EAP Halloween Wrap-Up

I hope everyone enjoyed my Edgar Allan Poe October Reading Series. While I was hard on him scoring-wise (deservedly so, I must say), I thoroughly enjoyed taking time every day to read one of his short stories. Doing so did make it annoyingly easier to pick up on some of his habits (see my bitching about aquatic vortexes/dead women obsessions/terrible mysteries), but allowing yourself to ride his mind a little bit every day is indeed a privilege. On one hand you wish he'd had more of a lifetime to write more than one (terribly average, I must say) novel; on the other, the short story is the perfectly delivery system for his panicked, manic dread that can only be sustained for so long. Looking at my scores below, you'll realize there's a reason they teach the Poe stories they do teach in schools everywhere; while his hit singles are fantastic, a lot of his album cuts are abysmal.

I'm bummed I only read 26 stories, as I didn't start until the 6th, but it is what it is. Read them for yourselves and share your own scores, and I will patiently explain why you are wrong on each account. You're welcome! :)

The Tell-Tale Heart 10
The Fall of the House of Usher 9
Hop-Frog 9
The Murders in the Rue Morgue 9
The Cask of Amontillado 8
The Pit and the Pendulum 8
The Masque of the Red Death 8
The Imp of the Perverse 7
William Wilson 6
The Black Cat 5
The Purloined Letter 5
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains 5
Metzengerstein 5
The Oblong Box 4
Eleonora 4
Berenice 4
A Descent into the Maelström 4
MS Found in a Bottle 4
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar 3
The Premature Burial 3
The Gold-Bug 2
Ligeia 2
The Man in the Crowd 0
The Oval Portrait 0
Morella 0
The Assignaton 0

AVERAGE SCORE: 5.04

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 22: The Purloined Letter

Thoughts: A disappointing ending to my October Halloween Edgar Allan Poe reading series; as soon as I saw the name "Dupin" I knew that oh for fuck's sake, here we go again. For being the godfather of the modern mystery novel, almost every one I read this month was exceedingly dull in both its execution and delivery. I don't see the point in his repeated literary device of just filling up a bunch of pages with whatever and then at the very end saying "okay, here's everything that happened without you even remotely knowing any of it so that I may now call this a mystery of sorts." Whatever score this story gets will be purely based on my own generosity as well as the quasi-interesting motif of placing the evidence in plain sight based on a game of Odds & Evens; however, the thing could've been told in a much more interesting, narrative way instead of this 19th century Encyclopedia Brown nonsense.

Memorable Line: None.

Score from 1-10: 5. You're welcome, Poe. Happy Halloween!

Fungie Update

About a week and a half ago I mentioned Fungie the Dolphin missing from his home in Dingle. So far there's been no update, they're still looking, but someone posted this so I thought I'd share it. 

Come back, Fungie!

Today in Paris 2015!

 

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 21, Part 2: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains

Thoughts: This was of immediate interest since it's the only story I've read so far that takes place in Virginia - Charlottesville, precisely, where Poe famously flunked out or got kicked out of the University of Virginia. The pace of the story is pleasant, kind of a revved-down version of Poe's earlier manic "THE WALLS ARE COMING IN ALL AROUND ME!" style. But in the end, there's just not a lot there - the character is reincarnated? And the narrator figures it out because of a typo in the obituary? There's a feeling upon finishing that Poe left out something that could've made this a little more compelling, at least to me, anyway. If we must use reincarnation, and the idea that Dr. Templeton already knew the story (don't get me started re: the coincidence that he just happened to be there in 1780, a detail I'll let go thanks to my A Tale of Two Cities concession a few weeks ago.)

Memorable Line: None, really.

Score from 1-10: 5. Meh. Feeling generous today.

Scooter!

And just like that, 7 months of rehearsals finally pay off.

 

Bravo Denzil!

While I only know Idris Elba from his short run as Charles Miner on The Office I am aware that most people know him as a hard-af gangster on The Wire, so I'm surprised as anybody to learn that his inspiration for becoming an actor was the affable, lovable Denzil from Only Fools and Horses:

“When I was maybe 14, 15, I was in school and I was in my drama class — I loved drama class, it was a place of expression, I enjoyed the creative freedom — and this professional actor came in. His name was Paul Barber. He came in and sat amongst us.

“We recognised him from TV and it was a big moment. I come from east London, it was a poor little neighbourhood and this big actor was in our midst. You could touch him. He was right there. He just basically sat in our class and talked to us about his profession and who he was. I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, man.’ He didn’t know it, but he really inspired me to become an actor.

Sigh. Poor, sweet, naive Denzil, who never met a terrible deal from Del By he couldn't get suckered into...

Gone to the Big Flaming Volcano in the Sky

 Cecilia Chiang has died at 100.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “who the hell is Cecilia Chiang"

Sigh. Oh faithful readers, she (checks note) brought real Chinese food to America:

Born in Shanghai in 1920, Chiang escaped to the U.S. as a refugee alongside her sister. In the late-1950s, Chiang visited her sister in San Francisco and was appalled by the low-quality takeout options passing as Chinese food, Eater wrote.

Chiang responded by opening The Mandarin, which featured more than 300 dishes, none of which were chow mein or chop suey. In catering to a more refined Chinese palate, The Mandarin became a cultural phenomenon, eventually expanding to a 300-seat location in the city’s Ghirardelli Square.

I for one have no idea if I've ever had "real" Chinese food, but I do have plenty of Chinese food memories:

Why Chinese people are such bad drivers

RIP China Taste, my first Brooklyn Chinese love (but not my last!)

Getting yelled at by the Chinese delivery guy for not wearing pants 

The funniest Photoshop job of my generation 

The time I made a Saint Paul sandwich

Egg roll invention, you're welcome very much

Joy Garden! 

Kam Sing jealousy! 

Christmas at Joy Garden 

Of course now I'm craving me some egg foo young, motherscratchers.

Slash Records

A buddy of mine passed along the news that Bob Biggs, the founder of Slash Records, has died at 74. As someone who's been a fan of the label for decades I must say, I'd never heard of him; in fact, I had no idea there was kind of a single voice or vision behind the label which gave us such great bands as X, The Blasters, Los Lobos, The Dream Syndicate and of course The Violent Femmes, among others. I'd always known Sire = Seymour Stein and Twin/Tone = Peter Jesperson and Alternative Tentacles = Jello Biafra and on and on, but nothing about Slash. It's a shame he was so overlooked - at least by me, anyways - as such an influence on culture over the last 40 years. This says a lot about him:

“How do you measure success? By selling millions of records,” Biggs wondered aloud on artist accomplishment to The Times in 1987, “or by changing lives? I’d rather sell only 100,000 copies of an album and be of some cultural value.”

Of course selling 100K albums isn't exactly NOTHING, but his point is well taken. Hopefully, he was better recognized for his amazing work during his actual lifetime than he ever was by me.

Him signing the Violent Femmes should be enough for immortality, as I wrote years ago about the curious universal love for the debut album:

Certainly, no record that sold so little has ever become so well-known to such a high percentage of people, no? And I don't mean in the VU/Ramones vein, wherein nobody bought their debut records but the few that that did started their own bands - EVERYBODY on Earth knows these songs.

Everybody knows all the songs from the album, and nobody has ever made a mix tape without including at least one of them. A bizarre life for an album by a "non-huge/popular" band. And it easily goes on my list of greatest debut albums alongside The Velvet Underground, The Jesus and Mary Chain, REM, Camper Van Beethoven and The Ramones.

Also on Slash Records? The Germs, featuring the unfortunate Darby Crash:

 2) I just stumbled upon the fact that CS Lewis died on November 22, 1963. Seems like that would be a bad day to die. Here he is a pretty famous dude, and I'm sure with JFK dying that day you could find some press about Lewis' death hidden in the fucking JUMBLE the next day. Reminds me of Darby Crash, the singer for the Germs, who decided he was gonna kill himself, thinking it'd get a ton of press. Of course he happens to do it the day John Lennon gets shot. Boy. There's bad timing, then there's BAD timing. I perversely like to make it worse by thinking that just as he was about to kill himself, he glanced at the tv and thought "hey...why are they talking about John Lennon? oh well" BLAM!! But hey. That’s me. - XMASTIME

Whoops!

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 21: The Oblong Box

Thoughts: I was really enjoying this story for a while. The whole thing about the narrator being shocked at how ugly his friend's wife was provided some rare Poe comedy, and about halfway through I assumed the wife was a vampire, which was cool to me as I'm finishing up reading Dracula today. Though on the other hand I was annoyed that Poe described what obviously was a coffin while pretending it never occurred to the narrator that it indeed was a coffin, which was rather insulting. I even made it through the shipwreck part fully confident he wouldn't return to his whole "and then a giant vortex appeared and we descended into the abyss of the sea" nonsense. My enjoying the story only made it worse when on the very last page HE DID THE SAME BULLSHIT AS PREVIOUS TALES by suddenly spilling what had happened as if reading out a diner breakfast order. I don't understand the appeal of instead of simply rolling out the story and showing us what happened as a narration, he insists on just filling up a bunch of pages with whatever and then at the very end saying "okay, here's everything that happened without you even remotely knowing any of it so that I may now call this a mystery of sorts."

Memorable Line: "The truth is, I could not help regarding Mrs. Wyatt as a decidedly plain-looking woman. If not positively ugly, she was not, I think, very far from it."

Score from 1-10: 4. Disappointing Poe literary device for an ending, but entertaining beforehand.

Le Spooky du Jour

I’ve been blathering over the last day that five years ago I was on a plane to Paris, first time ever leaving the USA, and just now I randomly grabbed a book to take with me and look what just happened to be in it. 😜🤗🇫🇷🕺🇫🇷

The Reckoning

Yeah I feel incredibly safe in his car but if he starts in on if I've heard about his dad he's getting zero stars.

#ThrowbackThursday

 Ah, deep thoughts from Paris on this day in 2015!

And even better, back when I was funny:

Hey Kitten, Oh No Oh No

Just like the Village Voice two years ago and seemingly every local city cultural paper by now, Minneapolis' City Pages is shuttering its doors after four decades:

The publication started in 1979 as a monthly newspaper called Sweet Potato that was devoted to the local music scene. But by 1981, founders Tom Bartel and Kristin Henning were eager to grow the business. They decided to expand its coverage and change into a weekly, which they named City Pages, to challenge an alternative weekly called Twin Cities Reader.

"And the Star Tribune," said Bartel, who with his wife Henning now publishes an online travel site. "What I was proud about is we got people out of jail and we put people in jail. We did a lot of really good stories."

Of course my only connection to the paper as a young lad of discernible taste was endless searches for any nook and cranny of an article or mention about The Replacements, Husker Du or Soul Asylum. Most famously, Paul Westerberg simply read an ad in the paper while the tape rolled for the song Lovelines, from their classic album Hootenanny...and the internet being the miracle it is, we can now see the very ad below.

Trigger!

I know I've posted this, one of my all-time favorite Only Fools and Horses clips, several times before but this is by far the best quality video I've seen yet. Enjoy!

Make America Dwight Again

Anyone who loves The Office should not be surprised that as America has spiraled into absurdity, as its Godfather may be none other than Dwight Shrute himself:

Dwight predicted a world, that is “defined by anxious men, desperate to feel powerful the way they might have in a bygone era, while insensitive to the humanity of others.” And he anticipated a political condition in which hypocrisy would be so widespread—and so absurdly brazen—as to be atmospheric. Dwight is, in his contours, Mitch McConnell. He is Donald Trump. He is someone who imposes his will on everyone else and then says, when they object, That is the law according to the rules.

Hypocrisy at this extreme is hard to talk about. American political language is simply not equipped to contend with actors who are so Schrutily immune to shame. Pundits continue to describe speeches that Trump recites without ad-libbed cruelty as evidence of “presidential” behavior. During his “debate” with Joe Biden in late September, Trump lied and yelled and ceaselessly interrupted his opponent. Mike Pence, conversely, in his own event, lied calmly; his performance was categorized as an exercise in civility. Lies are not civil. But this is precisely how hypocrisy can compromise habits of language. Shamelessness changes every equation.

By the end of The Office’s nine-season run, Dwight Schrute’s contradictions have resolved into a kind of order. He has come to see his colleagues not as his subjects, but as his equals. An “agent of chaos,” his arc has acknowledged, is simply not a sustainable character. The Office was wise in many ways, but its greatest insight might be this: It knew when to stop humoring the guy who, in the name of workplace safety, sets the whole office on fire.

There is of course a 100% chance Dwight would be voting for Trump a second time...and hoping for a third.

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 20: The Gold-Bug

Thoughts: This is just a much, much inferior version of The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Once again, Poe gives the reader no details or evidence so they can put together the mystery themselves; upon offering the solution at the end there is no chance for an "aha, I remember that!" moment for the reader. It's merely a guy at the very ending winding us through what happened, which was all "offscreen" for the readers and to me seems pointless. It reads more like a corporation doing a case study than it does a mystery story. Yes he did the same thing for The Murders of the Rue Morgue, but at least that story was 1) interesting in the first place 2) interesting in what is revealed to be the perpetrator of the crime. I'm shocked to learn that this was the most popular Poe story during his lifetime, and has remained as one of the most popular ever since. Blech.

Memorable Line: "Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification."

Score from 1-10: 2

Breakfast Thoughts. I Have Them.

Not sure why with all the great cheeses out there for breakfast sandwiches Wendy’s has decided to roll the dice with Swiss, but okay. 🤷‍♂️

Speaking of France

Here’s the very first patch of Earth I ever saw in Europe, five years ago today. 🤗 🇫🇷

Just One More Thing...

The New Yorker has a fun set of graphics explaining why everybody loves Columbo, which I am officially calling "bullshit" on because not once do they mention that the character was obviously based on Porfiry from the beyond-great Crime and Punishment. So...try to enjoy, anyway, I guess.

Fish and Chips!

I don't really love fish but I love fish & chips, particularly during those two times I was lucky enough to be in London. Here's a quick video about the delightful combo and how it came to be the second-most iconic thing about Britain.

Interesting note I read elsewhere: part of the popularity behind fish & chips is that it was one of the rare foods NOT rationed in England during both World Wars. Enjoy!

This is a Nice Thing, Dammit

 

Five Years Ago Today

I flew to Paris, first time out of the country! Was crazy amazing - follow along with my Instas HERE. I can't wait to go back again someday, hopefully sooner than later.

Questions. I Have Them.

Why are left-handed swings in baseball so beautiful to watch, but left-handed shots in basketball always look so strange? 🤔 🤷

Relief BS

I didn't watch a second of the World Series because I don't really give a shit since my beloved Yankees aren't in it, but I did follow enough online to know that the Rays' manager removed their starting pitcher in the 6th while he was effortlessly mowing down Dodger after Dodger - thanks to this now being a league which is a slave to analytics - after which his reliever promptly coughed up the two runs that would cost them the game and the series.

Again, I don't really care, other than its a great reminder that NY Daily News writer Bill Madden once wrote of former Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who was often guilty of doing the same (BEFORE it was cool to do throughout the league as a manager!), as being "in the constant search for the one guy who doesn't have it."

Hey, we can all laugh now.

UPDATE: On a whim I just checked Bill Madden's Twitter. Ha!

Questions. I Have Them.

As someone who thought she was one of the funniest Saturday Night Live players ever, I must ask: what the hell happened to Cheri Oteri? Is it just me or has she disappeared? 🤔

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 19: The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Thoughts: This started out in a slower, more restrained pace full of a seeming smugness that alerts the reader into thinking the narrator is an unreliable one. But once Dupin is introduced into the story the narrator becomes not much more than a willing spectator like the rest of us. On one hand the story is fascinating in its unraveling of the murders done so brilliantly so as to lead to it rightful solution; on the other hand, it's kind of unfair that the answer is [SPOILER ALERT! WARNING, SPOILER ALERT!!] an orangutan, as it's not reasonable for a reader - always trying to solve the mystery himself as he reads, obviously - to even imagine such a scenario. This may be considered to be in bad faith on the author's part - why not suddenly point to aliens? Ghosts? But once the readers' eye-rolling miffness (is that a word?) has ebbed, one can only admire the thorough tapestry Poe has woven. A BIT of a reach in reality for what's considered to be the first modern detective story, but extremely well done, and Dupin's seemingly endless monologues do a great job in holding the reader's attention and wonder.

Memorable Line: "Truth is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where she is found."

Score from 1-10: 9

Beer Can Stumblin'...

It's officially been 15 years since Marah's classic album If You didn't Laugh, You'd Cry album was released. I have a lot of personal attachment as a lot of this album was recorded in my loft at 100 Metro; I'd come home from work in July and the loft would be 2,000 degrees and Serge would be doing backups with his head in the dryer and I wouldn't bat an eye. It was a high point of happy times as a lot of my best friends were just always around; as I look back, it was like a damn sitcom. They were also recording there Christmas album, so sometimes we'd all have to pretend it was December while singing holiday songs in the baking heat.

A while back Dave wrote the story of the album in a Facebook album HERE, which included of course m claim to fame: being called during the album opener The Closer instead of them playing a guitar lead:

Hell, the song was about me anyways. Enjoy! :)

So Jealous

 Damn, this is funny.

"Why write about the past? Well, there's more of it."

 Happy Birfday to the immortal John Cleese, who turns 81 today.

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 18: The Man in the Crowd

Thoughts: This was a waste of my time. I guess the upshot is the old guy freaked the narrator out because he fit no category, unlike the rest of the crowd? So he...follows him around for a while? Blah.

Memorable Line: "I was now utterly amazed at his behaviour, and firmly resolved that we should not part until I had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him."

Score from 1-10: 0

Goot EVE-ahning....

I'm reading Dracula for the first time, so imagine my surprise when only 35 pages in Jonathan Harker witnesses Count Dracula crawling down the castle walls like a lizard...35th page? There's 400 pages in this book - wtf is going to happen after this!??! Doesn't dude just say "well this has been great, see ya!", sprint like a goddam greyhound to the nearest train back to London and boom, THE END?

Sheep! Sheep!

THIS is intoxicating af to watch. You're wlecome, Earth!

Ageless Bruce

Last week HERE I wrote about how great Bruce Springsteen's new album is, a kind of curious work that makes you think is looking backwards while thrilling in being alive and looking forward to more, all while knowing that death comes to us all eventually.

David Brooks, who gets things right about once out of every 20 times, writes about Bruce's aging so well:

Even in his 70s, Springsteen still has drive. What drives him no longer feels like ambition, he said, that craving for success, recognition, and making your place in the world. It feels more elemental, like the drive for water, food, or sex. He talks about this in the movie: “After all this time, I still feel the burning need to communicate. It’s there when I wake every morning. It walks alongside of me throughout the day … Over the past 50 years, it has never ceased. Is it loneliness, hunger, ego, ambition, desire, a need to be felt and heard, recognized, all of the above? All I know, it is one of the most consistent impulses of my life.”

Turns out that if we follow Bruce, we may learn the secret might be those around us:

Like every successful mature person, Springsteen oozes gratitude—especially for relationships. The film is largely about the camaraderie of the E Street Band, men and women who have been playing together off and on for 45 years and who have honed their skills and developed a shorthand for communicating. We watch them discussing and arguing over how to put each song together, then savor the end result.

Here's the youngest-sounding, most cranking Bruce song in decades. Superslice of superslices!

Sad but Brilliant du Jour.

Williamsburg R.I.P. (Almost)

One day the official obituary of the great bar scene in my old Williamsburg (1998-2012) will be written; in the meantime, this is a bit of a morsel to dig into:

“Young men and women who were just recently out of college moved to Williamsburg because it was cheap and had relatively easy access to midtown New York City,” recalls Tony Wolf, an actor and artist who came to the area in 1996. Back then it was mostly a neighborhood composed of older Eastern Europeans, many Polish, although twenty-something artists and entrepreneurial types had begun to cram into the cheap (and often illegal) lofts lacking public utilities. They would need places to drink aside from the traditional Polish joints like Stones Tavern and old-man dives like the Turkey’s Nest.

Oh fuck you, Turkeys Nest h8rz!

If the word “hipster” has become meaningless these days, you have to also remember, for most of the 20th century, what the word “Brooklyn” conjured up: images of street toughs and the hard-knock life, hot dogs and pizza joints, rappers and B-boys and beefy Italian guys saying “fuhgeddaboudit.” Suddenly, however, there were these hipsters: skinny, unkempt, liberal arts-educated kids in tight jeans inhabiting the north part of the borough. Even more amusing, these non-natives had begun cosplaying as a sort of working-class middle-American, wearing trucker hats, playing Big Buck Hunter at bars, drinking cans of PBR. It was ironic, until it wasn’t. They’d bring these same sensibilities and aesthetics to the bars that began to form around McCarren Park and beyond.

Every time I read about another bar I used to love has gone under I'm sad - even sadder, all the great places I spent countless nights are now slowly leaving my memory, to the point that I can maybe remember the name but can't picture them. Fucking sad. Where were the ubiquitous camera phones back then to capture it all? :(

One day I'll taste that warm foam again, I swear.

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Smith Johnson Corey Nelson Jacob Smithers Ronny

As a wanna-be Anglophile who loves old-school cooking shows from 20+ years ago of course one of my favorites of Two Fat Ladies, and was thrilled like everybody else upon finding out what an absurdly interesting life the smaller of the two, Clarissa Wright had led: a former barrister, youngest woman ever to argue in court, alcoholic, busted having sex with an MP, became homeless and lived in the streets, etc etc. Having survived all that to become part of a beloved national cooking show, no wonder she felt indestructible and insisted on adding a keg of butter to everything.

Now she gets even more interesting: according to her Wikipedia page, her full name is Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright.

That's right, in case you missed it I said her full name is Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright.

Now, this may be a case of some Wikipedia editing fun, a la Willie Mays being William Howard Taft's son, but either way, even in death this woman is STILL making us wonder if she is in fact the most interesting woman in the world? 

"That's right asshole, walk away...leave the butter..."

It's Not Going to Get Better

People who've spent all year clamoring for 2020 to finally be over are in for a rude awakening when they're welcomed at 12:01am on January 1 to The Office having disappeared from Netflix. 😬

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 17, Part 3: Hop-Frog

Thoughts: Even Poe's best stories rarely - if ever - leave you with a taste of joy, which makes Hop-Frog unique in his canon. Unlike The Cask of Amontillado, this tale of revenge is a pure delight in that not only do you know why the revenge is taken, but you find yourself openly rooting for the hero to enact it on the "bad guys". Even as you you know what's coming you allow yourself to thrill in it, openly thinking "hell yeah!" when the closest thing Poe ever comes to to a "mic drop" moment occurs. As with The Cask of Amontillado we assume the guilty party is never punished for his deed; unlike that tale, Hop-Frog is the closest story so far to a classic fairy tale: white knight saves young princess and they're off to live happily ever after. Here's to that whack dwarf Hop-Frog, dammit!

Memorable Line: "As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester -- and this is my last jest."

Score from 1-10: 9

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 17, Part 2: The Cask of Amontillado

Thoughts: I remember reading this high school and learning it was perhaps the greatest example in all of literature of a crime - or deserved retribution, in the narrator's eyes - in which the victim has no idea they are being punished or why, as opposed to, say, The Scarlet Letter, for which the entire purpose was to make sure the victim knew they'd done wrong and were being punished for all to see. Despite the story's succinctness, Poe does a great job of taking the time, over and over again, to play the "oh please, let me take you back" line with Fortunato, both building up a little suspense while cleverly seeming to assuage himself of any guilty intention of wrongdoing, until it's of course too late. On a side note, this is a rare Poe story (so far) with almost an entire page's worth of dialogue, which was interesting got see (albeit not to read, as most of it was a drunken Fortunato repeating himself.)

Memorable Line: "A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong."

Score from 1-10: 8

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 17, Part 1: The Imp of the Perverse

Thoughts: Strangely arranged in that is seems to start out sort of as a lecture before the final part being the "story". Also somewhat reminiscent of my super-slice Crime and Punishment in wondering if one can get away with the crime of murder. Poe uses a bad economy of words here, as the whole thing could've been brought in under a page; however, as slight as it feels upon a first reading it does stick to the ribs a little bit, both in the question of what one can get away with and the duality of bad and good within all of us. Also definitely breaks whatever the world record is for using the word "phrenology" in a story.

Memorable Line: "No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the entire radicalness of the propensity in question.

Score from 1-10: 7. Not one of his best "horror/suspense" stories but as I said sticks with you a little bit.

Things to Be Grateful for Even in 2020

This is from 1964, and both of these comedy giants are still alive.

Sigh. Only in My Dreams, I'm Quite Sure.

 

Your Garfield du Jour

 

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 16: The Black Cat

Thoughts: A disappointing re-tread of The Tell-Tale Heart: guy kills someone, cleverly hides the body, only to have it revealed after a way-too-smug meeting with the cops. Though I give props for the cat being buried as well and the one to fuck it up for the narrator. Also, particularly in the beginning, the tone and rhythm of this story is by far the most laid-back of the Poe works I've read so far. Maybe because the narrator is an unreliable one, a bit bull-shitty from the start?

Memorable Line: "But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul." ALSO NOMINATED: I have never seen or heard anybody refer to the prospect of spousal abuse thusly: "I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife; at length, I even offered her personal violence." Wow! "say, baby, would you like some violence? I have a roundhouse kick to the head going for free right now, how 'bout it?"

Score from 1-10: 5

"I'm goin' all in, 'cause I don't care"

Bruce’s latest single, Ghost, is overly long, plodding, kinda corny, filled with awkward phrasing and exactly what I, for one, needed right now. 👻🤗  - XMASTIME

Ever since Bruce’s amazing - albeit a few tracks too long - The Rising, I can’t say I’ve really dug into his ensuing albums, which by his standards have been tumbling out like things from an overstuffed closet. There’s been a few songs here and there, such as the magnificent Girls in Summer Clothes from 2005’s Magic, but in general the albums have come and gone for me without much notice.

But there’s something different about Letter to You. Maybe it’s because of how strange the year had been for all of us. Maybe it’s that he did it live with the E Street Band in only 5 days, both scenarios of which fans have been clamoring for longer than they can even remember. Maybe it’s the dark tone of a sense that the time we have with Bruce, and the time he has with us, is running out. Or maybe it’s the light tone of being happy we’re all here, together, even if only for now. It hardly seems like an accident that the first song is called One Minute You're Here and the last one is I'll See You In My Dreams. Maybe it’ll be an album we all keep reaching back to year after year like Born to Run, or maybe it’s one we’ll immediately forget once things go back to normal. But it’s the album we, or at least I, needed right now.

Thanks, Bruce.

#OTD2014

 

Ah-WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

The new season of The Conners is back on Hulu, and one more reason to love the show is realizing that apparently Darlene's boyfriend (Stan from Mad Men!) is the second son of the father from Teen Wolf.

Debate Tweet of the Night

 

"Couldn't Miss This One This Year"

Yesterday I broke the seal on Christmas music for the season (fuck all you h8rz) and it occurred to me, is Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses - which has without a doubt become a part of the Christmas canon - overlooked as a rap song? I'd never thought of it as a pure "rap" until yesterday. It didn't make this list, or any other list I found. According to deep research, i.e. Wikipedia:

Written while hip hop music was beginning to gain prominence, the song is "almost rapped" by vocalist Patty Donahue. Its title is a pun on "rapping", and was a spoof on the name of the 1979 song "Christmas Rappin'" by Kurtis Blow. Beyond that, the title is a play on the lyrics themselves: Butler explained in an interview that he "liked the idea of the word 'wrap,' like a wraparound, because the story is circular."

I hereby submit that Christmas Wrapping is 1) a great Christmas song 2) a great rap song 3) a great EARLY rap song, and should get the respect it deserves as being more than some dippy Christmas song we hear every year for a few weeks in December. Or, if you're with me, October through December.

Your Daily Poe (Or Edgar Allan If You're Nasty)

As it's officially October (BOO!), I will on every day be reading one short story written by the Master of the Macabre himself, and briefly commenting on it. Enjoy!

Day 15: The Tell-Tale Heart

Thoughts: Certainly the best story so far, and the one that could be used as a textbook whenever teaching how to write Poe's desperate, pounding, paranoid rhythm. Story would've still been great had it ended with the sound of the heart driving him crazy even while alone; adding in the cops, smiling away obliviously brilliantly, only added the wonderful cherry on top. I suppose there's a reason this is one of his most famous stories and one of those taught in schools around the country - I for one remember seeing a production of it in 9th grade during a field trip to Richmond in Mrs. Moore's English class. This is pure excellence, and a joy to read and re-read.

Memorable Line: Tough to top one of the all-time great openers: "TRUE! -- nervous -- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses -- not destroyed -- not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily -- how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

Score from 1-10: 10