It seems to me I’ve been here before, the sounds I heard and the sights I saw

Ten years ago today, I was standing in a mountain valley with my favorite person in the world. After we conversed privately, we signed some state-issued paperwork and we were obligated to check the “Married” box on relevant paperwork from there on in. Five years ago today, I was in New Orleans with my favorite person in the world. We’d just completely a hard week of work on houses that had been effectively destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. We were in a great restaurant, having a wonderful meal and toasting each other and the bruised, battered city that we loved. Today, … Continue reading It seems to me I’ve been here before, the sounds I heard and the sights I saw

My Misspent Youth: Giant-Size Avengers #3 by Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas and Dave Cockrum

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. Besides the comics that I selected for myself in my youthful years, I always had access to a few stray issues that came into my possession by mysterious means. Comic books were purchased a little more freely in the nineteen-seventies. They were available practically everywhere and were somewhat likely to be picked up as impulse buys by teenagers and college students just looking for a four-color distraction. I never found a … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Giant-Size Avengers #3 by Steve Englehart, Roy Thomas and Dave Cockrum

Spectrum Check

This week, I finally starting working on the backlog of record reviews I need to work through by offering up an assessment of the new album by the U.K. band Let’s Wrestle. It was one of those tricky instances of having to write about something when my primary reaction to it is “Eh, it’s okay.” What’s actually harder is writing about a film that’s terrific. Invariably, I feel like my words are inadequate. Lu Chuan’s new movie is tough, uncompromising and beautifully made. I am pleased that I wrote the review without ever using the word “epic.” That was intentional. … Continue reading Spectrum Check

One for Friday: Ian McCulloch, “Proud to Fall”

One of the aspects of my personal era of college radio that I found interesting was the pronounced sense that the first wave of great left of the dial artists was coming to an end. By the time I landed there in the fall of 1988, it was already understood that Hüsker Dü and The Smiths were no more, for example. Several other bands that were mainstays of the college charts also seemed on the verge of calling it quits. In some ways, this made it feel like we’d just missed the Golden Age of our preferred music, but there … Continue reading One for Friday: Ian McCulloch, “Proud to Fall”