Illustration by Michel DiMilo A Star is Reborn: Film Review of MaXXXine By Geoff Carter ★★★1/2 While MaXXXine, the third and final installment of Ti West’s X Film Series, revisits some characters and situations from X and Pearl, the first chapters of the series, it takes us down a different—and deeper—rabbit hole than its predecessors. Instead of providing a …
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Category:Social Commentary
Kickass and Shortest Day
Attribution: Eric Jones / Winter solstice dawn over Llanrug By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis greeting this shortest day of the year with unbound enthusiasm and by withdrawing their names from the great “transfer portal.” It is their shared conviction that continuing to play on the current team with its incoming …
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Crises of Conscience
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter The world was shocked when Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Health Insurance, was recently murdered in broad daylight on a busy street in Manhattan. Reports confirmed a gunman clad in a gray hoodie who fled on a bicycle and then escaped on a bus and that shell …
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Kickass and Guns
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis as perplexed as everyone else at Madison’s recent inclusion in the school-shooting category but they refrain from joining in the inane response of “thoughts and prayers” and try to embrace the following “bottom line” as proposed after a recent …
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Kickass and Salted Peanuts
Attribution: Eatcha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that in the keeper’s efforts to be as helpful as possible at this time of year, he suggested that a solution to George Hasselberg’s finding salted-peanuts-in-the-shell problem was at Menards where big bags of them are located near the dog …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “A Disturbance in the Force”
(The Worst TV Christmas Special Ever) Photo by Jake Hills on Unsplash When Worlds Collide: A Review of A Disturbance in the Force By Geoff Carter Own work based on unknown original creator, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Sitting in a crowded theater watching a movie is in many ways a solitary act. Viewers don’t—they’re not supposed to, …
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The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Review of “Pearl”
Illustration by Michael DiMilo Dreams and Nightmares: Film Review of Pearl ★★★★☆ Last week, I wrote about the film X, the first in Ti West’s X Film Series. That film is not only a tribute to some of the great slasher films of the past (most notably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), it is also a surprisingly touching examination …
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The Possibilities Book
Photo by Geoff Carter By Geoff Carter Christmas is a time that, for most of us, evokes fond childhood memories. Who doesn’t sit around the tree on Christmas morning, watching their adorable children tear violent swaths through reams of wrapping paper, and remember their own visions of sugarplums, bikes, road race sets, Barbie dolls, board …
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Kickass and Wind Chill
Attribution: Oregon Department of Transportation, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper and Phyllis will be –in military terms, “confined to quarters” until the temperature and the wind speed produce a wind chill factor that would not freeze the ba….. (The complete metaphor uses the words …
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Duck for Love
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Geoff Carter Leonardo da Vinci once asked, “Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?” and Joseph Campbell once said, “Myths are public dreams and dreams are private myths.” Sigmund Freud said dreams were “the royal road” to the unconscious. Yet for …
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Kickass Turns into a Goat
The Pen in Hand Blog featuring Bill Stokes
Attribution: Anita Martinz, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Krampus_at_Perchtenlauf_Klagenfurt.jpg
Kickass and One-Legged Peeing
Attribution: Tracey Adams from Atascadero, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, depending on the keeper to know everything, was disappointed when there was no solid answer to the question of whether or not the male human bladder empties faster if the male stands on one leg during the …
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