Author: Dan Seeger

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Character Sturdy: An Introduction

Dan Seeger

Recently, I was prompted to think again about authorship. More specifically, I thought about how often I devote ample digital column inches in this space to considerations of pop culture that make a presumption about specific visions. Those visions are sometimes collaborative, but they almost always reside within a confined framework. When I write about comic books, I stick to single issues or runs on a title by a set of creators. When I write about television, I lock in on one season, weighing it against others only as a comparison that helps me assign a superlative. I chose those two … Continue reading Character Sturdy: An Introduction

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The New Releases Shelf: Stranger to Stranger

Dan Seeger

To Paul Simon’s credit, he knows what he’s up against. The singer-songwriter with decades of fame in his rearview recently told Rolling Stone, “To get people to listen with open ears, you have to really make something that is interesting because people are prepared for it not to be interesting.” Comfortably into his seventies and already the multiple recipient of the sorts of lifetime achievement awards that imply creative ossification, Simon can either approach a new album as a listless valediction or a chance to prove something. On Stranger to Stranger, he opts for the latter. Striving for the new doesn’t … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Stranger to Stranger

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Laughing Matters: Tom the Dancing Bug, “The N.R.A. of Counter-Earth!”

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. If the only thing Ruben Bolling ever signed his (fake) name to was Super-Fun-Pak Comix, I would still be prepared to call him the finest cartoonist working today. Happily, he also does more than that. His weekly comic, Tom the Dancing Bug, is the home of sharp, astute political and social satire, devising consistently novel ways to expose the absurdity of our most heated current … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Tom the Dancing Bug, “The N.R.A. of Counter-Earth!”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 181 – 179

Dan Seeger

181. The Smiths, “Girlfriend in a Coma” It is a splendidly fitting contradiction that the single widely credited as the one that precipitated the inevitable end of the Smiths also provides a convincing demonstration of the intense value to be found in the fierce collaboration between Steven Patrick Morrissey and Johnny Marr, shimmering pop proof that they would never transcend apart what they accomplished together. To be accurate and thorough, it wasn’t “Girlfriend in a Coma” itself that made Marr finally walk away from the band, but Morrissey’s insistence on releasing it as a single backed on the b-side by a … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 181 – 179

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From the Archive: Waiting for the Light

Dan Seeger

This review showed up within the first few months of The Reel Thing, the movies reviews and news show I co-hosted on WWSP-90FM, from 1990 – 1993. I was clearly still adjusting my parameters on the star rating, since there are an awful lot of complaints leveled to land on the clear recommendation of three stars. In my modern fact-checking, I discovered I used the wrong name for the young actress Hillary Wolf, so it’s sort of a mess all around. That bit of research also brought me to the tidbit that Wolf went on to be a judo champion … Continue reading From the Archive: Waiting for the Light

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One for Friday: Flies on Fire, “Baptize Me Over Elvis Presley’s Grave”

Dan Seeger

I feel like I have a pretty strong memory when it comes to the music that landed at my college radio station during my tenure there, especially the first year or two. There have been a few hundred of these “One for Friday” posts by now, for example, and a whole mess of them include songs that were released between 1988 and 1990. Despite my proclivity for reminiscence in this digital space, I don’t live in the past. But I sure do like to listen to music from back then. My self-congratulatory assurance of my own exhaustive expertise on the … Continue reading One for Friday: Flies on Fire, “Baptize Me Over Elvis Presley’s Grave”

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Programming Note

Dan Seeger

This week has been exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure. And I’ve barely progressed into the week as I write this. (Super secret DVD commentary back story: this post was not written on Thursday!) I am still figuring out how to balance my new vocation with the modest and yet relentless demands of Coffee for Two. (Note: I’m aware that the relentless aspect is is entirely self-imposed.) As I continue the extended process of figuring out how to balance all of this, I may cheat a bit. Here’s a cheat, but, I think, a worthwhile one. I want to use my … Continue reading Programming Note

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Beers I Have Known: Sierra Nevada Nooner Pilsner

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. Because summer. No, wait. I can actually muster a few more words. Though I have ample admiration for all the brewers who toil and strive to make concoctions of maximum complexity, abuzz with cascades of confounding flavor, there’s something pleasing about a more commonplace beer style that’s done exactly right. I will chase hoppy IPAs and revel in bourbon-blasted stouts with the best of them, but I’m grateful that recent years have found craft … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Sierra Nevada Nooner Pilsner

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My Misspent Youth: Marvel Fanfare #7 by Steven Grant and Joe Barney

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. One of the first comics I wrote about for the “My Misspent Youth” series was Marvel Fanfare, a periodical exclusive to the direct market, which was still a rarity in the early nineteen-eighties. At the time I bought my first issue of the series, from the dinky upstairs office that was the original home of Stoughton, Wisconsin’s Midwest Books, I was still primarily feeding my superhero story addiction by ruthlessly patrolling the comic book … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Marvel Fanfare #7 by Steven Grant and Joe Barney

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The Art of the Sell: “Lamp”

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.  I’ve taught a college-level film class, but I didn’t have the time to really dig into examining the mechanics of cinema with the students. Being me, I can’t help but spend my time thinking about exactly which clips I would use to illustrate exactly how movies work, how specific shot and editing choices carry narrative and convey emotion. There’s a passage in Steven Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express, for example, involving an automobile’s gas gauge dipping towards “E,” … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “Lamp”