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Recent Posts
- Review of “DTF St. Louis” Episode 5: David Harbour Deserves an Emmy
- The Year Without a Winter Over, Wildfire Season Begins
- On Pekka Hamalainen’s “Indigenous Continent”: Finnish Historian’s View of Native American History
- The Year Without a Winter Ends: It’s Spring!
- Review “War Machine”: Glimpse Our Future Wars Against Invading Robots
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Author Archives: williamjcobb
A Star Is Corn: "Country Strong" & the Gwyneth Paltrow Gagfest
There needs to be some complicated noun (perhaps the Urban Dictionary can get on this, better than “hiberdating” or “internet coma”) to express the rather long-winded “feeling of revulsion when seeing overexposed celebrities in internet-news headlines that you’ve just become … Continue reading
Posted in Film
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Prisons, Poverty, & Pickups: The Other West
So I’ve just driven 1720 miles from Colorado to Pennsylvania . . . . . . and the contrast between Western and Eastern U.S. is on my mind. One thing I notice is the discrepancy between the media myth of … Continue reading
Posted in The West
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Deer & Coyotes in the New Year
I’ve had deer and coyotes in my yard at the start of this new year, so something must be right with the world. I double-checked and corroborated that the mountain scenes in True Grit were filmed near Santa Fe, which … Continue reading
Posted in The West
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"True Grit" in the True West
So last night I saw the Coen Brothers’ True Grit in the mountain town of Canon City, Colorado, which was at one point in the 1880s the stagecoach stop east of Bighorn Canyon. A Western in a town of the … Continue reading
Posted in Film
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Peter Benchley's "Jaws," the Novel, as Toothsome Holiday Reading
One thing good about the holidays, and about being away from home and routine, is Weird Reading. I have a first edition hardback of Peter Benchley’s “Jaws” (1973) on my bookshelf in Colorado, and picked it up to pass the … Continue reading
Posted in books/film
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Review of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" Anthology, and a Nod to Holiday Pleasures, of the Guilty Variety
I’m on holiday vacation, offline for the most part, doing all those things one does on holiday, like witness TV programs I generally wouldn’t be caught dead watching, such as anything involving “. . . With the Stars!” in the … Continue reading
Posted in books
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On Chuck Closterman's Zombie Analogy and Stephen Graham Jones's "The Ones That Got Away"
It seems everyone is trying to deconstruct and decode the recent zombie craze, including Gail Collins in the NY Times, who wrote a funny piece about the zombie Congress, and this morning Chuck Closterman has a good(ish) piece in the … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, Politics, writing
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On the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" Anthology: Attack of the Dinner Party Zombies!
So I’ve been swamped with work the last few days, not to mention trying to decide what Christmas presents to give family members who fall into the Seriously Irritating category (Ah, festive cheer!), but I have managed to review The … Continue reading
Posted in books, Weird Science
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A Reason for Holiday Glee: Coen Brothers' "True Grit" to Open December 22nd
So the filmmakers who are putting pretty much everyone else to shame have a Christmas present (and they’re Jewish, to boot) for the world, their adaptation of True Grit, starring Jeff Bridges stepping into John Wayne’s boots. Here’s the official … Continue reading
Posted in Film, The West
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Oil Reserves Drop by 90% and Electric Cars Throb: Is That Peak Oil or Are You Just Glad to See Me?
I’m a fan of the concept of Peak Oil, even if I don’t know how valid the actuality of it is: In a nutshell, it makes sense to me that oil will eventually reach it’s peak, that is, the halfway … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Weird Science
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