Best Albums of 2017: #50-26 (with commentary)
#50: King Krule, The OOZ To understand this album, just imagine stoned jazz. Very stoned jazz, with a lower-class English accent. You can see him holding a mic and not […]
Best Albums of 2017: #100-51
Granddaddy, Last Place Jessica Lea Mayfield, Sorry Is Gone Diet Cig, Swear I’m Good at This Austra, Future Politics Slowdive, self-titled White Reaper, The World’s Best American Band Pile, A […]
Best Albums of 2017: Who Didn’t Make the Cut
I listened to 249 albums (an average of almost 3 times each) in 2017 to arrive at my top 100 albums for 2017. As anyone with math skills will see, that leaves 149 albums that didn’t make the cut. These are (mostly) very good records in and of themselves, but […]
Unexpected Delight and Unceasing Pain: Reading the Modern Library Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century
I’m done! Woo-hoo and thank God. With the last page of Finnegan’s Wake, I have now read every book on the Random House Modern Library list of the Best Novels […]
Oh Tokyo I Really Can Sleep in Your Arms…
The International Travel Writer’s Guild (or whatever it’s called) must have a rule: you can’t write an article about Tokyo without using the phrase “city of contrasts.”
My Interesting (and Occasionally Painful) Journey Through the Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century
Probably 15 or so years ago, when I was first struggling with writing and realizing I needed to read a lot more fiction, an author I knew suggested looking at […]
Japan Practicalities
So you want to travel to Japan? Here are a few practicalities to keep in mind, things that you’ll find buried in guidebooks or that I found to be different […]
Best Albums of 2016: #25-1
#25: Aurora, All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend A phenomenal debut from Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora Aksnes. This is more in the tradition of orchestral, torch music of Lykke Li than […]
Best Albums of 2016: #50-26
#50: Corinne Bailey Rae, The Heart Speaks in Whispers Impeccably written and arranged gospel/soul #49: Bleached, Welcome the Worms Imagine The Go-Gos with guts, more punk sensibility and a sense of noise, and you’ll […]
Best Albums of 2016: #100-51
Crying, Beyond the Fleeting Gates Bear Hands, You’ll Pay For This Bob Mould, Patch the Sky Tancred, Out of the Garden Skylar Grey, Natural Causes Japanese Breakfast, Psychopomp Big Thief, […]