Charlie Chaplin captured the flag of my attention as a boy. His Little Tramp persona is what did me in–the duck walk, bowler hat, narrow mustache, and cane. A bunch of daffy shticks that accented the physicality of his cerebral comedy. So winsome were his antics, I pinned a poster of Mr. Chaplin to my bedroom wall (an oddball move, I admit). When I showed my daughter a clip from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) last week she fell into a flurry of giggle fits. It was the iconic scene when Chaplin is working on the factory line. In the clip he is frantically …
Author: Swanson
Scott Ballew on Talking to Mountains & the Sublimity of Sad Songs
“Scott’s songs are stories that go rolling through your head like little movies. You watch them inside yourself as much as you hear them. And you carry away something of value you didn’t have before. As far as I’m concerned that’s exactly what a good song should do. That and tell the truth. Scott’s songs do all of this.” — Terry Allen Scott Ballew on Talking to Mountains & the Sublimity of Sad Songs Scott Ballew is songwriter from Austin, Texas. He earns his keep as the Head of Films and Commercials at YETI, producing and directing films that inspire …
Tending to the Spiritual Interior of Language with Lia Purpura
“Lia Purpura’s essays make the tethers between apparently separate things not only visible, but luminous. Frankly, I can think of no better―by which I mean, adamantly, more necessary―quality in art. We are connected to the guy across the way ashing his cigarette. We are connected to the hawk at the dump, the murdered student, the fire ant, each other. And to do it with so much goddamn music! Time and again I found myself re-reading sentences and paragraphs throughout these essays wondering how I arrived where I did. Astonished, and grateful for it. These are some of the best essays …