Hackneyed

  • The Body

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    Wil Wheaton’s reading of Stephen King’s The Body made for the perfect companion while I did yard work and walked my dog along nearby trails. Having played Gordie in Stand by Me, he brings a deeply personal resonance to the narration. It feels like a full-circle moment, Wheaton returning to the story with an insider’s…

  • 70 Up Coming

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    Asif Kapadia will “bring the long-running ITV documentary series Up to an end with a concluding instalment that will air this year,” so says The Guardian. “The series, which began in 1964 and was voted the most influential UK TV show of the last 50 years in 2024, has followed a group of people from…

  • A Chicago Fan’s Incredible Show Archive

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    Aadam Jacobs “secretly recorded over 10,000 local concerts since 1989. Now, they are cleaned up and ready to listen to for free online.” “On July 8, 1989, a young music fan named Aadam Jacobs, with a compact Sony cassette recorder in his pocket, went to see an up-and-coming rock band from Washington for their debut…

  • The Decline of the Tagline

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    What happened to the movie tagline, asks Nancy Friedman. “They used to be memorable and quotable. Now they’re redundant, wordy, or banal.” “Sinners is about music, vampires, and racism, with Michael B. Jordan — who’d go on to win an Oscar for Best Actor — in a double role: That’s his dual photo on the…

  • Record Store Day, 2026

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    Kind of strange (probably not that strange) but this week basically echoed this same stretch last year. I didn’t end up seeing Marc Maron again, but I did pick up an autographed copy of his so-called “party record” Panicked, which, by the way, is almost word-for-word the show I went to last year. That was…

  • Couchella ’26

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    Man, last time I was at Coachella was like, 20 years ago, but it’s been fun watching it on Youtube at the office.

  • These Three Things

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    Posted this in today’s newsletter, but felt compelled to share Joe Moreno’s three daily life goals here, too:

  • The Patron Saint of Screen Printing

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    Not really, but it is Easter tomorrow, so let’s talk about Corita Kent (1918–1986), often called the “screen printing nun.” I just finished all three Austin Kleon books, where I discovered the Catholic sister, teacher, and pop artist known for silkscreen prints combining advertising imagery, poetry, and messages about social justice. Working in the 1960s…

  • Sam Kieth, Harvey Kurtzman, Jaime Hernandez, etc.

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    Haven’t blogged properly in a while, so it feels right to come back with something that is surely universal: comic books. I was sad to hear about the passing of Sam Kieth. It’s hard to overstate the impact The Maxx, both the comic and its later MTV adaptation, had on me. It started when my…

  • Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie

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    Also: My (other) Favorite Films of 2025. If the Oscars can wait, so can I. The premise of Nirvanna the Band the Show, first seen on YouTube and later Vice, has always been beautifully stupid. Two musicians want to play a show at Toronto’s Rivoli. They never consider contacting the venue directly. Instead, they devise…

  • A Mostly Defensible List of What I Find Amusing

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    Influences and obsessions, too long and entirely incomplete: George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Muppets, Richard Pryor, John Candy, David Sedaris, Don Rickles, Danny McBride, John Mulaney, Marc Maron, Pee-Wee, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Harold Ramis, The Original Kings of Comedy, Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Dave Attell, Patton…

  • Bread Infographic

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    A London bakery used a loaf of bread as a graph to illustrate the costs of running their business. “The Dusty Knuckle is a ‘purpose-driven’ business: ‘we strive to use our busy operations to help at-risk youth take forward steps in their lives through on-the-job training and mentorship.’ The Insta post says that ‘all the…

  • Stevie Wonder + Sesame Street = Day Made

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  • Best Watches, 2025

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    Watched and re-watched quite a few movies this year. Like last year, I compiled a list that isn’t a “best of 2025,” but more a “best watched in 2025.” Still have a lot to go, but my favorites of 2025, thus far: One Battle After Another and Marty Supreme. Then maybe Superman? Other great movies…

  • TV Watched, 2025

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    The Bear (Season 4): Good, not great. If they can wrap this up with one last season, still has a chance to be my favorite show of the last few years. Stick the landing, please. The Chair Company (Season 1): Insane, but perfectly executed. Treats conflict not as misunderstanding, but as multiple, “true” perspectives coexisting…

  • Spotify Wrapped Photodump

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  • 50 Albums

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    For the last year, I’ve written about an album or so a week in my newsletter. Like most aging hipsters, sometimes it seems as if I only listen to jazz and the Dead, so it was nice to revisit many of these. Not necessarily a top 50, but albums that at least one time or…

  • Reiner

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    Before I was an MTV kid, I was a Nickelodeon kid. And like Cartoon Network turns into Adult Swim like a Pumpkin, Nick would become Nick at Nite. I loved Lucy, but I loved Archie Bunker. I knew he was always wrong. But I also new Meathead wasn’t always right. Years before Maron would argue…

  • “Recently” Read

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    …or at least since the last time I did this. Got a lot out of The Creative Act, Sacred Hoops, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Prophet, That Strange Divine Sea and The Tao of Pooh. “Rabbit’s clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully.“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit’s clever.”“And he has Brain.”“Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.”There…

  • Eat, Pray, Pay

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    Trader Joe’s: Look, I am not oblivious to the criticism. Are there any updates? Have they gotten better? Googling “Are Trader Joe’s still shitbags?” didn’t yield a lot in the way of results. Even worse, I’ve been carrying around my faux-LL Bean bag everywhere and apparently that’s like, a thing in London? Am I an…