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Best Debut Albums
I know I just mentioned him, but longtime music critic Steven Hyden recently ranked 100 debut albums for your reading pleasure. Some that stood out to me: The Go-Go’s, Beauty And The Beat (1981): “This band is in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, and this album is 90 percent of the reason why.”…
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Roger Ebert Passed 10 Years Ago Today.
Before the Internet, or at least any Internet I knew of, Siskel & Ebert was my best resource for what was coming out. By the time I hit the age where I wasn’t supposed to be seeing certain things but wanted to, those two were a gateway drug. Very few things sounded more interesting to…
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Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen Read Letters by Kurt Vonnegut
From two Letters Live events, great letters filled with great advice from one of the twentieth century’s best minds. Key takeaways: Reduce and stabilize your population. Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil. Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems. Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at…
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Herzog’s Advice for Filmmakers
Apparently this list is on the back cover of A Guide for the Perplexed. Need to pick this up ASAP. (Via Kottke)
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Round Midnight (1986)
I often want to live in films, but seldom ones this dour. But jazz clubs in the 50s, that’s my love language. Especially when it’s shot this beautifully, this dreamy. The faux-Paris streets at night are as out of this world as the soundtrack. Round Midnight unfolds so nonchalantly, there’s almost no exposition. Things just…
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Walking, Productivity and Creativity
I have walked and jogged and ran quite a bit since the pandemic began some 87 years ago, but this summer I decided to step it up (unfortunate pun intended). 100,000 steps per week, every week, for twenty weeks. Two million steps. Sounded like a reasonable goal. I didn’t think about my Fitbit dying, being…
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TV I’ve Watched Since the Lockdown…
Or, the last time I wrote about shows that I watched. American Crime Story (Season 2): The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Tom Ripley true crime, loved it. Atlanta (Seasons 3-4): I could use one more season of this show. Felt incomplete. Brilliant. Daring. Funny. But incomplete. Beavis and Butt-Head (Season 9): I didn’t know how…
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The Review(s) Are In.
Since debuting on the film festival circuit, we’ve had some positive feedback on Letterboxd and a nice local blurb when we hit the Bay Area (not to mention winning the audience award for Best Picture at a Film Fest in Saulte St. Marie). Also, not every day or even every decade I get referred to…
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Attainable Aspirations Inspired by Great Humans of the Past
A friend has been going through what they are confident can be defined as a “midlife crisis.” I too have been thinking about a lot of the “big picture” stuff the last year or two, and have been trying to get better at living life. I do a lot of reading, offline and on, and…
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The Beatles and Productivity
I spent all of the Sunday after Thanksgiving watching Get Back, arguably not the most productive way to spend a day. But The Beatles’ productivity stuck with me, months and months later. Unsurprising, their staggering output is undeniable proof of just how productive they were in such a short period of time. Former journalist Tom…
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The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders
A small pop-up restaurant in Tokyo where “no one knows if what you ordered will come out OK.” It is aptly named The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders, and all of the servers taking those orders have dementia. Founded by former news organizer Shiro Oguni, after he stumbled upon Yukio Wada’s group home for dementia care.…
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The Dinner Parting
I haven’t spoken much about this the last two years, but I am pleased to announce that The Dinner Parting, a movie I produced and co-wrote with my longtime collaborator J.W. Andrew, will make its debut at the Cinequest Film Festival. It will start virtually April 1st, and there will be an event in-person this…
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The Bustle Booth
Since it’s my birthday and I haven’t really said hi in quite some time, I figured I would answer the same questions The Bustle plans to inflict on celebrities for eternity. What’s your coffee order?No. What are the saved weather locations on your phone?East Lansing, various other Michigan cities I frequent, the cities I have…
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Films Are Allowed to Make You Think
Had a conversation last night about this video from Bill Maher that I saw via a tweet from Scott Adams on this year’s Best Picture nominations, which Adams calls, “feel-bad ‘entertainment’ that gives you brain damage.” I haven’t seen all of the films (yet), but I wonder if Adams or Maher have either, or why…
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You Can Be a Different Person After the Pandemic
From an essay by Olga Khazan: “…the person who emerges from quarantine doesn’t have to be the same old you. Scientists say that people can change their personalities well into adulthood. And what better time for transformation than now, when no one has seen you for a year, and might have forgotten what you were…
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If You Ever Wanted to Know What the Inside of My Head Looks Like.
Pretty sure the Kadokawa Culture Museum in Japan nailed it.
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“All we want to do is make people happy, make people smile.”
This year thousands of people turned their homes into floats for Mardi Gras, capturing so much of what makes New Orleans great: creativity, positivity and resilience.
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Werner Herzog on Skateboarding
“I’m not familiar with the scene of skateboarding. At the same time, I had the feeling, yes, that’s kind of my people… You have to accept trial and error…”