Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired on the BBC in 1969, and comedy would never be the same again. Five Brits from Cambridge and Oxford teamed up with one American to break all the rules and create their own distinctly intelligent, surreal, and silly skits linked together by Terry Gilliam's offbeat animation pieces. This group created an underground television hit in the United Kingdom before eventually bringing their antics to the big screen and the United States, where they maintain a devoted following some 50 years later. There's no one better qualified to discuss Monty Python than the group members... Read more →

This may come as a shock, but it's been 20 years since the world met Tony Soprano. That's right, the New Jersey crime boss/befuddled family man first walked into psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi's office on January 10, 1999, and television would never be the same again. Once you've recovered from that news, we take great pleasure in informing you that you can celebrate the anniversary of the series premiere by grabbing a copy of The Sopranos Sessions, by Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall (with a forward by Laura Lippman.) (Release date: January 8, 2019) This book is a delight, and... Read more →

Hi everyone, 2018 was another terrific year for the crew at Clutter Headquarters. We loved hanging out with all of you every day. BDH and Little Buddha ran the numbers, and we had visitors from all 50 states and a total of 117 countries. No wonder we bought so much coffee! It's our honor, as always, to grab a few minutes of your time, and we thank you so much for being part of our crazy group. We've once again gone through the files to try to find our best work from this year. It's hard to choose, because we... Read more →

Author Neil Gaiman has written some of our all-time favorite stories, including Sandman, Good Omens, American Gods, and The Doctor's Wife. He's got a wonderfully creative mind which has led us into worlds of darkness, fantasy, and whimsy, and he strikes a chord for us in a way that is distinctly Gaiman-esque. We consider him a creative role model in many ways, so that's why we were excited to check out his new book: Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World. (Release date: November 20, 2018.) The book is a collection of four previous Gaiman essays, which are... Read more →

It's great to finally have the Doctor back in action. After what felt like years of waiting, #13 and her friends jumped right into the action, and the new era is off to a strong start. The problem is that it leaves us even more impatient for each week's new episode to arrive. That's why we recently treated ourselves to The Thirteenth Doctor: The Many Lives of Doctor Who, from Titan Comics, to help pass some time between shows. Written by Richard Dinnick, and beautifully drawn by a number of illustrators, The Many Lives takes place right as #12 is... Read more →

Professional wrestling has always seemed like like an over-the-top circus (fittingly, given the industry's roots.) Loud overgrown men vowing to defeat their opponents, putting on an entertaining physical show in front of cheering audiences, and then packing up and moving on to do it all over again in the next city. The travel is intense, and the job security is temporary, but these guys (we're only focusing on male wrestlers here) grind away at it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. The audience might sometimes forget that these performers are real people with real... Read more →

Friends is one of the all-time great TV versions of comfort food. Just saying, "Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe and Joey," can trigger a sensation similar to the idea of sitting down to a plate of mac and cheese. The show stopped airing new episodes in 2004, but it doesn't feel like this group ever left us. That's largely because you can find multi-hour blocks of reruns airing every weekday on various cable stations. What is it about Friends that's given it such staying power? Kelsey Miller takes a look at that question, as well as the rest of the... Read more →

New York Times Magazine Chief National Correspondent Mark Leibovich was looking for a distraction from his regular job covering politics so he decided to examine something far less controversial: the National Football League. (Wait, that doesn't sound right.) Leibovich dove head-first into the saga that is the NFL over a period of four years and came out on the other end with his new book, Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times. (Release date: September 4, 2018.) The author doesn't hide the fact that he's a lifelong New England Patriots fan. In fact, he fully embraces it. Whether you think... Read more →

Longtime fans remember well the dramatic transformation that hit the pro wrestling landscape in the mid-1980's. A longstanding collection of regional wrestling territories were challenged by Vince McMahon as he sought to turn his father's Northeast-based (then) WWF into a national company. McMahon upended tradition with sweeping talent raids, aggressive use of the emerging cable television industry, maximizing the new pay-per-view universe, and providing a more cartoonish form of wrestling aimed towards children. The other promoters tried a variety of ways to block McMahon's plans. One by one they fell, and wrestling would never be the same. It's a fascinating... Read more →

Bob Woodward's latest book, Fear: Trump in the White House, has been all over the news for the last few weeks, and with good reason. The veteran political reporter provides a harrowing look into the inner workings of Donald Trump's administration, and it's alarming. It's not that the book reveals another side of Trump, it's that it demonstrates his known failings are even more extensive and dangerous than have been reported. Fear shows that the biggest daily task his staff and cabinet face is not carrying out his agenda (not that he has a defined one in the first place.)... Read more →