“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 »
The Aim Was Song Before man came to blow it right The wind once blew itself untaught, And did its loudest day and night In any rough place where it caught. Man came to tell it what was wrong: It hadn’t found the place to blow; It blew too hard – the aim was
If It Ain’t Got That Swing – Jazz Then and Now Read More »
Having a child was the most beautiful experience of my life. But it seems they are never satisfied. For example, Arnulfo. When they found that I was going to have a child, right away they assumed that I would marry the father. “Linda,” they said. “Have you thought how Arnulfo and you can live? What
God Wanted Arnulfo to Marry Me Read More »
I’ve spent the last fifty years or so writing songs, performing them, trying to sell them, all without the slightest financial reward. Well, I overstate – back in the early 1980s, I played many paying gigs with a small group, Toy Boat. In 1982, Toy Boat had had two extended gigs at a Westside club
How to Avoid Success Read More »
In 1986, the year John D. MacDonald died, Carl Hiaasen published his first solo novel. The following year, Tim Dorsey took a reporting job with the Tampa Tribune, from which he retired in 1999 to write fiction full time. No one writing about modern-day Florida can avoid writing about crime, and no one writing about Florida
Tim Dorsey: Vengeance Is Mine, Saith Serge Storms Read More »
His eyes are jelly holes The sheep his wool is fire Toppling up the slope Toward the wire. No Says the sheep’s master. He can only follow her. The sheep goes faster. In the wire they all rolled, Held, holding, all defiled. The poor girl, she foaled. My cradle. Oh my child.
Stray Fire – Vietnam, 1968 Read More »