When Dave Shelton named A Boy and A Bear In A Boat, he pretty much gave away the whole premise in the title. The book follows the adventures of a boy and a bear in a (you guessed it) boat as they take a journey of indeterminate origin and purpose. As the boy and bear venture to who-knows-where [...]
Author: Brennan
Hi, I'm Brennan. Thanks for reading.
Twin Forks
A friend of mine once suggested that all music has its proper season and I'm inclined to believe him. Case in point: the folksy vibe of Twin Forks makes their music very appealing to me this time of year when everything is pumpkin-flavored and harvest-themed. There's something warm and comforting in the band's use of male-female harmony, group claps, [...]
Vindicated
Halloween is a strange time when people wear crazy outfits, drink like the key to life is hidden at the bottom of a bottle of cheap vodka, and desperately try to seem attractive. So it's college, basically. Fitting, then, that ten years ago I got to enjoy my first college Halloween. For the record, I failed [...]
Powers
Let's get this out of the way upfront: Ursula Le Guin is a master of the bildungsroman. A Wizard of Earthea, The Farthest Shore, Malafrena, and several of her other books are among the finest coming of age novels in American literature. There are few authors capable of elucidating the challenges of personal discovery the [...]
Material Me
Even though I enjoy a few albums that rely pretty heavily on programming, and despite the fact that I actually own a drum machine, I don't know much about electronic music. I'm just not all that familiar with the style. So now that I've spent a good deal of time enjoying Tilian's decidely electronica Material Me (as predicted here), [...]
NaNoWriMo 2014
Last year was the first year that I participated in National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, the goal of NaNoWriMo is to pound out a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November, forgoing all editing and simply striving to create. It's an admirable goal, writing a novel in [...]
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a story of childhood adventure and, as such, the story's titular hero finds himself in a number of troublesome predicaments, usually as a result of his own childishly unchecked curiosity. Through Tom's adventures in overcoming these predicaments, Twain paints a remarkably accurate picture of the joys, fears, and trials [...]
Bloom & Breathe
Given my ties to the band, I suppose I should start out by saying that I am, obviously, biased in favor of all things Gates. If that's too close a bond for you, that's fine. You're more than welcome to head somewhere else on the internet to read any number of glowing reviews of Bloom [...]
An Interview with Kevin Dye of Gates
Given the occasion, I'm going off of schedule a bit here with a special Friday music post. I've been a big fan of the band Gates for a long time. Their thunderous brand of post-rock is emotionally and intellectually engaging and basically embodies everything that I love about music. It also doesn't hurt that their vocalist/lyricist/guitarist [...]
I Paid For That? Super Bombad Racing
When I was in high school, students in the state of Michigan were required to spend a couple of days each year taking the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test. Though the exact details elude me, I recall that one or two high school grade levels were not obligated to take the test each year. So on [...]
Songs & Stories 