Yeah, I’m that guy who FB-befriends everyone with the same name as me. This is partially because I’m self-involved, and partially because I have a not-too-common last name. The upshot is that if your name is Worden, you’ll probably hear from me sooner or later.
Such was the case with Atlanta musician Joshua Worden. I first ran across this phenomenally talented artist and producer from his profile that recently ran on Huffington Post. I reached out, and to my eternal gratitude, he responded. He’s a great guy, engaging and personable; in short order we were able to settle that old controversy as to the proper pronunciation of our shared surname (same as “warden,” not like “wer-den”).
But music had to be the crux of the convo, and for that my timing couldn’t have been better. Joshua has just dropped a new disc, the haunting Always This, a follow-up to his 2012 debut EP, The Withered Tree.
Joshua Worden describes his music as “The slow burn,” or, (less obliquely), as a blend of R&B, jazz, and indie pop with electronic production. In true DIY spirit, he arranges, produces, and records his material from his home studio. Interestingly, although his songs tend to be steeped in emotion, he says that very little of his songwriting is autobiographical. As he told another recent 
interviewer, “To me, it’s more about a feeling — the way that the musical and lyrical elements blend to create a particular mood or image.”
Perhaps it’s that universality I find so appealing. Or maybe it’s his unique sound, something that probably could only have been born in the soulful melting-pot of urban/urbane ATL. All I know for sure is that it’s not just his name. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a great name he’s got (and there’s nothing wrong with “Joshua” either). But he’s got a prominent spot on my playlist for the music, and only for the music.
Don’t take my word for it, take a listen yourself, by way of his latest video, Midnight:
the Reinheitsgebot. Micro-brews also are relatively pure. And as a third alternative, we can all go back to 
She was a White House correspondent throughout the administrations of nine presidencies, and she counted herself friend to none of them. Opinionated, tenacious, journalistically incorruptible — Helen Thomas was the Grand Dame of the Washington press corps not by seniority but by virtue of integrity.
real, so life-like, that it’s now the standard against which all other paintings are measured.
wouldn’t be unrecognizable to 
The interior of the book is a series 
of raised relief images, including an Olmec-style head, a lion, an ogre, and more. The front and back covers are textual, with a description of the “publication” process, a Creative Commons license, and a list of other works by the artist.
– but 
notably, Twighlight Zone—for which he created 
Hats off to insanely talented actor, director, fashion designer 
I’m working my way through these writings, which have titles like Of Truth, Of Death, Of Followers and Friends, and The Wisdom of the Ancients. They speak of a staggering body of knowledge from this exemplar of the 
though he did that, eventually becoming a counselor to successive monarchs and a nobleman himself, his social climbing came at great cost. Indeed, there seems to have been two very different Francis Bacons: the erudite man of learning and letters, and the political creature who wasn’t above betrayal and corruption. His is a very complex, very human story.
Within a few years he was arrested for indebtedness, accused by Parliament of dozens of separate acts of corruption, briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London, and finally barred from holding public office. Five years later he was dead.
Michelangelo and Rex Harrison is Pope Julius II in this story of the creation of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Strange fare for a drama, you might think (especially one that clocks in at nearly 2-1/2 hours), but it not only works, it works marvelously. Heston’s Michelangelo alternatively clashes and collaborates with Harrison’s Pope Julius to create a timeless work of art. Here’s a bit of a spoiler: perhaps the most satisfying scene of the film is the final one, when the first mass is held in the newly completed Sistine. Everyone in attendance, from pope to pauper, spends the entire mass staring upward in awe. No doubt, that’s exactly what really happened.
has rendered an invaluable service to mankind with this. When Fox cancelled the critically acclaimed (but anemic in the ratings) saga of the dysfunctional Bluth family, the howling began. The howling went on unabated for seven years, until 15 new episodes produced by Netflix were released at midnight on May 26th of this year. Reactions have been a bit mixed, as the format of the show has changed somewhat (which was a necessity; the mega-talented ensemble cast has moved on, and were forced into separate shooting schedules due to conflicting obligations). I say, stop your howling and watch the show. It’s changed a bit, but it’s still Arrested Development. With this one, Netflix has proven what we’ve suspected for years: 
seriously funny comedy duos of the seventies and eighties reunite for stand-up and skits, heavily reminiscent of their act from bygone days, but updated and still somehow fresh. Yes, they’re quite a bit older now (Tommy Chong can now play his 
ongoing story that started in 1987, when a couple twenty-somethings began recording the epic fights of their drunken, much older neighbors. The sheer dissociative, unreal nature of their rants (the titular “Shut up, little man!” was the favored retort of one of the combatants. Other one-off gems include “When you wanna talk to me, you can shut your fuckin mouth!”) guaranteed that the tapes were shared and shared again, becoming what may have been the world’s first viral pop-culture phenom. The doc follows the story into the present day, where movie projects, battles over copyright, and plain old fashioned greed have tarnished what was once an innocent, if surreptitious, experiment in 
wider world of cinema, there’s no shortage of concert films or movies produced and created by musical artists, but you wouldn’t know that from Netflix’s offerings. I was aghast when I found that Pink Floyd’s 
Quoting from this blog, 
the enemy occupying the hill feigned surrender, prompting the American troops, including Stowers, to advance into No Man’s Land. As Company C approached within 100 meters of the trench line, the enemy re-engaged them with coordinated machine-gun and mortar fire, resulting in well over fifty percent casualties for the Americans, and a disintegration of their chain of command.
Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery to Tim Curry, an immensely talented actor, and creator of some of the most memorable characters of recent memory.
Curry, 67, suffered a stroke on Thursday at his home in L.A. Although the press is describing the stroke as 
