5. Led Zeppelin II (Led Zeppelin, 1969)
The English poetic tradition is a long one, but in the vast annals of British verse – a lineage stemming...
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
Uh … didn’t that year happen already? Are they going to update the movie so that it’s accurate? Seriously? You...
6. The Beatles (The Beatles, 1968)
What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid....
6. La Dolce Vita (Fellini, 1960)
You know what I love about Italian movies? I love that I can watch them more than once. American movies?...
7. The Velvet Underground & Nico (The Velvet Underground/Nico, 1967)
Lou Reed, the lyricist, I like to compare to water flowing downhill: he takes the quickest, shortest path. It’s not...
7. Doctor Zhivago (Lean, 1965)
I’ve always wanted to hijack a hospital intercom, press the little button and go, “Paging Dr. Zhivago, paging Dr. Zhivago.”...
8. Music From Big Pink (The Band, 1968)
After initially coming home from the record store assuming I’d purchased either the soundtrack to a new Pixar film centered...
8. Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger, 1969)
New York. Just like I pictured it – skyscrapers, and ev’rythang. ***** One uneventful day during my interminably monotonous youth,...
9. The Doors (The Doors, 1967)
This is the beginning … the beginning of my essay … the beginning. ***** Maybe it’s just me, but have...
9. 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)
I almost thought about placing this film at number “8 ½” on my list instead of 9th, but upon further...
10. Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (The Byrds, 1968)
A rock band … doing a country album? What’s next? Sonny Bono, U.S. congressman? ***** Whenever I try to explain...
10. The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, 1969)
This movie is part-time Buddhist? This movie? The movie that opens with shots of sadistic, barbaric children gleefully torturing scorpions...
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 5)
Amazing how I’ve made it all this way, and yet I still haven’t bothered to explain what the format of...
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 4)
Having thrown enough (polite?) Molotov cocktails for the time being, I think it might be time to throw out a...
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 3b)
Examples of Music Writers Who I’m Pretty Sure Aren’t Part-Time Buddhists Rob Sheffield Back in 2004, on one of my...
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 3a)
Here is one final metaphor I’d like to employ to describe my graduate school experience: Imagine jumping, with tremendous enthusiasm,...
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 2)
And now, let me tell you a story. ***** Once upon a time, I went to grad school. I went...
I Am The Part-Time Buddhist Pop Culture Guru: Intro Essay (Part 1)
“Another blog about music and movies?” you ask. Why not just … pave a road with asphalt, or paint a picket...