Now Playing — Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame is absurd. I’ve previously declared myself agog that movie screens are routinely turned over to these vibrant figures that dominated my youthful years, enveloping my fragile psyche in the protection of costumed titans who take the strange misfortune … Continue reading Now Playing — Avengers: Endgame
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #732 to #729
732. Alex Chilton, High Priest (1987) Alex Chilton spend the first half of the nineteen-eighties scuffling through professional uncertainty. The former lead singer of the Box Tops and challenging genius at the core of blazingly brilliant and commercially underperforming power … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #732 to #729
From the Archive — A History of Violence
As the striking of the twentieth anniversary of the 1999 resounds, there’s been a revived interest in arguing that the bygone year in question might have represented the best twelve month span in the long history of cinema. That’s a … Continue reading From the Archive — A History of Violence
This Week’s Model — FKA twigs, “Cellophane”
When I write about music, I do so as a fan and a novice. In contrast to how some artists would likely characterize my typed-out ruminations, I do this not to pompously pontificate about what is right and wrong in … Continue reading This Week’s Model — FKA twigs, “Cellophane”
That Championship Season — Jessica Jones, Season One
As certainly as Marvel has become an unstoppable force wherever people recline luxuriously in gigantic palaces, the wide-reaching House of Ideas hasn’t quite cracked other media (including some significant slippage in realm of the colorful periodicals of sequential storytelling that … Continue reading That Championship Season — Jessica Jones, Season One
Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Promised Land”
These posts are about the songs that just barely failed to cross the key line of chart success, entering the Billboard Top 40. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 41. The Mann Act was cemented in U.S. … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Promised Land”
The New Releases Shelf — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
There was a time when I was dead certain that the further someone was past their teenaged years, the less business they had flinging pop songs into the world. The vernacular of modern pop is still drawing its emotional language … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Laughing Matters — Jonathan Coulton, “Nobody’s Above the Law”
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. Although my inability and … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Jonathan Coulton, “Nobody’s Above the Law”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #736 to #733
736. Yello, Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess (1983) Boris Blank, the impresario of electronics who drove the musical agenda for the band Yello, had picked up a new toy ahead of the record of his group’s third full-length, Gotta … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #736 to #733
9
As this digital space has spent recent days illuminating, my weekend just closed was turned over almost entirely to the World’s Largest Trivia Contest, an annual fundraiser staged by the student-run radio station at University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. … Continue reading 9
Coffee for Two 