You know, I never really followed the logic of this plot. If Kramer's complaint was that boxers didn't provide enough support (hear, hear!), how is going commando any better?

Straight man?
"Foley was The Kids In The Hall's resident straight man."

One note about American Gothic and strange character shifts: the show was aired out of order. And then for some perverse reason, the DVD makers put the episodes on the disc according to airdate instead of in the intended order that preserves the plot arc. So you have to go online and look up the correct episode order…

I thought Noel was going to actually make a stronger statement than he did — that there are great and fertile eras of artistic production, and then there are mediocre ones. Take Elizabethan drama. Many of the best-loved masterpieces of English literature come from that creative context. Then Restoration drama comes…

But on the other hand, do people really need critics to steer them to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga? "You know that song you've been hearing everywhere for the last month? It's really catchy and nicely executed. You should listen to it! (Not that you can avoid it without making a special effort.)"

Agreed. There's a difference between staying engaged with culture, and staying engaged with the youth culture — if there's a problem, it's that in America (if not everywhere) the youth culture, for economic reasons, dominates the mainstream. I'm 33, like Hyden, and I feel like I'm discovering more new music now than…

I love the music from Betrayal at Krondor. I actually ripped it from the game CD (the audio was stored as regular CD audio tracks) and have it in iTunes. There are some very nice little moody cues — pity most of them are only about a minute long.

I'm a bit bemused by how frequently people here like to heap scorn on "the Boomers" as though that's one monolithic group, who apparently all were or idolized hippies, and then became yuppies (proving that they're hypocrites), etc., etc. And yet I suspect that many of these same Boomer-bashers would probably get…

Related to the merits of long-term reporting: I'm kind of fascinated by how many New Media / tech journalists seem to fixate on immediacy as the great advantage of the "social media"-type journalism. That's one of the main reasons (alongside "online journalism is free") that's trumpeted whenever they're playing taps…

I don't know what the 19th century Protestant idea of purgatory was (I thought most Protestants weren't really on board with the whole purgatory concept), but I haven't seen texts from the Middle Ages (when the idea really took shape) that suggest the "second chance at conversion" system you're describing. The…

I do think MST3k holds up, but I think the clock is counting down, unfortunately. I'm doubtful that any kids born after 1998 would get a substantial proportion of the jokes. I've been watching the episodes on Netflix, and it's kind of amazing how many of them rely on knowing a commercial from the 80s or 90s.

Well, a "deconstruction" should show more than just self-awareness of conventions, it should challenge or turn attention to the underlying (usually unquestioned) values that those conventions represent. So HP could be said to deconstruct the innocent heartland hero in the terms that Nathan describes.

Well, actually, Buzz's invention is the bendy straw. The Frisbee is Norville's follow-up product after his redemption. [/well actually]

But the movie has this supernatural hand of fate looming over it from the beginning. The coffee-ringed newspaper ad that the wind magically carries to Norville right at the right moment, the kid on the street's providential "discovery" of the hula hoop — these aren't as explicit as a stopping time with a broomstick,…

"Having been a dental supply salesman for four years and a merchant marine for four and a half months, I think it's safe to say I know a little bit about the music industry…"

Ring around the saucer
I'm surprised that no where so far in the comments or in the article have we mentioned the discovery of the saucer scene (a main feature of TTFAW and paid homage to in The Thing), where the men form the ring around the buried saucer to show its shape. It's one of the more iconic images from 50s…

I would just respond to Todd's stray observation, that The Wire is full of types. McNulty is a type. Rawls is a type. Freamon is a type. Omar, as iconic as he is, is basically a type. We also have the sleazy lawyer, the corrupt and pandering politician, D's domineering and vicarious-power-hungry mother, etc. etc.

Thanks for the recommendation. Looks like a very neat site, and I'm definitely subscribing to their podcast.

Oh, and to complete that thought:

Close: I'm a fiction writer in academia (working on a Ph.D. now).