Of course I couldn't wait. Waveland Avenue. Of course it's the street outside the left-field wall of Wrigley Field, Chicago. I'd been doing some Frank Lloyd Wright, some Hemingway, in Chicago and some Buddy Holly…
Posts published in “Essays”
Music was arguably more crucial at the ancient Olympic games than at the globalized modern ones, where it not only buttresses big ritualistic moments—the opening ceremonies, the doling out of medals—but insinuates itself into the…
Among the countless contradictions that the Olympic Games bring into relief is that between private and public music. There is a chasm, unbreachable even by the world’s best long-jumpers and sharpest-eared eavesdroppers, between the individual…
Len Feinstein was born in Brooklyn, and raised in Levittown, Long Island, the famous original tract development where every house was essentially the same to cut costs. “My father bought one of the later ones,”…
I hate to keep flogging a dead horse, but some things manage, through sheer black-hearted cussedness, to continuously prod one's ire and therefore demand public excoriation. Last night I was on the yard after the…
He was born in Ohio but grew up and lived all around Ukiah. As a Talmage youngster he rolled brakeless Soapbox Derby-style cars down Knob Hill Road into oncoming traffic, crashing through vineyards waiting below.…
We're at the Denny's in Bishop by 5:05 a.m. To beat the heat. It has been 106 degrees Fahrenheit or more in Bishop for days. A surprising number of other Denny's patrons have made the…
Jim Young, coach of the Mendocino High School boys varsity basketball team, also happens to be my chiropractor and friend. I had a chiropractic appointment with him on Thursday at 11:30, and the night before…