Mediterranean Seas
We are now a week past another week of senseless killing in that skinny hinge of land on the eastern s Mediterranean Sea known as Israel and Palestine. How you know it, what you name the land, and what part you view as legitimate depends, of course, on your point of view. It’s been a hard week for me and many of my progressive-minded friends on various spots on the map of the Jewish community (religious and Zionist; religious and anti-Zionist; non-religious and anti-Zionist; Zionist-agnostic; mildly religious and not interested in Zionism; mildly Zionist and not interested in religion; and...
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“A photographer wants form, a visual stability in which all components are equally important. The photographer hopes, in brief, to discover a tension so exact that it is peace.” –Robert Adams
Read MoreO Scorpion of Mine
I don’t know why I am afraid of scorpions, as opposed to other crawling, biting, shellacked and fangy creatures that inhabit the countryside where I live. I’ve listened with neutral interest as bears rattled garbage cans a few yards outside my door, and ho-hummed my way through warnings of mountain lions prowling the paths where I take my walks. I’ve had bees, yellow jackets, and others of their ilk sink their stingers into my flesh, but I don’t flinch unduly when a buzzing creature flies into my path. The one time I came across a rattlesnake, it was aroused, about to...
Read MoreMaps & Legends Radio, Sept. 28, 2012: Yowlers, Mumblers, and Crooners: Exploring Rock and Roll Vocal Styles
Tune in tonight from 7-9 pm at www.kzyx.org I have been so taken with Creedence Clearwater Revival front man John Fogerty’s yowling vocals that I once named a cat after him. Some vocalists like Fogerty sound as electric as the plugged-in guitars that accompany them. Others, such as Al Green and Norah Jones, specialize in smooth styles that may belie the painful emotions they are singing about, or help the medicine to go down. Some rock vocalists like Bono and Björk wow us with their belting, full-bellied singing, while still others, like the Velvet Underground and early R.E.M., mumble...
Read MoreGood new music: Dwight Yoakam–“Three Pears”
Dwight Yoakam’s newly-released album Three Pears is straight-up classic rock and roll without a chaser. The sound throughout is remarkably fresh, even while several tracks feel like they could have topped the charts back in 1954 or ’64. Yoakam, who released his first album in 1986, is an independent-minded singer-songwriter whose twangy vocals and steel guitar arrangements hearken to country music, while his songs’ punchy, 4/4 beats and bare-bones structure have endeared him to punk rockers. Whatever category you slice this musician into, however, his music reaches beyond...
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