Archive for December, 2010
 by Zack Witzel
The soft hiss. The quick static pop. The unmistakable crackle. The rich, almost palpable tone.
The needle drops on your favorite record, and nostalgia surrounds you. Something about that vinyl LP — no matter your age — transports you to some past memory.
Maybe you remember your dad’s old collection. Maybe you secretly listened to records in your room past dark. Or maybe the music itself reminds you of another time.
CDs just don’t have the same feel.
The world of vinyl, as some refer to it, has many aspects that benefit both listeners and collectors. Full story »
In the words of the old Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen song, as made famous by Frank Sinatra, nonproliferation and disarmament, like love and marriage, “go together like a horse and carriage.” Nonproliferation — preventing states that don’t currently possess nuclear weapons — works in tandem with disarmament — states with nuclear weapons divesting themselves of same. “You can’t have one without the other.” Right?
After all — continuing with the musical metaphor — that’s how the refrain goes in that old strain of a treaty, the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). Let’s all sing the sixth stanza (aka, article) together: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” (Actually, it would probably require a good rapper to do it justice.) Full story »
When we first married in 1995, Nancy and I put our unattainable romantic crushes out on the table. I told her that I had a thing for the figure skater Dorothy Hamill. True, I’ve never met Dorothy Hamill, nor have I ever talked to her. Still, she’s been my dream girl since 1976. I was afraid Nancy might laugh at this juvenile crush, but she understood perfectly well.
“It’s funny you should mention that,” she said. “Because I also have a secret crush. Oh, it’s silly. Let’s talk about something else.”
“No, it’s not silly at all,” I countered. “I mean, knowing who we admire says a lot about who we are as individuals. Dorothy Hamill has such grace and style. I know it sounds childish, but there’s a part of me that will always love her. So who is your secret crush? Dennis Quaid? Ronnie Howard?”
“Firemen,” stated Nancy directly. “Would you pass the peas?” Full story »
 by Zack Witzel
Go somewhere.
Drive a car. Take a bus. Board a plane.
Pinpoint a spot on a map, and find a way to get there.
Yes, students have loans to worry about and résumés to build, but the luxury of being young is a time-sensitive gift. Don’t waste it.
Studying abroad strikes many students and their parents as a great opportunity to experience the world while still furthering an education. And it is. But basing a trip around required courses can stifle what excitement a destination can hold. Full story »
photo by Talbot Eckweiler
“All writing is the same,” says playwright Christopher Shinn. “The hard part is doing it in the first place.”
Shinn, who won the Obie Award for playwriting in 2005 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2008, is Skyping with a group of creative writing students. He’s in New York City, where he teaches playwriting for the New School for Drama; they are in Allegany, New York, where they attend St. Bonaventure University.
“Writing is the hardest thing you will ever do,” Shinn tells them. “And once you understand just how hard it is, you realize it’s even harder than that. And it’s harder than that.” Full story »
It was 30 years ago today.
The above line can be sung to the tune of the opening theme of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The irony of the above phenomenon is lost on a culture focused on relentless self-pity and proving that anything is snark-able – or who are as certain as Evangelicals are of going to Heaven that they are better arbiters of taste in good music and the right way to do politics than all those stupid Baby Boomers.
They (those dumb-assed Boomers), apparently, would (and still do) listen to and think about The Beatles with reverence and awe when it’s clear to those who really know that The Beatles are a) overrated; b) old fashioned; c) less visionaries than clever imitators with access to world wide distribution of the ideas they stole from others….
And their leader, John Lennon, was a pseudo-intellectual poseur with a penchant for cruelty – and bad taste in women. After all, he committed the ultimate wrong in this more knowing culture’s estimation – he chose someone he loved over someone hot…. Full story »
It’s been a tough week in the Famous Death Department. First we lost Dandy Don Meredith, whose work with Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford in the Monday Night Football booth was one of the most important factors in the explosion of the NFL’s popularity over the past several decades.
Then Elizabeth Edwards left us the other day. I try to remain cognizant of the fact that you never really know people unless you know them, and maybe not even then, but to all appearances she was a woman who deserved a great deal more from her final years than she got. Rest in Peace.
Finally, today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. Full story »
 So what is Richard Thompson up to these days? Aside from having a dynamite new album, for which he has been on tour, and which tour is coming here next year (with many shows already being sold out, including here in London, such that an additional show at the Royal Festival Hall had to be added)? In fact, I’m glad you asked. Because Thompson just keeps going and going. Being one of the half dozen premier songwriter/guitarists of the past four and a half decades isn’t enough. For the past several years he’s been touring with his solo “Thousand Years of Popular Music,” which really is a must-see. And tonight here he was at Cadogan Hall in London, with Philip Pickett, doing a concert of old London Broadsides—sixteenth century London street songs—called Nutmeg and Ginger—Spicy Ballads from Shakespeare’s Time. The guy just never stops.
Thompson needs little introduction, but Pickett does. He’s about Thomson’s age, but has a different, but slightly overlapping, pedigree. He’s been at the heart of early music in England for the past several decades, having run the Early Music Weekend at South Bank for the first six or seven years we were here, and then was canned or something (it’s never really been made clear). Full story »
Everyone needs a little levity, and life recently has made me need some levity bad. So here’s a couple of jokes for your “enjoyment.” Laugh or groan, it’s all the same to me.
First, the bad joke:
What’s the oldest dirty joke in the world?
Full story »
 November rained into December. Hardly Christmas weather, if you ask me.
After all, the Christmas season had officially been in full swing since Thursday’s leftover turkey went into the refrigerator. Yet somehow, I had pretty much managed to avoid the holiday all together.
The weather around here had been doing little to persuade me otherwise.
Yes, the ubiquitous holiday music had been piping into stores for days, but even then, I’d somehow avoided all the displays and fake Santas and forced commercial cheer.
Full story »
Many of the seats the Democrats lost in Congress can be attributed to a tea-party and GOP-influenced desire to shrink the size of the federal government. Presumed goals of conservative and GOP winners: Reduce federal spending. Shrink the deficit. Lessen government’s intrusion into people’s lives.
Well, let’s see what these make-government-smaller politicians do with a cost-benefit analysis of this proposal to further intrude into the lives of people who drive.
By 2014, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wants every passenger vehicle sold in the United States to have a rear-view camera. That’s available now as an option for many vehicles. The camera displays what’s behind the vehicle on the navigation screen in the dashboard.
Reason: The agency says back-up accidents kill 228 people a year and injure 17,000. More significant reason: About 100 of those killed are children.
Full story »
It’s not just the Obama administration against which Republican senators under the guidance of Jon Kyl pit themselves when they oppose New START. In fact, perhaps bewitched by Tea Party-style incoherence, they’ve also placed themselves in the unlikely position of bucking the national defense establishment, to which traditionally they’ve been joined at the hip. New START, of course, enjoys the support of Secretary of Defense Gates and the Pentagon.
There’s no love lost on New START by this author, in part because its cuts are token, but, more to the point, because it’s come at too high a cost – a commitment to spend $86.2 billion on maintaining current operations of the nuclear weapons complex along with modernization of the stockpile and infrastructure. The Republicans and the Obama administration, in fact, are making it more and more difficult to pin the label “paranoid” on left-wing disarmament advocates who suspect New START is just a smokescreen that they’re both using to ensure that the nuclear weapons industry continues in perpetuity. Full story »
 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of world soccer, today awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. The move is regarded by most as an upset – the odds-on favorite to land the event was the United States, which hosted the most successful Copa in history in 1994. Also in the running were Australia and a combined bid by South Korea and Japan.
“Upset,” I said. Actually, that’s a pretty mild term for this decision, which in many respects defies reason. Consider:
 by Maria Ranier
As an undergraduate scholar, I conducted an extensive research project on writing in the undergrad Music department – a perfectly tame, even boring topic, I thought. But during my research experience, I was told that I had an agenda. My work was studiously ignored by Music and English professors alike, secretly informed by the WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) director, and hated by nearly all Music students and professors. All of this unforeseen scandal and trauma came about because of my simple interest in the topic of writing in undergraduate Music programs. But why? Full story »
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