Celebrating the Unpopular Arts
 

Adventures in the 700 Section

From about age 12 to 15, almost all of my pop culture itches were scratched at the Torrance Public Library. Where Greg Hatcher steeped himself in genre fiction, I was all about the nonfiction; the people, the history, the methods. We were both trying to escape, but while Greg was escaping into fictional worlds, I was trying to escape into a different real world, become a different person, and I knew that the tools to do that would be found almost entirely in the 700 section.

Rockin’ the Comics

So I was listening to Spotify, and up comes “Precious” by the Pretenders. I had never really paid much attention to the lyrics, so you can imagine my surprise when, finally, after 41 years, I heard Chrissie Hynde’s shout-out to Howard the Duck. This reminded me of a collection of comic-themed songs I had put together in 2005, and here we are.