Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter In The New Wave 2.0 series, The Pen in Hand Blog will be examining the work of today’s most provocative and influential filmmakers, artists whose singular visual styles and visionary senses have stretched the boundaries of cinema. Drawing upon Francois Truffaut’s definition of an auteur, …
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Category:Media
Triumph of the Will
Photo: Harry Wad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter The now infamous moment when Will Smith lost his cool and slapped Chris Rock in front of half the world (or more) at the Academy Awards has already been etched into the bedrock of our cultural mythology. Smith has been painted as everything from a …
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The Couch Potato’s Guide to Spinning Classic Christmas Vinyl
Photo by The Retro Store on Unsplash By Geoff Carter (Originally posted in December 2019) While the Couch Potato will always be slavishly devoted to his TV home entertainment center, this week he will be putting down the universal remote in order to turn his focus solely on another entertainment form—music. Part of the reason for this departure …
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Highlights from The Pen in Hand Graphics: The Michael DiMilo Gallery
Dick Tater by Michael DiMilo Volume 6 Over the course of the last two and one-half years, The Pen in Hand Blog has been lucky enough to have obtained the services of free-lance artist Michael DiMilo as a contributor. While his unique style has provided a provocative and edgy feel to the blog, DiMilo’s pieces–obviously–stand alone as …
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Dialogues on the Art of Name Calling: the Gasbag Letters
DonkeyHotey, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Dave S., Mark Mamerow, Dennis Curley, and Geoff Carter So many of our recent topics are at least partially echoed in the below. Do you gents ever read this NY Times version of the old 60 minutes: Point-Counterpoint? Gail Collins and Bret Stephens. I find it humorous and informative. Collins & Stephens …
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Kickass Crawls Under the Porch
Dusan Bicanski, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper, not knowing where else to go, is crawling under the communication porch to nap in the cool dirt with the dogs that long ago concluded that their barking at the mailman made about as much sense as …
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The Couch Potato’s Guide to Old and New Hollywood: The Legacy of Clint Eastwood
English: “Copyright © by Warner Bros. Inc.” Photographer unknown., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter Clint Eastwood has been a screen icon for the past sixty-six years. He’s acted in over seventy-two films, directed forty-five, and produced more than fifty, sometimes wearing all three hats during a single project. He has been responsible …
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Kickass and Reader Letter About Dog Killing Cats
Javier B, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, notes on the keeper’s behalf that two-way communications is not a recent Facebook thing, but was one of the delights of writing a newspaper column back in the keeper’s day. Letters from readers kept a columnist’s ego somewhat in check, and in …
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That Sinking Feeling
Artwork by Michael DiMilo Article by Geoff Carter “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.” — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote de La Mancha (Modern Library (Hardcover)) Shit floats. —Popular adage We’re treading water in a cesspool of information. Flooded with theories, …
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Kickass Says Goodbye
Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes on the keeper’s appreciation for his very brief contact with Bob Wills, the Milwaukee journalism giant who spent much of his long life fighting for the public’s right to know what its government is up to. Bob was instrumental in …
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Kickass and River Calamity
Holyoke Water Power Company, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that there are those among the keeper’s followers who may recall the ill-fated expedition when the keeper and his son Mike rigged a pontoon boat for a trip down the Wisconsin/Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, and only got …
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