Another Great Bluesman Has Left The Building
Sean MurphyJohn Cephas, R.I.P. Sad news coming across the wire this morning. A nice appreciation in today's Washington Post here. Of course, it gets tiresome adding another name to list of…
YouTube + Marc Ribot = Epic Win.
To continue with the theme from yesterday: Thank god for jazz. Thank god for YouTube. (Fellow DC denizens may want to take note: I posted the Art Ensemble of Chicago…
Art. Ensemble. Of. Chicago.
It’s cold here in DC. There is dirty slush in the streets. We are facing uncertain economic times. Quick! Give me some jazz. This song may not salvage your 401-k…
Straight, No Chaser
This Sunday's New York Times magazine features a lengthy, but worthwhile appraisal of John Cheever by Charles McGrath. The piece reassesses Cheever's current status (McGrath correctly concedes that Cheever, who died in 1982, has…
Mardi gras in my mind
Mardi gras makes me think of New Orleans and all the good things I associate with The Crescent City. Among many other things, New Orleans makes me think of snapping…
Meet the New Dross
Smug? Check. A face you have an irrepressible compulsion to punch? Check. Ambitious as he is talentless? Yup. Able to convey vapidity with almost artistic effortlessness? You betcha. Give this man a talk…
A Planet of Playthings
While writing about Flannery O'Connor the other day, I made the half-serious, half-sardonic observation that dedication like hers is probably impossible to imitate today because of all the noise, electronic…
Send Another Moses
While the Republicans continue to reel, and dig themselves a bit further into that crevasse (while, not wanting to lose any time in the spotlight in an apparent race-to-the-death to see…
Careful with that Axe, Jindal
Note to GOP. This guy: Is going to inspire about as much confidence as these guys: Actually, that's not fair to any of the fine Americans listed above (why would…
“In my stories is where I live.”
Of few writers can it more accurately be said that it is the work, not the life, that matters...That O'Connor was one of the great writers of the 20th century…