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Dan Carlson
Los Angeles, California

I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of certain TV shows — for starters, "The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April Is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," "Look Who's Stalking," "The Garage Door," "Charlie Gets Crippled," "Wind Sprints," and "Corner Boys" — you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings, or at any rate a heartfelt attempt to interpret them. I guess I was made to be a film critic.

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May 31, 2007

I'm Like Lightning On That Buzzer

By Dan Carlson

I stole this idea from McSweeney's, but was actually inspired to steal it after seeing that Bells On also stole it. Plus, when you think about it, when's the last time McSweeney's was so consistently amazing you would feel bad stealing from them? They started out all Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, but have totally slid down into IV. Anyway, here's my list:

"Jeopardy!" Categories In Which I'm Pretty Sure I Could Beat Ken Jennings:

Living With Massive Debt

Science Fiction Media Of The 1980s

"Timing" And Other Reasons It Didn't Work Out

How To Apprehend Livestock

Arcane Country Bands Of The Mid-To-Late 20th Century

Acceptable Reasons For Wearing A Shirt Two Days In A Row Without Laundering It

Navigating Strange Neighborhoods While Mildly Inebriated

The Oeuvre Of Luis Guzman

A Walking Tour Of Quesadillas In The San Fernando Valley

Dave Matthews Band Lyrics (Pre-2002)

Indian Leg-Wrestling

Stand-Up Comedians Below The Cultural Radar

What It's Like To Think You're Original When Really, There Are A Ton Of Guys Just Like You

Living With Sweat

Possible Retro-Future Ramifications If Kirk Had Saved Joan Collins From Getting Hit By That Truck

Hot Pocket Flavors

Comments: 5

Josh

Is IV bad then?

May 31, 2007 2:55 PM

Daniel Carlson

No, not bad, just shy of Cocoa Puffs. Worth reading if you're a fan or completist, but not as good or consistent as the old one.

May 31, 2007 3:12 PM

Kevin Longrie

Hey, hey, Hot Pocket flavors is brilliant though.

Jun 1, 2007 1:19 AM

Carrie

"What It's Like To Think You're Original When Really, There Are A Ton Of Guys Just Like You"

Ha! I love it.

I guarantee I could kick Ken Jennings' ass in "Teen television dramas, 1990 to present." He would go DOWN.

Jun 1, 2007 2:26 PM

Cody

Acceptable Reasons For Wearing A Shirt Two Days In A Row Without Laundering It

I'm pretty sure that this is the reason why college classes are on alternating days.

Jun 1, 2007 3:27 PM

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"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael

"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut

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— Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04

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Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton

We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003

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