The boundlessness of an all-time great second sacker. "He was the Keats of the two-hole who authored a Wrigley-based pastoral in just the right number of words."

In the Bunker Hill Monument, as in life, stairs don't run themselves. "I began running circuits in the Monument nine years ago, after I had put an end to twenty years of alcohol abuse, my heart gimpy, its beat irregular. On the streets of Boston, I am often hailed as 'the stair guy.' Usually ten times a day, and upwards of twenty, I am inside of that obelisk, because doing so helps me keep going."

Cinematic inspiration in how to keep going. "The wisest among us realize that what we normally think of as opposites are also associates. There’s life and death, joy and pain, fulfillment and absence. And, as Charle Chaplin understood, and helped millions to understand, comedy and tragedy."

The horrors of not being seen and heard. "Later, we may think about these past relationships with greater affection than many of the others we have in the years going forward that ended with a slow fizzle, someone becoming increasingly uncommunicative until we just never heard from them again. The end of camp is closure, and closure—as you know when you’ve been denied it—is a very important thing with which to be provided in this life. The camp  friendship didn’t get a chance to go 'wrong.' It was meant to exist for a  moment in time. The song that is two minutes in length has the greater likelihood of being mistake-free than the song that continues for a half  hour."

Brian Wilson's song of remarkabable perspicacity. "As the singer sings, we get a second lead voice, a Brian Wilson-led dialogic counterpoint—the sun-soaked pop variant of a Grecian choir, or a gentler—but equally firm—version of Lear’s Fool handling the high harmonies—that feels no less indomitable than the tick of time."

Overlooked core horror from 1944, with the talented Laird Cregar. "Brahm excelled at melodrama—costume pictures that didn’t look ostentatious but nailed the period details. Enter, then, The Lodger and its Victorian London of fog, soot, flagstones, ulsters, and labyrinthine mews with a gas lamp on one end and who knows what awaiting at the other. Anyone at the right time of night could have been Jack the Ripper to the susceptible imagination, and if that’s him upstairs? Not the easiest subject to broach."

How the guitar became the star with the band's 1965 single, "Heart Full of Soul." "The Yardbirds never felt particularly English—as the Kinks were extremely so—or like a band with Americanized predilections. We encounter Eastern modalities, but a Yardbirds blues—which itself became a form of Yardbirds proto-metal—had an aspect of the sidereal to it."

1945's The Story of G.I. Joe. "The best war films, though, like this one, are about much more than actual combat. They’re equally concerned with how we might discover, develop, and transpose those qualities of honor, and doing right by one’s brother and sister, and answering to one’s self honestly, in the classroom, at the dinner table, in the workplace."

In recognition of the passing of actor George Wendt. "Norm never felt a need to embellish. He owned his struggles. What may have been his depression. His failings. He dished out the bon mot with each entrance like he was a thirsty Pascal who paid for his drinks in pensées, which made him an inspiration."

Tapes of the Doors, the Grateful Dead, and the MC5. "Everyone knows about college gigs. The high school affair, though—for those who weren’t in attendance—is the real imagination-inducer. Separate—but still linked—worlds came together, one on top of the other, like some super cool palimpsest."

An all-time great's centennial and why catchers are the best at the game of life. "Squatting in that heat, taking those foul tips off your body, getting your hands busted up, and then being expected to stand at the plate, bat in those hands, and deliver. And, by the way, if you can also lead our squad emotionally, mentally, physically—and even spiritually—that’d be great, too. It’s as if a catcher’s work is never done. Then again: Is any truly good person’s?"

On mothers and a special mom. "What makes a mother a mother? I’m someone who’s had three. You might ask, 'Wait, how does this guy have three mothers?' but I did, and they were all important, although only one of them was truly my mom."

From Bloodvine and will also be in Nightmares Be Damned: Writings About Horror Films Worth Staying Up For. "Remember: at the core of Easter is a ghost story. A man is murdered. His body is put in a cave. A spirit makes a round of visits. Three days after his internment, the man comes back from the dead."

On the December 3, 1965 joint release of "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out" and Rubber Soul in Best Classic Bands. "'Day Tripper' has some overlap with the shiny, shouty, brass and balls of the album-opening 'Drive My Car,' but this is closer to a soul number than it is a cross between an R&B groover and preternatural guitar extravaganza." 

The footage from the "A Day in the Life" orchestral recording session. "The scene looks like a birthing ground for chaos. Cinéma vérité has become cinéma psychedelia, with touches of Cocteau, Cornell, and Brakhage. The footage flickers, the camera cutting constantly. A scrim of darkness blankets what we see, which only serves to make these people  – their exchanges, the way they regard each other, the looks – appear as if they’re part of a strobing nimbus of light. These are the goings-on of the other side of the looking glass."

From the inn to the page to the gibbet to the crypt to the woods to the backyard to the screen. "We have the sense that Irish horror is meant for the enclave. The small  group. Between neighbors. Kin. Tales are shared, which is rather  different than tales being broadcast. Irish horror cinema tends to maintain a similar insularity, while not barring any would-be audience member. A story unfolds in a corner of the pub, but we are welcome to  listen—or, in this case, watch."

1978's in-concert game-changer. "Ever watch a film and as you’re doing so you make a mental list of your favorite parts, changing the order as the movie goes along? Live and Dangerous is the in-concert LP version of that. What registers as a peak is quickly revealed to be but another high point which itself has another above it. A ceiling-less offering of hard rock grandeur."

Seeing may or may not make for believing. "It’s a lovely day, and there you are motoring with your lady on the way back to your laboratory, where you keep hunks of flesh alive, when you get into a nasty wreck that slices her head clean off. A decapitation, though, is actually much more favorable than a caving-in, considering what you do and where you were headed (yes!), so you scoop up your girlfriend’s gourd—being as she is still your girlfriend, because it’s not like anyone broke up with anyone here—and you resume your car ride  to the lab, where you bring her severed head back to life so that you may love some more."

The real truth about the so-called most depressing film ever made. "Leo McCarey must have been a loving man, for having shown us so much  coldness and cruelty, it’s as if he opens up the heart of the world  itself, and it does us good to be reminded – because we need that  reminder when we can get it – that this oft-cold and cruel world has a  heart and that being recognized for who you are is itself heartening.  Jean Renoir said that Leo McCarey understood people, which sounds like a  pithy statement until one realizes that it is harder to envision a  grander one. Make Way for Tomorrow might as well have been what Renoir meant."

Carnal horror-whimsy. "There’s virtually no negative space in any of these wide shots. An open castle door reveals another castle off in the distance, which causes us to wonder what the neighbors knew, or were they just caught up in their own fiefdom? An object as simple as a key comes as off distinctly priapic. When Blue Beard hands one to his blushing wife, he might as well be forking over a dildo for her to start working herself with posthaste."

The grand romantic sweep of "In My Life." "We pursue affection, but it’s crucial that we internally position ourselves to be able to let affection into our lives as well. Love isn’t merely the one-to-one relationship. There is love of place, love of the future one envisions, love of the experiences that a person has had. Love of who they are. Love of what they believe in trying to become. Love of art like 'In My Life.'”

From Best Classic Bands. "Cars were central to that first decade of rock and roll. You wowed your buddies and your girl with them. You loved your car, tinkered with your car, made loud noises with your car, lamented your car as if dealing with the loss of life when rainwater got under her hood. But what you didn’t do until 'Don’t Worry Baby' was realize how immature you’d been, and how you were holding yourself back, on account of your insecurity as it manifested itself in an example pertaining to your car. All of life is a challenge of growing up, regardless of our age. Here we have the first song—or at least the first song that played on American radio—to codify this inescapable truth."

From Bloodvine. "There’s an extended flashback scene, which is a gem of a film within a film. As with the sepia portion of The Wizard of Oz, the sequence looks as if a different creative team had done the design and shooting; and while this encased work isn’t a found film, it does presage the found film subgenre, except it is memory that declares, 'Action' and sets the cameras rolling."

Open up your heart (or have it be opened for you) to the likes of Le Corbeau, Let the Right One In, Spanish Dracula, and King Kong. "Horror fans are sharers. They love a movie, and they wish to help  someone else experience it as well. They share the love. Their love.  And, when you get down to it, is there a better thing that any of us can  do in this world?"

Stop blaming the refs. "We are a people for whom moaning—and citing victim status, including at the level of our sports fandom—is the norm. Nothing can happen because it simply happened or was the result of a bang-bang play or a basic human error."