Author Archives: Colin Lubner

April 2nd: On Hop Along’s Get Disowned There are three stages to a breakup. There are the weeks or months leading up to it, when one person in the relationship knows things are ending, and the other knows only that something is wrong. Then there is the fallout: the day or the week or theContinue reading “April 2nd – 8th”

March 26th: Roger Ebert’s Review of Aquarius Summer’s “One Hour of Mouth Sounds” Aquarius Summer’s “One Hour of Mouth Sounds,” the most compelling ASMR video of 2020, represents nothing less and nothing more than the future of cinema. Despite its lack of believable characters, a discernible plot, a memorable score, or cinematographical competence of theContinue reading “March 26th – April 1st”

March 19th: On Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius The saddest people I know are also, by no accident, the funniest. Laughter and despair are self-perpetuating, cross-fertilizing reactions to grief. Dave Eggers is not alone in his ability to extract humor from loss, even if his loss is starker than most. What makesContinue reading “March 19 – 25th”

March 12th: On Brand New’s Deja Entendu Two themes swim through Brand New’s sophomore album, Deja Entendu. The first, a nautical motif, is announced by the first line of the album’s first song, “Tautou”: “I’m sinking like a stone in the sea.” Two years after the success of their first album (2001’s Your Favorite Weapon),Continue reading “March 12th – March 18th”

March 5th: On The Conjuring Hauntology, a neologism coined by Derrida in his 1993 book Spectres of Marx, refers to the return of elements from the past. A pun on ontology—the study of being—hauntology is concerned with absence. Derrida used it to refer to the memory of communism that stalked western Europe in the wakeContinue reading “March 5th – 11th”

February 26th: On I Care A Lot (2020) I Care a Lot, the latest Netflix phenomenon to insist upon itself until I had no choice but to watch it, is not the kind of story I enjoy. And yet I enjoyed it, as I do most of the films Netflix features front and center. MarlaContinue reading “February 26th – March 4th”

February 19th: On The Blair Witch Project It is 1999, and the Internet as we know it does not yet exist. We have just finished watching The Blair Witch Project at the local AMC. I am leaving your house. Or, perhaps, you are leaving mine. You (and/or I) are sprinting from the front door ofContinue reading “February 19th – 25th”

February 12th: On Into the Wild (the 2007 film) My first time watching this film was in 2012, during my junior year of high school. I remember laughing at McCandless’s fate. I think the moment that gets me the most is one of the last things McCandless says to Franz: “Can we talk about thisContinue reading “February 12th – 18th”

February 5th: On Craft Breweries Cape May Brewery is New Jersey’s best. If not based upon the quality of their shipped product, then that of their in-house experience. A visitor winds their way through a tiny airport, past warehouses and undeveloped absence, convinced they’ve made a wrong turn. Until at last they arrive in aContinue reading “February 5th – 11th”

January 29th: On Voicemail Samples in Songs “Hey, Danny,” begins the song “You Are the Answer to My Security Question,” by the band Cloud District. “I called to wish you a happy birthday. Happy seventeenth birthday. I hope you have a great day. Um, yeah! Alright. Bye!” In the context of the song, the girlContinue reading “January 29th – February 4th”