June 16, 2014• Current Events, PopSmarts
It’s been a little more than a week since Slate published a piece that — across your Old Professor’s little corner of the Internet,...
May 29, 2014• Popdose, PopSmarts
Critical objectivity can be difficult to sustain. As members of the family, we have an implicit contract with our readers to consider each...
May 3, 2014• Current Events, PopSmarts
There’s a feeling you get. You know the one. You’re listening. It’s a song you’ve heard before, maybe many times. Heard it, but...
April 18, 2014• Current Events, PopSmarts
The second season of Vikings, last year’s basic-cable breakout hit, is coming into its homestretch, and the intrigues are piling up....
April 3, 2014• Current Events, PopSmarts
There’s a new top dog on the Young Adult block. The film adaptation of Veronica Roth’s bestselling YA novel Divergent opened a couple...
January 15, 2014• Current Events, Film, PopSmarts
The art of film involves many collaborators, the most important of whom — as I’ve written before — is the audience. We are more than...
December 23, 2013• Current Events, Popdose, PopSmarts
It’s a holiday tradition; the low murmur of the stereo in the corner of the kitchen, filling the house with the sounds of Yuletide...
December 5, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
Thanks to the fortunes of History and the inevitable bending of the Universe’s moral arc towards justice, our children, gay and straight,...
November 21, 2013• PopSmarts
I talk about a lot of different iterations of pop culture in these columns — film, literature, music, comics — but even the casual...
November 8, 2013• Current Events, Popdose, PopSmarts
We’re well into Movember now, the month-long event wherein thousands of men worldwide grow mustaches to raise awareness of men’s health...
October 24, 2013• Current Events, Popdose, PopSmarts
We who take it as a vocation to criticize the efforts of others must take great care to keep our own behavior above reproach. It is...
August 8, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
So this week the geek world (Doctor Who division) is abuzz over the announcement that cussy Caledonian Peter Capaldi has been cast as the...
July 25, 2013• Current Events, Popdose, PopSmarts
It’s high summer, and we’re in the midst of wedding season. And if you’re going to a wedding this summer, then there’s a chance...
July 1, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
I’ve been catching up on the Entertainment Geekly podcast this week (which is my own damned problem, I suppose), and I was struck by an...
June 6, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
Like a lot of people, I have trouble taking Sting seriously — as seriously as he takes himself, anyway. But I must admit that I greeted...
May 23, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
One of the most anticipated television events of the summer is Under the Dome, a 13-week summer series adapted from the Stephen King novel...
May 9, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
Last week saw the anniversary of one of the most horrific events in American history, the shootings of four unarmed college students by...
April 25, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
It’s not a revelation to anyone, anymore, to point out that Hollywood is no longer in the business of original ideas. It takes a great...
April 11, 2013• Current Events, Popdose, PopSmarts
The works of William S. Burroughs are often lumped in with the Beat school; but although he was friendly with leading figures in the...
March 28, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
And so we come, by the turning of the year, to the end of Shrovetide and the beginning of the Christian liturgical calendar. When I was a...
March 14, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
It’s coming on St. Patrick’s Day now. That’s when all the amateur Irishmen come out for a night on the piss and an annual flirtation...
February 28, 2013• Current Events, PopSmarts
I’ve always been a know-it-all. I was the kid who actually did read the encyclopedia for fun, and I carried my reputation as a fount of...
