Carl Scott

I’ve finally now seen the recent film production of Coriolanus , starring and directed by Ralph Fiennes, and it is as I feared , a failure. It’s one of these updating adaptations of a Shakespeare play—in this case the politics and warfare of the early Roman city-state gets refitted . . . . Continue Reading »

The pop music of the last 50 years really has become progressively bereft of musical variety.  So says this Spanish analysis of gobs of pop songs . So Martha Bayles is right.  Geoffrey O’Brien’s nightmare last chapter of Sonata for Jukebox is right.   And me too, I . . . . Continue Reading »

I mean just look at the man’s sweet face! I’m sure his mama would never take away his happy stick. I mean he can obviously bear it, right? And it is an arm, right?  I don’t see what else we need to know, but Pete keeps mentioning something called Heller v. DC .  Some . . . . Continue Reading »

What other films do we have, besides this one, that really capture the exhilarating rush—and the decadent come-down—of the 60s culture-revolution? We have a number of fine literary portrayals, such as Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test , and shading out of the . . . . Continue Reading »

So right after mentioning her new book in the post below, I noticed that NRO has posted a fine interview with Mary Eberstadt , in which she implies that, just as the medical facts about cigarettes’ harm eventually came to be undeniable, so will the sociological facts about the sexual . . . . Continue Reading »

Terry Teachout says it wasn’t 1968 that began the big cultural shift, but 1962. ’62 is a good year to zero in on indeed—Cuban Missile Crisis, early SDS days, right before Philip Larkin’s beginning date for “sexual intercourse,” Dylan’s Freewheelin’ gestating . . . . Continue Reading »

“can’t vote Obama. too many executive orders.” So tweets Exene Cervenka , best-known for her days w/ LA punk/roots band X, and most fondly remembered for her days w/ the Knitters. I guess the logical X song to link to is the one that says “This Was Supposed to Be the New . . . . Continue Reading »

Repo Man is perhaps the least justifiable entry on my list of pop music films . While punk rockers feature in only so many of its scenes, it nonetheless captures the spirit of early 80s So-Cal punk, a spirit of cheerful nihilism . Besides, its plot is almost incidental. Sure, there’s some yarn . . . . Continue Reading »

Both This Is Spinal Tap and Repo Man are cult films that make fun of a rock youth culture, metal and punk respectively. Repo Man is the better of the two (again, my original listing of the best pop music films is chronological , not in terms of quality). One reason is that while This is Spinal Tap . . . . Continue Reading »

“ . . . repeat conservative language or ideas, even when arguing against them.” So saith George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley, the most prominent advocate for the view, that so many hard-core liberals and professional Democrats seem to buy into, . . . . Continue Reading »