Hackneyed

  • Dee-Troit Basket-Ball

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    Boston led by over 20 before Detroit eventually won 121-113. I didn’t love that first half, but that run in the 4th was insane. Javonte Green hitting five threes in the second half has me excited. Hoping he and Duncan Robinson can keep ’em coming. Fun way to start the season, even if I’d prefer…

  • Robby Hoffman in Royal Oak

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    Went to Robby Hoffman as an early birthday celebration for Will and Lydia and now I am tired and hungover, but if that’s the excuse to eat pizza all day and watch Weapons and It Follows and A Nightmare on Elm Street, then pour me another drink. 👻 ‘Tis the season. 🌭 Metro Times picks…

  • A Pain from an Old Wound

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  • Watchin’ Reacher

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    Laura Olin says it better than I could ever: “I don’t think Reacher is my favorite show, but it’s one of the shows I most enjoy. If you are a person who has not yet experienced it, the series is about a guy called Jack Reacher (who goes by “just Reacher”). He is very tall,…

  • Project Hail Mary

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    Watched, enjoyed, but don’t anything to add to the discourse. Just really want Gosling’s jacket. According to Reddit: “The jacket was custom designed for the film by costume designers Glyn Dillon and David Crossman; not sourced from a retail brand. Why it stands out is because it’s not a standard raincoat: it’s a hybrid design.…

  • The Stanley Kubrick Collection

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    I still have a DVD set of his that I got in high school, that replaced a VHS set I had bought a few years prior. While on the subject of Criterion, I like this virtual closet, “of 1,327 real Criterion editions, shelved in spine-number order — exactly as a true collector keeps them. Look around,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • “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…

  • Malcolm-Jamal Warner

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    As I am sure you read, Warner died tragically on Sunday. Granted, he was more than just Theo Huxtable, but in spite of Cosby, I hope we can one day look fondly on a show that meant a lot to be as a child. At the time Warner was the youngest ever Emmy nominee for…

  • Tiny Desks

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    A behind-the-scenes look at the long running NPR segment: “What began in 2008 as a humble, stripped-back performance series for NPR’s blog has grown into a global phenomenon, with unforgettable sets from stars like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Dua Lipa, and more. Despite its viral fame, the heart of Tiny Desk remains the same: a…