In many ways, 2007 was a positively magical year for music fans. From the shock wave of press that accompanied the pay what you will release of our pick from number one album of the year to the reunion of one of rock’s most iconic bands (that would be Led Zeppelin), there was much to draw one’s...

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is only one book in a series of recent novels to deal with a post-apocalyptic world. There is Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe, The Pesthouse by Jim Crace, as well as Chris Adrian’s The Children’s Hospital. All four of these writers, it should be noted, are literary...

Red Letters by Tom Davis begins not with startling statistics or an alarming call to action, but with a simple story about a teenager named Kirill who lived on the streets of Moscow. We’ve all been there before, trying to assuage our feelings of guilt with justifications and avoiding eye contact....

Long before the rise of Christian publishing, marketing departments, and book committees domesticating content to appeal to the sensibilities of evangelical audiences, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote novels filled with profound Christian truths. However, his characters were a dark and colorful bunch including...

The Hard Lessons B & G Sides (Volume 1) Quack!Media Isn’t technology wonderful? From traditional venues like pop and R&B-formatted commercial radio stations to the new school scenes like MySpace and iTunes, music fans don’t have to search very long or very hard to find several...

Lately, it’s been somewhat bothersome to me that many music reviewers are either washed-up, bitter ex-musicians or elitist scene-kids. Let’s take a look at a recent review from Pitchfork by one Ryan Dombal, shall we? This review charts and graphs the newest offering by Stars (In Our Bedroom...

Ladies and Gentlemen! We’ll be taking the next week off because, as you may be aware, it’s Christmas. As much as I’ve heard Christmas music ad nauseum in the last few weeks, it’s still Christmas! It’s Christmas! It really is the most wonderful time of the year! We wish...

The Grinch could have Christmas for all I cared. There was no need to even steal it – I would have given it to him and his sidekick dog without protest. And while we’re at it, I’ll freely admit that I sympathized with Scrooge and even inwardly shouted “Ba Humbug!” every...

Recently, I’ve grown dissatisfied with the typical selection of beverages. Even at the store where I work, which has a pretty broad offering, there are very few I really love. Sodas don’t feel like they hydrate me well enough, and many of the non-major brands are too sweet. Iced teas have...

There are too many things that flippantly get described as epic. That burrito you just ate was epic. Hey, remember you asked out Susie Spedouski; that was epic. I can’t wait to bake turnovers with you; it’s going to be epic. With these frivolous uses nowadays, it is difficult to know when...