Reader’s Notebook, October 2010
I slowed down a little last month. Not much, though. The Shallows – What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains – Nicholas Carr. The internet and high tech are changing the way we access information. And anyone who spends even a little time surfing the net has stories about how their attention span seems to be shrinking, or how…
Eddie And Fame
The next installment in the AV Club’s look back at 90s music is up, this time focusing on my favorite band of the era, Pearl Jam. It’s a fair and comprehensive look at the band’s creative highpoint: 1992-1995. I still love them, and buy each new album as soon as it’s released. But there’s no doubting they’ve been, mostly, cruising…
Planning Ahead
I’m going to try something new for the next 30 days. It’s actually something I wanted to do a year ago, but I got sidetracked in my three-month journey that was reading Infinite Jest. I’m finally going to give National Novel Writing Month (Or NaNoWriMo to the kids) a shot. The idea behind NaNoWriMo is that anyone can write a…
Young Jordan
Much to my generation’s chagrin, Michael Jordan has not aged well. He came back one time too many, and when he finally left the league was a rather ordinary professional baller. Since his retirement, he’s had mixed success, at best, as an NBA executive. He offered a mean, bitter Hall of Fame induction speech. And he seems to be constantly…
Making A Difference
I’ve had a draft sitting around for awhile that I was unsure whether to post or not. In fact, I think I have three different versions of it sitting on my hard drive. The New York Time’s Nicholas Kristof had a terrific story in last weekend’s Magazine about international philanthropy. Kristof was one of the people who worked hard to…
What I Watched
Even without a Colts game to suck up time, it was a solid sports weekend. I covered an opening round football playoff game Friday. It was a blowout, but the coach I spoke with seems like a good guy and is struggling to turn around his alma mater. It was interesting to listen in as he spoke to his team…
This ‘n That
Let’s cross some more T’s and dot some more I’s. Or whatever. In other words, clearing out some of the junk in my head. High school football playoffs start tonight in Indiana. I’m assigned to what I expect to be a big blowout, with my team on the short end. Several of our teams have tough games in the first…
I Love Fall
So does McSweeneys. Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn’t it? It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers
Kurt and Axl
It’s already Thursday and I’ve yet to post anything? Weird. I’ll blame the nice weather and the time we’ve been spending outside. Also, I’m contemplating a post about Turner Gill, but struggling with how/what to write. Trust me, there will be something about Turner here soon. In the meantime, here’s a fascinating article from a series at the Onion’s AV…
Pyromania 27 Years Later
Recently I picked up a copy of Def Leppard’s seminal 1983 album Pyromania. I had been waiting for years for it to show up in the iTunes or Amazon MP3 stores, to no avail. After hearing a couple songs in the pregame mix at a high school football game, I thought it was time to finally take the plunge and…