Every year, on January 17th, I celebrate my birthday. Looking back, it’s difficult to know whether I’ve gained a year of experience, or lost a year. I guess it depends on how you look at it—is it sand in an hourglass running out, or is my life something that evolves toward a possible future I… Continue Reading »
CREATING A SOCIAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR DYLAN’S “CHRISTIAN PERIOD” I want to talk about the Christian period in Dylan’s life, but first, in order to really understand it, we’re going to have to backtrack a little bit and put it in a social and historical context. For the weight it sometimes carries, it’s important… Continue Reading »
In Praise of Contented Mind According to the Norton Anthology of English Literature, “In Praise of Contented Mind” was one of the most popular Elizabethan ballads, and was published anonymously (as ballads often were at the time). Ironically (referring to the contents of the ballad), several aristocratic poets are most often suggested as its author,… Continue Reading »
Lucid Nation: “The New Return” Fifteen songs from the L.A. improv collective known as Lucid Nation, the only band I know that uncompromisingly insists that all of their lyrics are improvised along with the music. “The New Return” begins as if midstream with “Point of No Return,” a song built on the changes to… Continue Reading »
John Milton’s Argument He rose from his desk and paced the room. He despised his loss of virtue, and it excited him as well. Then the vision ended, the dusky clouds descending, darkening the landscape, the evening dissolving into restless thoughts. First in brief, the whole subject—how legions of angels were driven into a great… Continue Reading »
The Ballad of William Blake John Thomas Smith published a profile of William Blake in 1829, two years after Blake’s death, beginning with the words “I believe it has been invariably the custom of every age, whenever a man has been found to depart from the usual mode of thinking, to consider him of deranged… Continue Reading »
THE LIFE AND WORK OF JANE FAIGAO A MEMOIR PROJECT I can remember the first and last thing that I learned from Jane Faigao. The first thing she taught me was that I was a lot bigger than I realized. It was my first Boulder winter in January 1980, and I was studying Tai Chi… Continue Reading »
TITLE: The Memory Factory AUTHOR: Jackie Sheeler PUBLISHER: Buttonwood Press, POB 206, Champaign, Illinois 61824-0206 ISNB: 0-9658045-3-4 Awards: The 2001 Magellan Prize Word count: 1375 In 1965, poet and law clerk Charles Reznikoff published the first of a quartet of books entitled Testimony. The poems in these four volumes were collected from law reports from… Continue Reading »
Drove to Denver for the second time in two days to see a concert, this night to see the White Stripes. Got in 30 minutes after the doors opened and it was already difficult to find a good place to sit and wait for the show. After about 15 minutes of sitting in the… Continue Reading »
Lucid Nation: Tacoma Ballet Brainfloss Records Will “Tacoma Ballet” be the Nation’s break-out record? Could be. It’s certainly their most cohesive, coherent, and mature release, and also my personal favorite. And at 135 minutes and 32 tracks, it’s not a minute too long. The most remarkable fact about “Tacoma Ballet” is that it, like all… Continue Reading »