To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never heard Kings of Leon. I admit this to my shame. In my head, I’ve confused them with Fountains of Wayne, in that small category of [Random Common Noun] of [Boy’s Given Name] bands. (I’m thinking of starting a band called Urinals of Glenn. Please attach no significance [...]
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’ve been thinking a lot about my job lately, in the early days of the new school year. I know this is nothing a hipster would say, but I just love my job. I love my profession; I love my career. And I was thinking today about how it all started. When I was sixteen [...]
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 fcrp reader Emily, who suggested the first video in today’s post—which led me, old guy that I am, to think of a couple of earlier examples of this kind of thing. So to begin at the beginning: here’s the video that Emily pointed me to, a subtle but instructive piece of performance art. [...]
If you opened this page hoping to find a discussion of Rihanna’s video for “Umbrella,” I’m sorry to have deceived you. Well, not “sorry,” exactly: I mean, I did it with malice aforethought. But that’s not exactly the agenda here today; rather this is a “meta-discussion” of the video—a discussion of a discussion of the [...]
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 [...]