A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

pop culture

  • Two Radioheads

    This is bound to brand me as old and/or lame, but I seem to be one of the few people who loved Radiohead but stopped listening to them at the end of the 90s. I loved The Bends and especially OK Computer and saw them play a terrific show at the Metropol in Pittsburgh around Read more

  • Carrie vs. the hunters

    I figure that any overlap, however tenuous, between heavy metal and animal rights falls under this blog’s purview, so I will link to this story about former American Idol-turned-country superstar Carrie Underwood. Carrie’s latest single is a remake of the immortal Mötley Crüe ballad “Home Sweet Home” and is being used as the soundtrack for Read more

  • The man came around

    Here’s a great retrospective of the final five Johnny Cash albums (well, technically the last one was released posthumously), which were released on Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label. A piece on Cash’s earlier work is promised in weeks to come. (Fair warning: contains bad language.) I remember being in college and listening to “The Wanderer” Read more

  • Johnny Rotten shills for butter

    Exactly what it sounds like (via Jesse Walker). Read more

  • The dark side, indeed

    I had a vague recollection of this from my childhood, but Andrew Sullivan posted a link to this clip the other day and I was reminded how truly, truly awful 1978’s Star Wars Holiday Special (amazingly, featuring the majority of the film’s cast, not to mention the likes of Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and Harvey Read more

  • Blogs of Christmas past

    Since content will likely be light this coming week, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to offer up some representative posts from the previous four Decembers since I started blogging, as a kind of retrospective. (Note: some of these originally appeared on my first blog, “Verbum Ipsum,” but have been imported to WP; Read more

  • Guest post: Sunnydale, 90210

    Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from the Missus on the important parallels between Beverly Hills 90210 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As some of you may know, the Thinking Reed and I have recently entered the Buffyverse. One of the most wonderful things about the Buffyverse is its near seamless overlap with Read more

  • Atheist self-parody watch

    I know it’s an overused trope to say that “fundamentalist” atheists like Richard Dawkins are mirror images of the fundamentalist Christians they despise, but when Dawkins starts crusading against Harry Potter books it’s pretty hard to resist. Read more

  • Calling all Trekkies

    I’m more of a casual Star Trek fan than a hardcore Trekkie (sorry, Trekker), but this Entertainment Weekly article makes J.J. Abram’s (of Lost fame) upcoming reboot of the franchise sound somewhat promising. I thought this in particular was interesting: Abrams says he was also drawn to the project because he believed in — and Read more

  • Dark Knight blogging – post-viewing edition

    I’m happy to say that The Dark Knight met or exceeded most of my expectations and didn’t fall into most of the traps I feared it would. I liked how its version of the character harked back to the noirish 70s Denny O’Neil version, though seen through a gritty, Frank Miller-ish lens. Some (slightly spoilerish) Read more