Laughing Matters: The Simpsons, “Talkin’ Softball”
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. This one is shared in tribute to the Rough Diamonds, the softball team that I’ve spent the summer watching, inspired to do so, as you might expect, by highly personal reasons. Among other things, watching the games helped me realize that sitting on bleachers and quoting The Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat,” especially the parts involving Darryl Strawberry, is an evergreen entertainment. “Homer at … Continue reading Laughing Matters: The Simpsons, “Talkin’ Softball”
The Art of the Sell: Freedom Rock
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. When I was in college, I wasn’t exact smooth with the ladies. I was fervently devoted to the things which stirred my soul, and none of them — college rock, comic books, movies, comedy, baseball, politics, spiteful modern novels — exactly tagged me as a “catch.” While I considered myself lucky to find a cadre of pals who supported my dorkish ways, that mutual support occasionally compounded the problem. That preamble brings us to the sad tale of … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Freedom Rock
Now Playing: Star Trek Beyond
I’ve never particularly felt the need to take a stand on the undeclared battle for geekdom passion supremacy between Star Trek and Star Wars. Maybe that’s because, barring a couple exceptions, neither cosmos-spanning saga has enthralled me the way they have … Continue reading Now Playing: Star Trek Beyond
College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 166 – 164
166. The Nails, “Things You Left Behind” As any rock band must, the Nails talked about the artistic growth they were going through when they released their second full-length album, Dangerous Dreams, in 1986. They’d had a mini-sensation two years earlier, with the single “88 Lines About 44 Women,” but the very nature of the track stirred a mist of novelty up around the group’s music. While hanging tight to the gentle beat poetry vibe that made their name (lead singer and chief songwriter Marc Campbell was quick to namecheck the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman when asked … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 166 – 164
From the Archive: The Bourne Ultimatum
I really thought this review was already on this site, but I couldn’t find it. That makes it fair game for “From the Archive.” The motivation for sharing it this week seems pretty obvious, I suppose. So, this is probably already … Continue reading From the Archive: The Bourne Ultimatum
One for Friday: Voice of the Beehive, “I Say Nothing”
There are a bevy of albums from my first semester or so in college radio that I think of as wondrous gifts. Those aren’t necessarily the best albums from that time, the ones that I will quickly hold up as exemplars of the college rock sounds in its waning years, before the tsunami of grunge buffeted it away. Instead, they’re the albums that I hold dear, but I’m not confident I would have found my way to if they hadn’t sat in the new music rotation during those early days when I was eager to learn. I had my preconception … Continue reading One for Friday: Voice of the Beehive, “I Say Nothing”
I thought it was a dream, but I know I seen him standing there
There are many balloon animal Jesuses (Jesi?), but this one is mine: When one adopts a technique of filling the blog hole with pictures of balloons rendered into the shape of Jesus Christ on the day that words won’t come (or there’s simply not time to write properly), then one is likely to get an inflated surprise on one’s birthday. This post is the sixty-third in a series. Continue reading I thought it was a dream, but I know I seen him standing there
Laughing Matters: Tina Fey, “Bitches Get Stuff Done”
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. Tina Fey doesn’t especially care for the segment she co-wrote and delivered which is alternately called “Bitch is the New Black.” As recounted in her book Bossypants, it was a piece that came together at the last minute, intended to be a consideration of the greater scrutiny and ready dismissal, driven by gender, that Hilary Clinton faced during her 2008 run for the presidency. I … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Tina Fey, “Bitches Get Stuff Done”
That Championship Season: Togetherness, Season One
I don’t think the term “mumblecore” is flung around very much any more, but there was a time, not so long ago, it was tediously unavoidable in discussions about independent film. It supposedly described a certain kind of tone — ramshackle, understated, empathetic, wry — that was ubiquitous in the offerings from United States directors that had a home in art house theaters before the occasional Sundance-born bonanza twisted independent cinema into something more eager and rambunctious. Those who derided the mini-movement (in which almost no associated filmmaker actually claimed membership) fairly identified a lack of narrative discipline as a … Continue reading That Championship Season: Togetherness, Season One
Beers I Have Known: Point Brewery Classic Amber Lager
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. I live in a place where we pay for things with beer. The sudsy goodness hasn’t fully and completely taken the place of currency in the state of Wisconsin, but it’s an imaginable outcome. For now, beer is simply the prime commodity in the congenial barter system that guides most personal transactions, from helping someone move to acquiring some previously prized belonging that’s been relegated to a dusty corner of the garage. Or, … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Point Brewery Classic Amber Lager
Coffee for Two 