This guy is aware that actual white power bands exist, right? I know that university was a traumatic time for everyone, what with those accursed Alpha Comma Greekletter brethren kegstanding on top of the Engineering building every year with Paulie the Fightin' Goat looking on, but perhaps people shouldn't lose sight…

The dude had a chance, on this feature, to impress everybody with sparkling wit or penetrating insight or full-on hilarity. It appears that, uh, he did not do that for most people.

Your way of looking at it is better than the usual hidebound genre method (that, in my opinion, is what has driven the concept of "rock" underground and/or into wider cultural irrelevance). When you listen to early PE, it is, in fact, way harder grab-you-and-thrill-you music than many boring bands who keep their rock…

As for the Beatles, don't forget "Got to get you into my life", which has one of the happiest horn sections I've ever heard.

Rocket From The Crypt - On A Rope

Depends on who you ask. Saxes are woodwinds, but they're paired with trumpets and trombones so often in popular music that they're basically members of the brass section when seen outside of the orchestra.

I mentioned this in a longer comment elsewhere on the page, but based on the time (on the aforementioned tour in 2014) that Peter Beagle signed my books and told me about some incredibly obscure trivia with a date that turned out to be accurate, I have a hard time believing his manager's lawyer when he claims that his…

I saw the Last Unicorn roadshow in 2014. After the show, Mr. Beagle signed three of my books, one of which was We Never Talk About My Brother. Now, the first story in that one is an excellent tale called "Uncle Chaim, Aunt Rifke, and the Angel" that mentions, among other things, dybbuks. When he signed it, he…

Possible moral: clothing is temporary? It's the most ephemeral part of the most ephemeral part of a person's appeal.

I imagine that idea was in the air when they made that Beauty and the Beast series back then. There is a sense in which cities can become very strange and forbidding when they're not familiar (or well-lit). 70s-movie-New-York always fascinated me as a younger person due to how full-on hostile it seemed.

I remember that one! Continuing in the metaphorical vein, that could be a bit like how early Christian missionaries adapted their pitch to local cultural symbols, like linking Easter with fertility rituals and making a cross that looked somewhat like Mjolnir.

What sort of choice does someone have on the other end of the deal? Continuing in the baking vein, suppose that I'm a man trying to get a cake to celebrate my wedding to my husband. If the bakery refuses to work with me, then I'm the one who has been shut out of participating in commerce. It would be against my…

I'm picturing them wearing those short-sleeved stage outfits in this scenario.

Liberalism does, in general, involve a belief in the importance of personal liberty, equality before law, and freedom of expression. It's not synonymous with "the left", however you characterize something that fractious.

It has a cult? I didn't even know that. Honestly, I think that I enjoyed it because I basically don't have much taste, but it kept me entertained throughout its length and therefore served its purpose for me. It's definitely no Deathstalker II, but what is?

You're entirely right. The forest is a tamed and relaxing symbol these days. I'd walk through a forest for pleasure. I don't know what it's like to be a medieval German, caught in the Black Forest in the dead of night without the slightest light to guide me home, praying for a deliverance from a god who feels much…

There's still time!

I've intended to watch it. With that recommendation, it's shot up my list.

Without discussion or reflection? What? The internet literally never stops doing that these days. Things are criticized, the criticisms are criticized, those criticisms are criticized. In all of this, I can't remember actual government censorship happening recently. Do you have an example?

Anything can be seen as a positive by somebody. It seems clear that being uncompromising is not a universal selling point.