The 100 Best Classic Progressive Rock Songs Part 5: 20-1
Sean MurphyYes: “Awaken” (from Going for the One) 1977 was not only about clothespins and green-toothed sneers: just as punk was gaining steam, Yes, the band that represented everything everyone hated…
The 100 Best Classic Progressive Rock Songs: Part 2, 80-61
King Crimson “Red” (from Red) The progenitors of math rock on their last album of the ‘70s. <i>Red</i> is the paradigm that every pointy-headed prog rock band worships at the…
The 100 Best Classic Progressive Rock Songs: Part 1, 100-81
Welcome back, my friends to the show that never ends. After gamely, if humbly attempting to track the 25 best old-school progressive albums of all time, it’s inevitable to turn…
What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex (In Fiction)
WRITING ABOUT SEX is like engaging in sex: it’s hard. Or, it should be. It’s that time of year again, where we can count on three things: shopping-related stress during…
The Weeklings: Solutions for Oncoming Political Darkness
In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times. --Bertolt Brecht I --and my fellow editors and compatriots at The…
Led Zeppelin: Day by Day
Imagine Led Zeppelin in our contemporary culture, with smart phones and social media documenting their every activity and utterance—a ceaseless spectacle. It’s impossible. Literally; obviously. But it’s possible that the…
Forever Never Changes: Remembering Arthur Lee (Ten Years Later)
Arthur Lee died ten years ago today (August 3, 2006). I not only am keen to remember --and celebrate-- his life and work, I also appreciate the fact that the piece…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak (Revisited)
WHEN I FIRST read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America I was not quite old enough to drive. Still, I felt I could appreciate his somewhat…
My First Time (Revisited)
It was my great pleasure to guest-post at The Quivering Pen, a fantastic site for writers (and readers) curated by David Abrams (himself an excellent reader and writer: check him…
Some Day A Real Rain Will Come: What Travis Bickle Can –And Cannot– Tell Us About Tucson (Revisited)
Voices In Our Heads You talking to me? It is the pivotal scene in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and it remains one of the seminal moments in movie history. Not so…