"If you think you aren’t a big fan of Springsteen, let this be your gateway drug. It was for me. The record consists of 8-track demos for what was to be the record. They recorded the record with the full band and then decided that there was something special to the demos and put them out instead. Amazingly the full band recording has still never been released. The record as it stands though is a stark and darkly haunting collection of masterfully told stories of life and death and ill-fated love."

"To me, there is a holy trinity of hardcore bands, and the first among these is, obviously, Black Flag. They pretty much invented the genre, and as much as it's become boringly de rigeur to be "into" Flag and have a tattoo and a t-shirt (guilty on both counts), and as much as Greg Ginn seems intent on fucking their legacy to death, this record is still pretty untouchable, not just as a groundbreaking musical statement, but also because of the raw fucking attitude in every cut."

"This is fiction, but it impressed the hell out of me even though I very rarely have time to read fiction these days. It is the New York Times book review “Notable Book of The Year,” as well. It gives the account of Germans who fought Nazism and were killed or put in jail for life by Nazis for it. A German citizen is killed just for dropping cards all over the city writing his objection of Hitler’s policies. His wife was also sentenced to death, and was in jail indefinitely"

"The story is about the author’s relationship with artist Harry Dodge, who is fluidly gendered. It’s about their romance, the birth of their son, the death of Harry’s mother and their changing bodies, as Maggie becomes pregnant and Harry undergoes surgery, but it’s also about inclusion and the powers and shortfalls of language. It might require a bit of work but The Argonauts rewards us with an expansive way of considering identity, caretaking, and freedom—along with a liberation from, what Maggie calls, ‘the demand that anyone live a life that’s all one thing.'"

"All Quiet on the Western Front is a horror story. This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals. You’re stuck in a nightmare. Sucked up into a mysterious whirlpool of death and pain. You’re defending yourself from elimination. You’re being wiped off the face of the map. Once upon a time you were an innocent youth with big dreams about being a concert pianist. Once you loved life and the world, and now you’re shooting it to pieces."

"How can I not list this “dream of dark and troubling things.” Lynch has made such a vast impact on today’s culture, and this is where it started. The midnight movie—sorry to Waters, Jodorowsky, Argento, and Romero, but Eraserhead owns that mantle. I know there are some who don’t “get it,” and that’s fine, but to me it is so inspiring that someone can spend years of his life making such a far-out slice of deranged weirdness, and somehow, somewhere, there are people who not only “get it” but love it to death."