As the weekend came to an end, I realized that I spent it sobbing like a child at Toy Story 3, and almost getting mugged at the bank up the street from me. Just another typical weekend for Martin Joseph O’Connor. [Read more →]
“What’s a good plate with nothing on it?” So asks Jay in Clerks, a movie that despite its numerous flaws still managed to be charming. I can now definitively state that a good plate with nothing on it is Mulholland Drive, which I watched last night for the first time instead of rewatching Rob Roy. “I think I liked Wild Hogs better than this,” was my girlfriend’s response to the movie, and while I can’t commit to damning Mulholland Drive with that particular faint praise, I definitely would have enjoyed my fourth or fifth viewing of Rob Roy quite a bit more.
Hoarding. It’s all anyone can talk about anymore. Have you seen the show “Hoarders?” Oh my gosh. That’s what people talk about. Everyone. All people. I’m not attempting to be a Negative Nancy (Nathan) here, but I have one fundamental problem with the entire Hoarding trend: It’s just no fun. [Read more →]
I was not born Broadway Fred. I was, however, born into a family in which the elders liked Broadway shows. After a brunch at Ratner’s- a now defunct blintz, lox, and whitefish emporium staffed by suffering waiters with Old Country accents-we met the paternal uncles and their families at Duffy Square. Emissaries from each branch waited on the TKTS line and made a quick decision and purchase. With giddy expectation, we walked past giant posters and street hustlers and fancy marquees and urban blight, found our theater and were shown to our seats. We weren’t all together, but the cousins could wave at each other from a few rows apart in the balcony.
Clint Eastwood directs Hereafter in his usual gentle and understated style. While the result is not the unqualified success of some of his other work, Hereafter has some lovely moments. [Read more →]
When I first read that Brock Clarke’s new novel was called Exley, I felt a mixture of admiration, envy, and even a hint of betrayal. To an extent, I felt scooped for a story, but one I wasn’t certain that any one had the right to tell. How dare Clarke appropriate Frederick Exley for his own purposes? How dare any one of us stoop so low as to piggyback off the fame (even in a doubly derivative “lack there of” sort of way) of A Fan’s Notes? Indeed, I had three pages on Exley in my own new novel, and I had considered deleting these in the last revisions because it felt like theft—no, well, er, actually, because I was worried that part seemed too sentimental. (My solution, if you were wondering, was to add a paragraph to make the scene more absurd.) [Read more →]
I am sick as a dog, dear readers. How sick is she? She is sicker than a consumptive waif in a Bronte novel. She is so sick that her eyes, burning with fever, can barely see the screen upon which she types her weekly words of wisdom. She is so sick, in fact, that she will have to keep her advice very short this week. Charlie Sheen, this one’s for you: Get it. The hell. Together. [Read more →]
Some people want to be the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop that is the artistic world. They want to put down the works of others; they want to convince people there is only one way to see things or they want to throw out the rules. Many want, above all, to show as many people as possible that they can do everything better than anyone else. Like many, I hate that, but I do get it. And I feel the tug, from time to time. [Read more →]
With Veterans Day rapidly approaching, I expect to see A LOT more than the usual amount of war movies on television. Earlier today, on AMC, it was The Horse Soldiers (1959), in which a Union cavalry regiment is sent behind Confederate lines to disrupt and destroy rebel resources, communications and supply centers. The film was directed by John Ford, who has always earned high marks with me when it comes to the attention paid to authentic details in his films.
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Early on in my parenting travels, I was a total anti-video game guy. A staunch opponent. Of course, these feelings were not due to a lingering bitterness because growing up I was the worst Pac-Man player in my town. No, I just didn’t want my kids sitting idly for hours on end, ruled by a screen, twitching, stagnating, drooling. But then came the Wii. [Read more →]
Maybe I’m demonstrating my social media savvy … or maybe it’s something not-so-great that I’m demonstrating. Either way, when I sign-off from my Twitter account, I stay in front of the computer a few minutes longer, to watch their rotator of current tweets on a variety of trending topics.
I know, I KNOW … I could be reading books and magazines, surfing the web, or even – gasp! – getting out and talking to people. But there I am, nonetheless, parked in my chair and soaking up someone else’s virtual wisdom, 140 characters at a time. Today, there’s more than a lil discussion of Lil Wayne.
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A few minutes before the play begins actors enter wearing not Elizabethan, but Edwardian apparel. Gradually, they populate a stage setting dominated by a ticker tape machine, towering abacuses, and walls that appear to be assembled from exquisitely sharp blades. These blades form a cool steel fortress in which those who belong can do business and from which those who are reviled can be shut out. While it may seem irrelevant in 2010, I feel compelled to mention that in this play the reviled ones are my ancestors. And bizarre as it may sound, I can’t help feeling that if this play could prick us, my ancestors and I would bleed.
As I watched Stone, I waited for it to get better. After all, Stone has a great cast and explores an interesting idea. But that is not enough to save Stone from being a disappointing film. [Read more →]
For anyone who has read a few of my pieces, I know it sometimes seems like I am on a mission to downplay the arts — to take artists down a peg and to reduce the glitter factor in the perception of the world’s audience. That’s because I am. The drama is supposed to be in the work, not in the lifestyle and in the peripherals of the performance. All that stuff is tabloid bull, not artistic expression. [Read more →]
Interview with Alex Kudera, author of Fight for Your Long Day
I have known Alex Kudera since 1996 when he and I met in the café of Borders Bookstore in Center City, Philadelphia. A couple years later, Alex and I worked together as adjuncts at Temple University and at Drexel University. Alex has now written a novel, the just-published Fight for Your Long Day, and it is a bracing, painful, and sometimes funny look at the life of an adjunct college teacher in the early 2000’s.
Although Alex currently teaches full-time at Clemson University in South Carolina, he is quick to note that working full-time does not mean tenure. I recently interviewed him about Fight for Your Long Day, published by Atticus Books.
Below are some of the excerpts.
I live in Gloucester City, New Jersey, which is directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, PA. Not exactly the hustle and bustle of the big city, but still a relatively urban area complete with traffic jams, drug problems, stray dogs, and row homes. However, in a mere half hour drive south, you find yourself in what I like to call “God’s Country.” Southern New Jersey is almost all farmland and wide open space. Yes, the cookie cutter mansions and soccer mom SUV’s are starting to creep in, but it is still a peaceful, beautiful area. Regardless, a far cry from North Jersey and the smog, chemical plants, annoying accents, and rude folks that give my New Jersey its bad name.
10. Harry admits he learned all his magic tricks from a book advertised on the back cover of a Superman comic
9. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger inadvertently discover each other’s charms
8. Harry is permanently banned from induction into the Quidditch Hall of Fame amid allegations of sports betting
7. Harry’s latest supernatural power: levitating his pants
6. Short of cash, Ron is arrested for shoplifting a newt
5. Harry dies at the end, making Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II a real challenge
4. After perfecting the art of Divination, Harry makes a fortune on the Powerball lottery
3. Harry gets expelled when Albus Dumbledore catches him polishing his wand
2. Hogwarts’ head witch is Senate Republican nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware
1. O’Donnell is morally outraged by that ‘wand’ allegation
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
In 1975, on the most magical day of my fourteenth year, my father took me to New York. First, we went to Tannen’s, the largest magic shop on the east coast, where I got the birthday present of a hippie puppet with long yellow hair and flowered clothing. After a turkey sandwich at Howard Johnson’s, we went to the Cort Theater and saw a matinee performance of The Magic Show, a musical comedy starring the amazing Doug Henning.
According to their website,
The Library of America was founded in 1979 to undertake a historic endeavor: to help preserve the nation’s cultural heritage by publishing America’s best and most significant writing in durable and authoritative editions.
To that end, they have been publishing volumes featuring the works of people like John Steinbeck, Dashiell Hammett, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, etc. But what about future editions?
100 years from now, what will the Library of America deem to be worth preserving?
I’m pretty sure I know.
Here is a look at the covers of some future Library of America editions:
It is hard to believe a film about teenage suicidal depression would have the word “funny” in its title. But It’s Kind of a Funny Story is light and somewhat funny. It is rather forgettable, but it is also enjoyable.
Craig (Keir Gilchrist) seems to have a nice enough life. His parents love him, even if Mom (an underused Lauren Graham) seems a little clueless and Dad (Jim Gaffigan) pushes him to excel in school. Craig has a crush on his best friend’s girl and his prestigious New York public school is very competitive, but is that really why he is depressed? A neurotic and medicated teenager is not always cause for alarm, but when Craig stops taking his medication, he feels suicidal. [Read more →]
