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"She Could Shake the Universe"

"She Could Shake the Universe"

What you may be thinking, esteemed readers, could be that a video of Tina Turner onstage in an arena doing “River Deep Mountain High” would go nicely with the above headline. And few would disagree. But that five-word tribute came from a presumed Aussie punter in the Comments section

Notes from Underground

Notes from Underground

“The Russian soul is a dark place.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot Given the events of the past week, I’m compelled to note that this is not a post chiefly concerned with the horrifying massacre in a concert hall in suburban Moscow on March 22– which was hideous and unwarranted

By Order of the Peaky F*cking Blinders

By Order of the Peaky F*cking Blinders

Word comes from creator Steven Knight that Cillian Murphy will return to star in a film version “It’s not a good idea to look at Tommy Shelby the wrong way.” These words of warning are intoned almost reluctantly by Cillian Murphy’s boss-man gangster about himself early in

One of four Mad Professors nominated for an award this year.

Mad Profs

There’s no doubt that that pesty buzz word `identity’ factored heavily into this year’s Oscars. It’s there most conspicuously in Cord Jefferson’s win for adapted screenplay for American Fiction, whose story of Jeffrey Wright’s moody professor Thelonious `Monk’ Ellison begins with the character abruptly defenestrated

Legends of “Legends of the Fall”; Pitt, Zwick and Who Pushed Whom

Legends of “Legends of the Fall”; Pitt, Zwick and Who Pushed Whom

"I tried not to be deliberately hurtful or casually indiscreet,” director Ed Zwick told the New York Times about his recently published memoir “Hits, Flops and Other Illusions: My Forty Something Years in Hollywood, “But if people are going to behave badly, they should know better than do it

U.S. Navy Seal

For Those in Peril: Taking the Fate of the Lost SEALs Personally

The mid-January headlines announcing, with some unavoidable mystery, that two U.S. Navy SEALs from Coronado, California-based SEAL Team 3 had gone missing in the Gulf of Aden on the night of January 11 were distressing to see. As I began writing a first take, I was hoping

Better Things

Better Things

This newsletter will serve up a new song with each posting. Some will be chosen for their sheer mastery and reach, some for quirkiness, some will be responding to events in the culture. Most will have a link to a video version—or at least a` lyric video’ version—usually