Author Archives: admin

Valentine (Of Sorts)

The rain pleading its way down the driveway, exploring
the fine chiseled vintage cracks, followed by a homeless […]

Divide

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Neil Young

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Talking Heads

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Foday Musa Suso

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Slim Whitman

Dear Mr. Whitman, I call you Mr. Whitman from total respect for you. Sir, I met you in Canton, the nurse at the record store with the big smile and […]

Sting

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►THE INDULGENCE OF BEING EARNEST If you want to watch Sting’s girlfriend Trudie Styler give birth to his fourth child, by all means go see […]

Soccer

When the Cosmos have a party, it’s Chinaglia and Beckenbauer and the continentals in one corner, Tueart and the Brits in another, and Alberto and Marinho and the South Americans […]

Charlie Singleton

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

Wayne Shorter

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►THE INDULGENCE OF BEING EARNEST If you want to watch Sting’s girlfriend Trudie Styler give birth to his fourth child, by all means go see […]

Devadip Carlos Santana

The Swing of Delight Columbia C236590 by Spottswood Erving Round, pure, golden, delicious: Santana’s guitar still sounds ripe for the picking, but that’s nothing new. Nor is his affiliation with […]

Terje Rypdal

The ECM stereotype is firmly in place, and it reads this way: ECM is the home of the New Cool School, where producer Manfred Eicher plays the roles of President […]

Diana Ross

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Oregon (2)

In Performance Elektra 9E-304 by Spottswood Erving At the start of the second disc of this live double LP, George Shultz, Oregon’s manager, asks the audience, “How do you like […]

Oregon

Too much prettiness gives me the gout. When subjected to large doses of refined lyricism, tonal purity, and postcard melody, my ears swell up. And when they do the pain […]

Music Videos

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►VIDEO BLUES Music video is in a state of crisis according to Kevin Godley, who has directed the Police, Herbie Hancock and Frankie Goes to […]

MoMA Disco

THE NATURAL CITY Valentine Goroshko, Vagrich Bakhchanyan, and Alexandr Kosolapov have offered to turn part of the Museum of Modern Art into a disco. Museum officials are unmoved by the […]

Joni Mitchell

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►TREADING WATER VS. SWIMMING The songwriting explosion of Stevie Wonder’s late adolescence and early adulthood gave us our finest modern pop standards, and his ability […]

John Cougar Mellencamp

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

Michael McDonald

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

Wynton Marsalis

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►THE INDULGENCE OF BEING EARNEST If you want to watch Sting’s girlfriend Trudie Styler give birth to his fourth child, by all means go see […]

Kris Kristofferson

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Waylon Jennings

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Keith Jarrett

Nude Ants ECM- 2-1171 by Spottswood Erving The Place: a pie-shaped slice of basement in the Big Apple, where one can hear the 7th Avenue subway rumble by during breaks. […]

Industrial Robots

PERFORMING HOT, HEAVY, and hazardous tasks common to heavy industry (such as spray painting, welding, and machine-tool loading), American robots have slowly grown in number to over six thousand. But […]

Herbie Hancock (2)

Monster Columbia JC 36415 By Spottswood Erving Another gruesome pop disc from Hancock. This one plods on (thump) and on (thump) and on (thwack) with the overproduced gusto of a […]

Herbie Hancock

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Football

As Howard says: “The Most Disappointing Team in the National Football League.” You assholes should be in a high school league, there you may even have a .500 record. You […]

Brian Ferry

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Sheila E.

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

Bob Dylan

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Dire Straits

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►CORN IN THE U.S.A. Last weekend’s scheduled Farm Aid jamboree brought to a boil what movies like Country, Places in the Heart and The River […]

Defunkt

Defunkt Hannibal 1301 by Spottswood Erving These days, serious jazz cats who decide to play dance music are—take themselves to be—as rebellious and avant-garde as the ones who decided not […]

Sam Cooke

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►PEARLS VS. SWEAT On the back of her new album, Eaten Alive, Diana Ross can be seen biting a string of pearls while hugging a […]

Bootsy Collins

“And one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you,” cautioned Nancy Sinatra, smiling and safely sexless, on the tube of my youth. On the radio too. […]

George Clinton

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Stanley Clarke

Hail space warriors You have come a long way Our flight for freedom has taken us through many arenas We have weapons and vessels but now I choose the sound […]

Johnny Cash

MUSIC WEEK By D.B. Atkins ►HUNG UP ON NARCISSISM The pretension only begins with the title of the new Sting LP, The Dream of the Blue Turtles. This was supposed […]

Sterling A. Brown

THE COLLECTED POEMS OF STERLING A. BROWN. (Harper & Row, $12.95): “Lemme be wid Casey Jones,” Sterling A. Brown wrote in the poem, “Odyssey of Big Boy,” Lemme be wid […]

Bats

THE NATURAL CITY Consider the bat. Not the Louisville Slugger or the aluminum, but the winged one. The one that gets tangled in your ‘do, likes an occasional after-dinner drink, […]

Marvin “Bad News” Barnes

If you’re driving to Boston, Rhode Island is little more than a quaint inconvenience—unless you meditate on the game. Rhode Islanders invented the first iron hoop a few years before […]

FRESH KILLS

In the chaos of phase space squats
the small sundog. See spot run. See […]

BLUE ANGELS

Lateisha Terrell can’t find the hundred dead
presidents to plea bargain her ten-year-old’s […]

THE FACTORY

Ninety dollars an hour in Angola
Indiana will buy you lunch and more. […]

ISM

Driving out of town, fast but not too,
sharing a cockeyed joke and smoke, sniffing […]

MONUMENT

The gross national product of Congo
is in a state of collapse, swooning […]

XANGMU

After landslides and three days’ walk to town,
I get to play the Western stranger game: […]

MILES DAVIS

Funk so deep you were half the time
drowning: pretzeling your fingers […]

DA HOOD

Hitler, Pippen, Barkley, Shakespeare, Payton.
Gromyko, Nintendo, Kaifu, Hitler. […]

SLASH AND BURN

Say you’re wild dog or sleepy cheetah
kissed by sun through smoke, flushed tumbling […]

PILLOW TALK

Your brain can only be as big as my
vagina croons mom to son, cradling head […]

BLACK DRESS

The black bow at the small of your back
is the long rope harpooned to your mother’s […]

TURKEY BASTER

My drive to his flight is filled with oldies
on the box, making me sad and happy […]

SOFT OPENING

Lemon flowers and lotus ponds, temples
on the corner, turndown service, chocolates: […]

PREGNANT

Up the slow river we walk like children
playing games. Thumb wrestling, singing badly. […]

A DIVORCE

Everything falls: Rome, leaves,
breasts, the apple, shadows across […]

NOSTALGIA

Riding the old train I used to ride when
I liked riding trains—past pouched loading docks, […]

CONFLUENCE CAMP

The way wind beats us down then pushes us
forward, the way rivers braid then unbraid […]

DOUBLE BLIND

Trumpet squeal, rose stink, pepper flame, needle
prick: the eye blinks blind to all, unconcerned […]

RELEVANCY

None of it matters. Take a look at a contour
map or the flecked and dreamy dark chocolate […]

RUSTY CAGE

I’m going to break, I’m going to break my,
going to ride a pack of dogs, rusty dogs, […]

S, M, L, XL

Saraband of anagrams, symbols bow
and curtsy. Stain, take satin by the hand […]

BLANK

It’s so _____ no one can ________ much without
tiring of the __________. Twister put you in […]

DAYS

A cool shandy on the sweating screened porch,
the ice tickling air, melting silver chimes. […]

INDUSTRIAL FACADES

Sliding pig iron loading dock doors under arches
A circular window of brick over scraped gates […]

LITERARY FICTION

A perfect stranger, he arrived with a suitcase,
But one guest, lounging under the doom palm […]

PROCLIVITY

My wife tells me I’m fluffy. Rivals beg
to differ. The defense rests till fresh dirt […]

WORK

They don’t like you. They’re just using you like
a rental car. They want you to help them. They want […]

COUNTING

Sitting up all night, watching the weather
channel, wondering where it will be nice […]

BELIEF SYSTEMS

The way falling planes at night believe
in their lit runways, the way basketball […]

X PACKS A DAY

Every Monday you check into the grand hotel
of your addiction for a meeting in the stingy […]

GUILTY

Queasy feelings my friends will testify
against me, crackling static in the trumpet […]

SKYLARK

After the Rambler, so mechanical and sideways
on the ice, we thought ourselves lucky […]

DECISIONS

Having a child or having an affair
inverts the equation: what’s had, mister, […]

LOVE LETTERS

Who owns a letter? I’ve burned them, boxed them,
thrown them in the chopped Hudson. They floated . . . […]

ALCATRAZ

The tongue of fog that licks my walls
is not a picture postcard. The crooked […]

ANGEL FOOD

The ocean of thought at the bottom
of the barrel, breaking like waves […]

THE JUG SHOP

The radio clears its throat of morning
news and traffic as the chardonnays get […]

CAPSIZED

Fat Qawwals spin a deep circle of praise
with buttery voices, ticking tablas […]

Supermodel

Young lady in a battered, swirling palm, clinging to certain facts: first
the matter of her beauty, drawing deep from the bountiful but poisoned […]