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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Devil’s Dictionary of Pop I

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A short list of caustic aphorisms inspired by Ambrose Bierce (pictured), who wrote the first Devil’s Dictionary (1911). British Invasion ...
Friday, January 1, 2010

Blue Moon

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Roughly every four weeks, or about every twenty-eight days, a full moon rises, which normally means there are twelve full moons a year. But ...
Thursday, December 31, 2009

What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

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So asks the singer of this venerable Frank Loesser tune, covered many times over the years, but first recorded by Kay Kyser and His Orchest...
Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Cat People

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There is a famous quotation attributed to Albert Schweitzer, “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” If y...
Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Timidity

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There’s an old rule of thumb in the film business, “Never take your name off a film.” The reason behind this adage is simple: If the film tu...
Monday, December 28, 2009

Don’t Let ‘Em Take Your Gun

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On this day in 1975, Ted Nugent—currently on the Board of Directors of the National Rifle Association (NRA)—was threatened by a gun while pl...
Thursday, December 24, 2009

Golden Days Of Yore

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Music critics have observed, correctly I think, that the most successful pop songs have always been sentimental. For an illustration of this...
Sunday, December 20, 2009

Things We Do On Grass

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“The green grass grows all around” is the title of a well-known children’s song, and in fact as a declarative utterance the lyric is quite t...
Friday, December 18, 2009

ELVIS In March

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According to ElvisNews.com , John Carpenter’s 1979 Emmy-nominated biopic, Elvis , with Kurt Russell playing Elvis Presley, is scheduled for ...
Thursday, December 17, 2009

Jennifer Jones, 1919-2009

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Hollywood actress Jennifer Jones (born Phylis Lee Isley), who won an Academy Award for her performance as saint-to-be Bernadette in The Song...
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Imagining Disaster

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Recent releases such as WALL-E (2008), Terminator Salvation (2009), and 9 (2009) reveal that the imagination of disaster is a robust moti...
Monday, December 14, 2009

White Christmas

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I’ve hardly done an exhaustive study, but I suspect that virtually every major popular singer or band has made a Christmas album, or at the ...
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Sam Umland
United States
Professor of English
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