I am not the first, and may not even be the one millionth, person to point out that a lot of voters approach politics as something about halfway between a sports fandom and a religion. In every election, there are massive numbers of people who treat the process not as …
Of all my many musical obsessions, the one I have the most trouble explaining — let alone defending — is my love for unadulterated field recordings. That’s probably because they’re not music at all, in the traditional sense; they are not composed, they are not performed, they are not even …
I was adopted when I was two days old. I never met my birth parents, and my adoptive family is the only one I have ever known. But I know a few things about the couple who conceived and bore me: my mother was a white American, who married quite …
Continuing my wiseass commentary in conjunction with Calamity Jon’s OHOTMU Redux project, which you should be following like it was your dad and you wanted to buy a Slurpee: SUPREME INTELLIGENCE. The Kree were just as crazy-mad for adding superlatives to everything as were their enemies the Skrull. The leader …
(Fade in to Harriet’s upstairs apartment. There are boxes piled up everywhere, and the place has that freshly-moved-into look. Pan across the wreckage to the sound of scrubbing and foul-tongued mutterings under the breath. We see Harriet Kostaki squatting on her living room carpet, which appears to be matted with …
Elections, as people on the losing end of them are painfully used to being reminded, are as much about personalities as they are about politics. A candidate can have the most reasonable, sensible policies imaginable, but doesn’t stand a chance of winning office if, as they say, the dogs don’t …
It’s a new fall season on the television machine, and thanks to exciting new advances in Internet technology and desperate marketing ploys, we’re now able to see the new offerings from the networks weeks before they air. And that’s good, because it means if you plan your time wisely like …
“When we refer to a subject, place or person in the phrase ‘the question of’, we imply a number of different things. For example, one concludes a survey of current affairs by saying, ‘And now I come to the question of X.’ The point here is that X is a …
An angel came down from heaven and give me twenty dollars, so I rolled my bones out to the picture show. My plan was to see the evening screening of The Dark Knight Rises, perpetual Batman mark that I am, but I had plenty of time to kill before it started, …
There are a number of symptoms of rot amongst the “New Democrats” — the dominant aggregation of technocratic centrists who have given us the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — that keep progressives and leftists from doing our party-bound duty to embrace new realities of forced austerity and …
My home base of San Antonio, like many overgrown frontier towns where the remnants of bloody old colonial powers contend with the ascent of new money and power, is insane. But because it is rarely the spectacular craziness of the big cities, its public entities communicate the most recent ripples …
FAILED FAST FOOD FRANCHISES 1. Kimchee Korner 2. International House of Seaweed 3. Everything Fish Paste! 4. Ohara’s Sun-Baked Sushi 5. Clamato Hut FORGOTTEN BASEBALL MILESTONES 1. Ray Cotton: first fan to choke to death on a pretzel (May 11, 1924) 2. Jack “Spats” Hollander: first player to miss a …
The use of violence is not only one of the most powerful conundrums not only in fiction, but in life. In art, the most problematic aspect of violence is that it is often used as a framework for threat and action, designed to bring viewers into a story who might …
“Die Sterne im Nacht sind groß und hell!” KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH “Tief im Herzen von Texas!” KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH “Vier hoch und breit, Prärie Himmel!” KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH “Tief im Herzen von Texas! Der Salbeiblum ist wie Parfüm!“ KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH KLATSCH “Erinnert mich auf Heidi Klum!” …
Some of you may be familiar with Calamity Jon Morris‘ nifty OHOTMU Reduxe project, where he’s solicited a raft of talented inksmiths to offer up their interpretations of that unforgettable nerdcyclopedia of the 1980s, the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. If you aren’t, then get familiar with it — and click …
