I’ve spent the past year or so gobbling up books by and about female singers. Ann & Nancy Wilson of Heart, Pat Benatar, The Runaways, and now you can add Rosanne Cash’s Composed to the list. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one. I’m not all that familiar with Rosanne Cash’s music, though I do remember a week or so when I was a kid in the 80s when “Seven Year Ache” was my favorite song. And…
Unnecessarily Name Droppy
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine is one of those novels I should have enjoyed way more than I did. A book-loving woman in her twilight years reminiscing about her life, loves, and reads? Sign me up. The way it’s executed in this book? Unsubscribe. Aaliya is a seventy-two-year old divorcee retired bookseller in Beirut who spends her days translating great works of literature. She lives alone in the apartment she got when her husband left her some fifty years…
Somehow Only the 2nd Best Thing to Happen This Week
I am all out of giddy anticipation. I am exhausted by upcoming potential. My heart cannot take anymore shaky-hearted joy. The very same week The Replacements announce a homecoming show, also happens to be the same week I learned there is going to be a new collection of writing from my deity of choice, Ellen Willis.
A History of Swinging Parties
The first time I went to Midway Stadium it was with my friend Anderla to see Soul Asylum, The Jayhawks, and Matthew Sweet. It was glorious and we serendipitously ran into a gaggle of guys we knew and intermittently crushed on throughout the year. Also, Soul Asylum covered “Rhiannon.” The second time I went to Midway Stadium it was to see REM & Wilco back in a year I cannot remember, which might be 1999. I’ve written about that concert…
Writing Process Blog Tour: Some Word Barf About Word Barf
Last week, my friend Donna Trump, a lovely and talented writer I met in on of Vodo’s writing classes at The Loft a bajillion years ago asked me to take part in the Writing Process Blog Tour, which involves answering four questions about your current work in progress. Before I perpetrate this fraud, you should just go read Donna’s answers because she is smart and thoughtful. I am a smartass and thoughtless. So you’ve been warned. Question #1: What am…
I Really Did Coo With Joy
On the very first day I became an iPhone owner, I promptly named the device Ziggy after the computer that helps Sam Beckett leap from life to life, putting things right, that once went wrong and hoping each time, that his next leap will be the leap home. Right around that time I populated Ziggy’s lock screen with an Alex Ross picture of Superman. I love Superman for myriad reasons, not the least of which is the Superman S I…