Two hot events vie for your attention this evening. If you’re in the inner southeast at 7pm, head to the Red and Black Cafe for Satanic Summer, an evening of bizarro poetry and fiction from touring poet Steve Roggenbuck whose blog features examples of his work, “famous author” Mykle Hansen possesser of a smooth and […]
Jacob Schraer
Posted inTV
Mad Men: Christmas in Spring
Non-seasonal Christmas episodes are the best. Click below to find out what happened! Leave it to Mad Men to keep subverting and disappointing expectations. My ears twitched when I heard Kinsey’s name. He was never my favorite character, but I enjoyed his pompous idiocy, and his pretentious sweaters. So I thought it was a little […]
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50 Shades Of MIRK!
So my plan was to submit myself (pun intended) to the ravages of the new runaway bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and then report back to Blogtown with a scathing review. But it turns out that what freelancers only dream of doing, Mercury associate Sarah Mirk does on her leave of absence. […]
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Every Mad Man For Himself
Wait’ll they get a load of me. I was reading Tom and Lorenzo’s Mad Men commentary and took note of their complaining about the show’s increasing tendency to have a character blurt out the theme of the episode in some obvious way. I complained about this a little in Season 4, then got sick of […]
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Mad Men Recap: Alexis Bledel Edition
Oh man, did I just sleep with that guy? Well, they did it. They finally made me hate Pete. I’ve chronicled my unabashed love for Pete on this blog before, but… I just can’t. He is such a crazy weird idiot, guys. Such a freak. Whatever kind feelings I once had for Campbell are now […]
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Mad Men Morning After
Life sucks, let’s not talk about it. I was reminiscing with a friend yesterday about the “good old days” of Mad Men, about Sal and Kinsey and the strong, established personalities that dominated the first three seasons. Even as superfan who loves pretty much all of Mad Men unequivocally, there’s something about turning on the […]
Posted inBooks
Bizarre and Lonely
Etgar Keret’s Latest, Suddenly, A Knock on the Door
Etgar Keret’s latest short-story collection chronicles modern-day alienation.
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Mad Men: Far Away Places
I made it to the Backstage Bar last night to watch Mad Men. They show it every Sunday and there was a nice large screen and the volume was turned up to a good level, but in vain because three unbelievable assholes at the bar talked over the entire episode. They were clearly aware of […]
Posted inBooks
Pulitzer Prize Snubs Fiction
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday, and you might have read that The Stranger received one, and that new media such as The Huffington Post was honored, but certain writer friends of mine are abuzz that they failed to award a prize in the Fiction category. So yeah, what about that? Today the Times reports […]
Posted inTV
Mad Men: Signal 30
I can barely do a recap. I feel like we’re in a special era of Mad Men where the showrunners are so familiar with the characters that they can spit out hilarious episodes like last night’s intuitively and without batting an eye. I am loving this season and I can’t believe that the various blogs […]
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Mad Men Mystery Date
The commercial below is the namesake of this week’s episode. Sally watches it with her new grandmother who I both hated and enjoyed tonight. Remember the Simpsons episode where they played Mystery Date and “The Dud” looked like Milhouse? The Wikipedia entry on the mass murder in Chicago that all the characters are talking about […]
Posted inBooks
30 Days, 30 Poets Comes To Portland Today
In honor of National Poetry Month the American Academy of Poets is letting writers across the country take over their Tumblr account for a day to post images, video, text, anything they want, and today it’s Portland resident Zachary Schomburg. Starting at 6 am and going til midnight, Schomburg intends to travel throughout our city, […]