Laughing Matters — Funny or Die, “Non-Voters Anonymous”
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. If the flaming disaster … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Funny or Die, “Non-Voters Anonymous”
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #856 to #853
856. David Bowie, Lodger (1979) In the relentless fertile field of David Bowie studies, it’s probably accurate to say that Lodger represents the closing of an age. The cycle of constant reinvention of Bowie’s nineteen-seventies output — the decade’s equivalent … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #856 to #853
From the Archive — Destroyer
For a time at my former online home, I devoted the last day of the work week to “Flashback Friday” posts. Going year by year, the idea was that I’d find cause to write about cultural ephemera that might be … Continue reading From the Archive — Destroyer
One for Friday — Sam Phillips, “I Don’t Want to Fall in Love”
Thirty years ago, in the late summer of 1988, Sam Phillips released her debut album, The Indescribable Wow. That’s an accurate statement and yet not entirely true. Under her given name of Leslie Phillips, she released a series of albums … Continue reading One for Friday — Sam Phillips, “I Don’t Want to Fall in Love”
My Misspent Youth — Mockingbird by Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemcyk
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 was a younger, so much younger than today, I … Continue reading My Misspent Youth — Mockingbird by Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemcyk
Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Banapple Gas”
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. In between answering to Steven Demetre Georgiou … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Near Misses — “Banapple Gas”
The New Releases Shelf — Be the Cowboy
Mitski’s new album, Be the Cowboy, is the white flowers that freckle up on scorched earth. It is beauty and anger and disappointment and resilience. It is a tremor that signals life in a wounded form. It is a mural … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Be the Cowboy
Playing Catch-Up — Crime of Passion; They Live By Night; The V.I.P.s
Crime of Passion (Gerd Oswald, 1957). This sordid little number casts Barbara Stanwyck as Kathy Ferguson, a San Francisco advice columnist who abandons her career after falling love with and marrying a Los Angeles police lieutenant (Sterling Hayden). It turns … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — Crime of Passion; They Live By Night; The V.I.P.s
College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #860 to #857
860. Faith No More, Introduce Yourself (1987) Faith No More formed in San Francisco in the mid-nineteen-eighties, essentially as an offshoot of another group called Faith No Man. Three of the band members jumped ship and gave their new outfit … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #860 to #857
From the Archive — Friends with Money
On the occasion of Nicole Holofcener’s latest film making its debut in theaters and on Netflix this weekend, I’ll reach back to the review I wrote of her third feature. Friends with Money is arguably the writer-director’s weakest film, and … Continue reading From the Archive — Friends with Money
