Posts by author
Max Gray
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Song of the Day: “Kimberly”
Multi-talented artist and writer Patti Smith has influenced groups disparate as Sonic Youth, R.E.M., and Madonna. Her seminal 1975 album Horses helped to spur the early punk movement in New York City. Smith was an important member of the scene which spawned punk heroes…
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The Web Isn’t Nirvana (But You Can Get All Their Albums For Free)
On February 26, 1995, just about twenty years ago, Newsweek published an article by Clifford Stoll called “Why the Internet Won’t Be Nirvana.” In it, Stoll provides a litany of faults to be found in the nascent web. Although there’s…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, sacrifice is the key to artistic growth in Grant Snider’s “Creative Processor.” And in the Saturday Essay, Amanda Miska realizes she is making the object of her love into a “myth,” into “the version of the story that [she] wanted…
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Song of the Day: “Mickey Mouse Boarding House”
Mardi Gras may have been last week, but the good times keep on rolling. New Orleans-based soul artist Walter “Wolfman” Washington knows a thing or two about good times—in his good-humored single “Mickey Mouse Boarding House,” the silky R&B crooner complains…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Grant Snider provides some (mostly) encouraging words in “One Page At A Time.” Prompted by author Colleen McCullough’s shallow-minded obituary in the Guardian, Tabitha Blankenbiller uses the Saturday Essay for introspection. The prevailing views of women’s bodies come under the…
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Song of the Day: “Fall On Me”
The pioneering alternative rock band R.E.M. officially disbanded in 2011, after more than 30 years making music that defied description. Allegedly, singer Michael Stipe chose the band’s name in 1980 by picking it at random from a dictionary. The reference…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
In the Saturday Essay, Kenny Ng evaluates the groundbreaking show Transparent and its attempt to raise awareness of transgender and genderqueer identities. In the show, Arrested Development’s Jeffrey Tambor plays Mort, a lifelong family man who comes out as a…
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Song of the Day: “Never Over You”
Critics have described indie singer-songwriter Natalie Prass variously as “stunning,” “sublime,” “charmingly delicate,” and also, bizarrely, as a Disney princess. The Nashville-based former Berklee College of Music student offers up a heady melange of influences on her acclaimed new eponymous album.…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Grant Snider has some helpful suggestions for forgetful readers. In the Saturday Essay, Melissa Carroll investigates the surprising cultural phenomenon known as the “brony,” a species of lovable man-child obsessed with the cartoon My Little Pony.
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Song of the Day: “One For My Baby”
The canon of drinking songs is long and storied, but no one sang about booze with quite as much acumen as legendary imbiber Frank Sinatra. At a seminal live performance at the Las Vegas Sands in 1966, Sinatra delivered an…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
Gentrification, and analogies for it, are the focus of Mary Biddinger’s poetry collection A Sunny Place With Adequate Water, reviewed by Danielle Susi. The inhumanity of coin-operated machinery serves as a theme. Moments of “lucidity” make these poems “a little weird, a…
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Song of the Day: “It Never Entered My Mind”
By now Miles Davis has become a cornerstone of modern music. We can’t get rid of him, which is good, because we would never want to. Miles Davis is inside us; he surrounds us, and permeates our collective consciousness. For that reason, it’s easy to…