• Fiction - Film/TV

    The Literary and Cinematic Triumph of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge”

    June 27, 2021 - By 

    A well-dressed and carefully coiffed man is poised on a plank in the middle of a bridge, surrounded by Union officers, all of them silent and stoic, mostly staring straight ahead. We hear birds chirping and water flowing in the river below, along with the clomp of soldiers’ boots and the rustling of ropes and ties as they move into position to bind the man hand and foot and neck in preparation for his hanging. The atmosphere is solemn and silent, with but four words spoken (“First squad, stand fast!”). The man casts his eyes about, fidgety, looking around himself…

  • Music

    Ninth Annual Songs of Summer

    June 20, 2021 - By 

    After last year’s annual edition of this summatime summatime summatime ritual, it was brought to my attention by astute readers that the previous eight years’ worth of selections had yet to include a single song by either Jimmy Buffett or the Beach Boys, who, if they didn’t first propagate the idea of summer and its languid pleasures, at least had a major hand in refining them for the modern age. Shocked, I vowed to set things aright in 2021, both to give honor where honor is due, and pleasure where pleasure is desired. So on this first day of summer,…

  • Music

    Brilliant Songs #22:
    Greg Brown’s “Rexroth’s Daughter”

    June 12, 2021 - By 

    One of the things I love about Greg Brown’s “Rexroth’s Daughter” is Brown’s refusal to offer any kind of explanation or backdrop to the somewhat mysterious title, which is encompassed in the only line he repeats in the song’s 72 lines: “I’m lookin’ for Rexroth’s daughter.” This is consonant with a certain strain of creative artist who simply wants to have his or her work stand on its own, meaning what it means to anyone who comes across it, without shaping a viewer’s/reader’s/listener’s response via either explanation or the creator’s biography. And then there’s his way with a metaphor: How’s…

  • Personal Reflections

    At Seventy: Notes From the Zipline

    June 8, 2021 - By 

    If I believed in an afterlife, I would state without hesitation that I’m gonna miss this planet when I’m gone and heading off somewhere else. This feeling grows all the more acute with age, given that with the passage of time and the abundance of good fortune I have enjoyed through a now long-in-the-tooth 70 years, life truly does get more precious and appreciated every day. Reveled in, actually. This could all change on a dime, of course, if my luck were to turn and I was struck by severe illness or debilitation. When life becomes merely bearable for the…