THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

Almost three decades ago, a 90-minute disposable romantic comedy called Sweet Lies was released to theaters with little fanfare; like a fart in a hurricane, it quickly vanished after leaving a brief grimace on the faces of all involved. Here’s the banal plot summation from IMDB: "An insurance investigator is visiting Paris on assignment. He is soon made the object of a seduction bet among three ladies. Problems arise when the girls realize they are really falling for him." See what I mean? Name actors like Treat Williams and Julianne Phillips (ex-Mrs. Bruce Springsteen) weren’t enough to capture the eyeballs needed for this limp and lethargic lumber. Although to be fair, “seduction bet” would be a decent name for a debut album from a eastern European goth-electro duo. However, there was at least one good thing to come from this cinematic cyst, and once again, Robert Palmer is the person to thank. At the time, the title song for Sweet Lies didn’t register with the ...

“President Trump is watching Fox News... peddling info from Fox... tweeting about Fox stories... giving most of his interviews to Fox... and getting support from Fox stars. He's promoting Fox as 'fair' and attacking its rivals as 'fake.' He's working with former Fox staffers. And now he's dealing with an international incident provoked by a Fox commentator. That's what we're witnessing. A presidency shaped by Fox News. Do you like what you see?” -- Brian Stelter, from CNN Reliable Sources newsletter For a couple years, I was a member of the Reddit community, although I didn't post much. (And when I did post, no one cared.) However, it was short-lived, based on two major factors from a minority of Redditors: the negative preoccupations with so-called "social justice warriors" (SWJ's) and the ramp-up to the 2016 election. I still lurk on Reddit now and again, but it just isn't the same knowing those devolved dopes are out there...

If I'm asked about my job, one of the questions that often comes up is the query into my favorites. "What class do you like the most?" will pop up on the regular, so I'm always prepared with a surface answer and a deeper explanation. The blithe company line is to say that all my classes are equally joyful and replete, but anyone who's a parent will see through that lie pretty quickly. Parents have favorite kids, and professors have favorite classes. But there's a difference between "favorite" and "most important," and for me, that's the difference between the History of the Rock & Roll Era (my "favorite," even though it's the most frustrating by far) and Human Sexuality (easily the "most important" on the list, even more so than Introduction to Psychology). With that in mind, take a moment to watch this: One of the many twisting cords of my personal cloth of pedagogy relates to empowerment, offering ...

Over a half-century ago, a cover version meant something quite specific: A white artist popularizing a song from an African-American artist, often just at the moment that the African-American artist's version was about to cross over to a white audience. From Pat Boone's circumcision of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" to The Crew Cuts bleaching the black out of "Sh-Boom" by The Chords, the history of rock and roll is littered with too many cases of artistic appropriation at the expense of deserving and talented African-American artists. However, every now and again, a cover version offers something that the original did not possess, eliding mere imitation to reach a sanctified moment of transcendence. Can anyone hear "Hallelujah" today, in its myriad iterations, without hearing the phrasing and essence of Jeff Buckley's early '90s renewal of Leonard Cohen's secular hymn? When Linda Ronstadt -- in her '70s peak -- took songs f...