When I think of hip-hop and revolution, the first song that comes to mind is Arrested Development’s “Raining Revolution” on its debut album 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of . . . (1994).
Arrested Development represents the best of conscious hip-hop, but gangsta hip-hop also…
The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote in his Letters that death both precedes and follows us. Thus the Shores of Null are where we arrive and where we depart. The band’s album Beyond the Shores (On Death and Dying) is a single track, one long meditation on psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s…
Greta Garbo, Vivian Leigh, Sophie Marceau and Keira Knightley . . . Many great actresses have played the titular character of Anna Karenina by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910). Having enjoyed the film adaptations, I felt like I already knew the novel by the time I got around to reading…
One of my biggest pleasures on Medium has been publishing short fiction in the horror publication Keeping It Spooky. The publication has fiction, articles and poetry for fans who like anything that sends a shiver down the spine. My stories belong to a variety of subgenres, with reading times from…
When it comes to classical music, I prefer opera, and when it comes to opera, I prefer Wagner. I’m not the kind of fan who can argue minutiae in comments sections online — bloody gladiatorial pits, those — but I do enjoy opera and have grown to love certain works…
Pucker up for a melodic bludgeoning
Riches everywhere. That’s how I view cruising for new music in the used racks. Sure, everything is available on some streaming platform, but those chance finds you look at askance and only invite into your home because they’re so cheap can turn out to…
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”
I started The Gleaming Sword last year during the…
The easing of COVID-19 restrictions has provided an occasion for people to reexamine their lives and consider some changes. I know I have, and I surprised myself the other day by deciding to regularly cook vegetarian meals. I don’t see myself adopting the entire lifestyle soon, but I have introduced…
My plans for the Halloween season rarely work out. This year, however, I found the time to do some catching up on horror movies. Not all of them were great — Rob Zombie’s 3 from Hell (2019) confirmed my suspicion that he sorely needs a helper when scriptwriting — but…
Viva La Vida was Coldplay’s attempt to stop sounding like its influences, stop sounding the same, and go big or go home. Many fans and critics were pleased, but I thought the album was an uninspired mess, so I tuned out and never paid the band another thought until recently…
