The Book of Darrylby the Goggles Look, let’s cut to the chase here. I love a good idea, and the Book of Darryl is full of good ideas. The premise: imagine that Jesus had a childhood friend that he formed a band with in the dark years that weren’t covered in the bible. Add to that some great illustrations, inspired by the look of those medieval paintings and have them come to life to elevate the story. Then, write some...
The Awakeningby Kate Chopin God bless those free libraries you see around town. Not only is it a perfect way to spread culture and joy throughout the community, it’s a haven of opportunity. This is the year I’m trying to read more classics, and lo and behold, my local free library had a copy of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. A classic if there ever was one. The summary on the back made it sound like a prude gets horny one...
Comedy Comedy Comedy Dramaby Bob Odenkirk Look, I can’t help but love Bob Odenkirk, OK? Or “Bob” as I like to call him. Watching him do comedy is almost as interesting as watching his rise into the mainstream. I couldn’t be happier for him and I’ve always thought he was an underappreciated comedic genius. But, I guess most people don’t know him from comedy, but from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul. Personally, I don’t think his work in BCS is really...
Lolitaby Vladimir Nabokov Oef. This is the year I want to educate myself literarily. I want to read the classics to have some perspective. Read what the greats had to say. Train the old noodle, as it were. I felt like I should tackle Nabokov, and after hearing what the experts had to say, it turns out he is indeed considered one of the greats. And Lolita IS the best place to start with him. I went in with a...
Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)by Dan Ozzi Punk rock has come full circle. It started with a feeding frenzy from the major labels wanting to cash in on the movement/music in the 70s (remember, the Clash were on CBS Records and the Ramones on Sire, which is technically Warner Brothers), then became reviled by the mainstream, and now it’s back on the yacht (comfortably solidifying its place as hackneyed when the Met Gala...
Czarface & MF DoomSuper What? photo: turntablelab It’s a funny thing when it hits you that an album you’ve been enjoying is your favorite album of the year. The only way I can describe it is that the world stops for you when you put it on. That’s when you know you’re onto something special – that an album means a lot to you. Unexpectedly, that was the Czarface & MF Doom collaboration Super What? The world is a sadder...
The Theory of EverythingThe Origin and Fate of the Universeby Stephen Hawking It’s probably a good idea if we collectively started consuming a little less fiction and read more non-fiction, particularly stuff that challenged and helps us understand the world around us, right? Someone on my block didn’t think so and put this book in a “Free” box on their stoop and I couldn’t help but give it a good home. What I like to think is that the contents...
A Clockwork Orange At first, I thought this was going to be a tough review to write. When I first started getting into Kubrick’s movies, I remember really liking A Clockwork Orange but some scenes at the beginning sort of tainted my opinion of the movie. Yep, I’m talking about that scene you’re thinking about, and I really couldn’t think about A Clockwork Orange for years without thinking specifically of that scene. Going through the AFI Top 100 list, I...
Crossroadsby Jonathan Franzen I watch so much fiction (movies, TV shows), that I make up for it with the books I read. I didn’t read much last year, but when I did, I tried to stick to non-fiction, autobiographies, etc. But when Jonathan Franzen releases a book, that all comes to a stop. I’m what you would call a literary dum-dum. I judge books by their covers. I can’t recognize an elegant sentence if it was repeated for an entire...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Vespa & Londonians 12” EP by Booze & Glory. Remember back in the early aughts when Fearless Records compiled a series of albums which found some genuinely great punk bands covering a multitude of different artists and genres – recasting them all in a punk context? Some of those covers were actually really, really cool (hearing AFI perform Guns N’ Roses’ “My Michelle” was pretty cool, as was Strike Anywhere’s cover...