People probably invented poetry to help them remember things they wanted to remember – what their gods and ancestors did, how to get from one place to another, what plants were good to eat and what plants were poisonous – all sorts of things that rhythmic patterns and regular rhyme schemes made easier to remember. […]
On the night of September 19, 1974, someone murdered the owner of the Suezy Massage Parlor on South Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs. The owner, Sun Ok Cousin, was the Korean wife of a retired Army man. Her assistant, Elizabeth Yon Cha Lee, a very recent arrival from Korea, was attacked with a knife and
Park Estep: An Imperfect Trial Read More »
To Be or Not to Be? If someone asked me to tell the story of my life, I might begin like this: I was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1942. I have been told that my father came home from the hospital saying over and over, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” There is no
First Aid: The Bones of Freshman Composition Read More »
Starting with my dad, people have been telling me to Stand Up Straight all my life. He told me. The Army told me. My friends told me, and probably a few enemies. No one ever told me how, until last year, when my chiropractor was moved to show me a little exercise in which I
Three Little Words Read More »
Much jazz writing has proceeded from the Great Man theory of history. If you’re trying to fashion a narrative, it’s a convenient theory. Buddy Bolden begat King Oliver begat Louis Armstrong begat Roy Eldridge begat Dizzy Gillespie; Bix Beiderbecke begat Bobby Hackett begat Chet Baker. And so on. These trains of influence are supportable to
The Democracy of Jazz Read More »
“The late humorist James Thurber wrote a fable set in a medieval court, and he has the Royal Astronomer report that all the stars are going out! It turns out that he is simply going blind. I am probably making the same mistake.” — Dan Wakefield, ed., Kurt Vonnegut Letters, Delacorte, 2012 I needed to
Mozart’s Kept Canaries: Music and Technology Read More »