Author: Dan Seeger

Books, ComicsLeave a comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage.” –Jonathan Lethem, As She Climbed Across the Table, 1997 “AFTER MINUTES THAT ARE ETERNITIES, SHE REACHES HER DESTINATION, BLINKS AT A LIGHT THAT STINGS HER EYES, AND WHEN HER VISION CLEARS, GASPS…COLORS AND BRIGHTNESS AND SOUNDS AND A SUBTLE PERFUME SUCH AS SHE HAS NEVER IMAGINED…HER HEART POUNDS AND SHE GROWS DIZZY WITH … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

Music2 Comments

One for Friday: Suzanne Vega, “Stockings”

Dan Seeger

I have, despite my best efforts, a completist’s mentality. This undoubtedly stems from my extended time in thrall to comic books, a field of fandom in which thorough, dedicated acquisition of product is the fully exploited norm. I’ve still got longboxes that testify to my dedication to owning, say, the entire run of John Byrne’s Fantastic Four. That same inclination seeped into my other media consumption. I follow movie directors to places I wouldn’t otherwise go and routinely stick with television series well after their creativity has faded because, hey, I watched every other episode so I should see it … Continue reading One for Friday: Suzanne Vega, “Stockings”

FilmLeave a comment

She’s making movies on location, she don’t know what it means

Dan Seeger

Kung Fu Panda (Mark Osborne and John Stevenson, 2008). in the realm of computer animated features, there is Pixar and then there’s everyone else. Others have reaped box office success, but there’s an broad, enduring gap when it comes to artistry. Dreamworks Animation is arguably the outfit working most diligently to cross the divide. Kung Fu Panda doesn’t accomplish that, in part because the storytelling is as by-the-numbers as it gets, but it does boast a visual sense that is smoothly well-realized, generally engaging, and, at times, very striking. In particular, the sequences involving the elaborate prison created for the … Continue reading She’s making movies on location, she don’t know what it means

Music2 Comments

Watch out! You might get what you’re after

Dan Seeger

Music To Warm a House By, Volume One 1996 The title should make it fairly clear what kind of party this tape was made for. The house in question had already been heated adequately for me; I’d been living there for around a year-and-a-half at the time of the party. However, I had new roommates, including my fellow 90FM alumnus . Since I was anticipating a more social atmosphere with the new collection of residents (marathon sessions of simultaneously smoking pot, playing Nintendo hockey and listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness were the nightly default plan of the … Continue reading Watch out! You might get what you’re after

Music1 Comment

One for Friday: The Feelies, “Sooner or Later”

Dan Seeger

Lost music was harder to come by when I was in college than it is now. There was no eBay, no Hype Machine, no Amazon (well, there was an Amazon). There weren’t even great used record shops in the humble city where I went to school. So there were a few holy grails of college rock, widely revered albums that had slipped out of print and probably illicitly slipped out the door of the radio station library shortly thereafter. We could read about these records, but couldn’t play them, and often couldn’t even hear a bit of them. The album … Continue reading One for Friday: The Feelies, “Sooner or Later”