In Medias Res: Listening to Lennon #4: Mind Games
Mind Games is usually seen as Lennon backing away from the direct, seemingly (but in actual fact almost never truly) spontaneous engagement...| inmedias.blogspot.com
Mind Games is usually seen as Lennon backing away from the direct, seemingly (but in actual fact almost never truly) spontaneous engagement...| inmedias.blogspot.com
[An expanded version of my Insight Kansas column, which appeared in Kansasnewspapers this weekend.]| In Medias Res
In August of 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono moved to New York City, according to them to help Yoko obtain custody of her daughter Kyoko (whi...| inmedias.blogspot.com
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]Regarding Abundance| In Medias Res
[Note: Spoilers follow.] I’ve seen James Gunn’s Superman , and I’ve written up my take on it on social media: I thought it was absolutel...| inmedias.blogspot.com
Daniel| In Medias Res
Martha my dear, / Though I spend my days in conversation, / Please remember me. At roughly 12:30am this morning, the fog and pain and confus...| inmedias.blogspot.com
By the spring of 1971, Lennon's confused mess of anger, resentment, and frustration had a focus: his oldest and truest friend, Paul McCartne...| inmedias.blogspot.com
I spent a good chunk of Thanksgiving weekend watching Peter Jackson's superb and somewhat overwhelming Get Back , along with--according to m...| inmedias.blogspot.com
[Cross-posted to Wichita Story ] Over the twelve months of 2019, I listened to every single Paul McCartney album, thus becoming a Macca co...| inmedias.blogspot.com
I wasn't a Beatles kid--except in the sense, as Rob Sheffield wonderfully invokes in his terrific new book, Dreaming the Beatles , every Am...| inmedias.blogspot.com
Paul McCartney has been my favorite Beatle for years, as the long journey I took in 2019 through Macca's then-nearly-50-years' worth of solo, non-Beatles recordings should prove. The man is simply incredible, as a musician, performer, arranger, and instrumentalist. He's got an uncanny ear for melody, and his elastic appreciation of different sounds and styles, along with his incredible (however inconsistent) work ethic, has meant that he's built songs for decades that demonstrate a mastery, o...| In Medias Res
1) I saw Bob Dylan on Saturday here in Wichita, which was only the second show of his 2025 extension of his never ending tour (nominally supporting his most recent album, the excellent Rough and Rowdy Ways, but really just Bob being the traveling poet and song and dance man he's always been). It was a great show, with Bob sitting at the piano the entire time, playing pretty consistently, adding bluesy chords, rockabilly swing, and some romantic melody as the song required. And his four-piece ...| In Medias Res
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic] | In Medias Res
Ian Leslie's John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs is a terrific book. I say that as a major Beatles fan, though not, as I've confessed before, a fanatic. I may have collected and listened to everything Paul McCartney has ever officially released, but I haven't done the same with John Lennon (much less George Harrison or Ringo Starr), and that's a failure on my part. Particularly when it comes to John, I need to correct that someday. | In Medias Res
[This is an extensively rewritten version of an essay I wrote for Kansas newspapers last Sunday.]| In Medias Res
[Note: this is a long and very party-centric set of musings for the day before the presidential election ends| In Medias Res
[This is an expanded version of an Insight Kansas column which appeared in the Wichita Eagle today , March 22, 2024] When my wife and I wen...| inmedias.blogspot.com
So, as promised, my review of Lennon's solo albums begins.| In Medias Res
Via Alan Jacobs, I’ve learned that Alasdair MacIntyre| In Medias Res
Yesterday I did as I have regularly done for 16 years now, and replaced my Wednesday| In Medias Res
When Trump won in 2016, I was genuinely flummoxed—disappointed and angry and frustrated as well, of course, but mostly just confused. It signaled the breakdown of practically every electoral pattern that I'd spent the previous 25 years schooling myself in. One of the results was that, while I'm not sure I ever fully believed all the screams about Trump as a Russian agent and all the other "resistance" stuff (what if Clinton called upon the Electoral College to reject Trump as unfit and just...| In Medias Res
[Cross-posted to By Common Consent] | In Medias Res
Minnesota isn't Ontario, of course, and Tim Walz isn't a secular Jew and bass player who became passionately devoted to hard and progressive rock in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the same way Geddy Lee isn't a Minnesota Lutheran schoolteacher turned Governor and now possibly the future Vice President of the United States. But I see something similar in them nonetheless.| In Medias Res
[A slightly different version of this essay appears in Current.]| In Medias Res
Paul McCartney has been my favorite Beatle for years, as the long journey I took in 2019 through Macca's then-nearly-50-years' worth of solo...| inmedias.blogspot.com
1) I saw Bob Dylan on Saturday here in Wichita, which was only the second show of his 2025 extension of his never ending tour (nominally su...| inmedias.blogspot.com
[Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic ] President Trump has been in office a month as of today, and the maelstrom of orders and actions wh...| inmedias.blogspot.com
Ian Leslie's John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs is a terrific book. I say that as a major Beatles fan, though not, as I've confessed before...| inmedias.blogspot.com
[Cross-posted to Wichita Story]| In Medias Res
Ian Angus, The War against the Commons: Dispossession and| In Medias Res
As always, this is a list of the best films I watched for the first time in 2024,| In Medias Res
[Cross-posted to By Common Consent]| In Medias Res
