Year: 2018
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Chad’s Christmastime chronicles, 2018
My season of celebrating Christmas has begun. This year I thought it would be fun to document exactly how I usually get into the spirit of the season, through music, movies, and rituals. I’ll update this post as I go. Friday, November 23 Listened: Season’s Greetings by Perry Como, Christmas Party by She & Him, […]
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Big Mouth of Little Lies
My wife and I recently binged season 2 of Big Mouth and season 1 of Big Little Lies, and I noticed a key bit of thematic overlap between the two. Big Mouth, Netflix’s obscene, irreverent, gut-bustingly funny cartoon about kids going through puberty, introduced the Shame Wizard character in season 2. Voiced by a slithery […]
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Refer Madness: Always on call
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy stories from the library reference desk. You know how doctors are always on call? Someone has a heart attack on an airplane or chokes at a restaurant, and doctors, nurses, or other care providers jump to the rescue, even if they are off the clock. Even medical […]
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Gary Rydstrom on Rear Window’s ingenious sound design
Northwestern’s Block Museum hosted a screening of Rear Window that was introduced by Gary Rydstrom, Oscar-winning sound designer for Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, Jurassic Park, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and many other movies you love. Though I didn’t stay for the movie (I’ve already seen it on the big screen), I was eager to hear Rydstrom’s perspective […]
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A new typist in the family
Since I don’t have a Hermes Baby, our now un-Disneyfied toy typewriter will have to do as a stand-in. Excited for when baby’s hands will be strong enough to type. Perhaps I should start typing close to the womb so he can get used to the sound, and then maybe the clacking will be soothing […]
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Boom Town
In his new book Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Sam Anderson writes about how Oklahoma’s storm chasers, though overly sensational and ratings-hungry, still provide crucial insight about Oklahoma’s notoriously destructive tornadoes: Radar data, like starlight, is information about the past: it tells you about the distant object it bounced off seconds or […]
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Refer Madness: Hate the change, love the library
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy stories from the library reference desk. A while back, my department’s email received this message: “What happened to the CLASSIC CATALOG? I am old, I hate change, but love my library. Thanks.” I had to laugh. Funny but dead serious, succinct and self-aware, this missive captures a very real conundrum: […]
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Hearts Beat Loud
“You gotta be brave before you can be good.” So says a love interest to Sam (Kiersey Clemons), a shy but talented musician who reluctantly performs with her dad (Nick Offerman) in Hearts Beat Loud, the new indie film from Brett Haley. It’s a little High Fidelity, a little Once (or more like its inferior […]
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The typewriter emoji is dead; long live the typewriter emoticon
Richard Polt reports sad news from the Typewriter Insurgency: A few years ago I kvetched about the lack of a typewriter emoji and even started a letter-writing campaign. Well, there is a formal and elaborate process for requesting a new emoji. And since nobody else seemed to be doing it, I sat down last summer and created a proposal that […]
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Like lightning
“Come on, Doc, it’s not science! When it happens, it just hits you. It’s like lightning.” – Marty McFly, Back to the Future Part III A couple nights before my buddy’s wedding, I was at his house with a bunch of other guys for a time of toasting, roasting, and advice-giving. One thing I shared was […]