Look, I’ll be watching every new episode of The Office this season. I’ll probably act kind of reluctant and surprised, afterwards, when I invariably say, “Yeah, it was pretty good!” That opinion will be slightly more predictable and slightly less reliable than Thefoodreviewer’s take on “Pizza Rolls.” I’ll end up buying the season on DVD. …
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Nitsuh Abebe’s latest column for Pitchfork, “How to Be a Vampire.” In it, he turns the nostalgia talking point on its head, and reminisces over his approach to music in adolescence, “listening like a vampire, listening because I desired to suck something out of the music for …
Early in the series, The Office had a slow smallness to it unlike anything on television. It was willing to linger where other shows would skip ahead, which allowed the audience to practically participate in the tension. The slow smallness gave dimensions to characters who could’ve easily been one-dimensional. Of course, there were stories, too: …
Three moments struck me as particularly poignant and of one accord in “Goodbye, Michael,” Steve Carell’s final episode as the star of The Office. Each (like much of the rest of the episode) put a nice shine on the strangely beautiful development that we’ve witnessed over the past seven seasons, both in the Michael character …
The final month of 2009 was a celebration for music snobs, enthusiasts, and especially media outlets, as they compiled and published two lists, “of the Year” and “of the Decade.” At least in the circles that I tend to observe, the celebration seemed like a party with two guests of honor: Animal Collective and Radiohead. …