On Monsters and Mythology: A Conversation with Alex DiFrancesco
Alex DiFrancesco discusses their new story collection, TRANSMUTATION.
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Posts Tagged: Leonard Cohen
The Lure of the Process: Talking with Chang-rae Lee
Chang-rae Lee discusses his new novel, MY YEAR ABROAD.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #104: Paradise
For me, performance is a conversation with the sacred and timeless, the sublime.
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Paul Lisicky
Paul Lisicky discusses his new memoir, LATER: MY LIFE AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #102: Ten Influential Albums
Music columnist Rick Moody writes on ten albums that influenced him through his life.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #95: Omnidirectional
If you love this album as much as I think you’re going to, make sure to tell a friend.
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Mindful Witnesses: Three Books from New Directions
Barbara Berman reviews work by Dunya Mikhail, Thomas Merton, and Robert Lax.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #92: Perfection
You will now find some version of the list below. It is imperfect.
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Barbara Berman’s 2018 Holiday Poetry Shout-Out
Barbara Berman’s 2018 Poetry Shout-Out!
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Sweet Bird
Every story needs to begin in a place of stasis, a comfortable zero.
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I Stop Somewhere Waiting for You
Your words feel like shapes, like wooden blocks to clear out of the way.
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Picking the Green Path: A Conversation with Ansley Simpson
“The green path takes far more work to even recognize—it takes bushwhacking.”
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Sound & Vision: Ray Padgett
Allyson McCabe talks with Ray Padgett about his new book, Cover Me, and the blog that inspired it, giving us a fascinating window into the craft and business of making music.
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Intentions, Inquiries, and Impossible Tasks: Jenny Molberg’s Marvels of the Invisible
We discover that each of these moments and stories is held to the boat’s body like a clew: tight; so much so as to be nearly indistinguishable from the whole.
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Let Us Be Singing Fools: Norman Finkelstein’s The Ratio of Reason to Magic: New & Selected Poems
If poetry is to remain a bulwark against the flagrant coarseness and cruelty at work in this moment of history, Norman Finkelstein’s work belongs right here with us.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #80: I Just Don’t Want to Wait Around Anymore
Mulcahy’s Possum is, like the animal titularly referred to, a sly and imaginative affair…
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Sound Takes: You Want it Darker
There are hard lessons about aging and dying and living on You Want It Darker that we’re not going to ever be done with until we either cure death or forget Leonard Cohen.
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The Rumpus Interview with Tobias Carroll
Tobias Carroll discusses his newest collection Transitory, the influence of film on his writing, and getting good news at bad times.
...moreNotable NYC: 12/17–12/23
Saturday 12/17: Not Straight Against Hate, protest and march. Washington Square, 2 p.m. rally, 5 p.m. march, free. Alex-Quan Pham and Ronald V. Wilson join the Segue Series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Monday 12/19: Joel Allegretti hosts Davidson Garrett, David Lawton, and LuLu LoLo for a Leonard Cohen tribute. Cornelia Street Cafe, 6 p.m., […]
...moreSong of the Day: “Secret Life”
The passing of songwriter Leonard Cohen last Thursday added another mournful chapter to an already difficult week. The prolific and underrated artist—most famous, perhaps, for his aching ballad “Hallelujah,” popularized by John Cale, Rufus Wainwright, and Jeff Buckley—had a long career of ups and downs. Cohen was 73 years old in 2009, when his album Live in London came […]
...moreRock Show at the Sistine Chapel
It happened—we’ve entered a new dimension: there has been a rock concert at the Sistine Chapel. It was the Edge, it was a benefit, and Leonard Cohen was covered, Stereogum reports. Watch a clip of the performance after the jump.
...moreMiracle and Magic
Check out Deborah Treisman in lively conversation with Lara Vapnyar on the “miracle of a New York City adventure,” the bewitching, wish-granting power of Leonard Cohen’s songs, and Russian immigrants. Vapnyar’s forthcoming novel, Still Here, explores Russian culture in the US, friendship, and eternal life on the Internet.
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Wanted/Needed/Loved: Sonny Smith’s Skate Zine
In one way or another we all tell stories to ourselves about who we are.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #67: The Franchise Restaurants of Song
Musician Owen Ashworth on his new album, Nephew in the Wild, literary influences, self-expression in songwriting, and how becoming a father has changed his work.
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The Rumpus Interview with Shawna Virago
Musician and songwriter Shawna Virago discusses her trajectory as an artist, deciding to use Kickstarter to fund her new album, and what it’s like to be top Google hit for “San Francisco dominatrix.”
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The Saturday Rumpus Review of Wild
In simplicity there is truth, and being out in wide open spaces often has a way, like high-speed rail, to bring us back to simple things.
...moreHallelujah
Listing our literary patrons of sex-ed, Leonard Cohen doesn’t immediately come to mind. And yet: Cohen, who turns eighty on Sunday, is exceptionally good at drawing out those moments of sexual crystallization. It’s a skill that, along with his gravelly voice and poems about women’s bodies, has given him a reputation for being a “ladies’ […]
...moreAlmost Like Leonard Cohen’s Blues
Besides being the amazing singer/songwriter we all know, Leonard Cohen is also an acclaimed poet and novelist. “Almost Like the Blues,” a new poem of his, is now out on The New Yorker.
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Songs of Our Lives: Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat”
Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” begins at four in the morning, an hour usually armed with drunken reverie, but occasionally visited on insomniac nights, leaving you with nothing to do but to send search parties into the shadowed rivers of the soul
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Nick Cave Monday #29: “Avalanche”
Around the year of our Lord 1984, there were fans of The Birthday Party wandering aimless through the streets. Their post-punk gods vanished. But, just like a dude named Jesus, there would soon come a resurrection, into a different body of sorts.
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