Shooflypie

I'm not a good binger. Oh, I can binge a book, knocking down hundreds of pages in a day, but when it comes to TV...I can't do it. I love TV, always have, but I like to have some space between episodes of shows. Occasionally, I'll go two or three episodes of something in a row, but that's very very rare. Instead, I'm always on the slow binge, watching an episode a day or every other day or longer. Here are a few shows on I'm currently slow binging... Game of Thrones - When we cut our cable a couple years ago, one consequence was not being able to keep up with this show as it aired. We'd watched the first 4 seasons, but missed the last 2. However, our current package gives us HBO and that fact, combined with The Ringer coming out with a new podcast called Binge Mode focusing on GoT , has lead me to go back and watch the show again from the beginning before getting to the stuff I haven't seen. I've really enjoyed going back to the start; I had forgot...

I talked about how I've gotten very behind on my pop culture consumption in the end of year posts I managed to get written. One good thing about a new year is that it wipes my slate clean and I can start counting books and comics and so forth anew. Last year I managed to read only 46 books and 248 comics. I know it sounds absurd to lament that fact, but both totals are way down from 2015. However, I'm currently on pace to read 73 books and 502 comics this year. I'm well aware that won't happen, but it's fun to look at my pace for the year this early on and dream. Anyway, one reason I ran out of steam on my year-end posts was having to come up with new content about most items. To combat that fact, I want to write more about what I'm consuming when I'm doing it. So, here's the first brick in this year's wall (I hope it's not just a pile of bricks)... Last Year by Robert Charles Wilson - Even though I got a half dozen new books at Christmas, I ...

My TV list comes with two caveats. One is that I haven't had as much time to devote to watching TV this year, thanks to my TTT courses (and is a main cause my being always behind on pop culture). The second is that this is the second year in a row that we didn't have cable, which means I'm watching mainly on Hulu, Netflix, and the CW app. So, I didn't see Game of Thrones , Atlanta , or many of the other highly-acclaimed shows from the year. That's okay, they are still there. Likewise, my list includes some TV that aired in 2015, but that I just got around to this summer or fall. That's fine too. Only TV critics are up on everything and even they can't really be up on everything. So, here's what I enjoyed this year... 1. DC TV (The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow) - No surprise here, right? The Flash is still my favorite super-hero and while the second season of the show wasn't as strong as the first, it was still good. The current th...

I'd started doing my traditional blog posts on the various pop culture things I loved...but my heart wasn't in it. Still, I want to share what I really enjoyed reading, watching, and listening to this year...so why not just do one big post? I'm not going to comment on anything but would be happy to share why I loved anything on the list with you if you ask. I hope you all found lots to love in 2015 and I'm sure we'll find more to love in 2016. MUSIC Courtney Barnett/Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit Sleater-Kinney/No Cities To Love Destroyer/Poison Season Dawes/All Your Favorite Bands Alabama Shakes/Sound and Color Jason Isbell/Something More Than Free Veruca Salt/Ghost Notes Telekinesis/Ad Infinitum Mac McCaughan/Non-Believers Foals/What Went Down El Vy/Return To The Moon Twerps/Range Anxiety Wilco/Star Wars Drive-By Truckers/It's Great To Be Alive! TV The Flash iZombie Adventure Time - I'm through Season 3 Brooklyn N...

I typically let shuffle mode run all Sunday long but I don't know how many more songs I'll hear today. There are 2 playoff games to watch. I also want to continue watching Parks & Recreation ; on Dec. 1, I decided to rewatch the series on Netflix so I would be ready for the final season. Well, the new season starts Tuesday and I only hit the halfway point last night. Yes, I know I won't watch 55 more episodes in 2 days but I do want to keep watching because the show is great (save for the 6 episode first season). Anyway, long story short, I should get to today's ten... 1. Backstabbin'/Sloan (17) - last played on 11/28/14 2. Pretty Girl from Feltre/The Avett Brothers (4) - last played on 6/28/12 3. My Favorite Year/Destroyer (10) - last played on 8/16/14 4. Cato As A Pun/Of Montreal (6) - last played on 10/5/14 5. Maybe After He's Gone/The Zombies (13) - last played on 11/4/14 6. Scarlet Town/Bob Dylan (5) - last played on 5/16/13 7. I Fought P...

I might have watched fewer TV shows this year than ever before. I certainly lost the thread on many that I was watching. It wasn't for lack of interest necessarily...I just made a choice to watch sports or read or do something else instead. Still, there are some shows that I thought were great... 1. Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Michael Schur took everything he learned from launching Parks & Recreation (I'm rewatching the show now and those first 6 episodes were not great) and applied it to getting this show out of the gate. The show came out swinging in the second half of the first season with "Pontiac Bandit"as its first episode of 2014 (a great episode that just had a sequel) and continued to throw comedy haymakers all year long as the second season got underway. This is a top-notch cast (Andre Braugher as the straight-laced Captain Holt is the best) performing material that is truly funny. The jokes aren't just jokes either (though there are plenty) - much of t...

Every month brings new pop culture goodies to enjoy. Here is what I'm most looking forward to this month... The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman (8/5) - This is the final book in Grossman's Magicians trilogy. I liked The Magicians and loved The Magician King the first time around...that's right, I've decided to reread this series in anticipation of the new volume. I don't reread very often; in fact, the last time I reread a series like this was right before the final Harry Potter book was published 7 years ago. I'm finding my reading of the first book has changed my perception of it but that's probably a different post. Spoon/They Want My Soul (8/5) - Spoon is one of my favorite bands, so it's not a surprise I'm excited to listen to this album (you can stream it on iTunes right now but that's not my favorite option). I've liked the 3 songs that have surfaced so far - the classic stomp of "Rent I Pay," the sunny pop of ...

It's been quite a while since I posted something that was a Sunday Shuffle, Heavy Rotation, or Monthly Mix, which means it's well past time to get caught up with my pop culture intake... BAKER'S DOZEN Yes, I've read 13 books since last time I wrote about books. I'll try to keep my comments short... A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin - I took just over three weeks to read this, though I did read a couple others during that time as well. The first half of the book does great character work and the second half is full of big event after big event and made me leave any other reading aside. It's my favorite book of the series so far and the first half or so is being adapted into the current season of Game of Thrones , which I also recommend. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell - On the surface, I should have liked this a lot. It's a romance set in the 80s and the titular characters are into the things I was into - I was the same age during that ...

It's been about a month-and-a-half since I posted about something other than music, so I figured I was past due for another Mega-Post. I've decided to make it even more mega by including today's Sunday Shuffle, which didn't happen this morning due to that lost hour of time. Crazy, right? Sunday Shuffle #318 1. Bucket Brigade/Michael Penn (7) - last played on 12/8/12 2. Love Is Luck/The Walkmen (18) - last played on 2/5/13 3. Beer Commerical (Live)/Sugar (1) - debut 4. Explode And Make Up/Sugar (2) - last played on 12/30/12 5. It Looks Like Love/Josh Rouse (3) - last played on 10/24/10 6. Fluffy Lucy/Cracker (4) - last played on 6/28/11 7. Forced To Love/Broken Social Scene (5) - last played on 12/23/10 8. Beechwood Park/The Zombies (18) - last played on 10/31/12 9. I am Morris Townsend (No-Fi Transmission)/The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (7) - last played on 7/8/12 10. First Few Desperate Hours/The Mountain Goats (6) - last played on 12/2/12...

DECEMBER WORLDS The second book I read this year was In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood, a collection of essays about SF and more. I've never read any of Atwood's famous novels; I always intended to but after reading this collection, I think I need to try and get to one this year. In these essays she makes the case for a breadth of reading - highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow - and the joys that can be found in all sorts of books. Sure, it may be preaching to the choir in my case but she makes some lovely points. Even more, she made me interested in some of the books she repeatedly mentioned, such as H. Rider Haggard's She (I read this book for Bookrageous's book club and they were intrigued by She too, so much so that it's their next book club pick). A smart collection by a smart writer that I will become better acquainted with. The fourth book I read (we'll get to #3 in a moment) was the new story collection by George Saunders, Tenth of December . I'v...

Last night I finished reading Bruce , a new biography of Bruce Springsteen by Peter Ames Carlin. I've been a fan of Bruce ever since the Born in the U.S.A. singles started hitting the radio in 1984; I finally got it on cassette in 1985 (maybe for my 14th birthday) and listened to it over and over again while working in the garden or doing whatever other chores my father had for me that summer. When I got the Live/1975-85 box set for Christmas 1986, I heard his older songs and fell even further in love. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that this book is for me (my brother, who knows me quite well, gave it to me for Christmas). While I did know quite a bit of his history, there was still plenty that I didn't know and Carlin does a good job of keeping the narrative flowing while also giving some analysis on the music. This is not a hagiography of  Springsteen. Rather, it presents him as an extremely talented musician who is just as messed-up and human as the rest of u...

If I wrote some of my year-end lists today, things would be a little different...and I'm sure that will continue to be the case. Not much to do about it, really, except maybe write about it. So... I finally saw Lincoln yesterday. I'd meant to see it when it first came out but it just never quite worked out. Had I seen it before the end of the year, it definitely would have been on my list of the best movies of 2012. I  love how it focused on just a few months of his life- the battle for the 13th Amendment and the brief aftermath. It really is a movie about political machinations - the realities that were present back then and are still present today (unfortunately). The period detail feels real to me, specifically in the lighting and the fact everyone wore coats or blankets because there was no central heating. The movies is full of great performances - I thought Tommy Lee Jones was fantastic as Thaddeus Stevens and James Spader brought charisma and levity with his perform...

Most of the TV I watch is via the DVR or On Demand. I like the convenience of watching on my own schedule and being able to get through an hour-long show in 45 minutes or so is also pretty darn appealing. A side effect of consuming shows this way is that the DVR is often quite full (it's down to about 56% thanks to a week off of school) and, consequently, I tend to miss shows. I tried out Ben and Kate and The Mindy Project this fall but never followed through on recording or timely On Demand watching. I completely missed out on Elementary and Arrow in the fall - complete catching up will have to wait until some indeterminate future time. Still, I did watch plenty this year and found a lot to like... 1. Breaking Bad - Yes, there were only 8 episodes this year (and only 8 more to go) but they were great episodes - daring, inventive, and dark with a hell of a plot twist as the show went on hiatus. The acting, writing, and directing continues to be outstanding. If you haven't ...

My son and I have made the decision to see a late show of Wreck-It Ralph in a little while (it'll be his second time seeing it and my first), so I thought I would kill some time and mention a few things... MINI-POSTS I decided to do a little more with my Tumblr and made some small posts about songs I somehow missed. The nice thing about Tumblr is that I was able to post the songs as well (or links to them, anyway). They popped up on my Facebook timeline and Twitter feed as I posted them but here are links to all five... Nina Simone's "I Put A Spell On You" Grandaddy's "Jed the Humanoid" Hüsker Dü's "Makes No Sense At All" Darkness Falls' "Timeline" Ty Segall's "Thank God for the Sinners" A NEW MILESTONE Today I finished reading One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde, which was the 47th book I've read this year. I started keeping track of how many books I read every year back in 200...

Time for another patented (not really) catch-up post... OLD FAVORITES While I'm always excited when one of my favorite creators puts out something new, I do admit to an undercurrent of trepidation. Why? I wonder what I will think of them if the new isn't as good as the old that I love. Like I said, it's only an undercurrent and I mostly can't wait to digest the new. Here are some recent examples... Crackpot Palace by Jeffrey Ford - This is Ford's fourth story collection and I had only read three of the stories prior to its release (all from anthologies; no stories here were published in F&SF, which is where I first discovered his work), so I was ready to dive in. I was not disappointed. There's love and optimism in the face of a repetitive day in "Polka Dots and Moobeams"; the knotty issue of faith in "Relic"; the classic fantasy gone awry of "The Coral Heart"; the brilliant strangeness of "The Double of My Double Is...

We went to see Looper last night and while I liked it, I'm not quite ready to write about it yet. The good news is that there is a loooong article about the movie by Film Crit Hulk , who is one of my favorite internet presences. He talks not only about the movie but all sorts of issues in the film industry as well as about and to the people who made the movie. It is well worth reading; you can find it here . I made the mistake of not recording the Louie season finale at its regular time the other night so as to have TV flexibility. While that should not have been a problem, the subsequent re-airs were not quite at the times FX promised and the DVR didn't get the whole show. So far, it's not on demand yet either. Regardless, Todd VanDerWerff wrote a smart "For Our Consideration" piece a few days ago about the revolutionary the show is; read it here . Finally, I mentioned in a recent post that I'd started watching Cheers on Netflix a few weeks ago. It tu...

My pop culture consumption has slowed considerably over the past few weeks, what with school in full swing and swimming lessons running once again plus football games (my son is in the marching band this year) and the Popcorn Festival. Obviously, I haven't been talking about what I've managed to consume so I thought I'd do some quick hits here... FOUR SIXTHS I finally bought a copy of the 4th volume of Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run, which is titled "Three" because one of the FF dies within. Now this is a story I've known the outcome of for quite a while but that didn't change how much I enjoyed these issues. Hickman's character work is strong, not just with the FF but others who are pulled into the story, from the arrogance and confident flirting of Namor to the enigmatic Galactus and the fearful but dangerous Doom. The issue where Ben Grimm takes the potion the kids of the Future Foundation created to help him return to human form was...

I know we're already a week into August but I mention a few things I'm looking forward to this month... Crackpot Palace by Jeffrey Ford - Ford is one of my favorite writers and his three previous story collections are all fantastic. I don't think I've read many of the stories collected here and I can't wait to sink my teeth into them. (8/14) One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper - Tropper's last novel, This Is Where I Leave You , was one of my favorite books of the year back in 2010 and I have high hopes for this one as well. Tropper is funny and full of heart. (8/21) Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks - This novel is from the point of view of a child's imaginary friend and that concept is enough to make me want to read it. (8/21) It Girl & The Atomics by Jamie S. Rich and Mike Norton - I was a big fan of Mike Allred's Madman Comics back in the 90s but I lost the thread with the series and its subsequent incarnations...

A few weeks back I talked about some summer projects that I would like to do on the blog. You may have noticed that there have been no Fringe Fridays posts, no talk about Unwritten Month, and no entries for Film School. That's because I haven't watched an episode of Fringe , have only read 3 issues of The Unwritten in 8 days, and have not watched a movie. Why? Game of Thrones and Catching Fire , the 2nd book of The Hunger Games trilogy. I watched Game of Thrones as it aired last year and thought they did a great job adapting the book, which I read right before the series started. I told my wife she should watch it but she didn't. When Season 1 came out on Blu-Ray a couple months back, our friend picked up the series and over the last couple weeks we've convinced my wife to watch it. Of course, she loves it. It's been interesting to watch it again and see how much they foreshadowed where the story was going to go. My favorite characters remain the same this seco...

I have a few ideas for consistent content this summer... Fringe Fridays - I started watching Fringe this past season, its 4th, and have since acquired the first 3 seasons. Since the show airs on Fridays, I thought I would post about the episodes I managed to watch in a given week on that day. I hope to have a true introductory post up this coming Friday. Unwritten Month - When I decided this spring that I was going back to consuming my comics in collections, I went back and bought all 5 trades of The Unwritten . I read the contents of the first 4 volumes as they were coming out monthly but the 5th volume is all new to me. As the story is fairly complex, I thought I would read each trade again and write about it. The 5 volumes collect 30 issues, so I thought I would write about an issue a day in June. Could be an interesting experiment. Film School - This list of movies I haven't seen is quite long, longer than one might expect from a pop-culture nerd, but I've al...