• Tagged: September 2026, politics, film and television, dream journal, Beau Willimon, Akira Toriyama
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My long overdue first visit to Lightbox Film Center’s new location in the Bok building after UArts’s untimely demise two years ago. I’m glad Bok’s massive old high school auditorium is available to them, and if they decide someday to do less esoteric programming, the room can hold a lot of people. Hopefully those people will be prepared for some discomfort, because the uncushioned wooden seats are not great! By now it seems like a curse that follows Lightbox, as the International House seats back in the day were also pretty bad. I’ll also be interested to see how the auditorium’s cavernous acoustics fare with an English-language film. In any case, I will adjust, because Lightbox provides exactly the kind of rarefied film curation that should get me out of the house much more often than it does.

• Tagged: September 2026, film diary, film and television, review, René Laloux, Lightbox Film Center, Philadelphia, PA
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• Blitzkrieg Bops: A Brief History of Punks at War
  Alli Patton, 2024

🎬 Added to the film diary:

• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
  Russ Meyer, 1970, ★★★★★

• Tagged: September 2026
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• Desperate Teenage Lovedolls
  David Markey, 1984
• Frisk
  Todd Verow, 1995, ★★
  PhilaMOCA, Philadelphia, PA
• Jackie Brown
  Quentin Tarantino, 1997, ★★★★
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
  Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974, ★★★★
• Don’t Say a Word
  Gary Fleder, 2001, ★½

💿 Added to the music library:

• Who Sent You?
  Shudder to Think, 2026
• All the Light in the World
  Colin Stetson and Brìghde Chaimbeul, 2026

• Tagged: September 2026
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I waited almost 30 years for this and it was basically perfect. Shudder to Think sounded amazing and was clearly having a blast, including Clint Walsh and Jherek Bischoff, the energetic new additions on rhythm guitar and bass. There were a few flubs here and there since this was the band’s first show of the year, all handled with grace and good humor. A 19-song set list drawn largely from Pony Express Record, as is right and just, as well as Funeral at the Movies and Get Your Goat. A surprise pull from First Love, Last Rites (“I Want Someone Badly,” sung on the original by Jeff Buckley, and now by Nathan Larson). They also played three of the five new songs they’ve put out in the last year, which are much better than reunion records have any right to be. O.G. guitarist Chris Matthews joined them on “Red House” and “Funeral at the Movies.” A roadie came out with a band-aid for Nathan when he nicked himself on his guitar, eliciting a loud “Oh, give me a break!” from a very Philly woman in the crowd, which brought the house down. Just good vibes all around, everyone singing along, smiles up and down. I don’t have many other Shudder to Think fans in my life, and it was truly a delight to be in a room full of them, not to mention the band itself, one of my all-time favorites. I wanted to have something more eloquent to say about it all, but it was plainly and simply a magical evening, and probably the highlight of my year. Maybe I should have been in a more solemn state of mind for the 25th anniversary of 9/11, but wouldn’t that just be letting the terrorists win?

Set list

1. Hit Liquor
2. Gang of $
3. Playback
4. Shake Your Halo Down
5. Lies About the Sky
6. She Wears He-Harem
7. Chakka
8. Kissi Penny
9. I Want Someone Badly
10. Thirst Walk
11. Love Catastrophe
12. Earthquakes Come Home
13. Red House (with Chris Matthews)
14. Funeral at the Movies (with Chris Matthews)
15. Pebbles
16. Who Sent You?
17. 9 Fingers on You
18. So Into You
19. X-French Tee Shirt (encore)

• Tagged: September 2026, concert diary, music, event, Shudder to Think, Miss Grit, First Unitarian Church (Basement), Philadelphia, PA
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Fire Museum Presents started putting on events for adventurous arts lovers in Philly in 2007, but between my departure the following year and my return during Covid, I only just discovered them earlier this year, and I finally made it out to a show tonight. It was also my first visit to the Maas Building, a former brewery, which has carved out a charming upstairs event space among its artist studios. It was a perfect place to see Thor & Friends, backed up by a seven-piece formulation of the local chamber ensemble, Hour, who also opened the show. The group, consisting of mallets, strings, reeds, piano, and electric guitar and bass, mostly improvised behind Thor Harris and Sarah “Goat” Gautier’s arpeggiated marimba chord progressions, and while the whole performance was enjoyable, it really came together for me at the end when it tightened up with a more established composition: “Anne Sexton’s Monocle,” a track from last year’s Heathen Spirituals. I’ve been a fan of Thor ever since I first saw him play in Swans back in 2010, and it was great to see him in the spotlight in a quieter, more intimate environment tonight.

• Tagged: September 2026, concert diary, music, event, Thor & Friends, Hour, Maas Building, Philadelphia, PA
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I’ve never really had any interest in John Grisham’s work, but for some reason we’ve been watching the film adaptations the last few Sundays, and this one might be my favorite so far! Sometimes a stacked cast giving its all to a twisty potboiler premise lands just right. Its supersaturated assembly feels very of its time, and while early-aughts pop culture isn’t a source of much nostalgia for me, I’m not entirely immune to the era’s capacity for dumb fun (cf. Final Destination, National Treasure). This was a good popcorn movie to close out the summer.

• Tagged: September 2026, film diary, film and television, review, Gary Fleder
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• Soundtracks for the Blind
  Swans, 1996
• Bulgar Gaydas
  Cüneyt Sepetçi, 2017
• Heathen Spirituals
  Thor & Friends, 2025

🎬 Added to the film diary:

• The Firm
  Sydney Pollack, 1993, ★★★

• Tagged: September 2026
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I hadn’t heard of this one before its recent Blu-ray upgrade, and what a gem! It goes for broke pretty much from start to finish, with James Brolin rampaging through upper Manhattan and the Bronx as he hunts his daughter’s kidnapper, pounding his way through street gangs and crooked cops, leveling half the city in the process. In the 1970s-NYC-as-hellhole pantheon, I’d say it triangulates somewhere between Serpico, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and The Warriors, which is a great place to be.

• Tagged: September 2026, film diary, film and television, review, Robert Butler
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• Tagged: August 2026, listening diary, music, Nomeansno, ZZ Top, Hüsker Dü, Prince, Cocteau Twins, Zorn, Googoosh Dolls, Ida, Gang of Four, Sunny Day Real Estate, Tyondai Braxton, Mastodon, Ghost, Celebrators, Debt Rag, Morgan Buckley, Ben Donohue
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