Reviewed by Craig Hoffman
Such Pretty Forks in the Road is the ninth studio album by Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and actress Alanis Morissette. It is Morissette’s first studio album in eight years. Morissette had been working on the album since at least mid-2017. But it was worth the wait.
Morissette was scheduled to embark on a world tour for the 25th anniversary of her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill in 2020, during which she would perform songs from her entire career, including songs from Such Pretty Forks in the Road.
Reviewed by Wilson
Oscar-winning oddball screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is set to debut his newest film I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS on Netflix in September, so I thought now would be as good a time as any to revisit what I believe is his best work: ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (also streaming on Netflix).
Reviewed by Robert McCool
It's Monday in a sunny August blur where the world is in full bloom, the weather fine. During the past two days, and in addition to my regular weekend chores, I managed to read two speculative fiction novels where the weather is most definitively not fine.
Those books, Arctic Rising (Tor, ISBN 978-0-7653-1921-0), and Hurricane Fever (Tor, ISBN 978-0-7653-1922-7) by Tobias S. Buckell – an author who lives in Bluffton – take place in a space where global warming is transforming our world with an undesirable outcome.
Folklore-Taylor Swift
Reviewed by Craig Hoffman
Country and pop-crossover megastar Taylor Swift dropped Folklore her eighth studio album in July. The indie-folk style record was written and recorded by Swift while in quarantine. The artist did her best to stay productive in 2020 despite chaos in the world.
“Most of the things I had planned this summer didn’t end up happening, but there is something I hadn’t planned on that DID happen…” Swift wrote. “And that thing is my 8th studio album, folklore [sic]. Surprise.”
Review by Robert McCool
Journey back to 1926 Ohio, Bronwyn County, and solve a questionable death.
Ah, summer. The visceral sun, the weight of humidity. Why not cozy up and chill out in 1926 in the rural Bronwyn County and the Appalachian time of coal country?
In her second book based in this location, Jess Montgomery(The Widows) blesses us with a gem of a story in “The Hollows” (Minotaur Books, ISBN 978-1-250-18454-2).
Gaslighter is the eighth studio album by American country music group The Chicks. It was released on July 17, 2020, by Columbia Records. It is the first work issued by the group since their name change from the Dixie Chicks.
The band changed their name to The Chicks after the group received criticism for being tacitly connected to American slavery. “We were literally teenagers when we picked that stupid name,” said founding group member Martie Maguire, talking about when the Dixie Chicks name was selected back in 1989.
