Month: September 2005

  • Rodgers that

    In all the late-60s-English-blues-guitar-god listening I’ve been doing lately, I’ve taken a real fancy to Free. I’m drawn to both Paul Rodgers tasty, cooler-Rod-Stewart vocals and Paul Kossoff’s tasty Les Paul guitar tones. (Though he is also named Paul, Paul McCartney does not enter into the picture, though Pauline Kael might.) Free had, true to…

    Categories:
  • Fun with the thesaurus

    Main Entry: terror Part of Speech: noun Definition: fear Synonyms: alarm, anxiety, awe, consternation, dismay, dread, fearfulness, fright, horror, intimidation, panic, shock, trepidation, trepidity

    Categories:
  • Frankentheo Zappamonk

    Roland Barthes has died. Or so I just learned. I didn’t even know he was sick. But then, I’m about twenty-five years late in finding this out. I’ve been meaning to read something of his for some time now. Besides this fact, I have come to believe that Renquist was a hardcore nerd (not that…

    Categories: ,
  • The Crisis in Leadership

    “It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV “storm teams” warn of a hurricane in the Gulf…

    Categories:
  • The return of the thin white duke

    The entire Thin Man series is now out in a 7-DVD box set. This is cause for great celebration, or at least several rounds of martinis. But what makes the original movie pop so, where the follow-ups threaten to fizzle? First of all, W.S. Van Dyke shot the entire thing in twelve days. Yes, one…

    Categories:
  • A small break from the dogmatic slumber?

    Anderson Cooper on Bill Maher just now: “People aren’t frustrated. They’re dead.”

    Categories:
  • Over, Under, Sideways, Down

    LGA, 6:13 am: The cab pulls up to the AA departures outside lane. “Thank you sir. You’re a good tipper.” Odd. But that’s not where I meant to begin. That is not where I meant to begin at all. One week earlier. JFK, a somewhat saner hour (the Little Rascals is now over). : The…

    Categories: ,
  • san fran

    “Welcome to the most beautiful city in the world.” Just after touching down, the lead of the front attendant crew came over the P.A. and uttered this in his thick Russian brogue. I already liked this guy for his sense of humor–playing up his accent for comic relief in a Bronson Pichot kind of way,…

    Categories: ,