New York. Just like I pictured it – skyscrapers, and ev’rythang. ***** One uneventful day during my interminably monotonous youth, I decided that, when I grew up, I was going to live in New York City. Seemed pretty obvious to me. Hard to pinpoint any one thing in particular that did it. Perhaps a few […]
8. Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969) Read More »
This is the beginning … the beginning of my essay … the beginning. ***** Maybe it’s just me, but have the Doors become the band that people “used” to like? To admit that you once went through a Doors “phase”? Perfectly acceptable of course. But to admit that you’re still a Doors fan? Isn’t that
9. The Doors (The Doors, 1967) Read More »
I almost thought about placing this film at number “8 ½” on my list instead of 9th, but upon further reflection, I decided that doing so might have been considered too cute by half. (Alternate first line: I almost thought about turning my essay on 8 ½ into an essay about an adrift blogger despondently
9. 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963) Read More »
A rock band … doing a country album? What’s next? Sonny Bono, U.S. congressman? ***** Whenever I try to explain my immense and seemingly illogical passion for country music, I always make sure to offer a key qualifier: “I love country music that was released before I was born.” See, country music used to be
10. Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (The Byrds, 1968) Read More »
This movie is part-time Buddhist? This movie? The movie that opens with shots of sadistic, barbaric children gleefully torturing scorpions and ants via flaming twigs? The movie that, before you’ve even had time to unwrap your box of Red Vines, presents you with a shootout in which a temperance union full of little old ladies
10. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969) Read More »
Amazing how I’ve made it all this way, and yet I still haven’t bothered to explain what the format of my blog is actually going to look like. Are you ready? Do you really think you’re ready? Are to ready to learn what radically bold and bracingly new format is this radically bold and bracingly
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 5) Read More »
Having thrown enough (polite?) Molotov cocktails for the time being, I think it might be time to throw out a few fluffy bread baskets. Don’t want people to assume all part-time Buddhists are just negative Nancys here. Even though I may be, as far as I know, the first pop culture writer to proclaim himself
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 4) Read More »
Examples of Music Writers Who I’m Pretty Sure Aren’t Part-Time Buddhists Rob Sheffield Back in 2004, on one of my ever-exciting trips to the local Borders, I wandered past a nondescript black wooden shelf when I happened to discover a revised edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide. Never having found the previous editions particularly useful,
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 3b) Read More »
Here is one final metaphor I’d like to employ to describe my graduate school experience: Imagine jumping, with tremendous enthusiasm, onto a giant, spinning merry-go-round, then very quickly being thrown off at a tremendous speed, flying across the room, landing face-first into a brick wall, and slowly sliding down that wall in a cartoon-like fashion,
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 3a) Read More »
And now, let me tell you a story. ***** Once upon a time, I went to grad school. I went to grad school because I thought I wanted to become an English professor. Then I found out, by actually going to grad school, that I didn’t want to become an English professor. Let me back up a
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 2) Read More »