I think a case can be made that Captain America: Civil War is mistitled. The skirmish promised there is duly presented, with the crummy crossover comic book series with which it shares its name thankfully providing only the barest of inspiration. Where … Continue reading Now Playing: Captain America: Civil War
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. As I’ve relocated from Beer City USA to my native state, where cheery consumption of the potable in question is practically written into the bylaws, I’m pleased to discover that one thing remains consistently true: any week designated for a sudsy celebration lasts longer than seven days. I and my partner-in-all-things are on the other end of our very first Madison Craft Beer Week, which was dizzying in every way. Over the course of the … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Hinterland Brewery Bourbon Barrel Doppelbock
202. The Who, “You Better You Bet” A necessary piece of music trivia in the arsenal of every fan so inclined to mentally gather such minutiae is the status of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” as the very first music video played on MTV. You’ll never win a bar bet with that factoid, but knowing the first song to be played twice on the network could earn a free drink. Following the Buggles’ inaugurating clip, Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run,” and Rod Stewart’s “She Won’t Dance with Me,” MTV aired the music video for “You Better You Bet,” the first … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 202 – 200
While I would make perfect sense to use this weekend’s unstoppable blockbuster as inspiration to dredge up an older review of a movie featuring Marvel characters for the “From the Archive” feature, I decided to opt for something a little different, still tipping my ball cap to the latest offering that inspires moviegoers to cry, “Make Mine Marvel!” This review was written as a lark, a little act of self-mockery as I applied the rigors of critical thinking to a silly nineteen-seventies Marvel comic book (largely at the joking behest of a pal of mine who has a certain whale … Continue reading From the Archive: Marvel Team-Up #12
As I spend my first spring back in my native state of Wisconsin, I am reminded of the unique feelings that well up when it finally seems that winter, that harshest season, is irrevocably over. Those who’ve never endured the weather of the Upper Midwest perhaps don’t understand that snowy assaults can continue happening well past the point that seems at all reasonable, that these blustery heartbreaks might occur after a the false promise of a long stretch of beautiful, warm days. To live here, one acquires a defensive readiness to face down the cold yet one more time, as … Continue reading One for Friday: Great Lakes Myth Society, “Summer Bonfire”
“Madame Manec brings sandwiches. Etienne doesn’t have any Jules Verne, but he does have Darwin, he says, and reads to her from The Voyage of the “Beagle,” translating English to French as he goes — the variety of species among the jumping spiders appears almost infinite… Music spirals out of the radios, and it is splendid to drowse on the davenport, to be warm and fed, to feel the sentences hoist her up and carry her somewhere else.” –Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See, 2014 “SUDDENLY IT WHIPS FROM THE ANGRY SEA — A BEHEMOTH THAT SMASHES INTO THE QUINJET, … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature
I usually reserve the longer reviews for films still playing in theaters, but sometimes a title I’ve caught up on later merits a few extra words. Marlon Brando wasn’t well past his peak when he turned in his only feature film directorial effort, but the ground beneath his feet was crumbling. At the time shooting began on One-Eyed Jacks, late in 1958, Brando was less than five years past the triumphant On the Waterfront, and he’d nabbed a Best Actor Academy Award nomination while the same calendar hung on the wall (doing so for 1957’s Sayonara). But there was also hints of the … Continue reading Then Playing: One-Eyed Jacks
It probably makes sense that Polly Jean Harvey has reach the point of full-on art installation, like Björk at MOMA. Disastrous as that particular exhibition may have been, it was indicative of a certain truth in the notion that the Icelandic performer in her overt and unyielding multifaceted creativity had reached the point where the standard progression of record and tour followed by another record and another no longer seemed sufficient. Similarly, when Harvey released the exemplary, transcendent Let England Shake, it really did seem that she’d come to a creative endpoint, exhausting all the possibilities of the album format. And … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: The Hope Six Demolition Project
Sixty-second in a series…. (Found elsewhere) Continue reading Calling Jesus, please, send his love to me
205. Los Lobos, “Will the Wolf Survive” While the track “Will the Wolf Survive” provided Los Lobos with the title, slightly modified, for their major label debut, it was the last song written for the album. According to the band members, the impetus for the song came in part from Dave Alvin, undoubtedly hanging around because of his personal and professional connections with the album’s co-producer, T Bone Burnett. Alvin surveyed the material Los Lobos had assembled for the 1984 release and suggested that what the band really needed was an anthem, something that truly and properly represented the their musical and cultural outlook. The worrisome … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 205 – 203
Coffee for Two 