Author: Dan Seeger

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One for Friday: The Shaking Family, “Tic Toc”

Dan Seeger

  A debate flared up from time to time at my radio station regarding the relative merits of digging into albums versus concentrating on the singles. It was more of a jabbering-over-beers debate than an almost-coming-to-blows one, but still it was there. Generally, I opted for the deep cuts argument, feeling it was what most differentiated us from just about everyone else on the dial. Especially in an era that found some of the most unlikely college rock bands and tracks crossing over (seriously, how on earth does “I Touch Myself” become a Top 5 song?) sticking to what the labels … Continue reading One for Friday: The Shaking Family, “Tic Toc”

Books8 Comments

My Writers: Art Spiegelman

Dan Seeger

It was in high school that I started defensively insisting on the artistic value of comic book storytelling. Although in deference to the subject of this point, I should say it was co-mix narratives I was stumping for. Spiegelman prefers that nomenclature, undoubtedly in part because it is has some of the hardscrabble spirit of the term “comix,” which was used for the underground, head shop publications that served as his developmental home. But Spiegelman was even more specific in his choice, adding the hyphen to emphasize the two different words parts, each suggesting an intermingling of elements, in this … Continue reading My Writers: Art Spiegelman

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Seven

Dan Seeger

#37 — Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942) Lots of films have indelible images, those visual moments that don’t just endure in the memory but are so closely, solidly associated with a single work of art that any approximation that follows, no matter how tangential of glancing, automatically stirs comparison. There is no way, for example, for a horror film director to set a smart, evocative scene at an indoor swimming pool without calling to mind Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People, at least for a certain breed of film fan. (Those who think the horror genre started with Friday the 13th likely escape this … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Seven

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Edwards, Ficarra and Requa, Levy, Stoller, Wyatt

Dan Seeger

Focus (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015). There are a whole lot of film folks trying to pivot their careers with this strangely aspirational con job drama. Star Will Smith is clearly trying to put After Earth completely behind him by staking a claim on the territory of smart movies for adults that George Clooney has made his whole grain bread and artisan butter. At the same time, filmmaking partners Ficarra and Requa endeavor to demonstrate they can do more than comedies with a slightly twisty edge. Everyone fails in their attempt to stretch. The film is notably tepid, even as … Continue reading Edwards, Ficarra and Requa, Levy, Stoller, Wyatt

Music6 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Ray Charles is one of the few figures in the history of American popular music who deserves the descriptor “legend.” With well over one hundred singles to his credit, tallying up his total entries into the Billboard Top 40 is beyond my current mental energy, so let’s concentrate strictly on the two songs that qualify for this feature. “I’m Movin’ On” was the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones”

Music25 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 51-49

Dan Seeger

51. King Crimson, Thrak It’s so bizarre to me that the 90FM charts from around this time are peppered with the sort of improbably enduring prog rock bands that I thought I and my cohorts had swept out of the main airplay times with an aggressive recalibration of the stacks a couple years earlier (the 1996 list previously counted down had a Rush album in it, which I think is at least partially explained by the fervent fandom of a good friend who graduated that particular year). Thrak was the first full-length studio album by King Crimson in over ten years. Multi-instrumentalist … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 51-49

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From the Archive: Serenity

Dan Seeger

I don’t feel obligated to sync this backward-looking weekly post to some current media offering, but this weekend seems to call for it. Much as I was a Joss Whedon disciple, I wouldn’t have tagged him at the likely future impresario of the biggest blockbuster franchise going, but then I also wouldn’t have imagined that my boyhood comic book collection would provide such lucrative fodder for moviemaking. If the Make Mine Marvel aesthetic is going to be the defining quality of the current cinematic age, then Whedon is an excellent choice to be a primary creative force behind it. His television … Continue reading From the Archive: Serenity

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One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

Dan Seeger

This is a extremely busy time for me at work. Not only am I basically in charge of the fast approaching graduation ceremony at the small, liberal arts college that cuts me a monthly paycheck, but the biggest program of the year, a spectacle we simply call Circus, takes place this weekend and has been properly exhausting me during the extensive lead-up to it. Plus, next week we’re bringing the extraordinary Nikki Giovanni to campus, and I’ve got a lot of heavy lifting associated with that event. I barely have time to blink, much less tap out a little flurry … Continue reading One for Friday: Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants (live)”

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Eight

Dan Seeger

#38 — Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940) Rebecca holds a unique place in Oscar lore as the sole Alfred Hitchcock film to nab the Best Picture trophy (or Outstanding Production, as it was still called at the time). The famously unrewarded filmmaker lost out to John Ford (for The Grapes of Wrath) the second of four Best Director awards Ford collected in his career. Of course, naming Rebecca Best Picture without similarly honoring Hitchcock is patently absurd, given the director’s always distinctive stamp characterized by a nearly unparalleled skill at the interlocking of the mechanics of narrative with a striking visual sense (to be … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Eight

Comics14 Comments

My Misspent Youth: Avengers #202 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and George Pérez

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. I can pinpoint my very first comic book that featured Ultron. Avengers was one of those titles I picked up during my ravenous first feast on superhero comics in the summer of 1980. With limited resources to spread around — even with comics at a mere fifty cents a pop — the title that boasted the inclusion of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” was ideal, given the presence of a bevy of Marvel … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Avengers #202 by Jim Shooter, David Michelinie and George Pérez