Gene Seymour
@geneseymour.bsky.social
Writer, Jazz geek, Professional Spectator
I'll probably have more to say about "Odyssey" (just like everybody else has in these noisy neighborhood), but for now, I'll leave it at this: If Christopher Nolan had been as goofy & ragged with Batman as he was with Homer, I'd have liked those "Dark Night" movies a whole lot more than I did.
Nothing has become Mitch McConnell's life so much as the manner in which he's leaving it. Right? Or did I mean "Left"? Is "become" the right word? What's a gerund? What movie are they showing in the common room this evening? And will he be there?
Back in the 1990s, I was proud to be included among a murderer's row of music critics on the masthead of FI, an audiophile magazine that gave its writers lotsa space & the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Last week's Miles Davis' centennial made me exhume this piece from 1997.
Miles Lives!
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Accept the Early 1970s Albums As They Were -- & Remain.
open.substack.com
Bomani Jones on Wemby's Game 1 performance last night, especially That Three from El Logo: "The future is here! We just saw a flying car"
Ladies & gentlemen, your 2026 New York baseball Metropolitans.
Madagascar - Penguins in Antarctica
YouTube video by Serkan Şeker
youtube.com
Sally Jenkins@sallyjenx.bsky.social · 5mo agoHow terrifying was the re-entry? How nauseating was the hour in a rocking capsule in the Pacific after slamming from 25,000 mph to 100 mph to 20 mph? Yet they all walked to the medical bay under their own power, jelly legged though they were. #NASA #ArtemisII www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...
First in an occasional series I'm tentatively titling, "Hey, Look What I Found!" substack.com/home/post/p-...
Jim Thompson, Soul Brother
Some random impressions of an outlier among the many paperbacks of a Master of Noir Fiction
substack.com
Observing his 100th birthday today with his reading of "The Day Lady Died."
Frank O'Hara reading from Lunch Poems
YouTube video by Stevi-Lee Alver
youtube.com
Seymour Movies: Oscar Seems a Little Chippy This Year open.substack.com/pub/thatgene...
Seymour Movies: Oscar Seems a Little Chippy This Year
Hollywood's Ego Barbecue Parties Fitfully On the Brink
open.substack.com
Digress all you want, Amy Madigan!!! You earned this!!! #ActorAwards2026
Most of you may not know, remember, or even care about this not-so-long-ago history. But it was one of the first things I thought of when Jackson died & it not only bears repeating, it bears hammering.
30 Years Later, It Looks Like Jesse Jackson Won the Economic Argument
The civil rights icon’s progressive ideas were sidelined during the centrist Clinton years, but they’re ascendant in the Democratic Party today.
newrepublic.com
Today is the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. Am I in trouble for mentioning this? substack.com/home/post/p-...
History as an Inalienable Right
Why Every Month Should Be Black History Month
substack.com
In time for Awards Season, the latest version of my Personal Best Movies from the year I was born till now. If you're scoring, there's 6 westerns (& if you count "Yojimbo"), 3 tie finishes & as of this year, 2 Black vampire movies, neither of which, I say with mild regret, is "Blacula."
Seymour's Movies
My List of Personal Best Movies for Every Year I've Been Alive (Ties Included, If Not Required)
substack.com
My Gene's Best Jazz Records debut on Substack. substack.com/home/post/p-...
Gene Seymour's Top Ten Jazz Recordings of 2025
Casting the net once more for sound over noise
substack.com
I'll save you a lot of reading: unless Mamdani starts taking money from Turks and roasting leprechauns - and even then - there is no way in hell Stefanik is going to win New York a year after this election in the city.
I'd been working on this one for so long that if often felt as though I'd been writing it my whole life. In a peculiar way, maybe I have... www.thenation.com/article/arch...
Chester Himes’s Harlem Noirs
Himes helped reinvent the idea of the detective novel. He also transformed it into a powerful vehicle for social criticism.
thenation.com
Once more to the Cave of Wonders. Happy 95th birthday, Sonny Rollins.
Sonny Rollins - Blue 7
YouTube video by JazzTuna
youtube.com
Belichick, you know ... it's like if I ran for Mayor of Fresno ...
Today marks Year Four of Ferdinand's insertion into my life. Read the attached to find our what that sentence means.
In Which I Get My New Aortic Valve & Take it Out For Walks — That Gene Seymour
geneseymour.com
Still trying to get the hang of this thing. But at least it's no longer calling itself "Gene's Substack." Baby steps.
Soft-Boiled Resistance
Be Like Charles Simic (& If You Can't, Then Be-Bop)
thatgeneseymour52.substack.com
