Books, Comics1 Comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“Steadily the goldfinch gazed at me, with shiny, changeless eyes. The wooden panel was tiny, ‘only slightly larger than an A-4 piece of paper’ as one of my art books had pointed out, although all that dates-and-dimension stuff, the dead textbook info, was as irrelevant in its way as the sports-page stats when the Packers were up by two in the fourth quarter and a thin icy snow had begun to fall on the field. The painting, the magic and aliveness of it, was like that odd airy moment of the snow falling, greenish light and flakes whirling in the … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

Music22 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Plastic Man” and “Happy People”

Dan Seeger

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. By my rough count, the Temptations made thirty-seven visits to the Billboard Top 40, not counting an early nineteen-nineties collaboration with Rod Stewart at the precise moment he gave up all pretenses of being anything other than treacly hack. Of those, four actually made it all the way to #1, beginning with the sweetest of romantic tributes and ending with with a funk … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Plastic Man” and “Happy People”

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at spectrum Culture, I started with an album review. Specifically, this was another of my attempts to write about an artist who I like a great deal, but whose work is a little outside of my proverbial writing wheelhouse. I’m somewhat satisfied with the resulting review of the new record from M.I.A., but I do feel like it could have used more precise and detailed descriptions of the music itself. I was somewhat at a loss to describe the melange of sounds she creates. M.I.A. makes fantastic songs, but I don’t thing she’s yet pulled off a album … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Mark Eitzel, “Some Bartenders Have the Gift of a Pardon”

Dan Seeger

Now that it is completely, definitively, decisively established that the surest route to mainstream chart success these days is repetitive, dance-tinged songs about feeling empowered while dancing all night long in the club, I can’t help but wonder if there are any tracks on those slicked-up albums that take a look at the melancholy downside. It’s not that I think there’s some responsibility of pop culture to provide that balance. Instead, I’m just struck by the way that the college radio playlists of my younger days often seemed to have songs that portrayed drinking cultures in all their permutations, from … Continue reading One for Friday: Mark Eitzel, “Some Bartenders Have the Gift of a Pardon”