Listen Up: Is It Wicked Not To Care?
I am an editor and music columnist at a magazine that mostly covers music; I am supposed to know music, and have opinions about it. Yet the best I've been able to muster up for these artists new albums has been, like, “Eh.” read more
The Booky Man: Revisiting 'To Kill A Mockingbird' on Its 50th Anniversary
Editor’s Note: This column originally ran in November 2009. With this week’s 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird, Paste offers the view of our Books Editor, Charles McNair, aka The Booky Man, on this widely read classic.... read more
Start Press: Dear Videogame Store at the Mall
Dear videogame store at the mall, Why do you suck so badly? Why do you positively revel in your antiseptic, soulless, funless, melted low-fat vanilla soft serve-ness? A set of newborn octuplets with eight bottles wedged in their tiny gluttonous gobs couldn't pull off as much sucking as you, videogame store at the mall. When a 31-year-old male finds himself at the mall and his pregnant wife is shopping for baby clothes, your job is simple: offer an oasis of time-killing euphoria to help pass the weary hours. When you are not providing this service, it means you are vigorously... read more
High Definition: A Small Act makes a big difference
Watching the documentary, A Small Act, which debuted last night on HBO, I was reminded of my friend Dr. John Oduro Boateng. He grew up in rural Ghana, the youngest of his father’s 15 orphaned children, living with relatives who would have him do the most menial labor—carrying so many buckets of water and wood that he wore a bald spot on his young head. He would have had no hope for education if not for a small Catholic mission, where a teacher recognized his intelligence and sent him on to secondary school. From there, he received a scholarship to... read more
Listen Up: Souls, Slots and Other Strange Transactions in Tunica
Thirty-five miles or so north of where U.S. Highway 49 hits Highway 61—the crossroads where bluesman Robert Johnson allegedly bartered his soul off to the devil—sits a cluster of casinos, just three among many splashed out on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River, where on Friday night I watched an innumerable amount of perhaps even stranger transactions taking place... read more
The Booky Man: Of Mice and Locusts, Nathanael West
Indulge yourself. Savor for one short moment one of the great opening scenes in literature.... read more
Start Press: The Coming Age of MMOARSNs! (Massively Multiplayer Online Augmented-Reality Social Networks)
Earlier this week, Twitter—the only news source on the planet whose “reporters” spend less time fact-checking than Fox News—lit up with discussion of Robert Zemeckis’ 1989 film Back to the Future II. The subject began trending after a UK-based film magazine and website called Total Film tweeted that July 5th, 2010, just so happened to be the once futuristic-sounding date that Marty and Doc Brown had punched into their DeLorean dashboard. This ‘fun fact’ proceeded to go viral, triggering a global Twitter dialogue about how our late 20th-century hopes for futuristic technology have panned out.... read more
The Booky Man: How I didn’t meet Eudora Welty
I once nearly met Eudora Welty, the greatest writer ever to win a Pulitzer Prize and be a member of The Junior League of Jackson, Mississippi.... read more
Listen Up: Scorn on the Fifth of July
It was just after dark on July 5, 1998 and I was not where I wanted to be... read more
Ciné Files: So Bad It's Good? So Bad, It's Street Fighter Sublime
There’s a certain kind of movie that may well be the best social lubricant known to modern society (outside of a tall, stiff drink); the so-bad-it’s-good kind. My fellow editor, Rachael Maddux, has made the case that Troll 2 stands as the tallest pillar of this underappreciated (sub)genre. And Troll 2 is surely a worthy contender for that crown; so is Starship Troopers, Total Recall, Reefer Madness, and a whole host of others. But for my money, there’s one flick that stands head and shoulders above these: The 1994 Street Fighter movie.... read more
High Definition: Ian Darke's Moment on the World Cup Stage
Anelka and France flamed out early. Rooney had little impact and his England team followed soon after. Landon Donovan was an American hero in the group stage, but couldn’t save the Yanks against Ghana. But one man has stood out as I’ve watched nearly every World Cup game on ESPN, and that’s announcer Ian Darke.... read more
Listen Up: My Favorite Summer Song
Just thousands of palm-sized dude bugs calling out for ladyfriends, desperate and wheezing the moment it hits 80-something degrees whenever your temperate climate's global-warming addled summer begins... read more
The Booky Man: A Love Story Endures
Where do I begin? First with a confession. I fall in love. Often. Often badly. I admit it. Do we all? I fall for a pair of eyes in a passing car. A pretty girl walking her ugly pug. A five-story-high set of lips and lashes on a silver screen.... read more
Start Press: Daddy's Love, His Yoke
“Then he just sat there holding the binoculars and watching the ashen daylight congeal over the land. He knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.” (Cormac McCarthy, The Road) *** This past Sunday was Father’s Day, an occasion that has historically compelled me to look outward. It’s a day on which I’ve grown accustomed to considering my own dad, actively muting my lingering nitpicks with his job performance and focusing instead on the ferocity of the man’s affection; his contagious, untidy laughter; his irrepressibility; his resolve... read more
High Definition: Memphis Beat Review
I’ve long been a fan of Jason Lee, and not just because he’s the source of my favorite quote about my magazine (calling Paste “so deliciously sweet, I often put it on my waffles in the morning instead of syrup.”). He was a Kevin Smith regular before his breakthrough role in Almost Famous. He was completely original in the underrated My Name is Earl. He was even the bad guy in The Incredibles, the best Pixar film of all time. Tonight, he’s got a new drama on TNT called Memphis Beat.... read more
Listen Up: Have You Ever Seen a Turtle Get Down?
The most excruciatingly dull six minutes of music involving a multi-platinum artist, four grown men in turtle suits and a keytar player in a mini-skirt ever committed to tape... read more
The Booky Man: Next stop, Babylon?
It’s a tempting notion, to travel through time. Maybe if you’re a guy, you’d like to go back to the past and ask that little high-school wallflower named Norma Jean Baker for a date.... read more
Start Press: Immersion 2.0 (A Bug Report)
If you’ve watched any online streaming video coverage of E3’s press conferences this year, chances are you’ve seen people jumping and/or flailing their arms in front of a television. At Microsoft’s press conference on Monday, they showcased their Kinect motion-sensing device, previously called Project Natal. Onstage at LA’s Wiltern Theatre, a handful of Microsoft staffers navigated a virtual white-water raft down a virtual river. They leaned to steer. They jumped to launch the raft into the air to reach in-game collectibles. They squealed with delight, presumably when the scrolling text on the teleprompter read “[SQUEEEAAAL!!]” The rafting mini-game actually... read more
Listen Up: A Bend in the River
The city I grew up in grew up around a river... read more
Start Press: Pining is Evergreen
My most vivid childhood memory of my dad involves his obsession with classic rock. The '80s were winding down and our family had relocated from Ireland to Southern California. If there was music on his car radio, you better believe a DJ at K-Earth 101 FM was serving it up. My dad lost his mind every time they spun “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” a psychedelic slow-jam from 1969 by Tommy James and The Shondells. Singing along wasn’t enough; he compulsively slapped his fingers, tabla-style, on the steering wheel of his ’78 Toyota Celica. The loose fit of the horn buttons in... read more
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