July 25-30, 2011
Teal Amthor-Shaffer hears the universe’s call to to step up and represent the fairer sex as a lady, not a well-intentioned delinquent. She also ponders what effect this might have on her dating life. Read “Catharsis in F major”
Mike Vincent looks back at Jackass, the stunts, the music, why it made him laugh, and why he stopped laughing. Read “If you’re gonna be dumb you gotta be tough”
Sick of steampunk? So was Andrew Simone, until Guns of Icarus took him Into the Breach. Read “Guns of Icarus”
Getting married? Gotten married? Thinking about getting married? Going on a second date? Angela Vasqeuz-Giroux sets you on the right track with the best partnership of all time: Alan Trammell at short and Lou Whitker at second base. Read “When asked to officiate a wedding, this is what a baseball fan comes up with”
Kate Sloan describes her life as an exile in a strange land: A Tigers fan in Boston. Read “Living in the nation”
Catharsis in F major
For the last several months I have been patiently seated in om position on a lofty pedestal of standards and expectations, under the impression that I was acting as a receptor for messages from the universe. Messages about romantic harmony and tolerance and a number of other virtues that catastrophe had tricked me into caring … Continue reading
If you’re gonna be dumb you gotta be tough
When I started this week’s column I had planned on writing about music featured in film or television. This is, but of course, a wide swatch to write about but I planned to write about one television show in particular: Jackass. That’s right, the show with the colorful cast of characters that hurt each other … Continue reading
Guns of Icarus
If you are anything like me, you got sick of steampunk around the same time you stopped reading Boing Boing. My initial delight with steampunk is almost certainly connected to my love of good sci-fi and fantasy. The connection between magic and technology is nearly essential for the genre, if only for two reasons: My … Continue reading
When asked to officiate a wedding, this is what a baseball fan comes up with
We’re here today to celebrate the union of Laura and Ben, and provide witness to their enduring partnership. Partnership. When I spoke with Laura and Ben about what they wanted me to say today, that’s the one word that came up again and again. And, as far as I’m concerned, we can’t talk about partnerships … Continue reading
Living in the nation
These days I live in the nation, but it hasn’t always been so. Growing up, my father instilled in me a reverence for the things he loved most: John Wayne, pro wrestling, bow hunting, and Detroit baseball. If we weren’t watching Full House or WrestleMania (exclusively for Hulk Hogan) on a lazy summer afternoon we … Continue reading
July 18-23, 2011
Books, films, and merchandise, and it’s all great, but why, Gavin Craig asks, can’t we get just one really amazing Harry Potter video game? (And then maybe a couple of more after that.) Find out in “Books, brooms, and bad video games”
Kevin Mattison hasn’t read any of the Harry Potter books, but he has seen all the films. It’s all ending now, but he takes a look at the beginning, and a major turning point. Read “That’s all there is, there is no more”
According to Kate Sloan, Harry Potter is not just awesome himself, he is the cause of aweseomeness in others. Read “Magic is real, if you want it”
Ana Holguin is pretty good at worrying, but she was just an amateur before her dachshunds, Enzo and Rupert, joined the family. Recently they gave her a run for her money, figuratively and literally. Were they rescued in the end? The title may give it away, but get the deets in “A tale of a long dog, his girl and the people that saved them”
Angela Vasquez-Giroux reads Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time, and finds echoes in Harry not of Alexander Rodriguez and his hated Yankees as she expected. Instead she’s reminded of a scrappier, more uncertain, and more admirable fellow: Johnny Damon. Read “Harry Potter and the evil empire”
Jill Kolongowski says goodbye to the Harry Potter films with a midnight viewing of The Deathly Hallows and some pumpkin pasties. If she can find any pumpkin, that is. Read “On the Hogwarts Express: Pumpkin Pasties”
Books, brooms, and bad video games
I spent a number of years working in a bookstore in the early 00s, starting shortly after the release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2000. For a character who has appeared in books, films, toys, stickers, a theme park, and who knows what else, it’s always amusing for me to remember … Continue reading
That’s all there is, there is no more
I haven’t read a word of the Harry Potter series. Not one word. My intentions to do so were fleeting and only arose once the people around me, the ones whose opinions I trust implicitly, began reading and recommending it to me. It all sounded good, but I was already three films deep at the … Continue reading
Magic is real, if you want it
Ladies and gentlemen, witches and wizards, boys and girls, this, is a love fest. This is the story of a girl falling for a book. Never before has the world known such unabashed devotion. If Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone had a window I would have stood beneath it in the pouring rain tossing … Continue reading
