10 Favorite New Albums for 2009 (actually, make that 11)

I wouldn’t say these are necessarily the ten best albums of the year. I didn’t listen to enough music to make that claim. But these are ten albums I bought this year that are worth recommending. I stuck with music that was also released this year (which disqualified two albums that were [...]

READ MORE...

Eclectic Mellow (or 25 melancholy songs that get me every time)

OK, I’m capable of being melodramatic.  I’ll admit that.  In high school and college, I would make mix tapes (and yes they were cassette tapes) that I titled Eclectic Mellow that I’d put on when I wanted to sit in the dark and contemplate the injustice of life.  This almost always coincided with periods where [...]

READ MORE...

FlashForward (or where oh where has my mythology show gone)

I’m going to say goodbye to Lost sometime around May next year.  I know the end  is coming.  They’ve told me so.  And unlike other shows (Hello, Scrubs) that claim to be exiting stage left and then come back in some lesser distorted form, I know that Lost is going away forever.  (And I really [...]

READ MORE...

Where the Wild Things Are

If it is possible to win an Oscar for the first twenty minutes of a movie, then Where the Wild Things Are has this year’s honor sewed up.  For twenty minutes, Spike Jonze has made the most painfully real portrait of a normal flawed relationship between a parent and a child that I’ve seen in [...]

READ MORE...

Fringe (or why I feel like I’m cheating on the X-Files, even though it broke up with me seven years ago)

I’ll just warn you up front.  I’m about to take a metaphor about dedication to TV shows and long-term romantic relationships way too far.  Deal with it.
So, I’ve started seeing this show called Fringe.  I had heard about it for a while.  It has been on the air for a full season and last year [...]

READ MORE...

Vampire Weekend and fun.

My indie music extravaganza continues on Emusic.  Here are a couple more standouts.
fun.
Yes, that is the name of this band, complete with the period at the end and a lowercase f.  Nothing says indie band like punctuation in the name.  And nothing says 70’s nostalgia throwback like a 7:51 minute song with melodic choruses and [...]

READ MORE...

Shall We Dance? and Strictly Ballroom (and a brief comment on how I, like Phil Collins, can’t dance)

Let’s just get something out of the way.  I can’t dance.  I’m not usually a big fan of watching people dance.  And I tend to get a little uncomfortable at functions where dancing might break out.  We’ve all got our things, and dancing most definitely is not my thing.
Maybe I’m just too self-conscious to let [...]

READ MORE...

John Cusack (and 10 must-see movies according to me)

Flipping through channels last night, I ended up on Grosse Pointe Blank.  We own both of the soundtracks and the DVD for this flick, but I hadn’t seen it in awhile.  So, having no reason not to, my wife and I watched it again.  If you haven’t seen it, kick it to the top of [...]

READ MORE...

Hitting the Wrong Notes with Glee (even though I am pulling for those plucky kids)

So I’ve watched a couple of episodes of Glee.  Mainly because it has been seriously hyped by the entertainment media and the blogosphere.  I understand why.  It’s ever so slightly different than most of what you’ve got on network TV now.  And it was created by Ryan Murphy, whose previous series Nip/Tuck strikes people as [...]

READ MORE...

Miike Snow and Apsci (or welcome back to Emusic)

I’ve written before about Emusic.  Great service for indie music.  I’ve found a lot of good stuff there.  But I tend to run out of things to download after a couple of months.  Anyway, they’ve sucked me back in with 75 free downloads (and you know I can’t resist free downloads), so here’s the result [...]

READ MORE...

Picture of meMichael Landweber writes literary fiction that many find oddly compelling. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and two children, who tolerate him. His stories have appeared in Pindeldyboz, Fourteen Hills, Barrelhouse, American Literary Review, Fugue and some other places. He is an Associate Editor at the Potomac Review and the Associate Director of a non-profit organization. He likes titles with the word “Associate” in them. He can also be found blogging about TV and other fun stuff at Pop Matters.

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER:
FRIEND ME:
counter for
wordpress