7 People with Whom I Would Love to Have Six Beers*

POPS GUSTAV, Jersey City NJ
*Presuming that by the sixth beer, we would be lubed enough to have a serious, uncensored conversation about matters political, sociological and/or cultural.

1) Jon Stewart
2) Stephen Colbert
3) Barack Obama
4) Elvis Costello
5) Richard Donner
6) Carl Reiner
7) Christopher Nolan

Recent Pleasures

JOHN HANLON, Brooklyn NY

1. Enter The Void, directed by Gasper Noe
A barrage of visionary excess, induced by both drugs and a postmortem journey. Now that computers have advanced so that we can make incredible otherworldly movies, why does everything look so drab?

2. Henry Grimes at the Stone
Grimes is celebrating his 75th birthday by playing a series of shows at The Stone and has agility and chops that men half his age would kill for.

3. Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, restored version
Well, sort of restored. I know that the recently discovered footage only exists in a scratchy 16mm print, but was no effort made to clean it up? This doesn’t distract from how great, how contemporary Lang’s 1927 film is.

4. Mad Men season one on demand for free
Finally I can see, from the beginning, a series I’m getting sick of hearing about.

5. Odessa by the Bee Gees
The Brothers Gibb tried moving from romantic, catchy singles to a double album statement. Sometimes self-important, but often an intriguing combination of lush and quirky.

6. Tequila + karaoke = John singing Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc.

7. 40 Part Motet by Janet Cardiff
Revisited one of my favorite artworks of recent years. A room with 40 speakers arranged in a circle, with each speaker playing a separate singer in a choir as they perform Thomas Tallis’ Spem In Alium. You can do your own mix of the song by moving around the room or sit in one location and just experience the incredible sound.

7 Things I Remember That Place Me Firmly in Middle Age

(Though Not Nearly as Old as Karl, Thank God!)
JOHN HANLON, Brooklyn NY
1. Some paperbacks had a one page glossy ad inside. It was usually for cigarettes.
2. Sometimes when you heard the national anthem, it meant no more tv for the night. Our local PBS station eventually used the Beatles’ "Goodnight" instead. I’m sure they received complaints.
3. Folk Mass.
4. Most Time and Newsweek articles had lots of text with maybe a couple of black and white photos.
5. Soap was controversial because it was considered so racy.
6. You were supposed to let a phone ring ten times before hanging up if no one answered.
7. Major league sports teams weren’t basically interchangeable. Teams that had a working-class aura about them, like the Baltimore Colts, were actually made up of players who were working-class.

7 Things Dave Likes About the Number Seven

DAVID CALAMONERI, Hoboken NJ
1. Seven notes make a major scale (in Western Music)
2. I just like prime numbers.
3. On the seventh day the magic all knowing, all caring, floating being rested. Original Weekend?
4. the Seven deadly sins (lust and gluttony are my favorites)
5. the Seven colors of the rainbow
6. For all you hippies and yogis out there, the Seven Chakras (Twork that Muladhara)
7. Last but certainly not least TG7 and it's current 7NOW! form (If Godfather I & II can count as one so can these.)

7 Things I Remember That Place Me Firmly in Middle Age

POPS GUSTAV, Jersey City NJ
1. Black and White TV
2. Pre-family friendly Pizza Hut: dimly lit, with jukeboxes and beer
3. 15¢ comic books
4. Watergate
5. When the KISS solo albums were released
6. Cereals that proudly listed “sugar” in their names: Super Sugar Crisp, Sugar Pops, Sugar Frosted Flakes (before they became Super Golden Crisp, Corn Pops and Frosted Flakes of Corn)
7. The milkman delivering milk in glass bottles with foil caps to the milkbox.

Todd's 7 Favorite Things In Casa de Karl and Lysa (in no particular order)

TODD CADLEY, New York City

1) Zod
2) Khan
3) Hanging pots/pan rack (I said rack)
4) Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings book
5) Superman with mullet action figures
6) Joey Welz music video
7) The innuendo that Christmas is coming!

7 Popular Shows Erin Has Never Seen

ERIN HANLON, Brooklyn NY

1. The Office (US)
2. 30 Rock

3. Desperate Housewives

4. Boardwalk Empire
5. Two and a Half Men
6. Dancing with the Stars
7. The Jersey Shore

And yet another 7 All-Time Favorite Pieces of Pop Culture

POPS GUSTAV, Jersey City NJ

15) It’s a Wonderful Life
16) X, Under the Big Black Sun
17) The Godfather, Parts I & II
18) PLOP!
19) Dynamite Magazine
20) The Dark Knight
21) The Sopranos

TGIF~ 7 songs that will always make me shake my shimmy

HAVEN S. BLEU, Hoboken NJ

1. It's So Easy- Buddy Holly
2. I Wanna Be Your Favorite Pair Of Pajamas- Andre Williams
3. 96 Tears- ? and the Mysterians
4. Boom Boom Pow- The Black Eyed Peas
5. Shake Your Rump- The Beastie Boys
6. S.O.S- Motley Crue
7. Shake- Otis Redding

7 More All-Time Favorite Pieces of Pop Culture

POPS GUSTAV, Jersey City 

8) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
9) North by Northwest
10) Peanuts
11) Let’s Active, Big Plans for Everybody
12) Star Trek (the Original Series)
13) Alien
14) Archie Comics Digest #3

7 All-Time Favorite Pieces of Pop Culture, Pt.1

POPS GUSTAV, Jersey City NJ

1) Superman: The Movie
2) A Charlie Brown Christmas
3) The Clash, London Calling
4) The Dick Van Dyke Show
5) Frank Sinatra, The Capitol Years (thanks, Rex!)
6) Superman: Kryptonite Nevermore!
7) SCTV

7 Musical Catalogues That Need to Be Reissued / Remastered / Bonus Tracked

POPS GUSTAV, Jersey City NJ
1. XTC
2. The B-52’s
3. Lou Rawls
4. Throwing Muses
5. The Smithereens
6. Hüsker Dü
7. Sammy Davis, Jr.

7 Recent Autumnal Pleasures

JOHN HANLON, Brooklyn NY

1. Taking the air conditioners out of the windows
This might depress some, but I see it as a sign I've survived another hot summer. Welcome cooler weather and (hopefully) less street noise.

2. Seasons by Blex Bolex
The linked video doesn't do the book justice, but it gives you a taste of the pleasures found within this beautiful and evocative book. Here's hoping that more of Bolex's work will find its way to these shores.

3. Hammer Horror Films Every Friday Night on TCM This Month

4. Boys Outside by Steve Mason
More polished than The Beta Band's potheads-playing-around-in-the-studio aesthetic, but addicting to the point that it's one of the few recent albums I wish was longer. 40 minutes isn't enough.

5. Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia: Film Culture in Transition by Jonathan Rosenbaum
One of my favorite film critics writes a book that cautiously optimistic about the changes in film culture brought about by dvds and downloading.

6. Penguin 75: Designers, Authors, Commentary (the Good, the Bad . . .) edited by Paul Buckley
75 recent Penguin book covers annotated by their designers and the books' authors, whose comments range from "the cover made it a bestseller" to "I hate it." Penguin 75 seems like a blog in book form, but I find flipping through its pages much more enjoyable than staring at a computer screen.

7. A Journey Round My Skull
Speaking of blogs, I know I've sung the praises of the image collection A Journey Round My Skull before on my own blog, but in just the last two weeks he's featured abstracts based on vegetation, medical drawings, foreign children's books and pictures of robots.