Winter Sports, Vol. 2
Time for another Kid Winter Sports Roundup. L finished her basketball season last week. Our team went 3–4, losing to the eventual champions in the tournament. We started the season 1–3 so obviously finished strong. Our best game of the year was our final regular season game, when we played the team we were tied with for second place at…
Missed Opportunity
As the bulk of my regular readers are in the Midwest, I don’t have to expound too much on the gorgeous weather we are enjoying. It feels more like April than February. And although next weekend looks like a return to more seasonable weather, you sure can’t help but think spring is closer than it really is when you can…
This Is Pretty Good
Friday was beautiful so I got distracted and forgot to share my final music post of the day. So here it is. It’s a great crossing of pop culture lines, but will make even more sense if you watch The Americans.
Best of Ryan Adams
OK, for music post #2, I wanted to celebrate Ryan Adams’ new album, Prisoner. Rather than setting the stage myself, I thought I would share this excellent view of the State of Ryan Adams that Steven Hyden published earlier this week. It’s a good primer on where Adams has been over the past few years. And it has a little…
Friday Playlist
It’s the first really big new music Friday of 2017! Which means bonus musical content for you! Strand of Oaks and Son Volt have new albums out today. Middle Kids released their long-awaited debut EP. And the crown jewel of the day is Ryan Adams’ Prisoner, which is already making me happy/sad. Oh, and there’s a bonus cherry on top:…
Reader’s Notebook, 2/16/17
The Nix – Nathan Hill. My brother-in-reading Dave V. received two copies of this book over the holidays. He was generous enough to pass one of them my way. Quite the gesture, which I appreciate immensely! This is a great book. It’s also one of those books that makes me mad, as it is Hill’s first full-length novel. How can…
Bat Shit Crazy ’17
You all laugh at me for my stupid sports superstitions. But today I’m laughing at all of you. Because today I have proof that these “stupid” superstitions work! Let’s jump back almost two years to West Virginia’s visit to Lawrence in the final week of the 2015 season. For the full recap you can read here, but basically, Perry…
Trivia Man
Once upon a time, not that long ago, I was known as the trivia guy. Where other people mastered law or medicine or sales, my mind was best suited to accumulating a nearly endless parade of useless if somewhat interesting facts about old pop culture, sports, and history. Some might say I had a gift. My reputation reached its zenith…
Friday Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/6rc53ykHGe4zkY109efEAZ “The Punisher” – Lucius. I don’t know anything about this group, but this song is awesome. “Thick as Thieves” – The Menzingers. This band has always leaned a little too emo for my tastes. But they shifted ever-so-slightly on their latest album and I’m finding a handful of the tracks very nice to listen to. Good to hear some…
Reader’s Notebook, 2/9/17
Catching up on three recent reads. On Bullshit – Harry G. Frankfurt. “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” Thus begins what is, really, an extended essay in book form on the meaning of bullshit. I read a blurb about this somewhere over the holidays and thought it sounded like a…