I was about to start today’s post in a by-now too-familiar fashion—that is, by apologizing for the fact that this “new” item I’m talking about today isn’t really new by Internet standards. The Arcade Fire movie site for The Wilderness Downtown has been up for about a week; some, many?, of you will have heard [...]
I’m going to let myself slide today with some more-or-less random thoughts in lieu of truly concluding yesterday’s post. The first of which is, I’m now wondering whether broadcast TV isn’t itself in a somewhat analogous position to our imperiled “print media” friends. That is, does the “broadcast” of Mad Men on Sunday evenings on [...]
I spent the 4th of July post singing the praises of Rolling Stone magazine, and suggesting that their investigative reporting, arguably the only remaining vital component of the magazine, has served mightily over the pas decade in the service of American liberty. I still believe that, but today I wanted to wonder with you about [...]
I wouldn’t want fcrp to become a narrowly sectarian blog, and hope that today’s post won’t be taken in that spirit. I think I’ve “come out,” previously, as a Christian in these pages, so my own prejudices in that area are already on the table. But I’m going to complain today about the depiction of [...]
For those fcrp readers who aren’t regular readers of the Chronicle of Higher Education—c’mon, I know you’re out there—I bring you this story from the groves of academe. Pop quiz: Where is Drake University? Why, it’s located “at the northeast edge of Des Moines,” the web page tells us, with no apparent sense of irony [...]
My apologies in advance—or in arrears, perhaps—to any and all fcrp readers who have both heard, and are utterly fed up with, this Justin Bieber party trick. It’s hard for a guy with a day job to keep up with the speed of sound, even when the sound’s this slow. Maybe Hipster-hated Chris Martin can [...]
Thanks to my friend Michael Coyle for today’s provocation. The term “hipster”—which just a couple of years ago would have seemed as lame and dated as “cat” or “daddy-o”—has inexplicably become “hip” again. Pomona student Tim McKee wrote a great paper about this last year; I owe most of what I know about it to [...]
So, I’ve noticed something in the conversations of my students and my hipper colleagues, over about the past year I’d say. As a part of speech, “so” most commonly acts as an adverb, and often as an intensifier—”He’s so good looking!” It’s much less frequently found at the start of a sentence, especially in formal [...]
I’m afraid I don’t have the space here today to develop the point, but my own sense is that if Daniel Johnston is a gifted artist, his gifts are more as a visual artist than as a musician. Many of his cartoons have circulated widely in popular and cyber culture; if you don’t realize that [...]
As promised/threatened yesterday—and what a vibrant conversation yesterday, y’all!—I want to work through some impressions of The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006), a pretty riveting documentary recommended to me by fcrp reader Steve. It turned out to be a great way to redeem a long stretch of otherwise exasperating insomnia last week. But you don’t [...]