Virtual reality: Golden Globe 2020

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss 10:20 p.m. I was not a fan of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, but “What is more dangerous — the virus or Democrats?” is question C-PAC answered this weekend. 10:48 p.m. Chadwick Boseman uses his high insinuaaing crag to terrific effect in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, 10:11 p.m. Jodie Foster wins Best Supporting Actress — Motion

Singles 2/26

Pop house as lilting as Shygirl’s “Tasty,” compensating for the usual slush. In careers obsessed with monumentalizing their banality, Dan + Shay offer a tune whose title could’ve been “You Make Me Happy” it’s so generic. I cribbed a passage from my most recent political post from my review for Skepta and slowthai’s “Cancelled,” a

Ranking #34 singles, U.S. edition: 1980-1985

Assembling these things can get irritating. Many readers may not know I use this website, then CNTRL-F that day’s chart position. Invariably I get thing wrong if I move too fast. Some positions produce blah results: several once promising posts will never emerge from WordPress drafting. Tonight’s post exemplifies why I keep doing this shit.

On the perils of aspirationalism

The trouble with political aspirationalism: if you are, say, Joe Biden, you’ve spent decades climbing ever closer to the center of power. You have little incentive to question much less dismantle this ladder. You accept the assumptions because without those assumptions your ascension wouldn’t have happened. This phenomenon works doubly so for minorities.

The GOP vs LGBT equality: ‘exploiting religion to justify my innate cruelty’

Aware that a supermajority of Americans are okeedokee with gays and lesbians marrying whomever they choose, Republicans have dressed their revulsion toward us queer folk in different clothes. “Religious freedom” is the new cause.

Ranking #20 singles, U.S. edition: 1992-1996

Suspicious as I am of the moniker “Song of the Summer,” Stereo MC’s “Connected” served that function in May-June ’93, pumping out of every car radio and storefront. Because Miami Radio appreciates dance music, CeCe Peniston’s “We Got a Love Thang” prospered the previous summer, the one I would’ve conceded to Sophie B. Hawkins’ “Damn,

Ralph Fiennes does solid work in ‘The Dig’

Ralph Fiennes’ career has followed the usual arc of Anglo-Irish actors. After Steven Spielberg cast him as the sociopathic SS officer in Schindler’s List, his aquiline malevolence made him increasingly impervious to conventional leading parts (the cocked-eyebrow irony on display in The English Patient was not the kind of thing one usually saw in a

Ranking #32 singles, U.S. edition: 1979-84

Over a light Holiday Inn-disco beat, Rupert Holmes sounds off on those newfangled doohickeys on which those crazy wimmin keep leaving messages. No wonder he went on to write musicals.

Florida GOP’s war against free assembly and speech

Taking cues from the hundreds of gated homes with perfect lawns and three SUVs and Blue Lives Matter flags in my beloved Westchester, the Tallahassee Lickspittle proposed a bill last fall whose intentions regarding the Bill of Rights amount to gobbles, not bites.

Ranking #11 U.S. edition: 1967-1969

Every time I post a rundown of hits from the sixties I have to say, “Goddamn it” and restrain my nostalgia, but, really, any chart with “Mother Popcorn” and “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Is That All There Is” will draw attention. Immune to Simon and Garfunkel, I placed “Scarborough Fair”

Ranking #35 singles, U.S. edition: 1984-1990

Other than Rockwell’s forgotten second single , most of these also-rans and weird one-offs deserve their placement insofar as #35 is where I expect to see Device’s High Reagan Era bit of nothingness, Wa Wa Nee’s calorie-rich track, solid but unremarkable things by Del Amitri and Stacey Q, and great freestyle tracks like Stevie B’s

Singles 2/20

Fat Joe’s track earned my highest plaudits, but I’m not crazy about it. My enthusiasm for Pale Waves as soon as the Chvrches comparison leapt to min, except I substituted Hayley Williams for Heather Baron-Gracie; Squid’s track is just too damn long, too damn self-infatuated; and I will never understand FKA twigs. Click on links