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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Bob Leman–“Window” (published 1980) [Ghost Box IV] (2025)

Posted in Bob Leman, Hingston & Olsen, Patton Oswalt, The Ghost Box, Time Travel on October 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: October 21, 2025] “Window”

It has been six years since Ghost Box III came out….

After years of demand, the Ghost Box is back! Patton Oswalt’s much-beloved spooky-story anthology returns for a fourth edition, with the same trademark production details—magnetized box lid, anyone?—that Ghost Box fans have come to expect.

As always, working with Patton on Ghost Box IV was a dream, and we can’t wait to show you the nightmares that he’s wrangled and stuffed into the box this time around.

This story is set in the middle of nowhere.  A government facility that has been shut down since World War II was recently reoccupied for research purposes.  The man in charge was experimenting with supernatural concerns.

And then one day his prefab house was gone and in its place was an invisible box–perfectly straight lines in all directions.  And inside of that box was an old house–like a Victorian postcard.  There was a family in the house and the government men could see in, but it was clear the family could not see out.

It had been a few days since this happened and the man in charge–who just came on the scene–is furious that no one said anything sooner.  But the men on the ground had been busy doing experiments and they knew (correctly) that if they went to Washington with this, they would be removed from site.  The men had discovered two important things.  Anything inserted into the clear wall would disappear.  So a stick pushed half way into the box would come back with that half missing.  And two, every fifteen hours or so, the window let its barrier down and things could go through it.  They had been practicing with ice cubes.  Most cubes simply disappeared, but every once in a while, a few would get through and plop on the lawn.

The next time that the opening happens, one of the men spontaneously jumps through and the family clearly sees him.

That’s when the trouble starts.

The story was a little slow at first but it really ramped up at the end.

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Kevin McDonald: Superstar (with Dave Hill opening) (PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA, August 27, 2025)

Posted in Dave Hill, John Wlaysewski, Kevin McDonald, Philadelphia, PA, PhilaMOCA, Robin Rothman, Scott Thompson, The Kids in the Hall on August 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 27, 2025] Kevin McDonald: Superstar

I saw Kevin McDonald do a bit of storytelling last year.  In this very venue.

This year he was back again, this time bringing his musical Kevin McDonald: Superstar to the MOCA.

I didn’t really know what to expect.  I had read that it was a musical, but what does that mean?  Well, when the show started, Kevin and guitarist John Wlaysewski came up on stage and play 2 songs that Kevin wrote.  One was all about grass (not that kind of grass, backyard grass).  Then he told a long story about Johnny Rotten and an AIDS test (which he told in a slightly different style last year but which was still very funny).  And then another song “Just Keep Dancing.”

Then Dave Hill came out on stage.  I hadn’t heard of Dave, but he is apparently quite well known (well known enough to play a ripping guitar solo version of the Canadian and American national anthems before a hockey game (easily found om YouTube).  Dave is also a comedian.  He came up on stage and played a hilariously self-deprecating character (who was secretly loving all of the fame).

He told a few stories and then played some songs.  Even though he is a massively talented guitarist, his songs were hilarious.  He played Danzig’s Mother by getting the sound just right on his guitar, singing the word Mother and the first line and then mumbling his way through to the next time he screamed Mother (just like everyone else who has no idea what the words are).  When he took requests, someone (of course) shouted Freebird (gag), and he said, ok you asked for it I’m playing the whole thing.  He played 30 seconds of the intro and said, there you get the picture.  After a very long song/story about being a part of the biggest meat heist ever, he stayed up on staged and introduced the players for the evening.

It was John and Dave on guitars, Joe Moore as the narrator and Robin Rothman as a few characters (she has an amazing voice). (more…)

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“Weird Al” Yankovic: Bigger & Weirder 2025 Tour (TD Pavilion Stage at the Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, July 19, 2025)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, Funny (ha ha), Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Milo Murphy's Law, Paul Simon, Philadelphia, PA on July 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 19, 2025] “Weird Al” Yankovic

This was my tenth time seeing Weird Al.  That’s pretty exciting.

I didn’t know if he’d be doing another tour (he hasn’t put out any new music (aside from soundtrack songs) in over ten years!  But this was a bigger and weirder tour.  In practice, this meant that there were more people on stage than ever before–four other people on stage aside from his long-lasting regular band.

Probyn Gregory – backing vocals, trumpet, trombone, tuba, guitars, percussion ; Scheila Gonzalez – backing vocals, saxophone, clarinet, percussion ;  Payton Velligan – backing vocals, guitars, percussion ; Monique Donnelly – backing vocals, keyboards, percussion.

I asked my whole fam if they wanted to go and all three of them said yes, rather excitedly I might add.  But that was a long time before the show.  And so my daughter wound up working and my son wound up going to a concert in Wisconsin!  I was able to sell my two tickets for basically face value and my wife and I enjoyed the show by ourselves.

I assumed that this show would be a kind of greatest hits show, but it turned out to be chock full of songs I hadn’t seen live before and, some that I had never even heard before!

They opened with Tacky, but there was some kind of technical difficulty, so I’m not sure how much of the song they were going to play.  I would have enjoyed hearing it, but it’s not a big deal.

Then he surprised the heck out of me by opening with Mission Statement, the CSNY inspired song that mocks corporate speak.  It sounded great with the backing singers doing harmonies.  Then came Polkamania!  I knew this medley, but not very well.  I had forgotten that he put it out in 2024 as a single covering the ten years since his last album.  It was really fun seeing Billie Eilish in a Weird Al concert.

After the drum solo, they played Everything You Know is Wrong, a song I simple cannot believe I’d never seen him play live before (I see he never played it before this tour!).  It was amazing. (more…)

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An evening with Dawes (McCarter Theatre, Princeton, NJ, April 13, 2025)

Posted in Dawes, McCarter Theatre, Parenthood, Princeton, NJ on April 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 13, 2025] An evening with Dawes

My wife and I first encountered Dawes in 2013 when they (inexplicably) appeared on Parenthood, a show we watched pretty regularly.  I thought they were a fictional band, but indeed they are not and had two albums out at the time.  I can’t recall at all what their plot line had to do with anything, but Dawes became something of a punchline for us.  The AV Club (who loves Dawes and the episode) jokes that the main character says the word Dawes so much it’s like he wants to be in the band.

And yet, over the years, we heard more and more songs of their that we liked.  It seemed like every new album brought at least one or two songs that we thought were really catchy.  I hadn’t really considered seeing them live until they announced that they were playing at McCarter.  I mean, a show that close to my house?  Sign me up!

So I got us tickets and wondered who the opener would be.  Well, it turned out there was no opener.  So we were given two full sets (20 songs… evidently the typical how on this tour got 17 songs, so I guess it wasn’t a huge difference (except that we got to go home earlier).

This show also happened a few months after the band announced that everyone except the two brothers: Taylor (vocals, guitar) and Griffin Goldsmith (drums) was out of the band.  I had actually wondered if they were going to play just the two of them.  But they didn’t–it was a full band, and they sounded great.

I think we were both a little surprised at what the band looked like, since I clearly never looked at them (since Parenthood).  This tour was for their new album Oh Brother, which I didn’t really know, although I did know and like the song Still Strangers Sometimes–a perfect catchy song from them.  But they started with The Game, a deep cut that I didn’t know but which I thought was quite good.

But I was really psyched when they played Living in the Future, and even though When the Tequila Runs Out is kinda goofy, it was really fun live.  Speaking of fun, this crowd was really really rowdy.  More so than the band, I’d say,  I had no idea that Dawes had such a devoted fan base (one guy was overheard saying he’d seen them a dozen or so times).

And the crowd went nuts for songs that I didn’t know.  I knew a few songs from Good Luck with Whatever, but I didn’t know Me Especially or Didn’t Fix Me.  Nor did I know Right on Time from the album All Your Favorite Bands (which I think we owned).

But that was just a few songs I didn’t know before they played Most People, a ubiquitous song that sounded great live.  They ended the with the mellow A Little Bit of Everything and then finished up the set with  Someone Else’s Café/Doomscroller Tries to Relax from Misadventures of a Doomscroller.  I felt like I knew the song, but it seems like an unlikely radio song–but that guitar riff was really cool.

After a little break, Tyler came out by himself and played a pretty, acoustic Moon in the Water. (more…)

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Nish Kumar in “Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe” (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 2, 2025)

Posted in Amy Annette, Nish Kumar, Philadelphia, PA, Taskmaster, Underground Arts on March 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 2, 2025] Nish Kumar

I know Nish Kumar from Taskmaster, where he was hilarious.  I have since grown to love him from his appearances on various podcasts, including his own Pod Save the UK.

When he announced that he was touring the US and playing Philly, I grabbed my wife and I tickets immediately.

And holy crap was he funny.  He ranted for 90 minutes and we never stopped laughing the whole time.

Most of his material is political (and there’s so much to choose from in 2025), but there were also personal observations (his poor therapist gets mentioned A LOT), and even a joke or two about his fridge and his mom.

In his current tour, he is upfront with how his therapist warned him against discussing traumatic unprocessed memories on stage, saying that re-telling unprocessed memories can re-traumatise you.

What’s his comedy like?  It’s fast, angry and very funny.  Think Lewis Black but less deranged sounding.  He’s also got a wonderful outsiders perspective on the US that can make you see thinks a little differently, although as he points out, his radical left wing base probably sees things this way already.  But, as a Brown person, he brings a whole new perspective on, well everything.

Like how Indians should be pleased that they are getting represented in politics, even though these people are the worst representatives of their culture who routinely abuse and put down their own people. (more…)

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Amy Annette (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 2, 2025) [NISH KUMAR]

Posted in Amy Annette, Nish Kumar, Philadelphia, PA, Taskmaster, Underground Arts on March 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: March 2, 2025] Amy Annette

I didn’t know if Nish Kumar would have an opening act.  Since the show was starting at 9PM (!) on a Sunday night, I hoped he didn’t.

But then I remembered that comedy opening acts aren’t the same as concert opening acts.  They don’t stay on for all that long and there isn’t a 30 minute gap between performers.

So when Amy Annette was announced, I was ready to be entertained.  I found out after her set, once Nish came on, that Amy is his girlfriend of 13 years.  This made me happy for two reasons.  The first was that her set was only about 20 minutes, and it seemed crazy to travel all the way from the UK just to do 20 minutes.  And also, her material is so very different from Nish’s I wondered how he might pick someone to warm up that was doing completely unpolitical material.

So, the fact that they are dating was great!  They get to travel together and we all got some exposure to a comedian that we (or I, at least) didn’t know but now want to see again.

Amy’s humor is so very different from Nish’s.

She began with a really funny bit about bread. Yes, bread!  She had some good audience interactions to find out others’ bread choices.  And one of the respondents was a man named Paulie who would come back later. (more…)

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Solvej Balle–One the Calculation of Volume I (2020) [translated 2024]

Posted in Barbara Haveland, Bookstores, Collecting, Groundhog Day, Regrets, Solvej Balle, Translation, Translators on February 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: .

[READ: February 21, 2025] One the Calculation of Volume I

I received this book as part of New Directions “membership” where they sent me a new book each month for a year.  I had never heard of Solvej Balle, who is a Danish author.  This might be her first book translated into English.  Barbara Haveland did the translation.  I was certain I had read something else she had translated, but I guess not.  Her phrasing is excellent and made this book an easy, enjoyable read.

This book is part of a seven-volume set (this book was only 161 pages) and given the scope of this volume, I’m unclear what might happen in the others–maybe they’re entirely unrelated?  Turns out that Book 2 is already out, although 3 and 4 are coming out in the fall of next year.  And I just checked, book 2 continues the story.

And the story is this.

Tara Selter went to a conference on November 18th.  She went to bed and when she woke up, it was November 18th again.

Yup, it’s Groundhog Day, the movie.  But it’s not that at all, because Tara does not find it funny.  Also, and I don’t think this is a spoiler, she does not try to kill herself (like in the movie) only to find that she comes back.

The book starts on day #121 of her repeated November 18ths.

She returned from the conference and her husband wondered why she was back so soon.  She explained everything and (fortunately for the book) he believes her.  They go through the whole day, wondering what happened and what to do about it.  And when she woke up the next day, the world had reset to November 18th, but she continued.  I really appreciated the way Tara had a burn on her hand and we see it heal as the days move on. (more…)

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Bruce McCullough: Takes of Bravery and Stupidity (City Winery Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, January 18, 2025)

Posted in Bruce McCullough, City Winery Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, The Kids in the Hall on January 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: January 18, 2025] Bruce McCullough

I went to City Winery last year to see Scott Thompson and said I’d never go back because it’s a pain in the ass to get to.  But then Bruce McCullough announced a show there and I relented.  It was also right around our anniversary so we made it a night of delicious food and dark comedy.

Now that I know about the Convention Center parking I’m less opposed to the area in general.  But we spent 30 minutes looking for a parking space as hundreds of people were walking around and driving around doing the same thing.  But we found the parking lot and managed to get to our seat about 30 minutes before the show.

We had duck tacos and rice balls and french fries and the food was really yummy.

Brucio came out just as we were finishing our food and he danced around while some music played and he started the show with a series of actual jokes.  They were dark and funny one-liners and then it settled into him telling some stories.  Never go up to a blind man with rippled chips and say “here, read this.”

There was a running joke that the last time he was in Pennsylvania, he was in Scranton (the meth and muffler capital of the state) and the reviewer panned the show and said it had a narrative that not even Frank Zappa could understand.  There’s no record of him having played Scranton, but the joke is great (and is exactly the kind of weird review someone in Scranton or the like would say).  The article also included a pie chart of The Kids in the Hall and Bruce was the dark purple one. (more…)

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Josh Riedel–“The One with the Multiverse” [The 2024 Short Story Advent Calendar #22] (2023)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Friends, Hingston & Olsen, Josh Riedel, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 22, 2024] “The One with the Multiverse”

This year my wife ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar–it’s a holiday tradition!  Here’s what H&O says about the calendar this year.

Ten years of stories! Yikes, where does the time go?
When the first Short Story Advent Calendar launched, in 2015, we frankly had no clue we’d still be sitting here today, continuing to offer up batches of tasty stories fresh from the oven. To celebrate this milestone, we’ve packed the 10th SSAC with a mix of new and familiar names—ideal company for those chilly winter nights ahead.

The author of this story was Josh Riedel.  Each day has an online component with the author with a brief interview. And this opening blurb sets the tone

It’s December 22. Josh Riedel, author of Please Report Your Bug Here, also once splashed in a fountain for title-credits purposes.

This story has a lot of elements that I like–pop culture, multiverses, identity confusion.  And although I never really liked Friends, I do enjoy stories that involve the sitcom.

So this story was pretty fun for me. (more…)

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Elizabeth Gonzales James–“Children of a Careless God” [The 2024 Short Story Advent Calendar #11] (2020)

Posted in Canadian Content, Cats, Christmas, Death, Hingston & Olsen, Mark Binelli, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Yuck! on December 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 11, 2024] “Children of a Careless God”

This year my wife ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar–it’s a holiday tradition!  Here’s what H&O says about the calendar this year.

Ten years of stories! Yikes, where does the time go?
When the first Short Story Advent Calendar launched, in 2015, we frankly had no clue we’d still be sitting here today, continuing to offer up batches of tasty stories fresh from the oven. To celebrate this milestone, we’ve packed the 10th SSAC with a mix of new and familiar names—ideal company for those chilly winter nights ahead.

The author of this story was Elizabeth Gonzales James.  Each day has an online component with the author with a brief interview.  And this one opens:

It’s December 11. Elizabeth Gonzales James, author of Mona at Sea, could have sworn there were more fish in that aquarium a minute ago.

This was a disturbing story. (more…)

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