Not the obituary I wanted to ready today. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/d...
I’ll protect you from the hooded claw.
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Not the obituary I wanted to ready today. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/d...
'There was a map of Vietnam on the wall of my apartment in Saigon and some nights, coming back late to the city, I'd lie out on my bed and look at it, too tired to do anything more than just get my boots off.' Michael Herr, Dispatches Finally got an old French map of my own...
Neal Adams’ remarkably fine cover featuring The Joker for 1973’s Batman #251, with NA’s original art posted next the work as saw print. The greatest Batman cover ever? For me, it’s the match for any competitor. But then, I can recall it appearing in that year & its impact has never left me.
Ron O’Neal (born today in 1937) had several illustrious roles on the stage (notably in Charles Gordone’s No Place to Be Somebody) but is most remembered for his scene stealing turn in 1972 as the drug dealer Youngblood Priest in the film Super Fly (directed by Gordon Parks Jr). O’Neal died in 2004.
Random #shelfie found on my hard drive looking for something else. A shelfie ALWAYS bests a selfie. 👊 #booksky
~whispers~ and a reminder that I wrote a book about this very thing. "When work no longer provides stability, when wages are too low and rents are too high, when millions are one medical bill, one missed paycheck, one rent hike away from losing their homes—who, exactly, is secure?"
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
‘Give us any chance we’ll take it / Give us any rule we’ll break it / we’re gonna make our dreams come true.’ IYKYK…
Flip this for Oz
Great record
Just thinking about the round-the-clock outrage that Fox News and other MAGA media have devoted to Mamdani's proposal to open a handful of city-run grocery stores. Meanwhile, the president literally just nationalized Intel.
Smashed this year’s Miles Franklin book award winner. It’s full of heart, so sharp, and lol funny. “Four hours of meandering footage of the swelling seas… ‘Don’t Encourage Him’ is the Director’s retelling of Moby Dick, only from the whale’s point of view.” Siang Lu, Ghost Cities.
🎞 #OTD in #Film #History 31 August 1966, #GilloPontecorvo's extraordinary neo-realist war film BATTLE OF ALGIERS, starring Jean Martin and Saadi Yacef, premiered at the #VeniceFilmFestival.
More items spotted at Berlin fleamarkets over the weekend.
"Actors are boring when they are not working. It's a natural condition, because they don't have anything to do. They just lay around, and that's why so many of them get drunk. They really get to be boring people. My wife will attest to that." -James Coburn #BOTD
Some of today’s Berlin fleamarket finds.
RCA promo poster for 1974’s “Slaughter on 10th Avenue” LP by Mick Ronson.!
I do love @jeromecharyn.bsky.social ‘a books. From the Pink Commish to his more recent novels, he is always surprising & satisfying.
Currently reading Sergeant Salinger by Jerome Charyn and was reminded of this building on 153rd and Broadway where young J.D. lived until his 9th birthday. Another photo by Thaddeus Wilkerson. @crimereads.bsky.social
If Thomas Sewell is speaking at your rally, it’s a racist af white nationalist Nazi rally. The end.
Dear journalists, when you use the expression ‘mass migration’ you have conceded territory to Nazis. Think about your language.
Truly brilliant coverage by a student journo and a young photojournalist. There is hope for the future of news media.
I wrote this for Crikey about how media coverage of Dezi Freeman as far back as 2018 fed his paranoia and sovereign citizen talking points. After last week's shootings, it's not great to see media today downplay the role of Nazis into the alarmingly attended March for Australia rallies yesterday.
@wednesdayerskin.bsky.social made me laugh with embarrassed recognition here
‘We’re scoring tries, creating problems’: Scott Bemand wants Ireland to carry momentum into New Zealand game
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...
Happy birthday to Archie Bell. Here’s a playlist of funk, soul and disco gems that he recorded with The Drells in the 60s, 70s and 80s ▶️🪩 open.spotify.com/playlist/5jf...
Ditto.
Only have the sketchiest of @2000ad.bsky.social memories from the late 70s, early 80s. (All associated with one newsagency, so maybe they were the only local one who carried it.) Have only read the 1st of the 3 books this is divided into, but am liking it.
Here’s a link. Alan Moore & Ian Gibson & Barbara Nosenzo. www.backlisted.fm/episodes/244...
And this is another @backlisted.bsky.social inspired pickup from the last couple of weeks. (Looking for some kind of ‘riders of the purple page’ gag that won’t come to me…) www.backlisted.fm/episodes/243...
Was telling @iammilliam.bsky.social on here not long back that I think @backlisted.bsky.social is in a purple patch - which makes a snap with the cover of ‘The Ballad of Halo Jones.’ Had never heard of this ‘80s @2000ad.bsky.social strip until Andy, @unamccormack.bsky.social & Nicky B featured it
“There’s only the place left.” Alexander Baron from ‘The Lowlife’ talking about Hackney. But he could be talking about KX.
Have only had this one on the radar since a @backlisted.bsky.social episode, but needed a reminder when it popped up again there. And @jacquiwine.bsky.social Nice @faberbooks.bsky.social, The Lowlife’ by Alexander Baron. jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/t... www.backlisted.fm/episodes/64-...
This is the most Rudy Giuliani thing that ever Rudy Giulianied. This statement has its hair painted on
If you have tomorrow off, if your kids attend middle school instead of working in a factory, if you have workplace protections, and if you have sick leave and vacation time, thank unions. Even if you don't belong to one, they're responsible for things we all take for granted. And happy #LaborDay.
trump can issue as many executive orders as he wants, perhaps coverage should reflect the fact that a lot of these have the legal force of a child's wishlist for santa
Skaters at the Empire Roller Disco in Brooklyn, February 1980, by Patrick D. Pagnano. “The skaters, their talent, their enthusiasm, their joy and their dedication: everything inspired me.” Pagnano’s photo collection “Empire Roller Disco” really is a thing of wonder.
Historical research is wondrous. While working on my book about the My Lai Massacre, which took place on March 16, 1968, I just found out that Marlon Brando and James Baldwin introduced Dr Martin Luther King at a fundraiser that same day! And you can listen to it here: youtu.be/xU71kk27nQU?...
Just finished the first draft of the first part of my current book - it's just the prologue, but still... Here I'm setting the scene for what happens in March of 1968, which includes everyone from Michael Herr to James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Jefferson Airplane and the Chicago 7 etc. etc.
They’ve got the Fifth Dimension literally singing the words to the Declaration of Independence. Corny? Oh, yes. But inspirational to (older) 1974 voters? Maybe!
My favorite sentence in the New York Times explainer on Mamdani and socialism.
So many older viewers tuning into see Archie Bunker speaking up for Dems must have been totally confused.
If you were alive in the mid-70s, these next two guests need no introduction.
This telethon just had a very moving look at Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 campaign and his speech after MLK was murdered. Zero doubt he’d be disgusted by what became of the son named after him. Opposites in every way.
Agreed. The record company should have put that on the album cover.
The position of the Kennedy family vis-à-vis their wrecking-ball relative puts me in mind of the large family of Lawrence Grant White (the architect son of Stanford White, of McKim Mead and White) who could only look on helplessly as the firm's masterpiece, Penn Station—was demolished in 1963-6.
Wrote about all of the *other* Kennedys: nymag.com/intelligence...
as @ozkitsch.bsky.social said, Brian Wilson leaves a legacy
I’m quite enjoying Rip It Up and Start Again but there are bands and whole scenes I missed at the time I’ll never get into or warm to. Thinking I should have re-read Original Rockers instead.
I can’t blame Franzen for hating Britishness. On one single trip to the UK he: - got stuck in traffic on the way to Today and couldn’t appear - discovered that the uncorrected proof of Freedom had been published instead of the actual text and - had his glasses stolen off his face during a reading
Watched the very entertaining Isaac Hayes movie Truck Turner (1974). Lots of people get shot but also milk gets shot *twice* in separate scenes, once in a bottle and once in a cat dish. Blood gets shot too (it’s in an IV bag). I think that’s all the fluids that get capped.
STARSKY & HUTCH isn't streaming right now, so physical media to the rescue. #TVSky #ClassicTV
Darker, more political & a total group effort in terms of the songwriting, the Beach Boys’ Surf’s Up album was released today in 1971. The lp reflected the country’s dour mood, with a special focus on the growing concern for the environment. Highlights include: “Feel Flows” & “Long Promised Road”
Seamus Heaney's last words noli timere (don't be afraid) texted to his wife, Marie, minutes before he died (August 30, 2013).
When magazines and comic books ruled the Earth
The most drug-drenched and experimental phase of The Beatles is also the one that you love when you're six, and I cant think of many parallels for that
YESSSSSSSSS
Jones: I want to bring theology into this because you have all these people that want to give thoughts and prayers. But I was a minister, and that is a form of theological malpractice—when you pray for something you have the power to change.
For day 241 of my year long retrospective on made for TV movies that need a DVD/Blu Ray release, I went with the fun and curious 1973 pilot Poor Devil, which stars Sammy Davis Jr. as a minion of the devil (Christopher Lee!) attempting to get his first soul. Enter Jack Klugman and hilarity ensues
Cockfighter (1974) Directed by Monte Hellman starring Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton.
It’s an especially silly thing for him to say when the only reason the movie got made was because George Harrison put his hand in his own pocket to pay for it… because… the studios weren’t interested!
I have to read the book.
Thank you to whoever recently recommended House of Cards (1968). Perfect ‘Saturday night at the movies’ vibe. George Peppard, Orson Welles, international cast. Superb Paris and Rome locations. Very confident Francis Lai soundtrack. Great baddies, great dialogue, swift pace. Great use of widescreen.
If this were the 1960s, KPop Demon Hunters would be appearing on Ed Sullivan and the entire culture would be grappling with its implications. As it is, if you're not in middle school or close to someone who is, you may be wholly ignorant of this phenomenon. Not sure which is better, frankly.
“Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.” - Fred Hampton
This whole thing is great but the highlighted bit made me laugh out loud. 😂 Marlon on Snoop:
Happy International PUNCH a Nazi day. #auspol
‘The pope complained about the lyrics!’: the Bluebells and Siobhan Fahey on how they made Young at Heart. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
Michael Caine, Bowie and more: David Bailey’s iconic pin-ups – in pictures. A new retrospective shows how the lauded photographer shook up fashion imagery in the 1960s before reinventing the nude a decade later. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
John Peel’s was botd, so here’s a link for Dave Strickson’s archive with over a thousand Peel Sessions each with accompanying YouTube clips davestrickson.blogspot.com/2020/05/john...
I can
“Bananarama recorded Young at Heart as a northern soul stomper. We’d wanted Soft Cell’s producer but were told he only did synth bands.”
“Writing a book requires uninterrupted, undistracted, unending hours of work. . . . An unwritten or unfinished manuscript is always there, waiting in the next room, justifying no distraction.” Theodore Sorensen
Big shout out to all the wonderful people of #Melbourne of all races colours & creeds who are not attending the racist dog-whistle rally in the city today. Even the best city in the world has a % of nasty hateful people with tiny minds & fear in their hearts of anything different. Fuck them.
Group of young white men draped in Aust flags abusing people. No women. They’ll go home & circle jerk until mum has dinner ready.
I used to think Subterranean Homesick Blues was the best pop video ever but now I think this is youtu.be/uWhkbDMISl8?...
Anti immigration yobs marching with Nazis & standing with cop killers. True colours shining through.
Morning all. Great Russell Street, Birmingham, 1967. Photograph by Phyllis Nicklin.
Painting by Edward Hopper ‘Early Sunday Morning’ 1930. Oil on canvas. Size 89.4 × 153 cm.
Same. Might put it on the list.
together again for the 1st time…. www.thestacksreader.com/elmore-leona.... The ‘Common Ground’ & ‘Big Trouble’ Pulitzer winner on ‘Glitz’ era Elmore Leonard researching Atlantic City
Found delicious NZ chips! Funny & great packaging as well. Snacka Changi chips!
What's the first word that comes to mind when you think of this album? | Listen to the album + explore our tribute here: album.ink/CwbyJnksTTS
From memory, think it’s this one? ‘The Laughing Policeman’
I ought to cite this as coming on p 244 of C.M. Kushin’s Elmore bio.
Same. Only read ‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre’ myself.
An epic historical fiction family saga of love, loss, and friendship. I feel wholly underqualified to rate this. Most polarizing for the length and lack of depth in the female main character, I likely won't read any other Chabon, but this was engrossing and enjoyable. #booksky 💙📚🖋️ Rating 4.75/5
Elmore Leonard on the Burt Reynolds directed adaptation of ‘Stick’: “I read somewhere that Bernard Malamud didn’t leave his apartment for 3 weeks after ‘The Natural’ opened - so I’m thinking maybe I should enter a Trappist monastery.”
Have always meant to read this one. Picked ‘A Canyicle For Leibowitz’ up in an Op Shop a few years ago…could be time has come around at last.
Dystopian hilarity #bookwormsat A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Muller, Jr. 1961, cover design by C.W. Bacon. UK SFBC #booksky
This tale often considered as the precursor to the dystopian genre #bookwormsat Final Blackout by L. Ron Hubbard. 1948, illus by Betty Wells Halladay. #booksky
Deliverance (1970) by James Dickey 4.5/5 🌟 Great, poetic, lyrical survival novel. The rape scene is played down a little compared to the📽, which James Dickey also wrote the screenplay for. I need to watch the 📽 again. Great double feature with the more horrific Rituals (1977), starring Hal Holbrook.
I lean James Ellroy's way in my story for the Celluloid Crimes anthology, Chief Parker even has a cameo. It's 1951 L.A. and "Tom Keagan knew there were more kinds of crazy than there were varieties of apples" in "Garbo's Ghost". (note Greta isn't in it, except as a clue) amazon.com/Celluloid-Cr...
Gonna try to squeeze in one more book before I re-read Stephen King's The Long Walk before seeing the 📽 in the theater in September. First Blood (1972) by David Morrell. Apparently, the 📖 takes place in Kentucky. I prefer the 📽's rainforest setting of northern Washington, actually British Columbia
August 30, 1948 is the birthday of Fred Hampton: revolutionary socialist and deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party. Slain December 4, 1969, by law enforcement in his Chicago apartment. He was 21 years old. "Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all."
Got the most glorious book mail today! My contributor’s copy of THE BEST MYSTERY STORIES OF THE YEAR, edited by Otto Penzler and John Grisham. Thank you, @mysteriousbookshop.com. Y’all made my year!
Rick Burin 