Author: Dan Seeger

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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”

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 184 – 182

Dan Seeger

184. Los Lobos, “Shakin’, Shakin’, Shakes” “Shakin’, Shakin’, Shakes” was the first single Los Lobos released in the calendar year 1987. Then it was totally eclipsed by a very different song they issued a few months later. By most accounts, the recording of their sophomore major label effort, By the Light of the Moon, was an arduous process. There was undoubtedly some pressure to deliver a strong follow-up to How Will the Wolf Survive?, the band’s 1984 album, which enjoyed only modest success but firmly established Los Lobos as a critical favorite. Just as importantly, some of that adulation stemmed … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 184 – 182

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From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball

Dan Seeger

When I wrote reviews for The Pointer, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, I typically focused on a pair of films, doing my level best to thematically tie them together. As my rudimentary explanation of auteur theory here makes clear, there were plenty of instances when my attempts yielded strained results. The artistic success or failure of a film is often attributed chiefly to the director. Despite the acknowledged importance of fine writing and convincing acting, the director shoulders the majority of criticism because it is their job to tie everything together and strengthen the weak spots. … Continue reading From the Archive: Hero and Mr. Baseball

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One for Friday: The The, “This Is the Day”

Dan Seeger

Whenever major life changes are upon me, the soundtrack inside my head consistently leads with the same song. The last two lines of the chorus echo: “This is the day your life will surely change/ This is the day when things fall into place.” After fifteen years working in higher education — the experiences of which are peppered throughout the writings in this space, albeit judiciously — I began a brand new chapter on Monday. For now, I’ll leave it at that and make this one of the weeks that I step aside after a minimal number of words and let … Continue reading One for Friday: The The, “This Is the Day”

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Greatish Performances #25

Dan Seeger

#25 — Kate Beckinsale as Charlotte Pingress in The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998) I tend to think of The Last Days of Disco as the film that helped Whit Stillman loosen up, as if the propulsive beats of the titular musical genre sent his creative techniques into spinning, swirling revelry. Much as I admire his two preceding films, Metropolitan and Barcelona, their intense refinement can play like reticence. While fully maintaining his capacity for smart, careful, telling language, Stillman brings a little more sweat and glitter to his storytelling, a probing quality that carries the film deeper into the characters’ faults … Continue reading Greatish Performances #25