While I try not to cede this weekly space entirely to the efforts of others, there is indeed a precedent. We’ve just returned from almost a week away, and my brain is soft, pliable and unable to think of a good entry for this week. Honestly, I can’t even come up with a wildly creative, obscure song selection. But there’s always Mr. Robyn Hitchcock… Continue reading One for Friday: Cheating Off of Someone Else’s Paper
#22 — Salesman (Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, 1968) I tend to think of the documentaries from the Maysles brothers as fairly wooly and structureless. Grey Gardens, undoubtedly their most famous film, is an intimate portrait of the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twenty-Two
Forty-sixth in a series… Continue reading One thing I don’t want to see is a network Jesus on TV
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 a general rule, I don’t care for fruit beers. I completely understand … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager
#23 — The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962) The guests at a snooty, upper crust dinner party adjourn to the music room, engaging in discussion, whiling away the night. Then the time comes to leave, many of them announcing their … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twenty-Three
54. The Cure, Wild Mood Swings Many observers thought the Cure might be finished after their 1992 album, Wish, though that was hardly the first time the disintegration of the band was predicted. (There may have been some who would have preferred the band shuffle away for good after the their yucky Judge Dredd theme song.) Those doomsayers forgot Robert Smith’s endless capacity for regenerating his chief creative outlet and eyeliner-streaked cash cow. Wild Mood Swings, the band’s tenth album, was released in the late spring, the precise time frame that worked well for them since 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1996, 54 and 53
I’ve somewhat lost track of all the various assignments I’ve picked up for Spectrum Culture, but I’ve got a funny feeling that I’m going to be hit with a very busy week sometime soon. This week, I had only one full-length effort for the site, but I did my best to make it worthwhile, especially since I feel added pressure whenever I write on something that’s an established classic of cinematic erudition. Specifically, I wrote on the debut feature from Alain Resnais, which also happens to be the first real big-screen role for recent Oscar nominee Emmanuelle Riva. I also … Continue reading Spectrum Check
It’s been a little over a year since I finally secured a turntable after several years without, as a friend of mine once called the device, a vinyl-spinner. It was absolutely wonderful to track through the remainder of my record collection, often playing things that I figured (somewhat erroneously, as it turns out) were essentially entirely unattainable these days. Turns out, though, that the main appeal of having a turntable again is being able to shop for records again. I’m not referring to the new culture of 180 gram vinyl rapturous collecting (though my household does occasionally succumb to that … Continue reading One for Friday: The Balancing Act, “A TV Guide in the Olduvai Gorge”
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. “Give It to Me Baby” gave Rick James his second trip to the Billboard Top 40, following “You and I,” released in 1978. “Give it To Me Baby” was the first single from James’s 1981 album, Street Songs. A smash on the R&B charts, where it went all the way to the top, James had to settle for more modest crossover success, as … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Give It to Me Baby” and “Cold Blooded”
So last year, I took the occasion of the Emmy Award nominations announcement as cause to weigh in with my own list of the best of television, because if there’s one thing this digital space needs, it’s more lists. As is often the case, I only need to do it once to consider it a tradition, so here we go again. So using the same span of eligibility that the Emmys adopts, here’s my ten: #1 — Louie, season 3 (FX). The completely unique creation of Louis CK dipped a bit from the creative heights of season two, but expecting … Continue reading There must have been a plague of them on the TV when I came home late
