The "red" and "blue" collections were my introduction to the Beatles, and I say they are really the best gateway.  Not only does it sift through their catalog for the essentials, allowing you to get familiar with them and go exploring their albums later, but it also puts some of their ubiquitous hits in context and…

But you must try…try and try…try and try.

I think it should be disqualified (as should a dismaying number of the authors' responses) because it's a greatest hits collection, not a proper album.

My understanding was that "Within You Without You" was added at the last minute, to placate George, who otherwise wouldn't have had a song on the album.  Originally, they had wanted to put "Strawberry Fields" and "Penny Lane" on the album.  For years I wanted to make my own dub-tape (or, these days, burned CD) that…

The Old North Church is the only building in Boston I can name.  I know there's something called Thanuel (sp?) Hall, too, but I don't know what it is.

I think I can remember it well enough without looking at it again.  Yeesh.  I'm not too squeamish, but broken or blown-off limbs really bother me that way.  I couldn't be an orthopedist.

Most Sun-Belt cities have this problem, since they threw up (in both senses) most of their tall buildings at an unfortunate time in architectural history, when glass-and-steel anonymity has been in vogue. And that's the good side of all this; there was a very unfortunate period in the 1960s through the 1980s when huge…

Yeah, it's sort of like gallows humor, right?  You can't undo the horrible thing that happened, but you can try to take some of the wind out of the pain's sails by making a joke about it.  Not everyone has the distance or passage of time or even personality to respond well to that, but some of us turn to humor real…

He was pretty keyed up (for him) about the loss of the gun-background-check vote in the Senate, too.  To say that some nerves have been frayed this week is an understatement.

Don't stop believing —

Really?  That's actually a hell of a deal in America, especially considering that one guy's blow-off leg that I can't unsee.

As an urban planner, I have to ask what the hell makes that skyline picture distinctive at all?  I don't want to insult Boston, and certainly don't want to kick 'em while they're down, but really, isn't there a landmark they could concentrate on that is distinctive and instantly recognizable; one that is unique, or at…

"Hey, has anyone seen Sully?"
"This is some wicked pah-ty."

@avclub-4caf6aa0375b2499ebfe7e971b36eee3:disqus  just Catgunned you, son!

Well, American Apparel advertises that they make all their goods in the US, so there's the assumption that sweat-shop labor isn't involved in making them (I'm not keeping an entirely straight face while typing that).

While I'm opposed to drinking a mixture that is half-stout and half-lager merely on the aesthetic grounds that I don't like the combination, and consider it a waste of good beer*, I'm not necessarily opposed to people drinking it, if they like it.  I am opposed, however, to young Irish-Americans who order a…

Double-Yikes!

Yikes!

"but not talking about it just makes it worse."  Absolutely.  I'd like it if everyone could enter an honest conversation about race with two assumptions: no one has to be really eloquent about these issues we are not well-trained in talking about in honest, direct language (resorting as we do to lots of euphemisms,…

Thanks for the link, @avclub-f1cabca05a9a64dd5900cf947a6792ca:disqus .