Latest Post
Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone*
L’amour de l’art fait perdre l’amour vrai. I did not say that. Although that is the sort of thing I might say, since I am the sort who feels obliged to quote the books I’ve read and I allow art to remind me how to relate to myself. The love of art means loss of [...]
Whispered Words*
How long will it take? I did not ask, because I wanted to make every second count. It would be over quickly enough; it was already happening entirely too soon. It’s okay, I said as I held my dog, flanked by friends and the friendly technicians who split their time between extending or improving lives [...]
Pythagoras*
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but my grief has made me, against all previous likelihood, into a half-assed mathematician. Numbers were never my bag, and I’ve got the report cards to prove it. And yet, ever since 2002 I repeatedly find myself going over similar calculations. There are the obvious, inevitable examples. For [...]
Strictly Business (Class): The Dreaded Day Trip*
A.M.: Departure Early, at the airport. Look around: some of the pretty people, many of the mediocre, and the rest of us, all sizes and shapes: men trying to look like the human mannequins who sold them their suits, women with bodies stolen from a Robert Crumb cartoon. I can’t help overhearing the woman across [...]
Myself When I’m Real
Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone*
L’amour de l’art fait perdre l’amour vrai. I did not say that. Although that is the sort of thing I might say, since I am the sort who feels obliged to quote the books I’ve read and I allow art to remind me how to relate to myself. The love of art means loss of [...]
Whispered Words*
How long will it take? I did not ask, because I wanted to make every second count. It would be over quickly enough; it was already happening entirely too soon. It’s okay, I said as I held my dog, flanked by friends and the friendly technicians who split their time between extending or improving lives [...]
Pythagoras*
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but my grief has made me, against all previous likelihood, into a half-assed mathematician. Numbers were never my bag, and I’ve got the report cards to prove it. And yet, ever since 2002 I repeatedly find myself going over similar calculations. There are the obvious, inevitable examples. For [...]
Music
Prog Rock is Never Dead; It’s Just Resting Until the Next Round of Reissues, or, Two from Gentle Giant
Reissues From An Era When Giants Roamed the Earth For all the critical savaging Yes, ELP and Rush took in the early-to-mid ‘70s, they at least had the devotion of the masses (then, now). And no matter how much or how unjustly they were accused of mindless noodling, they could nod and wink all the [...]
Alligator Lizards in the Air: In Search of the Sublimely Awful Lyric (9/09)
I can think of a lot of rock bands who have written some laughably awful lyrics. So can you. Part of rock and roll’s infectious (and mostly innocuous) appeal is the no-brainer element of its intellectual import. From it’s earliest days when rock lyrics were mostly an unimaginative contest to see who could say I [...]
Kicking off the New Year with Rashanim
2011 is so last year. What, you might ask, can we look forward to in 2012? Three of my favorite things, all at once: Rashanim, Tzadik and Fela Kuti. Here is the scoop: Rashanim’s new expanded project features songs by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach with arrangements inspired by the Afrobeat master Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Stay tuned [...]
