astrowunderbar

[astrowunderbar]

7/14/2024 - Nuts, Off the Wall, and Morally Deplorable

Hello, folks! This post is the official maiden voyage for this media blog. My name is Alan, and I'm an English major that hails from the hellishly hot state of Oklahoma. Hopefully this page will introduce you to something novel, something familiar, or even encourage you to recommend a piece of media that happens to catch your fancy.

How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention by Daniel L. Everett (featuring a sick-looking Chinese cover not on the copy I borrowed from the library)

How Language began is a compellingly-written, well-sourced case for the origin of human language as a cultural construct, and which provides convincing argumentation against the origin of language from innate human biology proposed by Noam Chomsky and the mainstream field of linguistics. While I have found this to be an enthralling read, I can occasionally feel myself bristle at the occasional appearances of atheistic rationalist smugness that seems to abide by an ethos a couple decades out of date, as well as the needlessly pitying portrayals of autistic people in discussing how they differ in neurotype. Would definitely recommend, though, for those with an interest in human cognition.

Hellzapoppin' (1941) - dir. H.C. Potter

Hellzapoppin' is nuts. Hellzapoppin' is off the wall. Have you seen Hellzapoppin'? While not the most faithful adaptation of the even more frenetic stage musical that graced Broadway for a brief four years, this movie still, in its own right, manages to kickstart a surrealist comedy movement that would echo throughout film in the decades to come. The best Mel Brooks picture that Mel Brooks never directed.

Peep Show (2003-2015) - cr. Sam Bain, Jesse Armstrong, and Andrew O'Connor

A quintessential part of the library of any post-grad squatter worth their salt, Peep Show is paradoxically one of those pieces of media that I am very shy about recommending and yet believe is essential viewing for everyone. Low-fi freaks, stoners, disillusioned office workers, and esoteric history enthusiasts alike will delight in the misadventures of these morally-deplorable, acerbically-written Englishmen.

This Is The Kit: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

A tight, mellow, in-person set from This Is The Kit, a folk band whose work hearkens back to the medieval British melodies accompanied by guitar that lived on in centuries past. As this a Tiny Desk Concert, there is, of course, a superb snippet of music journalism from NPR correspondent Bob Boilen in the description box, too.