The Big Sleep

Of all the villains I’ve encountered in fiction, I’m struggling to think of one more loathsome than Strangers on a Train’s Charles Bruno. I don’t feel great about it, because any mid-century, gay-coded character deserves at least some empathy, but this spoiled momma’s boy is simply the worst. I don’t begrudge the movie version’s drastic simplification of Strangers, but Robert Walker’s portrayal of Bruno is so spot-on, I kind of wish Hitchcock could have… See more →

When I changed high schools after the ninth grade, there was some confusion about how each school handled its history curriculum, and in the shuffle, I lamentably never got a formal education in 20th century world history. I assume this is why I was never required to read this book. Reading it now, decades late to the, uh, party, it’s hard not to wonder how it would have affected me as a teen.

Would it… See more →

I was hopeful, if not naive enough to be confident, that enough people were sufficiently fed up with That Fucking Guy to keep him from returning to the White House. But he will, of course, be returning, and while this time his victory isn’t the shock to the system it was in 2016, his popular vote win, a hair shy of a mandate, still stings plenty. The Democratic Party’s subsequent soul-searching might be morbidly comical… See more →

When you’re looking for a good read for the spooky season, and your buddy @_AndreaJanes is kind enough to write a new book for the occasion. 👍🏻 bookshop.org/p/books/a-haun…

In a revival of an old-school blogging pyramid scheme, my friend Dan Mall wrote about his typical day and tagged me and others to do the same. What follows is a mix of both the aspirational and the factual, and the distance between the two suggests that if life is time management, I’m not especially skilled at life. If you’re not either, read on for sweet, sweet validation.

My alarm goes off at 7:00. These… See more →

Indulging in a pricey collector’s item is a rare occasion for me, but this LeWitt work is an obsession of mine. cubes-revisited.art

Finally found a copy of the book from Sol LeWitt’s original 1974 Incomplete Open Cubes exhibition that cost less than my rent!

A cozy night in with Raymond Chandler.

I finally read @scottmccloud’s Understanding Comics and frankly I’m offended that no educator ever required me to read it.

The books I read this summer.