THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

In the past two weeks, I finished Doctor Sleep (the Stephen King book) and the director's cut of Doctor Sleep (the film written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who also did SK's  Gerald's Game for Netflix in 2017). While I was interested in both just for entertainment value -- anything to distract from the rank shitshow of everyday life, right? -- I was also prepping for a section of Film & Literature at NCMC that was entirely focused on Stephen King. Sadly, there weren't enough students for the course to run, but I'm still thinking of how I was going to deliver the course. In general, Stephen King seems to hit some form of six major themes in his work. And while looking at just those themes in his stories would be interesting enough, the extra dimension is to see how they get translated to film, what is kept and what is jettisoned as King on the page makes it to the stage. Aside from the darkly comic coked-out phantasmagoria of 1986's Maximum Overdrive ...

I can't remember the first time I made a list of something. Maybe it was when I was a kid, when the Sears Christmas catalog would arrive and I would dissect it for hours, writing down the catalog numbers of the items I wanted but knew we could never afford. Thankfully, I have more coin now than then, so if I want an album, I will buy that motherfucker immediately. What follows is a list of albums (well, physical CD's) that I bought this year. The singles of note, however, are all digital. I do miss the physical product of singles -- some of my most played and treasured CD's are singles, from Nitzer Ebb to Dr. Dre -- but if the only way to get the song is to point and click, that's what I'll do. This list is not ranked per se, but it's sorted into a few domains of "quality" (in my case, the ones I played the most). I even have some links, in case you'd like to listen and/or buy something from the artists. The Diamond Dogs Control Top – Covert ...