“Paperback” Trail; or, The Hunt for Mark Shipper

By |2014-07-23T16:52:15-07:00September 14, 2009|books, comedy, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Rutles|

DEVIN McKINNEY  •  Note from the future (2013): Refreshing this post four years after assembling it, I find that a couple of the hyperlinks are no longer functional—one doesn't exist, while the other exists but doesn't yield the indicated information. But this is the story of a few hours' Internet idling, a mesh of the long-gone afternoon, and rather than rewrite it to excise the dud links, I let it stand. The links once worked, and they said what I said they said. Honest. As I commented on "The Best Dancer" below, thinking about Chuck Klosterman's piece got me thinking about Mark [...]

The best dancer

By |2014-07-06T23:37:38-07:00September 10, 2009|alternate history, comedy|

  And again ED PARK • This sort of I've-been-living-under-a-rock thing shouldn't work...but I think Klosterman pulls it off! It is not easy to categorize the Beatles’ music; more than any other group, their sound can be described as “Beatlesque.” It’s akin to a combination of Badfinger, Oasis, Corner Shop, and every other rock band that’s ever existed. The clandestine power derived from the autonomy of the group’s composition—each Beatle has his own distinct persona, even though their given names are almost impossible to remember. There was John Lennon (the mean one), Paul McCartney (the hummus eater), George Harrison (the best [...]

Everybody’s trying to be my baby

By |2014-07-06T23:36:10-07:00September 9, 2009|alternate history, comedy|

Oh, I get it. He's kidding MOLLIE WILSON REILLY • Everyone and their brother is writing about the Beatles today -- and last night VH1 was showing Help!, for heaven's sake! It's weird, and oddly it's making me a little bit cranky. (Like, Hey, I liked them first.) This happened back in 1995, though, a couple of years after my own personal conversion to Beatlemania, when Anthology landed and suddenly everyone was a big-time fan. So I guess it will blow over. In the meantime, if you find yourself growing fatigued with reading box-set reviews by Johnny-Come-Latelys, I recommend Chuck [...]

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