Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Calling Bull****: Kelly Reilly's junkie angel in Flight
Ironically, Ms. Reilly played Desdemona on the stage in 2007. Go figure.— November 5, 2012 4:58 p.m.
David Elliott's Final Column
Squonikins, You're a complex compensator who misses the simplest truths about propriety. You do a mighty soapbox dance about what "proper" criticism is, and yet, didn't you ever learn what proper conversation is? What proper manners are? Haven't you yet grasped the notion of "time and place?" These are the real truths of what makes something proper (or improper). If you understood them better, you'd see how misguided your comments are. Why can't you just let an accomplished man take his recess with peace and appreciation? You need to grow up.— June 16, 2012 8:03 a.m.
Rape?
With all due sincerity, thanks for this Matt. You are absolutely right. This word has become, for the uninitiated and unimaginative, a grenade that they (the young and adult alike) fumble about with like a plaything.— March 21, 2012 1:32 p.m.
Back in the Spotlight
Mr Shepherd did say (as you quoted) "inflammatory views of Jews in The Passion of the Christ." The review never makes the claim that "Passion" itself is anti-Semitic, or that Mr. Shepherd shares the opinion of those who felt offended by it. He simply states that the film contained "inflammatory views", as in "sparking the anger of others." Ironically, the word also means "tending to arouse passion", as in "The Inflammation of the Christ". (Jesus with hemorrhoids perhaps) This word is more akin to "controversial" than anything else, which by merit of "history" is true: Gibson's film did spark much controversy over its depiction of Jews. So, what exactly are you accusing Mr. Shepherd of here? Accurately depicting currents events? Commenting on the relevant public awareness of why Mr. Gibson has been so long absent from film? Do you know know history? Can you tell the difference between the words "inflammatory" and "anti-Semitic"?— February 11, 2010 7:15 a.m.
New World Disorder
Do you see the difference? Intelligent, well-written, competent, respectful, and still in complete disagreement. That was a splendid comment. Thank you Tonya-J. No one has a right to insist that we all agree here, either with each other or with Mr. Shepherd. And I would never insist on such a tyrannical collection of ideas. But if you are going to express your ideas, do so with courtesy and dignity--then we can engage in a thoughtful dialogue where every opinion is counted and heard. Then we can move away from shouting our snippets of offensiveness. We can stop hunting for the Spark Notes and learn something. As I've posted before, there are many sites that specialize in the childish mania of name-calling and opinion shouting. They'll be happy to have you there. But here, respect and thought are prerequisites. And Tonya-J, though I am a great admirer of Shepherd's writing, I often find myself with your exact sentiments. My movie collection is a veritable polk-dot pattern of Shepherd's black dots, but I still appreciate his regard, and I appreciate your comment. I will be seeing "Avatar" no matter the review's conclusion, though two stars is rather high-class by Shepherd's standards.— December 21, 2009 9:40 a.m.
New World Disorder
The internet . . . it seemed like such a great idea! Seems almost like communism now. No, no, not the grouchy old "fear everything with shifty eyes" judgment--just the "great in theory, bad in practice" cliche. A virtual world of information literally at your fingertips; a well of waiting education. But also a dumping site, a dungheap, a den of the failed and the foolish. A place where wisdom and wit can be published on the same page as rancor and idiocy, as in the case above. Of course, I know Shepherd is the only one actually being "published." He is the only one who's proven himself with an education and a career, with experience and talent. He's a critic and a wordsmith who has caught the eye of those who will pay you to print your words. That's what publishing is: an act of trust based on your skill, trust that your words and ideas are worth the cost of buying and printing because they will attract readers. Publishing is trust in one's brilliance. I just thought we needed a refresher course because we're on the internet right now--a place where "publishing" has been depleted down to the denominator of merely hitting a button. Publishing is a light switch, a bomb lever, toilet flush. There's no trust when the amateur flock to blogs with the deluded notions that they are writers. There's no recognition of skill by an approved authority; just blind assumption, just a willingness to impose. There is no trust when buffoons like "beszlebrox" post what no doubt sounded like comic genius in their minimal brains. There is only the acme of cowardice on display here. To come to a place of peaceful insight, to enter an intelligent conversation you were not invited to, and infect your ignorance. No one wants you here beszlebrox; no one thinks you're funny, except perhaps more of the unwanted. We do not trust you. We do not believe in you. Because you are a taint, a blemish, a fly in the soup. You've laid it out for us: "This is the best I can do. I can't write like what I'm childishly criticizing. I can't tell a joke. I can't make you laugh. I can't make you think. This is all I am. This poor vocabulary on a computer screen. This timid set of unclean letters. This waste." We hear you. Now go away.— December 19, 2009 7:02 a.m.
Huff-Puff
Why are you posting these "deals" here? Isn't there enough advertising in the margins?— September 16, 2009 8:16 a.m.
A Bundle
I find it ironic that the commentary "pretentious douche" and lessons on child rearing appear in the same message. Is this really the best way to make your point? I find it further ironic that the movie you advise us "to skip" employs the same "douche"-limited vocabulary as yourself. I believe Mr. Shepherd even pointed this out in his review. But I suppose that was just being pretentious, right? Perhaps rather than questioning why Shepherd finds a "kid's movie" so disappointing, we should be asking why you find the same one so challenging.— June 10, 2009 10:37 p.m.
Wild and Woolly
Alias, While I tend to agree with you regarding Shepherd's need for (or interest in) responding to the babble that trails his articles, it is not my intention to encourage any kind of response from him. I have no doubt that my comments may "bore," but it is also not my intention to entertain. As joshb chided me for earlier, I tend to only become "fired up" when I read foolish insults flung at Shepherd's reviews. I just feel the need to pick that eyelash out of my Chardonnay and fling it to the garbage where it belongs. I wouldn't include your comments in this refuse, but my "toilet paper" metaphor was really just a conveyance of what you already stated: comment sections (positive or negative) tend to hamper the enjoyment of a well written article (at least for me). But since you asked, the response from Shepherd that joshb is referring to begins in the fourth paragraph of this article: "Wild and Woolly". The original back-and-forth between Josh and I that he's responding to occurred somewhere a few weeks back in the comment section to Shepherd's annual wrap-up: "Favorite Few".— February 3, 2009 4:31 p.m.
Wild and Woolly
But what I once perceived as a loss, I’ve now come to appreciate. As before stated, I bask in being able to keep the ideal of my heroes alive—not to make gods out of them, but to insure that I don’t make commonalities out of them either. A professor put it to me once with a situational question: how would my experiential perception of Aristotle be altered if I met him (brilliance intact), but he suffered from unbearable foot odor? Chuckles aside at the conjecture, I could not deny that something would be lost, some chink in the ideal would have been recognized and my image would have been sullied. Of course, this shouldn’t be the case. All of the attributes that make Aristotle so revered to me would still be there. I would still be in the presence of a genius. Our conversation would still be educational beyond any other (conversation or education) in my experience. And yet, for a man whose reputation has become the substance of myth, the humanization process of casual interaction would dim the sheen of icon.— February 2, 2009 7:22 p.m.