A poem that is so lean and so direct, digging deep, radiating out. Simply, profoundly perfection. Everybody Who is Dead Frank Stanford When a man knows another man Is looking for him He doesn’t hide. He doesn’t wait To spend another night With his wife Or put his children to sleep. He puts on a […]
Jazz Is: 29 – Dexter Gordon, “Body and Soul”
While I was laboring over the Wisconsin labor crisis and neglecting my regular features, Dexter Gordon, much beloved sax man, had a birthday. Gordon, who died in 1990, was born on February 27, 1923. Here is how his Wikipedia entry introduces him: Gordon is one of the most influential and iconic figures in Jazz and […]
CineFile – Norma Rae
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to low wages, managerial mistreatment, and old age poverty. What kind of boss do you think the underhanded, contemptuous, and inflexible Scott Walker will be to work for? While Martin Ritt was not an exceptional film stylist, his origins in the 1930s Group Theater led to […]
How We Lived on It (35) – Photographer Lu Guang & the 2010 Dalian Oil Spill
On July 16, 2010 China suffered what has been called its biggest oil spill, perhaps as many as 365,000 barrels of crude oil. (The Exxon Valdez released 270,000 barrels.) The New York Times reported on questions about China’s official account. The Big Picture offers many stunning photos from AP and Jiang He, for Greenpeace. Here, […]
CineFile – Basquiat
“My mom told me this story – or was it a dream?” It makes sense that it might take another painter to make a masterly, even painterly film about a painter. In both of these scenes from the 1996 film, director Julian Schnabel conveys an idiosyncratic ingenuousness in Jeffrey Wright‘s Jean-Michel Basquiat that mixes with […]