“Five stars, Angel, five stars.” – Em, ‘NOPE’ It’s often easy, when reading a book, to imagine a movie or TV adaptation. “Lakeith David should definitely be the lead here,” […]
The Annual Shipwrecked Sailor NBA Finals Column
“This doesn’t feel real” – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander What a Finals! Even if the ending was anticlimactic. Get well soon, Tyrese. Congratulations, Oklahoma City. Shoutout to the Seattle SuperSonics. Next year, […]
Notes On Performing as “Tour” Kicks Off
“He got up before dawn…looked down at the water. He would have welcomed an instant of wisdom. However, none arrived. The water kept its own counsel.” – Lydia Millet, ‘Dinosaurs’ […]
‘Sinners’ Is Twice As Good
“You come to me for advice, but you can’t cope with anything you don’t recognize…have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news…” – Douglas […]
Three Fun Ways To Mess Up Chord Progressions
“A basketball game was, and always will be, part playing the game before us and part making sure we have someone to bear witness.” – Mac Crane, ‘A Sharp Endless […]
Storytelling In Instrumental Music
“Prometheus was trying / to invent the guitar solo. / Fire was his first draft.” – Amorak Huey, “Seven Stories About Fire” Maybe this is an increasingly impossible experience in […]
Re-centering
“A beach house isn’t just real estate. It’s a state of mind.” – Douglas Adams, ‘Mostly Harmless’ Warm weather always helps. Not shivering when I wake up, the ability to […]
On Nonparticipation
“More and more [voters] declared, if only by nonparticipation, their alientation from the political system. In 1960, 63 percent of those eligible to vote voted in the presidential election. By […]
The Poem I Recommend If You Don't Think You Like Poetry
“I had my first nightmare about dangling by an umbilical cord from a white sky above a white boat floating in blood.” – Zachary Schomburg, “1978”
What Does Success Look Like To You?
“There’s a place some of us choose to live / gated community cops can’t come in / a neighborhood for punks over the hill” – NOFX, “Mattersville”