I am seriously considering buying a bunch of songs by The Offspring.  You know them.  They came on the scene in the grungy 90s, but never had quite the weightiness of a Nirvana or Pearl Jam or their ilk.  This is one of those bands that seems to linger, putting out a new album every [...]

So I’ve mentioned before that I on occasion alphabetize all the songs on my Ipod by title, just to see if anything interesting pops up.  For example, I discovered that I have two songs called Kite (U2, Ivy) and five songs entitled Lullaby (Alana Davis, The Cure, Jack Johnson, Dixie Chicks and James).
I also have [...]

You should read Ann Patchett.  Bel Canto is one of the best books I’ve read in many years.  The story of a hostage situation in an unnamed South American country, this novel is immersive and beautiful and completely original.  Another of Patchett’s novels, Run, is a less unique tale, focusing on a Boston family and [...]

If you learn one thing from Pixar, it is how to write without fear.  The folks over there don’t care how their ideas sound to focus groups.  They know without a doubt that they can tell a good story and that’s what they do.
I mean, look at their latest creation, Up.  I saw it this [...]

Lucinda Williams’ voice will break your heart.  It doesn’t really matter what she is singing about — that breathy gravelly voice will take you down every time.  While you’re with Williams, you’ll spend a lot of time in cars and broken down homes, moving from city to city in the deep South.  It may crush [...]

Hi, my name’s Mike and I watch American Idol.  I used to qualify that statement by adding quickly that I didn’t buy any of the music put out by former Idols.  But I can’t say that anymore.  In the last year, there has been an explosion in Idol music on the Ipod, including a major [...]

There are a couple of things that I always do before reading a book.  Before buying it, actually.  First, I check out the Acknowledgments.  I’m always curious who writers thank.  And particularly who their agents are and if recognition was in order.  Next I’ll usually flip to the last page.  My wife is convinced that [...]

Let’s take off our purist hats for a moment.  I would generally agree that if you like a band or artist, you should buy whole albums, rather than only the most popular songs.  An album represents a certain period in that artist’s creative life, and therefore it should be respected as an intended whole.  As [...]

One of my favorite shows, Weeds, is coming back on Monday for season five.  Honestly, I’m not looking forward to it.  From the very start, the show has been darkly funny, but the emphasis was on the humor, twisted as it may be.  But last season it inverted itself, becoming only occasionally funny, but mainly [...]

On the surface, these two books don’t seem to have a lot in common.  Then We Came To The End is a postmodern romp through today’s office cubicle culture told with Ferris’ tongue firmly lodged in his cheek.  Barrett’s book, The Air We Breathe, is a historical novel set at a tuberculosis sanitorium in the [...]