Ornithology
Not long ago I was grappling unsuccessfully with Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, but I did carry away one...
Nina Simone and the Inexplicable Grammy
On last night’s show I played the title cut from Nina Simone’s debut album, Little Girl Blue (1958). It’s...
The Old/New Weird America
Penny Lane’s mind-rearranging documentary NUTS! — about goat-testicles titan Dr. John Brinkley, the ur-Trump of 1930 — started...
Too Hip for the Room
At the end of the last post I referred to Harry “the Hipster” Gibson, and once he’s onstage...
Smokin’ Peggy Lee
Late in her life I saw Peggy Lee perform at a club in New York. She was chair-bound,...
Try a Little Tenderness or I’ll Kill You
Toward the end of my radio show last night I went into a death spiral with Spotify and...