And then finally, it stumbles into full blown Las-Vegas-pills-and-booze-bloat.

Because “Love is in the Air” (1979)… Portions To Be Archived: Skilled house bands Portions To Not Be Archived: The idea that Tom Jones needs show girls to be interesting; Disinterested cover songs based on lazy, cliched selection process Portions To Be Archived: Knowledge that if you take care of your body it will take [...]

Holiday traditions exist at the crossroads of cultural memory and personal memory (we’ll ignore the confusing cloverleaf interchange of invented memory for now — my holiday gift to you!). What I’ve always found interesting is how these traditions converge and conflict across national, regional, local, and idiosyncratic arenas. For example, my family always had corn [...]

This edition isn’t really in regards to the content of the below. I’ve enjoyed my share of blaxsploitation films and the 42nd Street Forever series. It’s just that watching this hits a little too close to home in reminding me of family holidays when I was growing up…and those hits actually do feel very similar [...]

Because I care about you, dear reader, and because I care about the development of a more refined culture through the dissemination of audiovisual materials, I was perusing YouTube last night. I happened upon a video simply referred to as “Final Countdown — Acoustic Version”. I will not share that with you here. I feel that Arrested Development has completed the cultural work of that song and it needn’t be further addressed (see — I am looking out for you).

It’s an old one, but the upcoming holiday made me think of it. Many people are incredulous at how tightly the King estate controls use of MLK’s works and image. This commercial makes me feel like maybe that’s not such a bad thing: I mean, Abe Lincoln and George Washington selling sheets and towels, that [...]

But then again, it had a good beat and I could dance to it… — Joshua Ranger

2009 has been a hard slog in many sectors. Why did Microsoft have to go and make it even worse?

How can I say “Happy Holidays” with this song around? Orrin Hatch, what have you wrought? Tablet Magazine has Orrin Hatch write Hanukkah song… — Joshua Ranger