Outside Reading — Food on the Table edition
HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE FOR FOODIES: FROM MURDEROUS-MERMAID SALT TO LAMPS MADE OUT OF CROISSANTS by Helen Rosner Holiday gift guides are usually painfully dull. Writing for The New Yorker, Helen Rosner avoids the usual listing of marginally interesting wares for … Continue reading Outside Reading — Food on the Table edition
This Week’s Model — Phoebe Bridgers (featuring Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger), “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night”
Indie rock covers of holiday songs are plentiful enough (those YouTube channels and Bandcamp pages have got to get filled up somehow) that I’m amazed it’s taken this long for a prominent artist to take a pass at “7 O’Clock … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Phoebe Bridgers (featuring Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger), “7 O’Clock News/Silent Night”
Now Playing — Dark Waters
I have no information about the development process of the new muckraking film Dark Waters, but I know just enough about Mark Ruffalo’s social media presence to hatch a theory that begins with the actor reading Nathaniel Rich’s article “The … Continue reading Now Playing — Dark Waters
Playing Catch-Up — The Souvenir; Atlantics; Long Shot
The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019). Drawing heavily from her own experiences, Joanna Hogg crafts a film that captures the slippery ways problematic relationships become prisons of the participants’ own making. A student filmmaker named Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) falls into … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Souvenir; Atlantics; Long Shot
Now Playing — Marriage Story
Marriage Story begins with Charlie (Adam Driver) listing the things he most appreciates about Nicole (Scarlett Johansson). Then it’s Nicole’s turn. She recites Charlie’s most admirable attributes. In each instance, a montage plays out against the voiceover, showing mundane moments … Continue reading Now Playing — Marriage Story
Laughing Matters — Monty Python, “Upper Class Twit of the Year”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Sometimes I think the … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Monty Python, “Upper Class Twit of the Year”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #604 to #601
604. Green on Red, Gravity Talks (1983) Green on Red formed in Tucson, Arizona, but it didn’t take long for them to head further west, setting up shop in Los Angeles just as the city’s Paisley Underground movement and punk … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #604 to #601
Outside Reading — I Love Trash edition
Why Are Kids Obsessed With Garbage Trucks? An Investigation by Ashley Fetters I love it when a writer pursues a silly idea with resolute seriousness. For The Atlantic, Ashley Fetters explores all the possible explanations for the excitement many members … Continue reading Outside Reading — I Love Trash edition
This Week’s Model — Torres, “Gracious Day”
I do my best to write to write about the songs dropped conspicuously in this digital spot every Friday, trying to capture what about them captivated me to pluck them from the mass of new music that storms the landscape … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Torres, “Gracious Day”
Now Playing — Knives Out
I’m fairly confident Rian Johnson considers himself a traditionalist, in defiance of any evidence to the contrary. Beginning with his first feature, Brick, Johnson settled into a mode of taking a well-worn, largely bygone subgenre and spinning it around until … Continue reading Now Playing — Knives Out
Coffee for Two 