I’ll bite. I’ll share with you what 2014 licks I was humming in my head, what I was tapping my foot to, and what I was singing loudly at my dashboard. Adding to previous posts, here are my favorite albums of 2014. Disgraceland – The Orwells Don’t know where I found this, most likely songza, but this found its way into my Spotify. Music genres never die, even if they fade from the pop charts, and so garage rock lives in these young lads. This album is rocking, energized, even when the lyrics get mellow or twisted....
Continue reading...2014
The Favorites of WA
Pop started us off yesterday, listing his favorite albums of 2014, and hoping we’d hop into his post. I would do that, but I’m both lazy and selfish, so I’ll throw in three albums in this post. Before I start with the music, I need to mention that I listen almost exclusively to NPR. I hear bumper music on Here and Now and think to myself, well that sounds wicked fresh. So don’t buy anything on my recommendation unless you think 8 year old My Morning Jacket riffs are the height of innovation and cool. Also, this is in...
Continue reading...Our favorites, 2014
I‘m starting this post, and hopefully the rest of the V+V team will come in and add theirs. Come back and see if they do. Update: here’s Jack Burden’s and here is ghost’s. Poplicola: Here are my three favorite albums of 2014. I could argue that they’re also the best records of 2014, but you know, that’s all subjective and shit. You’re free to argue; you’d just be wrong. Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels 2 It was damned hard to believe that Killer Mike and El-P could release a better record than 2012’s R.A.P. Music....
Continue reading...For the 2014th consecutive year, perennial favorite Christmas has won the yearly skirmish in the eternal War on Christmas.
Oh well, we tried. We really tried. Finally successfully completed the annual Christmastime journey from V+V HQ to New England and looking forward to some solid carousing down at the V+V Boston Office this weekend. From all of us at Verities and Vagaries, however you celebrate, we hope the best for your wintertime festivities (or solemnizations).
Continue reading...Make It So
It’s getting to be that season again, so make it so, make it so, make it so.
Continue reading...Writing Fads That Need to Die, Part 1
Welcome to a new series (maybe), in which we explore some ways people are killing the written language. 1. Using the word “because” purposely without “of.” “The world works. Because science.” This is dumb. Replace with “Because of science.” Although that’s pretty dumb as well, but at least it’s grammatically correct. 2. The use of capitalized letters on fake proper nouns to “make some kind of point.” This kind of shit is popping up everywhere. Like: “It was a Totally Big Deal, or at least he thought it was.” Stop that. That is not a proper noun or...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 12 November 2014
If you frequent this here premier “web log,” there’s a good chance you may once or twice have read the New York Times op-ed page. You might even recognize the names of the columnists, who every day spout the most conventionally wise of the conventional wisdom. This is a feature that is dedicated to these folks, highlighting one line that is either funny, ridiculous, strange, or actually intelligent or well-written. Today’s is yet another from Thomas Friedman, who in his column today, “Freud and the Middle East” (oh brother), writes: Just as there is a little bit of West Bank “Jewish settler”...
Continue reading...Book Review: Forgotten Drinks of Colonial New England, by Corin Hirsch
Before pilsners and whiskeys were the tried and true choice of Americans, those in the New England colonies put their lips around a wide collection of concoctions to keep things loose through the day. In Forgotten Drinks of Colonial New England, Corin Hirsch explores not just what we used to drink but how we drank it. And drink we did. Bitters before work was a morning ritual, cider at each meal was thought to keep one hydrated while avoiding polluted water, and if there wasn’t rum in your cup each night then good luck keeping pace with...
Continue reading...So what’s next?
This morning, we went over the preordained Republican takeover of the Senate. So, other than having to hear “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says” over and over, what will the next two years look like? For the most part, you’d be correct in assuming that it’d look a lot like the last four years: With Democrat Barack Obama still the president, and a Republican-controlled House and Senate, it’s going to be a loud not much. Yet even with that caveat, we can still look into what a unified legislature is going to at least try, and perhaps...
Continue reading...Voters decide the government is doing too much to help them
A hearty number of column inches (so anachronistic!) are being devoted today to explaining various reasons Democrats lost yesterday and Republicans won. It’s the long-running day-after tradition, and it’s rarely illuminating. But, you got to fill the papers, they say. Truth is, we all knew this was going to happen two years ago. Hell, we were all pretty sure even six years ago, when this class of senators was elected. Without a presidential election to buoy them, these unlikely Democratic faces representing deeply conservative states would not be long in their seats. The reason why is not surprising....
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