Flashbulbs for Generation X
You might think Kurt Cobain was the signature pre 9/11 flashbulb moment for those of my generation (and like a typical Gen-Xer my reluctance to accept that designation is like a membership badge), and maybe for many it was—but I remember the death of River Phoenix carrying much more…

too bad
Most everything I have heard from Nicki Minaj I have been impressed with—and I appreciate the talent she shows on even those tracks I haven't been impressed with—So I'm kind of disappointed that her debut seems to be getting such middling notices. And I downloaded some mixtape that was so fraught with …

Or perhaps the effect of intervening years on your maturity and constitution? I can accept a whole lot of misogyny, homophobia and distaste from the Schoolly D and Too Short of my youth that I can't from anyone coming out today. The game hasn't changed, but the players have, and so have you.

It's obvious but I'd like to see her in a round robin with her antecedents Missy Elliot and, of course, Lil Kim. Production by Timbaland at his trippiest (or do I date myself?)

During our spirit week last year we had one day that was "retro" day during which students were encouraged to dress like the fashion detritus of the 70's and 80's. The female students took this to mean dress like a whore day and the males obliged by wearing pimp suits. We did not repeat that aspect of spirit week this…

"I think your last paragraph seems to be a reflection of Western/Judeo-Christian sensibilities you seem to point out in the paragraphs before it."

Now are we going to have the controversial "Shane's a big Jew" debate? He's wearing a Chai pendant.

"The earliest ones had to do with occult rituals of a small sect of people reanimating a dead person to do their bidding, or entrancing the living for the same ends"

"I think that its inherently primal and universal"

Cue debate about resurrection:

As for getting AIDS splashed on you—remember when there was still a debate about whether you could get AIDS from mosquito bites? I think the splash thing may be in that category of better safe than sorry—Has there been any documented cases? I mean—for all we know, maybe they could have cut around the bit up part of…

The question about the wine dovetails with his debate with himself about blowing his brains out the next day. It will clearly depend on how much wine is left.

Someone who's dismembered a corpse more recently than I have may feel free to correct me, but wouldn't Ed's blood have settled and more or less coagulated by the time she busted up his cranium? Splatter's more of a fresh kill problem, right?

Let's not forget that, even though Atlanta was within sight, they hadn't encountered any walkers until that one they found with the deer. They had been lulled into a state of complacency and even near domesticity—whose stasis must have been very attractive, even intoxicating in the aftermath of everything ending (see…

"Maybe a little too long for characters we've spent so little time with"

France as the last human strong-hold

Why We Watch Zombies in the Latter Days of the Law
I was prompted by a joke on the Simpsons last night about giving Detroit a break because "Them people is living in Mad Max times" to consider the whole apocolypse fetish that seems to be rampant in the culture of the moment and whose best exemplar is the current…

"at some point they have been exposed to these legends (if only as a parody), and they still laugh"

Vis-a-vis aqua zombies (and what a great day it is when I get to use a phrase like that)—I know 'Zombi II' has the whole zombie vs. shark thing, but I just want to suggest that the greatest instance of zombies in the water remains 'Shock Waves' wherein the zombies are not just aquatic, they are also nazis.

TV does not usually do grief well, but that sister really did a good job.