This Week’s Model — Long Beard, “Sweetheart”
Long Beard is the performing moniker employed by singer-songwriter Leslie Bear, whose 2015 debut album, Sleepwalker, stirred up admiring interest from music fans inclined towards the wistful. Recently relocated from Canada to her native New Jersey, bear acknowledges her songwriting … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Long Beard, “Sweetheart”
Laughing Matters — Mad Magazine
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. By the time I … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Mad Magazine
Playing Catch-Up — High Life; The Long, Hot Summer; The Hate U Give
High Life (Claire Denis, 2019). For her English-language debut, French director Claire Denis doesn’t play it safe. High Life is a science fiction film about a small group on a shoebox-shaped spaceship that has an exterior vaguely resembling a wood … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — High Life; The Long, Hot Summer; The Hate U Give
My Misspent Youth — Amazing Spider-Man by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane
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. When I look back at the seismic events in the comic … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Amazing Spider-Man by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane
My Writers — Colson Whitehead
I can’t pinpoint the precise moment when I became completely enamored with Colson Whitehead’s writing, but I’m fairly certain it happened in New Orleans. I was there for a relief trip in 2006, less than one year after Hurricane Katrina … Continue reading My Writers — Colson Whitehead
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #696 to #693
696. Dan Fogelberg, The Innocent Age (1981) There was a point when music artists of a certain stature couldn’t simply release a new record. An extra level of import was required, and so singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg followed his greatest commercial … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #696 to #693
Outside Reading — The Right Thing edition
Megan Rapinoe Cannot Make This Any Clearer by Barry Petchesky This piece was written and published before Megan Rapinoe scored two goals to lift the U.S. women’s national team past their French rivals in the World Cup quarterfinals, cementing her status … Continue reading Outside Reading — The Right Thing edition
This Week’s Model — Lucy Dacus, “Forever Half Mast”
Back when Fridays were turned over older songs excavated from my digital collection, the edition that landed around the U.S. federal holiday Independence Day often featured a track that somehow, some way spoke to the character of the nation celebrating … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Lucy Dacus, “Forever Half Mast”
The New Releases Shelf — Western Stars
Three months shy of his seventieth birthday, no one would chastise Bruce Springsteen for hanging up his guitar strap. Especially following the monumental Springsteen on Broadway run, it would seem the man who strummed his first formative chords with the … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Western Stars
Golden Words — The Office, “Gay Witch Hunt”
Since great television comedy always begins with the script, this series of posts considers the individual episodes that have claimed the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series over the years. Despite its current elevated status in the annals of television comedy, The Office was neither a rating juggernaut nor an awards magnet for much of its run. In the full-season Nielsen ratings series rankings, The Office never cracked the the Top 50. It claimed the Emmy for outstanding comedy series in its second season, but none of its performers ever won an acting trophy. Across nine … Continue reading Golden Words — The Office, “Gay Witch Hunt”
