R. Eric VanNewkirk
@sotsogm.bsky.social
Nerd. Neurotic. Retired public defender. I'm sure these three things have nary a thing to do with one another.
Whenever I think of the Modern American Right, I find myself picturing the Grinch in the Chuck Jones adaptation trying to figure out why the Whos are celebrating Christmas after being robbed. "We took away their DEI and gender-neutral bathrooms and affirmative action, why are there still liberals?"
November 20, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Whenever I think of the Modern American Right, I find myself picturing the Grinch in the Chuck Jones adaptation trying to figure out why the Whos are celebrating Christmas after being robbed. "We took away their DEI and gender-neutral bathrooms and affirmative action, why are there still liberals?"
The bizarre thing is how much mileage they got from ripping off an album cover. Just kind of astonishing how inspiration and creativity work.
November 17, 2025 at 2:40 AM
The bizarre thing is how much mileage they got from ripping off an album cover. Just kind of astonishing how inspiration and creativity work.
Oh so much this. It ought to be intuitively self-evident that the person who is grading your assignment already knows the answer to the question they posed or knows what an answer looks like, thus the point is learning how to achieve a result, not the result itself. We've failed to convey that.
November 16, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Oh so much this. It ought to be intuitively self-evident that the person who is grading your assignment already knows the answer to the question they posed or knows what an answer looks like, thus the point is learning how to achieve a result, not the result itself. We've failed to convey that.
While I hope that rural NC indeed gets riled up by Trump atrocities, these particular atrocities are being committed in a Democratically controlled city in a predominantly Democratic county.
November 16, 2025 at 4:37 AM
While I hope that rural NC indeed gets riled up by Trump atrocities, these particular atrocities are being committed in a Democratically controlled city in a predominantly Democratic county.
This is Harrigan's district, which is north of Charlotte and doesn't appear to even include any of Mecklenburg County, wherein Charlotte is located. Harrigan can go fuck himself, he'd be unelectable in this city and he doesn't represent us.
November 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM
This is Harrigan's district, which is north of Charlotte and doesn't appear to even include any of Mecklenburg County, wherein Charlotte is located. Harrigan can go fuck himself, he'd be unelectable in this city and he doesn't represent us.
And "Balance of Terror" is (in)famously an uncredited remake of The Enemy Below. Which is a pretty great submarine thriller.*
* obligatory caveat: I haven't seen it in a couple of decades and I remember it being pretty great, but maybe I'm wrong.
* obligatory caveat: I haven't seen it in a couple of decades and I remember it being pretty great, but maybe I'm wrong.
November 8, 2025 at 8:13 PM
And "Balance of Terror" is (in)famously an uncredited remake of The Enemy Below. Which is a pretty great submarine thriller.*
* obligatory caveat: I haven't seen it in a couple of decades and I remember it being pretty great, but maybe I'm wrong.
* obligatory caveat: I haven't seen it in a couple of decades and I remember it being pretty great, but maybe I'm wrong.
He gets a lot of shit, particularly since Lovecraft's once-obscure genre work has eclipsed his own once-respected literary work, but I have to respect August Derleth's apparent lack of pretensions and the way he understood an assignment.
November 7, 2025 at 11:16 PM
He gets a lot of shit, particularly since Lovecraft's once-obscure genre work has eclipsed his own once-respected literary work, but I have to respect August Derleth's apparent lack of pretensions and the way he understood an assignment.
Whoa. I thought the only thing he did was Excalibur. I wonder if any of his costars did more work. I always wanted to see more of that Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, and Gabriel Byrne, but that movie was just a freaking black hole for careers.
November 6, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Whoa. I thought the only thing he did was Excalibur. I wonder if any of his costars did more work. I always wanted to see more of that Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, and Gabriel Byrne, but that movie was just a freaking black hole for careers.
I'm going to have to be pedantic and point out it was invented in 1893, it's just that nobody ever talks about it because the first person to test the apparatus was the most notorious serial killer in history.
November 5, 2025 at 1:39 PM
I'm going to have to be pedantic and point out it was invented in 1893, it's just that nobody ever talks about it because the first person to test the apparatus was the most notorious serial killer in history.
Rampart. Part Missile Command, part Tetris, all awesome.
October 30, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Rampart. Part Missile Command, part Tetris, all awesome.
You've been kidnapped and the characters from the last TV show you watched are supposed to be trying to rescue you, assuming they don't get in an epic spat, refuse to speak to each other for several decades, and stress-eat a few dozen people to feel better about themselves.
It was nice knowing you.
It was nice knowing you.
October 29, 2025 at 6:12 PM
You've been kidnapped and the characters from the last TV show you watched are supposed to be trying to rescue you, assuming they don't get in an epic spat, refuse to speak to each other for several decades, and stress-eat a few dozen people to feel better about themselves.
It was nice knowing you.
It was nice knowing you.
Here's another candidate. The other thing it has in common with The Bends, besides being a second album better than the debut, is that Sigur Ros' *third* record is, like Radiohead's third, the album they've arguably never managed to surpass despite releasing consistently good records since.
October 29, 2025 at 3:38 AM
Here's another candidate. The other thing it has in common with The Bends, besides being a second album better than the debut, is that Sigur Ros' *third* record is, like Radiohead's third, the album they've arguably never managed to surpass despite releasing consistently good records since.
An obvious candidate that was missed. Pablo Honey is a better album than it's usually recognized for being, but it's not, like, a *great* album. The Bends was a quantum state change and several tracks still rate among the band's best work to date.
October 29, 2025 at 3:29 AM
An obvious candidate that was missed. Pablo Honey is a better album than it's usually recognized for being, but it's not, like, a *great* album. The Bends was a quantum state change and several tracks still rate among the band's best work to date.
Everybody in freaking Mayberry, NC called her "Aunt Bee," but only one of them was actually her nephew.
October 29, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Everybody in freaking Mayberry, NC called her "Aunt Bee," but only one of them was actually her nephew.
My wife and I celebrating our 11th with That Type!, the local Rocky Horror shadow troupe, at the Carolina Theatre in Charlotte.
October 26, 2025 at 1:24 AM
My wife and I celebrating our 11th with That Type!, the local Rocky Horror shadow troupe, at the Carolina Theatre in Charlotte.
October 24, 2025 at 2:39 PM
It's all in my head, but so much out of Trumplandia this week has me thinking about Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, and how Eastwood's Stranger gets the miserable bastards in Lago to put him in charge then just trashes the place out of vengeance and spite because of the time they killed him.
October 23, 2025 at 2:27 AM
It's all in my head, but so much out of Trumplandia this week has me thinking about Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, and how Eastwood's Stranger gets the miserable bastards in Lago to put him in charge then just trashes the place out of vengeance and spite because of the time they killed him.
If you see this, quote with a vampire who isn't Dracula.
October 21, 2025 at 2:16 PM
If you see this, quote with a vampire who isn't Dracula.
There's several candidates, but I'm going to go with this one off my list of general all-time-faves. Some might class it as an espionage thriller--which it also is, kinda. Lots of cool, knives in backs, a femme fatale, and some of the best car chase sequences ever shot. And somehow Sean Bean lives.
October 19, 2025 at 3:54 PM
There's several candidates, but I'm going to go with this one off my list of general all-time-faves. Some might class it as an espionage thriller--which it also is, kinda. Lots of cool, knives in backs, a femme fatale, and some of the best car chase sequences ever shot. And somehow Sean Bean lives.
Charlotte, NC (panoramic).
October 18, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Charlotte, NC (panoramic).