Adam Selzer

Text reading Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of Ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for.

Yes, my “mastered his gift that mastered him” is paraphrasing a contemporary Great Expectations review that I was surprised Hornby didn’t reference. Very cool book.

It’s also snarky as fuck, which often doesn’t quite make it into adaptations. That whole opening bit about door nails and coffin nails.

“A Christmas Carol” was written strictly because Charles Dickens needed some money, but it really is Dickens at his best. Like Prince’s “Purple Rain,” it’s an example of him mastering a gift that often seemed to be mastering him.

a cartoon character says please quiet down Alt: Van driesen says please quiet down

Wow, I didn’t realize his voice sounded just like Beavis and Butt-Head’s English teacher.

“‘No reason to get excited, Charlie Brown,’ the thief he kindly spoke.”

Sylvia Shaw Judson!

I’m kinda stuck on the “secret cheese” part here.

The new song “No Place Like Home” feels like a timely message (while eschewing the Bush era “regime change” line in the original script). But Elphaba’s “Oz isn’t a place, it’s an idea” is a little too clearly not about Oz but America. Good message but the song kinda sucks.

Goldblum continues to channel Chaplin in The Great Dictator as the Wizard, but they oddly avoid having Glinda dress like Eva Peron, as they do in the stage show.

Watching Wicked: For Good after seeing the stage show MANY times felt like finally seeing Return of the Jedi when I was 4 after only knowing the “book and tape” set, finally seeing all the details of the story (also a broom chase scene is about shot for shot the speeder bike chase).

To my untrained eye it looks like it.

If you throw the bouquet and no one catches it because the groom shot it down, you might be a redneck.

Saying Jesse Welles is just like Bob Dylan is the new "this is like an Onion headline" in that it mostly tells you that the person saying it has no idea what Bob Dylan/The Onion actually does

Wrote this more than 25 years ago and still might be my favorite story ever....

St. Olaf, MN

Grinder’s Switch.

50 years ago today, this photo of the Chicago press conference for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was taken.

In the background you can see Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert — in the clothes they wore in the Siskel & Ebert pilot, which was also shot that same day.

Image I photoshopped of a theatrical poster for "OH, MARY" but with Miss Piggy pictured and billed in the lead role

Okay, I'm making my case for the only Muppet I want to see on Broadway right now...

A menu with a hot dog slathered in nothing but ketchup selling for 4.70 (like seven bucks) at Sexy Coffee.

I liked Glasgow; I was all set to agree with people that it seemed like a UK Chicago until I saw this:

Bob Dylan in Glasgow: Night 2 The walks I took when I first arrived in Glasgow were sort of back ways through industrial areas.

Dylan in Glasgow night 2: Dylan turns “My Own Version of You” into a Tom Waits brawler. open.substack.com/pub/adamchic...

Bob Dylan: First Night in Glasgow (and a night in Dumfries) Glasgow 1

Bob Dylan in Glasgow night one (and a night in Dumfries): “Whatever it is that possesses Bob took possession….”

Truly magical night with “My Own Version of You” sounding like a zombie pirate sea shanty, a spontaneous reimagining. My review/travelogue.

open.substack.com/pub/adamchic...

A plaster cast of a skull cap with a Lego zombie bride

Well today I found a cast of Robert Burns’s skull, lost a game of dominos, bombed at karaoke, learned the old Scots word for hedgehog (Hurchin), and got chewed out about Donald Trump by a guy whose teeth looked like coffee grounds. All in all, pretty packed day in Dumfries, Scotland.

I’ve never been in a city that felt more like being in a mall. But it was a mall with great architecture, pubs, and graveyards.

Bob Dylan: A Rainy Night in Leeds “I remember it rained all day the day that Elvis Presley died.

Bob Dylan: Rainy Night in Leeds (my review). open.substack.com/pub/adamchic...

Review: Bob Dylan in Coventry (by Adam Selzer) Plus Swansea two days before

Dylan in Coventry last night, after living through Desolation Row at home (my review). open.substack.com/pub/dylanliv...

Vice President of the United States literally out here using Nazi-era lebensraum rhetoric.

Vinyl copy of Ike Quebec’s “blue and sentimental” for 16 just quid

What a score in Coventry! Top of my want list for years; you almost never see it on vinyl, especially at a decent price!

Covers of UK newspapers, three of which have large photos of Trump and Epstein, and two others have smaller ones

Here in the UK Epstein is front page news…. Wonder how a newsstand would look in the states (or when I last saw such a thing).

YouTube video by BBC Archive 1973: The MUHAMMAD ALI of MARBLES | Nationwide | Classic BBC Sport | BBC Archive

You cannot convince me that this is the BBC and not a fucking Monty Python skit.

youtu.be/53w9E774fGE?...