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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...
Read MoreDrone Away
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any stranger, that you wouldn’t have any more bleeping, buzzing, quasi-intelligent new developments to contend with, here come the drones. Now, I see how drones could make sense to some conspiring (which, after all, just means “breath together”) mind or other. If a human being takes a risk by flying a combat mission, why not eliminate the human, empty the cockpit, and guide the missile to its target via remote control? Why not indeed. And if that could be accomplished, as numerous combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate, why stop...
Read MoreAbout Maps & Legends
In 2008, I came across an old cassette of R.E.M.’s first album, Murmur (1983). I had played it so much in the late eighties that the tape was almost literally worn out. “No music can possibly sound good after I’ve played it to death,” I told myself. Yet, out of curiosity and perhaps loyalty, I gave it a (figurative) spin. What I heard astounded me. Flooding into my ears were sounds so fresh, rich and surprising, they could indeed be played repeatedly and always bear different results. It was music for the ages, truly—innocent yet sophisticated, melodic yet elusive, playful and...
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