Music
Music

A Full-Tilt Tribute to the 1896 Harmonica
A harmonica? The thing’s only four inches long! All kinds of notes are missing! Harp players have to show up with a briefcase full of different keys, just to play! They’re so tinny and shrill! So why would a serious musician ever choose the harmonica to play music on? Admittedly, this is good question. But

Basic English on Mt. Fuji
The marriage of C.K. Ogden’s work with that of I.A. Richards yielded Basic English, an extreme narrowing of the English language whose principal aim was to eliminate misunderstanding due to clumsiness in manipulating the semiotic triangle. Reducing the dictionary to 850 words (with various ancillary vocabularies tailored to specific disciplines) would greatly reduce the possibility

A Love Letter to Judy Collins
Including Reviews of two of Judy’s Books: Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength and The Seven T’s: Finding Hope and Healing in the Wake of Tragedy Judy, I love it that your vocal gifts and training in classical piano never require you to reach for notes—I’ve never heard you reach once—but

Notes on Judy Collins and Suicide
Including reviews of two of her books: Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength and The Seven T’s: Finding Hope and Healing in the Wake of Tragedy Like many Judy Collins fans, I was first taken with her voice. She never reaches for a note, she hits each one like a finely-tuned

Poet with a Guitar—The Story of the C&W hit “Pancho and Lefty”
I’m a sucker for songwriters—from Judy Collins’ eclectic selections to Dylan to Lenny Cohen to Sondheim—they’ve taught me always to ask, “Who wrote this?” When I heard the Willy Nelson / Merle Haggard version of “Pancho and Lefty,” I searched out the songwriter. I had no idea it was from Townes Van Zandt, a guy
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Novels and Collected Works

A Full-Tilt Tribute to the 1896 Harmonica
A harmonica? The thing’s only four inches long! All kinds of notes are missing! Harp players have to show up with a briefcase full of different keys, just to play! They’re so tinny and shrill! So why would a serious musician ever choose the harmonica to play music on? Admittedly, this is good question. But

Basic English on Mt. Fuji
The marriage of C.K. Ogden’s work with that of I.A. Richards yielded Basic English, an extreme narrowing of the English language whose principal aim was to eliminate misunderstanding due to clumsiness in manipulating the semiotic triangle. Reducing the dictionary to 850 words (with various ancillary vocabularies tailored to specific disciplines) would greatly reduce the possibility

A Love Letter to Judy Collins
Including Reviews of two of Judy’s Books: Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength and The Seven T’s: Finding Hope and Healing in the Wake of Tragedy Judy, I love it that your vocal gifts and training in classical piano never require you to reach for notes—I’ve never heard you reach once—but

Notes on Judy Collins and Suicide
Including reviews of two of her books: Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength and The Seven T’s: Finding Hope and Healing in the Wake of Tragedy Like many Judy Collins fans, I was first taken with her voice. She never reaches for a note, she hits each one like a finely-tuned

Poet with a Guitar—The Story of the C&W hit “Pancho and Lefty”
I’m a sucker for songwriters—from Judy Collins’ eclectic selections to Dylan to Lenny Cohen to Sondheim—they’ve taught me always to ask, “Who wrote this?” When I heard the Willy Nelson / Merle Haggard version of “Pancho and Lefty,” I searched out the songwriter. I had no idea it was from Townes Van Zandt, a guy