I woke up thinking about Turkish drummers It didn’t take long, I don’t think much about Turkish drummers But it made me think of Germany and the guy who sold me cigarettes Who’d been in the Afghan secret police Who made the observation That it’s hard To live “Get Up Jonah” Bruce Cockburn Get Up […]

“The Art of Asking” You should read it. Even if you’ve got no idea who Amanda Palmer is, even if you’ve never listened to her music, or dislike it. Because Amanda Palmer is Internet Famous. That’s right, while everybody’s been decrying the online world, with Taylor Swift agitating against Spotify this very week, Amanda Palmer […]

An eight year old girl in war-torn Chechnya? Really? It’s a girl’s book. I’ve never heard any guy talk about it. When it comes to the domestic sagas of overseas personages the females eat them up and the males don’t even start. Which is why I had no intention of reading Anthony Marra’s “A Constellation […]

“Lena Dunham Does Not Pay” “Why stars like Lena Dunham ask aspiring performers to work for free” What stuns me here is Ms. Dunham and her publisher, Random House, and the writer for the “New York Times” were completely unaware of the Amanda Palmer kerfuffle. Yes, Amanda too wanted her fans to perform for free. […]