I did not publish a Dadaist epic poem shortly after Thanksgiving 2024 as I had in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. Perhaps it was too soon after the 2024 elections, when I was not feeling especially celebratory. Or perhaps it was that more pressing matters demanded my attention. Whatever the reason, the inspiration to craft … Continue reading More early than late: The 2024 Dadaist Epic Post-Thanksgiving Poem
Category: Film
My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 3 and Conclusion
For Parts 1 and 2 of this series, please see here and here. Just to reiterate, I am not a film critic in the traditional sense, merely an autodidactic lover of film and film history who curated his own, somewhat random, film festival over the first four months of 2025. It began when my wife … Continue reading My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 3 and Conclusion
My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 2
For Part 1 of this series, please see here. I reiterate that I am not a film critic in the traditional sense, just an autodidactic lover of film and film history. By the time I finished rewatching Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007), No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007) and Nosferatu: A Symphony … Continue reading My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 2
My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 1
On the evening of January 4, 2025, my wife Nell and I watched Saturday Night. Jason Reitman’s 2024 film chronicles the final 90 minutes before the first episode of what is now called Saturday Night Live aired at 11:30 pm EST on October 11, 1975. We thoroughly enjoyed the film’s you-are-there verisimilitude, strong performances and … Continue reading My 2025 Personal Film Festival, Part 1
When David Lynch went to Philadelphia
One Saturday night when I was about nine years old, I found myself lying in bed, leafing through a hardcover book of biographical sketches while half watching a movie on the small black-and-white television set in my bedroom. Perhaps I was watching a film starring Spencer Tracy, because at one point I turned to his … Continue reading When David Lynch went to Philadelphia
Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums)
In five previous essays (here, here, here, here, here), I detail how I used appearances on 434 mixes (August 1981 to November 2023) and total plays to calculate a score for 9,560 tracks. Using these Track Scores (“TS”), I ranked my favorites from a tie for #7,529 (2,032 tracks with one play and no mix … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums)
Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 5 (My 100 Favorite Tracks)
In the first four essays in this series (here, here, here, here), I detail the evolution of the 434 music “mixes” I have created since August 1981. These mixes migrated from cassette to CD to 150-GB flywheel iPod, with a handful of videocassettes added along the way. As of April 2024, I have put 3,625 … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 5 (My 100 Favorite Tracks)
My 100 Favorite Films…Probably
[Ed. note: This essay was updated on April 1, 2025] On December 1, 2022, Sight and Sound Magazine released the results of its decennial Greatest Films of All Time Critics’ Poll (“SS Poll”). The key result is that Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles dethroned Vertigo as the “greatest film of all time.”[1] … Continue reading My 100 Favorite Films…Probably
How the Berger family flew to America…by steamship
When I completed the final draft of the first edition of Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History…and My Own in January 2021, I had already learned a great deal about my paternal great-grandfather David Louis Berger; I had known next to nothing about him before I began to write … Continue reading How the Berger family flew to America…by steamship
I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 5
Part 1 of this essay may be found here. Part 2 of this essay may be found here. Part 3 of this essay may be found here. Part 4 of this essay may be found here. When I sat down to write this multi-part essay – which has taken on an interrogating memory life of … Continue reading I Never Wrote the Most Important Story I Ever Wrote, Part 5
Just Bear With Me... 