Matt and I don’t usually do podcasts based on like, what is actually happening in real life right now, but as NBA fans and draft nuts generally who fancy the Sixers and Lakers, we thought now was a good time to start. We review the NBA Draft: happy thoughts on our teams, lol-based thoughts about… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 17: Ben Simmons Chosen by the Philadelphia Karma Chameleons
Jesus (as Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit tells us) shown everything off balance. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the Misfit expands on that hypothesis in his own personal testimony. I’ve found myself running that sentence, along with a close counterpart from just later in the story – “Does it seem right to you, lady,… Read More Everything Off Balance
Matt and I take several tacks in an X-Men podcast for the rest of us. We review X-Men: Apocalypse in the context of the new trilogy and preview what might happen in X-Men: Tired Fourth Movie in a Series; we give some thought to the Claremont run in particular, and to the paradox of the… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 16: Cranky Criticism from the Podcast in a Bottle
There’s a title that doesn’t have anything to do with the podcast, which is in fact a Top 100 list of the most ’90s songs in the style of our last post. Listen to hear Matt’s Eddie Vedder impression (prefaced by Tim’s impeccable freestyle), how emo everyone was during America’s most cheerful decade maybe ever,… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 15: Mentholated Buzz Lightyear Holidays
Matt and I dip back into music and Top 100 lists for this podcast, in which we talk about the most quintessentially ’80s songs. Find out what Toto’s “Africa” and Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” have in common, why Matt loves The Outfield’s “Your Love” so much, learn about the magic of hair metal, and… Read More Baumann and Burch, Episode 14: Private Karaoke
Dir. Roger Spottiswoode. Starring Matthew Modine, Saul Rubinek, Alan Alda The story of the HIV/AIDS crisis, especially in its nascent days in the late 1970s, is utterly terrifying. Until I read Randy Shilts’ magnificent tome on the first ten years of AIDS, And the Band Played On, it was hard for me to realize just… Read More And the Band Played On (1993)
Dir. David Cronenberg. Starring Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen In love and psychoanalysis, where one rests relative to one’s partner is of vital importance. Throughout the film, Jung (Fassbender) and Spielrein (Knightley) switch places relative to one another befitting just those concepts. In the beginning, while Jung is still her doctor and not her… Read More A Dangerous Method (2011)
Dir. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Starring Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Angela Lansbury Since I reached adulthood, which is best defined here as that time in a person’s life when s/he begins to pine for childhood, I’ve spent more time than I ought to debating Disney movies. It’s been almost ten years that I’ve been… Read More Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Last night’s draft lottery was hypnotic. The Sixers finally won the darn thing; for an evening, before Philadelphia begins to dissect Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram only to be surprised when Jamal Murray goes first overall (I’m kidding, probably), we could enjoy the dream of a first overall selection. The Process, which has been roundly… Read More It’s Bailout Season, and Other Last Thoughts on the Old Sixers
Depending on who you are, Donald Trump proved his seriousness as a candidate as long ago as last summer, although I think many of us came to it later than that. For me, it was back in February when Donald Trump handily won the Republican primary in South Carolina. My thoughts on what signaled the… Read More Re: Unraveling the Trump Phenomenon
Seeing Things Secondhand 