If I Could Wave My Magic Wand… (Revisited)
Sean Murphy(Editor's note: Rush's last great album (in my opinion), Presto, was released this week, in 1989. A quarter-century plus one year ago. Yikes. Here is a piece I wrote in…
They’ll Never Put Me in Their Bag: The Continuing Story of Syd Barrett
(REVISITED FROM 11/10): When he died in 2006, after decades of cult-figure status and willful anonymity, Syd Barrett was arguably better known as the person who inspired one of Pink…
I Talk to the Wind
On the dissolving horizon the sky looks good enough to eat: orange sorbet on a dark purple plate; overhead black birds want in on the action, circling one another, entwined…
Jack Bruce: The Thinking Man’s Golden God (One Year Later)
The recently-departed Jack Bruce could have had no complaints. He made history, he made records that made people happy, and he made some money along the way. Still, as one-third…
The Problem with The Homeless Problem (Revisited)
THERE IS A MAN who sits near the pumps at the gas station I drive by each day. The man is very obviously from somewhere else and has about him…
Born In The U.S.A. or, Every Day Is Veterans Day (Revisited)
I. Personal Remember when Born in the U.S.A. was ubiquitous? The album and the song. Bruce was already big, but he wasn’t over the top. Born in the U.S.A. put…
Over/Under the Volcano
I STILL HAVE HANGOVERS, thank God. Everyone who has known an alcoholic knows that as soon as you stop feeling the pain, it’s because you are no longer feeling the…
Bill Buckner, Mookie Wilson and Me (Revisited)
(10/2011) I've never been able to appreciate the aesthetic perfection (that is to say, the perfection of baseball's most imperfect play; it's most jarringly incongruous moment) because it was too…
The Fall Classic: 27 Years Ago
I don’t believe what I just saw! No one else in the room could believe it, either. Kirk Gibson had, before our eyes and on television, done something so improbable,…
Never Say Nevermore: A Reappraisal of Edgar Allan Poe
If Edgar Allan Poe—and his writing—has not aged well and seems more than a little passé for 21st century sensibilities, it’s not entirely his fault. Like others who have done…