Forgive my instant reactions but I cannot help myself today. I guess I was 11 or 12 when I first encountered the album Superunknown. I remember that my best friend’s older brother had this record kicking around in his room, and I just caught a glimpse of the album cover. The shapeless howl caked in saturated reds […]
Let’s get this out of the way: beer is good. It goes well with cheese. It goes well with meat. It goes well with pizza. It goes well with pong. It goes well with sportsball-watching. It goes well with board-game playing. It goes well with writing. It goes well with sitting around doing nothing of any […]
I recently wrapped myself around a tree on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Northern California. I am from the East Coast, where the mountains are gently rolling tree-covered slopes that are, occasionally, graced with snow. They are beautiful but they are old and well-worn; relentless Time has shaved down and rounded out their sharp edges and peaks. The Sierra Nevadas […]
In which we discuss a variety of subjects: Is rock music dead? Does baseball suck? What is the best word in the English language? Should Google open brick-n-mortar stores? It’s a wild, free-associative trip down Cultural Commentary Lane.
Baseball is not life. It is, however, an outstanding primer for how “life” works. Economics, probability, the nature of chance and trying to understand why any given event ever happens–it’s all philosophy, in the end, wrapped up inside a simple ball-and-stick game. This game will frustrate you. It will break your heart early and often. And then right when you’re […]
I came across this book almost entirely by accident: I realized I’d picked up a follower on Twitter who wrote first-person, true-crime stories. That was sort of “say no more” territory for me for a variety of reasons. What can I say? I am an inveterate reader and Amazon one-click purchasing is dangerous. There might be […]
I aim to use this space to shed light on work–music, writing, visual arts, even guitars and amps and guitar effects–anything that moves me, I will explore why. That, to me, is reviewing.
Alex Yalen 