I pretended you were Jesus, you were just dying to save me
Fifty-fifth in series…. (Source.) Continue reading I pretended you were Jesus, you were just dying to save me
My Writers: Jon Krakauer
Into the Wild was published in 1996, the year I turned twenty-six. The doomed wanderer of the book, Christopher McCandless (also known as Alexander Supertramp), was twenty-four years old when he died alone in an abandoned bus on the Alaskan … Continue reading My Writers: Jon Krakauer
Top 40 Smash Taps: “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd”
These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Undoubtedly best known for the 1965 hit single “King of the Road,” country singer-songwriter Roger Miller had a total of twelve songs cross over to the Billboard Top 40, all of them within a four year span from the mid- to late-nineteen-sixties that began with the #1 country hit “Dang Me.” Miller learned guitar from his cousin, “Purple People Eater” writer-performer Sheb Wooley, … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd”
College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 8
8. Screaming Trees, Invisible Lantern When I was flipping through albums on the new releases shelf in my college radio station twenty-six years ago, the potential longevity of the artists before me was hardly at the forefront of my mind. … Continue reading College Countdown: Rockpool’s Top 20 College Radio Albums, November 1988, 8
From the Archive: Dutch
In the early nineteen-nineties, John Hughes was still enough of an active brand that I could write this entire review of Dutch without mentioning that it was actually directed by someone completely different, all the more notable given that it was Peter Faiman’s official follow-up to Crocodile Dundee, a ridiculously huge hit five years earlier. Hughes’s fingerprints are so messily smeared across the movie that it was — and is — strange to attribute its creative energies to anyone else (Hughes did write the screenplay.) This was released in the summer of 1991. Later that year, Hughes delivered what would … Continue reading From the Archive: Dutch
One for Friday: Cheating Off of Someone Else’s Paper
This happens on occasion, though quite rarely, I’m pleased to type. I have run out of time to offer a song for sharing along with pithy (or perhaps pitiful) commentary. Back to business next week. In the meantime, I’ll offer up the current favorite of my partner in all things: Continue reading One for Friday: Cheating Off of Someone Else’s Paper
The New Releases Shelf: The Man Upstairs
I think of The Man Upstairs as a tale of two covers. The umpteenth release from Robyn Hitchcock opens with his take on the Psychedelic Furs song “The Ghost in You.” The track’s mix of spectral beauty and piercing emotional … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: The Man Upstairs
Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Seven
#7 — North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) It’s probably impossible to pinpoint the first Alfred Hitchcock-designed image I was exposed to, but I know the single shot that stands as the first I really saw. It’s arguably his most … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Seven
Beers I Have Known: New Glarus Brewing Company Pumpkin Pie Lust
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. Last year, our household undertook the important task of determining the finest pumpkin … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: New Glarus Brewing Company Pumpkin Pie Lust
Abrahamson, Ford, Lang, Moodysson, Saulnier
While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956). This noirish drama from director Fritz Lang takes aim at the seediness of the newspapers and the cutthroat competitiveness of those in the media, tiltimng at both with equal vigor. When the newspaper owner’s son (Vincent Price) takes control upon his father’s death, he uses the recent emergence of a serial murdered dubbed “the lipstick killer” to pitch his various reporters and editors against each other in an effort to preserve their jobs or even claim one of the plum new positions available. Lang’s curiosity about the darker instincts that drive people gives … Continue reading Abrahamson, Ford, Lang, Moodysson, Saulnier
