The serious bands get all the respect. All the critical acclaim. All the love from all the right people. Which is probably as it should be. But for every Beatles there’s at least one or two Rolling Stones, bands that aren’t terribly respectable and that clearly aren’t worried about cultivating an intellectual legacy. Sometimes you even get a little Beatles
Read more[An artist] should copy the masters and re-copy them, and after he has given every evidence of being a good copyist, he might then reasonably be allowed to do a radish, perhaps, from Nature. – Edgar Degas I went to see the “Inspiring Impressionism” exhibit yesterday at the Denver Art Museum and came away struck by how remarkably it addressed
Read moreLast September we hit you with part one of our best music videos ever, featuring Death in Vegas, The Prodigy and Pop Will Eat Itself. Powerful stuff, to say the least. Today we’re back with round two – alieNation. Up first is Orbital’s “The Box.” I used this one in a class or two back in the late ’90s. Humanities
Read moreFirst Obama said Yes We Can. Then McCain said Yes We Can (Stay in Iraq for 1000 Years). Now Hillary says … ummm … Damn We’re White? Sweet fancy Jesus – will somebody please bring back Celine Dion? I guess at least now we know who the folks who brought us Appalachian is Hot Hot Hot are endorsing. Thanks to
Read moreSaturday morning cartoons aren’t what they used to be, are they? And I don’t mean that in your typical I-walked-six-miles-to-school-every-day fashion, either. Once upon a time toons made some very different assumptions about their audience. I mean, how many Saturday morning shows these days play on opera? Let’s begin this morning’s entertainment with a smattering of high culture, as Bugs
Read moreI’ve long been convinced of two truths regarding poetry: 1: The easiest thing in the world to write is a love poem. 2: The hardest thing in the world to write is a good love poem. Accordingly, I admire the hell out of a writer who can produce a tribute to his/her eternal love without making me a little sick
Read morePastor Dan has an absolutely must-read piece on faith and politics over at Street Prophets, and while I feel wholly inadequate for the task of matching the depth of his analysis, he raises a number of issues that got me to thinking. So to use a sports analogy, he’s just crushed an overhead at me, and I’m going to see
Read moreThe biggest challenge my EducationF1rst initiative faces is one of momentum: America is not, and never has been, an intellectual culture. We do not, however much we might protest, live in a nation that treasures teaching and learning. On the list of things that we care about, education falls well to the south of things like entertainment and sports. Worse,
Read moreFinding and buying music used to be a lot simpler process. You could sample new stuff by turning on this thing called a “radio,” and when you heard something you liked you could go purchase it at this other thing called a “record store.” It wasn’t a perfect system, of course. Sometimes the great song on the radio was the
Read moreSomething big happened a few nights ago in Iowa. Barack Obama began the evening as one of the top two contenders for the Democratic nomination and by the time people went to bed he was John F. Kennedy. This might sound like hyperbole – and to be sure, the race is far from won – but if the results we
Read moreI recently raised some questions about Rev. Huck in a piece on parenting skills, and now an old colleague – the Pulitzer winning John Hanchette, no less – looks at some of the same issues and declares the candidacy dead. The pattern usually repeats itself every four years: Obscure candidate announces, and is at first an after-thought, unknown to most
Read moreOur friend Sara over at Orcinus is one of those people who gets it. Big picture, long view, and a perspective that’s as deep as it is broad. Her latest examination of our collective predicament is a great example. As long as that core vision holds — as long as people in the group remember who they are and what
Read moreWelcome to the fifth and final installment of the Scholars & Rogues year-end wrap-up. Today we tackle the dirty, but oddly riveting world of politics. We’ll take a couple shots at the even dirtier world of media that makes it all possible. Let’s start at the top, shall we? George Walker Bush: I’ve been telling my Republican friends for five
Read moreWelcome to part three of S&R’s first annual year-end round-up. I’ll begin by apologizing for my colleagues, who have wasted a lot of their time (and yours) yammering about “important” issues. Of course, I admire their intellectual gravity, but let’s be honest – that sort of seriousness is really misplaced when the intended audience is the American public. As we
Read moreHo Ho Humbug, boys and girls, and welcome back for that most specialist SVR of the year. If you’ve got Jack Retailer nipping at your wallet, brew yourself up a toddy and settle back as SRTV presents our inaugural War on the Holidays Spectacular!© Up first, Weird Al shows us that the apocalypse doesn’t have to be a downer!
Read more
lullaby pit 