Category: Media

This is a container category for media reviews and related drivel.

Besides the B-Sides

Sitting here at work, my random playlist is churning out favorite after favorite to keep my musically steady through the day, and I found myself realizing that my favorite songs from each of the last two Phil-Collins-fronted Genesis albums are not, in fact, on those albums.

Let me explain. No, there is too much; let me sum up.

The Invisible Touch album is a fun piece of work, with some of my all-time favorite songs, let’s be fair. Heck, it was the start of my Genesis fandom. And yet, the song I love most is “Feeding The Fire,” which was a B-side on the “Land of Confusion” single.

Note that by the time the next Collins-led album arrived, vinyl singles had mostly gone the way of the Dodo(/Lurker).

While I’m at it, I think “Do The Neurotic” is a better instrumental than “The Brazilian,” though it’s a close thing and I’m happy listening to either one.

Many years later, the We Can’t Dance album arrived. When the single for “I Can’t Dance” hit the stores (oh, how some Genesis fans hate that song) it came with a wonderful gem of a companion track: “On The Shoreline.” I’m certain that I’ve listened to that one track more than any song on the actual album, probably more than all of them combined.

Is it the allure of the bonus hidden special gem? The curiosity over what didn’t make the cut? Who knows? It probably doesn’t matter. I know what I like.

(“And I like what I know…”)

21 August, 2015
The Church of the Flaming Dove

See? There it is. Their logo (icon, symbol, whatever) is a dove going down in flames. What in the world…?

6 August, 2015
It’s been a long month. Here, have some memes.

The move into the new apartment is (largely) over with (for me, not yet for Kyla) but I’m too worn out to go into great detail about much of anything. So, instead, please enjoy a couple of recent meme-type imagery I cranked out over the last month or so.

Wasn’t that fun? Thank you, and do come again.

23 April, 2015
The Great Way trilogy – by Harry Connolly

Chalk this one up to word-of-mouth (well, social-media mostly-Twitter) marketing, but I purchased an entire trilogy from this fellow Harry Connolly, someone I’d not heard of before, over the past couple weeks. I saw the series billed as “fantasy adventure without the dull bits” and “non-grimdark” and at that point I perked right up because, lemme tell ya, I’m more than done with the grimdark in current fantasy novels nowadays.

(Joe Abercrombie’s first trilogy was “hurled with great force,” in the Dorothy Parker parlance.)

So. “The Way Into Chaos,” “The Way Into Magic,” and “The Way Into Darkness” make up a single, self-contained, it-begins-and-it-ends story. No plot hooks dangle for interminable sequels, what you read is what you get. It’s not that Mr. Connolly couldn’t write more in this world, but there’s no sense of urgency to have this happen. And I’m okay with that. It’s nice to get a complete story with no dangly bits hanging on at the end. (more…)

15 March, 2015
I Quack To Believe

This is what happens when I have a few minutes at work, access to FireWorks, and someone posts an action shot of a rubber duck on Tumblr.

26 February, 2015
House of Clubs

You have a weekend to burn, and you’re planning a viewing marathon of a TV show on Netflix. If that’s your thing, who am I to judge? Perhaps I can help you make a decision, however, on what show to watch.

The first season of Netflix’s version of the show, “House of Cards,” totals 13 episodes at just under an hour per episode, give or take. The only existing season of the anime, “Ouran High School Host Club,” totals 26 episodes at about twenty three minutes per episode, if you don’t skip the theme songs and previews. The run lengths balance out, more-or-less, for each show’s initial season outing.

“But Karel,” I hear you asking, “what is it about either of these shows which would make me choose one over the other?” Well, let’s put it this way:

One show centers on a group of rich and powerful people who use their money and influence to shape the world according to their whims, leverage the media to fashion narratives of their choosing, trample the fourth wall, shamelessly exploit taboo behaviors, and engage in complex schemes which would never actually come to fruition in the real world.

The other show, of course, stars Kevin Spacey.

23 February, 2015