Monthly Archives: May 2017

Confession time: as a teenager, I spent every Sunday morning listening to Casey Kasem count down the week’s Top 40 songs. I say with confidence that in three years prior to 1987, his dulcet tones had never named the band “U2.” Imagine my surprise, then, when that band shot to #1 with “With or Without You,” followed that up with another #1 called “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and became Kasem’s trivia darling for the summer. I […]

Martina Maciel woke up in what looked like a 2-meter-by-2-meter cell, lit by a solitary strip of neon in the middle of the ceiling. Her feet were bound and her hands were bound behind her back. Instinctively, she wormed her body through a circle made by her arms and Wazgretco handcuffs, to get her hands in front of her. Okay, that hurt a lot more than usual. Probably felt like it did for people who tried it without training. Her […]

During the big La La Land-Moonlight mixup of two months ago, I thought Jimmy Kimmel was impressively quick on his feet when he said, onstage, in the center of the chaos, “Well, I don’t know what happened. I blame myself for this. Let’s remember, it’s just an awards show.” Quite right. As much time as Kimmel or I devote to the Oscars, or even movies, we both understand that life is made up of more important things. Unbeknownst to Oscar-night […]

What-if scenarios regarding history can be appealing. Change one butterfly fluttering its wings, and you can’t be sure how the rest of the world will react. This becomes particularly poignant on the level of presidential politics, which is one reason Alternate History has become something of its own sub-genre in recent years, attracting such luminaries as Philip Roth, Michael Chabon, and Stephen King. Personally, I’m still waiting on the great novel where Sandra Day O’Connor bumps her head on Thanksgiving […]