For all my love of NBC’s Community, this was actually my first time seeing the pilot. I jumped in on the holiday ep that featured a healthy dose of Shirley’s religious intolerance–but I’m getting head of myself. I knew I’d eventually settle into this show because I remember falling hard for the earnestness of its Read More
King Solomon wrote in the Book of Ecclesiastes that there’s nothing new under the sun, and that was circa 970 B.C., so you can imagine how recycled and overwarmed pretty much everything is now. As a pop culture connoisseur, I find Solomon’s screed particularly true of contemporary lit, film, and TV. Take any show, flick, Read More
Last week, the Kinsey Institute released the results of a study that surveyed 1,009 heterosexual couples on their attitudes toward physical affection and sex. The “shocking” pull-quote making media rounds has to do with men in long-term relationships valuing physical affection (i.e. kissing and cuddling) more than women in long-term relationships, who claimed sexual satisfaction Read More
After a brief conversation about John Hughes’ 1984 teen romcom classic, Sixteen Candles, this morning, I was reminded of something I’ve always suspected by never taken the time to truly analyze: romantic comedies are never as innocuous as their writers would have you believe. For all their spin about happy endings, they’re about as kind Read More
(Cross-posted from slb.) Rodrick Shonte Danzler is dead. And so is his 12-year-old daughter and the six other people he killed Thursday. I didn’t become aware of the massacre or begin to watch the live footage until his five-hour hostage standoff was well underway. Apparently, Dantzler’s killing rampage began in the afternoon and alternated between Read More
Today is National HIV Testing Day. How up-to-date is your status? Tell us about the first (or last) time you were tested. Where’d you go? Were you worried? Did you bring a friend or partner along for moral support or to co-test? We believe it’s important to keep the conversation about HIV prevention and survival Read More
Tired of being the butt of everyone’s jokes, BET is adding significantly to its original programming roster. If the record-breaking success of the The Game and the benign tolerance of Let’s Stay Together are any indication, BET viewers are quite open to any adequately-plotted sitcoms and dramas the network might throw their way. At an Read More
The day just got sadder. In Edison, NJ singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow has also died. She was 60. Though Snow is best known for her 1974 self-titled debut album, she’s had enduring fan appreciation, due in no small part to her classic single, “Poetry Man.” If you’ve ever had a crush on a soulful, artistic, or—scandal Read More
I’d never heard of Poly Styrene before this morning, when I found my social media news feed peppered with news of her lost battle to breast cancer. I did some quick research, which confirmed that she was pretty amazing. As frontwoman of the group, X-Ray Spex, she dominated the UK punk scene between 1976 and Read More
(cross-posted from slb) I was home for the holidays when Phylicia Barnes went missing. My immediate family—all women, now four generations deep, with the birth of my daughter—huddled around the small kitchen TV, listening to local news anchors explain the facts surrounding Barnes’ disappearance: black high school honors student from Monroe, NC comes to Baltimore, Read More
