Archive for category pop culture
Rich Juzwiak on VH1, FourFour Blogs
Posted by admin in episodic TV, pop culture on February 10, 2010
VH1 Blog
I first learned about pop culture blogger Rich Juzwiak while listening to the Frenemies episode of This American Life in which he appeared. From there I started reading his Celebreality coverage on the VH1 blog, as well as his overall pop culture coverage at his own site, FourFour. I recently caught up with him via email to get his perspective on many aspects of pop culture. Juzwiak can also be found here on Twitter. My thanks to Juzwiak for his time and thoughts.
Tim O’Shea: What kind of fortitude do you have to do the in-depth analysis of reality TV like you do on a regular basis–what keeps it interesting for you?
Rich Juzwiak: I think as a culture, we’re all quite taken with ourselves as a culture — there’s a sort of cultural narcissism that goes on with our obsessive need to report about ourselves and then report on that reporting. Bottom line: human beings are fascinating, especially at their behavioral extremes, which reality TV invites.
Remembering My Childhood: Lewis Grizzard
Posted by admin in pop culture on January 6, 2010
I was a kind of an odd kid growing up. When you share a room with your teenage brother, and typically found yourself falling to sleep, hearing him type short stories to submit to the New Yorker–well I doubt most people grew up that way. My brother’s path ultimately led him away from fiction and toward journalism. As a result, I got to tag along with my brother to cover the opening of one of the first MARTA rail stations–among other unique things in my life.
The average kid my age did not have an affinity for reading Lewis Grizzard or listening to his step-brother, Ludlow Porch, on the radio. I did.
Grizzard was a Southern icon for my childhood, he’s part of Atlanta’s past. He died in 1994 at the age of 47. My memory’s faulty, I always assumed he was older than that. To think in a little more than five years I will be the age Grizzard was when he died amazes me.
The mid-1990s is when Atlanta changed for me–and not for the better. The Olympics attracted a great many transplants. The mid-1990s brought a rush hour starting around 5 AM. Old Atlanta, like Lewis Grizzard, is dead. I see glimpses of it, every once and awhile. But rarely. It might be why I like to drive around town late at night, it reminds me of what the city used to be–when I was a kid. Don’t get me wrong, there are many great things about my hometown, that construction and technology and overcrowding cannot kill. And I’m grateful for that.
Merry Christmas II: Wonderful Life “Lost” Ending
Posted by admin in Film, comedy, pop culture, streaming video on December 25, 2009
I always forget that Shatner (with classic 1980s rug) introduces the clip.
As much as I love the original film, my sense of humor is drawn to absurd material like this.
Kaya Oakes on Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture
Posted by admin in Literature, Music, comics, commerce, pop culture on November 18, 2009
Slanted and Enchanted
In the introduction to her book, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, Kaya Oakes writes: “If we understand culture to mean something more than a style of music, a visual aesthetic, or a literary mode and try to define it from its Latin root, cultura—“to cultivate”— then we can see how indie artists have traditionally worked together to cultivate many things: credibility, freedom, the ability to promote their own work and to control how it’s promoted, self-reliance, open-mindedness, and the freedom to take creative risks. Likewise, if a culture is truly a group of people working and living together, independent artists have traditionally embraced the value of networking, making connections, and striving toward doing their art, their way. If being independent in your choices about what you listen to, look at, read, and watch implies a lack of compromise, then many of the people still making music and art independently would absolutely fit that definition. Indie’s ambiguity can partially be chalked up to its emphasis on making its participants feel individual and unique. But before any of us were able to be creatively independent, we had to build on the practice of our independent predecessors. Because indie’s history is in many ways a shadow history— one that parallels and reflects mainstream culture but also poises itself as being a subculture of outsiders— the threads connecting the twentieth- and twenty- first-century indie movements are not always readily apparent, especially in this day and age, wherein young artists face a plethora of choices about what kind of art they will make and how to distribute that art. Young fans often encounter art that builds on traditions of independence with which they may not be familiar.” (The entire intro can be read here at Oakes’ site). In the book, Oakes (who co-founded Kitchen Sink magazine) set out to examine the evolution of the indie movement and the scope of its impact. My thanks to Oakes for her time and insight into the DIY dynamics.
RIP Ray Browne
Posted by admin in pop culture on November 3, 2009
I feel a bit like an idiot when I admit, I had no idea who Ray Browne was–and I should have known, considering he is the fellow who established the academic study of pop culture. He died of natural causes on October 22.
Browne, as noted in obituaries in both the Washington Post and the New York Times, was a distinguished university professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University. As detailed by the New York Times, he taught there from 1967 to 1992. “A folklorist and literary scholar who specialized in Twain and Melville, he founded the university’s department of popular culture, the first such academic department in the country, in 1973,” according to the New York Times.
I aim to track down some of his books and learn more about him. But I have to pay tribute to the man who indirectly fostered a love for pop culture in academia and laid the foundation (on a core level) for blogs like mine.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/28/AR2009102804766.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/education/28browne.html?_r=1&emc=rss&partner=rss
John Drew on The Chronic Rift
Posted by admin in Literature, episodic TV, pop culture on October 7, 2009
The Chronic Rift
A few months back I was researching an upcoming interview with writer Keith R.A. DeCandido. And in doing my research, I found out DeCandido was involved with a pop cultue podcast, The Chronic Rift. As a podcast, the show is only a year old, but it’s beginnings date back to the early 1990s (with a public access TV show about “fantasy, science fiction, and other genres.”) After downloading a few episodes for my Ipod and immensely enjoying them, I contacted the original creator/podcast producer John Drew and email interviewed him about the show. The Chronic Rift recently joined Mevio (“an online video and audio network for episodic entertainment”), so we get to discuss that development among other engaging topics.
Tim O’Shea: How did the Mevio deal come about?
John Drew: Well, they approached us saying that they liked what they heard and wanted to know if we were interested. I’d heard of Mevio, but I always thought they were more focused on their video content as that’s what you see when you first visit the website. Upon further examination, I saw everything they had to offer in the form of file space and bandwidth; it really seemed like a no-brainer. We haven’t begun any actual advertising on the show yet as we’re still waiting for advertiser approval of our overall show (They don’t dictate content, but they get first refusal of the overall show.), but the advertisers are major brand names and the ones I’ve asked to work with will mesh nicely with the show.
Adam P. Knave on Stays Crunchy in Milk
Posted by admin in Literature, cereal, comedy, pop culture on September 2, 2009
I don’t often quote The A-Team, but given the nature of this novel and this interview, it’s apropros. As they used to say on the show: “I love it when a plan comes together.” Earlier this week, I found out about Adam P. Knave’s new pop culture road novel, Stays Crunchy in Milk. He and I discussed the possibility of an email interview, I developed the questions and he got back to me the next day. I wish all my interviews were this fun and easily assembled. As detailed at his website, Knave is “a New York-based writer who has published numerous works of comics, fiction and non-fiction. APK was born and raised in Manhattan where he still lives.” Before jumping into the interview, here are the vital details on the novel:
“They were four: Wereberry the strawberry werewolf, Choco-Ra the chocolate mummy, The Creature From the Fruit Lagoon (his friends call him ‘T.C.’), and Cherrygeist the… well she was a ghost. At least, until she wasn’t. One day, she wasn’t there at all. And then they were three.
Three friends who have sworn to search for her to the ends of the world and beyond – to find and save her.
Through familiar lands to places startling and unknown – across looming castles, endless battlefields and simple brick roads – these three friends will hunt and search and scour every inch. Along the way they’ll have to rely on a whole lot of luck and a little bit of charm, but mostly each other.
A fairy tale for the super-sugar generation, Stays Crunchy in Milk is a road novel packed with 100% of your recommended daily allowance of essential action and adventure. And it’s a delicious part of a nutritious breakfast.”
My thanks to Knave for his time and thoughts–and his kind words about this blog.
Tim O’Shea: How did the concept of this quirky novel evolve into being–and how long have you been working on it?
Adam P. Knave: I was sitting around discussing ideas with my oft-times comic writing partner and POPGUN boss, D.J. Kirkbride. He wanted to write something prose, longer than a short story. So I tossed the raw idea off to him to use. He didn’t think it was right for him at the time, but suddenly I realized I could make a novel out of it. Just pure dumb luck, really. I realized, at the core of it, that the old Universal monster cereals were the only characters that each had their own cereal and yet seemed to cross over and talk to each other. You never see Tony the tiger chatting up Toucan Sam, after all. Once I had that I turned it into a quest and set out the front door.
Scott Bateman on Atom Age Vampire, Animation
Posted by admin in Animation, comedy, politics, pop culture on August 27, 2009
When a person can craft a 1940s educational film into pure comedy, you have won me over as a permanent fan. That person is Scott Bateman, an “animator in New York City“. His latest project shows how funny stamps can be…seriously. Until very recently, Bateman’s work was featured at Salon.com–but Bateman Animation can also be found at True/Slant and his YouTube channel. With his run at Salon ending, Bateman is devoting more time to generating interest in his film, Atom Age Vampire, which we also get to discuss. My thanks to friend of the blog, Mary Jo Pehl, for introducing me to the greatness of Bateman’s work. And my thanks to Bateman for this email interview.
Tim O’Shea: How do you go about tracking down obscure audio like “Actual audio from the 1947 educational film Using The Bank“. And from there, how do you typically go about writing the script that you run in parallel with the animation. Do you write the script before starting the animation work?
Scott Bateman: There is a wealth of amazing material in the Prelinger Archives at archive.org, a web site that hosts a vast array of public domain material. The Prelinger Archives specializes in short educational and industrial films from the 1940s and 1950s–hygiene, cold war propoganda, juvenile delinquency, it’s all there. Man, I can spend hours on that site!
My writing process for these animations goes something like this: I’ll end up watching a film several times while I animate it, because I’ll go through once and animate bodies, then another time through for mouths, another for hands, etc. So by the time I add the commentary, I already have a ton of snarky comments about the film at my disposal. I’ll put in the comments I most want in the movie first, then fill in the holes between.
Lee Goldberg on The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW)
Posted by admin in Literature, episodic TV, pop culture on June 3, 2009
In a TalkingwithTim.com first, with this interview, I have the pleasure of talking with Lee Goldberg, the brother of someone previously interviewed here (Tod Goldberg). Honestly, when I contacted the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW), I had no idea I would end up interviewing Lee (who co-founded the group). So this was merely a great coincidence. In addition to talking about IAMTW (a group “dedicated to enhancing the professional and public image of tie-in writers…to working with the media to review tie-in novels and publicize their authors…to educating people about who we are and what we do….and to providing a forum for tie-in writers to share information, support one another, and discuss issues relating to our field…”), Lee and I discuss his media tie-in work with Monk (he has a new book, MR. MONK AND THE DIRTY COP, due to be released in July) and Diagnosis Murder. My thanks to Lee for an engaging and informative discussion (now I need to go find those old Rockford Files novels that I just found out about…)
Tim O’Shea: IAMTW was initially established by you and Max Allan Collins to enhance “the professional and public image of tie-in writers”. Have you found that Mystery Writers of America, Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Romance Writers of America have given greater credit to tie-in writers since the formation of the group–or what metrics do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of IAMTW’s efforts to date?
Lee Goldberg: We aren’t interested in getting acknowledgement from other writers’ organizations…our goal is to increase awareness of, and appreciation for, tie-in writing among the general public, booksellers, publishers, and the media (print, Internet, broadcast, etc). In that regard, I think we’ve succeeded. We’ve seen a LOT more press about tie-in authors since our organization started, much of it directly mentioning the IAMTW or our Scribe Awards (ie Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Mystery Scene, etc)…and we are noticing increased recognition from publishers, who are starting to mention Scribe Awards and/or nominations for their authors in sales catalogs, promo materials and book jacket copy.
Ian Boothby on Canadian Content
Posted by admin in comedy, pop culture on May 13, 2009
Ian Boothby is a writer of many mediums, mainly sketch comedy and comics. Recently I found out about his involvement in the comedy show, Canadian Content. As detailed at its site: “Canadian Content is a video and live sketch comedy show featuring Vancouver’s top award winning comedic talent. What can an audience expect from Canadian Content? It’s smart. It’s loose. It’s funny. And it may not contain actual Canadian content.” Canadian Content recently was named Best Sketch Group from the 2008 Canadian Comedy Award. In addition to Boothby, Canadian Content includes Toby Berner, Chris Casillan, Diana Frances, Nathan Clark and Drew McCreadie. My thanks to Boothby for the email interview.
Tim O’Shea: How did Canadian Content originally form?
Ian Boothby: Canadian Content is a spin off from Urban Improv which has been doing weekly sketch style improv for 13 years in Vancouver. We still perform every Monday at Chivana. There was a Vancouver Sketchfest show happening and we wanted Urban Improv to attend but the other groups were adamant that the material had to be scripted. So we wrote some sketches based mostly on characters we’d done on our Monday shows and called ourselves Canadian Content.
Most of the performers in the group have actually had sketch television series in Canada but we never really thought about doing sketch regularly live before this. Since then we’ve got on to do the Chicago and San Fran Sketchfests and the Vancouver ComedyFest. We’ve gotten to work with most of our sketch comedy heroes from Kids in the Hall and Mr. Show. If it all ends now we couldn’t complain. Okay, we clearly would complain but…