deeply insular club. At a time when there was a dearth of material that spoke to our instincts for countering the culture, and that material was exceedingly hard to come by, slipping the right record over the turntable spindle was a way to confirm that we weren’t alone. Someone else felt this way, someone else saw the world in similar shades of gloom. All of the above goes double for fans of the Replacements. … Continue reading One for Friday: The Cigarettes, “Paul Westerberg”

Books, ComicsLeave a comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“Now he was fifty-four years old and was as intriguing to corporate America as an airplane built from mud. He could not find work, could not find clients. He had moved from Schwinn to Huffy to Frontier Manufacturing Partners to Alan Clay Consulting to sitting at home watching DVDs of the Red Sox winning the Series in ’04 and ’07. The game when they hit four consecutive home runs against the Yankees. April 22, 2007. He’d watched these four and a half minutes a hundred times and each viewing brought him something like joy. A sense of rightness, of order. … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

Everything ElseLeave a comment

The Art of the Sell: Christmas Catalogs

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.  When I was a kid, I needed one thing and one thing only at this time of year: a Christmas catalog from one of the big department store chains. I tend to think of it as a Sears catalog, but realistically any of them would do. As long as the square bound publication was as thick as a big city phonebook and one-quarter to one-third of it was devoted to toys. I spent countless hours lying on … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Christmas Catalogs