Pennsylvania

Soul Glo isn’t really my thing, but I’m not gonna tell you they didn’t burn the place down. Mannequin Pussy, not so much.

Frontwoman Marisa Dabice isn’t an especially clever lyricist, and it’s easy enough to get past when listening to the band’s records, whose sonics are more about feeling than thinking. But while the records are mercifully absent overt speechifying, this show sadly was not, and Mannequin Pussy’s emotion-to-intellect ratio is a poor fit… See more →

Last night I watched Anatomy of a Fall and tonight I watched this. Cinema is so much.

I made a Spotify playlist of the Love God soundtrack. Only a little over half of the songs in the film are available on Spotify, but it’s still 81 minutes of music!

On this, my third viewing, I realized that Sophie is funding her revenge activities with the cash her dad gave her so she could avoid eating on campus with the plebes.

I only found out about the Philadelphia Organ Festival the day before it started, and I’m so glad I did. I wish I could have attended more events, but if I could only make it to one, this one, “The Organ’s Modern Touch: Minimalism and Contemporary Works” was at the top of my list.

This festival being devoted to the organ, video screens were set up at either side of the sanctuary, one showing the… See more →

I’ll begin by briefly weighing in on five of the most prominent pieces of the 2023 zeitgeist, at least from where I was sitting. Some cynical vibes ahead, so feel free to skip past this part if you’re not in the mood for negative energy:

• Taylor Swift: Gen Z’s version of Beatlemania is a bit of a head-scratcher for me, since I find Taylor Swift’s music to be entirely unremarkable, but that didn’t stop her… See more →

@kevskinrug and I are here from 10–5 at @phillyzinefest, along with about a zillion other vendors! Come out and get all your holiday zine shopping done in one place!

Mitten Hall
1913 N Broad St

This is the most utterly baffling expression of human creativity I have ever seen.

Tobin Bell’s lucid stoicism, facile as its moralizing may be, has always been the Saw series’ biggest strength, and after nearly two decades of coolly calculated carnage, Saw X finally puts his Jigsaw front and center with the full antihero treatment. Taking place between the events of Saw and Saw II, this one is uncharacteristically patient and character-driven, and by the time the stage is set for the the latest round of mayhem, Jigsaw’s victims… See more →

First half rules, second half drools.

I’ll have all issues of Plus Equals and other goodies at the inaugural Pittsburgh Art Book Fair (@pghartbookfair) this weekend. Come by, say hi!

Apart from stock footage inserts, there isn’t a single scene in Cade: The Tortured Crossing that isn’t shot on green screen, and I kind of hope Neil Breen stays with that approach in future films. The 7th Guest aesthetic really works for him.

He does look more at home, though (to the extent that he ever looks at home anywhere), in the suburban Las Vegas locations he’s traditionally used than the alternately lavish and decayed… See more →

It’s all true, obviously, and it saves its best joke for an impeccable closer, and maybe if we’re lucky it’ll be a meaningful feminist Trojan horse for a few people. But the whole thing is just entirely too on-the-nose, and no amount of ostensibly subversive mumblecore cachet behind the camera can outrun the movie’s prime directive of brand rehab for a multibillion dollar toy company.

The good news for Barbie fans is that my opinion… See more →

with special guest mads mikkelsen as elon musk

Like an 11-year-old boy on a Lucky Charms bender scribbled out a screenplay and then picked up the phone and hired legit Hong Kong action pros to make it. If anyone has ever shot anything more entertaining on location in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I have yet to see it (and would desperately love to see it).

I’m not a superhero enthusiast, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Spidey, maybe because his origin story, while admittedly rife with the tiresome trappings of adolescent male power fantasy, is at its core a coming-of-age tale. In that tradition, 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse allows its Spider-Man, Miles Morales, to not only find himself, but also find his tribe: a variety of spider-heroes, each representing a different far-flung dimension. The demographically diverse influx of… See more →

May we all achieve Bob Flanagan’s level of self-knowledge and self-love, even if it ultimately fails to prepare us to confront death. Bob’s poem, “Why?,” is going to stay with me. “Because you always hurt the one you love.”

If you’re looking to expand your mind in southern Pennsylvania this weekend, I’ve got you covered. I’ll have all issues of Plus Equals and some other goodies at the inaugural @lancasterzinefest!

My first visit to the Foundry. The place has strong “waiting in line for a theme park attraction” vibes.

This show was my first visit to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, and I was immediately struck by the building’s gold brick interior, which I don’t think I’d ever seen in a church nave before:

The interior is buff-colored brick and sandstone and the pews are black walnut, exemplifying [Augustus] Sims’ architectural philosophy of honesty in building materials, eschewing plaster throughout. Stone carvings both inside and out were done by Alexander Milne Calder,… See more →

Another sold out Underground Arts show, and I’m still not taking my own advice and getting there early, so I didn’t get to see much more than the backs of a lot of heads. I was cranky about it at first, but even when you can barely see them, it’s impossible to stay cranky when White Reaper is doing their thing.

I think I can count on zero hands how many people I know who can even name an Unwound song, let alone call themselves fans, so after I got over my excitement when the reunion tour was announced last summer, I was a little surprised to learn they were playing Union Transfer (capacity: 1,200), and still more surprised when that show sold out and a second one was added. I’ve long had an objective understanding… See more →

The six massive pillars in the middle of Underground Arts make the stage invisible to big chunks of the room, and when it’s a sold out show like this one, finding an even halfway decent sight line can be next to impossible if you don’t get there early. I’ve been burned by this a few times now, so I think going forward I’ll need to commit to early arrival or just skip the show.

Tonight… See more →

I generally prefer to avoid Christian proselytizing and convoluted sci-fi but apparently if you put them together WE ARE IN BUSINESS

Maude

Leah and I became dog parents early in 2022, adopting a 15-pound, two-year-old Jack Russell / Chihuahua mix. Knowing Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned, we named her Maude, after the Bea Arthur character, who in 1972 was the first sitcom character to have an abortion. Living with Maude has been a big adjustment, but after getting over the initial hump, I’m not sure how we ever lived without her. She loves belly… See more →

I’m not well versed in the Hong Kong school of “what if [title of recent successful American movie], but completely incoherent?,” but between Magic Crystal’s kung fu/E.T./Indiana Jones cocktail and Scared Stiff’s action/bromance/comedy take on Nightmare on Elm Street, I’m more than sufficiently compelled to investigate further.