“There’s a Place” anticipates the musical breakthrough that would come for the band with 1965’s Rubber Soul. “There…is a place/Where I can go/When I feel low/When I feel blue…” – John Lennon, […]
The Beatles remind us: there’s a place…
Jim Booth
Novelist, college professor, rock musician - are we getting the band back together? Maybe....
Lady Day’s blues: Billie Holiday remembers…
Holiday’s goal is to reveal herself without giving herself away. “I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. […]
John Lennon reaches Across the Universe…
Lennon once said that he likes the lyrics of “Across the Universe” perhaps the best of all the songs he wrote with The Beatles. “When you’ve seen beyond yourself, then you may […]
Book Review: The Tell-Tale Treasure by Diane Sawyer
The Tell-Tale Treasure is a thriller for which one cannot use the standard descriptions such as fast-paced, edge of your seat, or thrill a minute. That is its most interesting appeal. Diane […]
Facing down the piggies with George Harrison…
George Harrison’s song “Piggies” from the White Album (written during another year of tumult, 1968) seems a perfect description of our present situation. “When it gets down to having to use violence, then […]
The 2017 reading list…
This year’s reading list will focus on music. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” – Victor Hugo“One ought, every day at least, to […]
Byron at Missolonghi: freedom trumps even poetry….
“Tyranny is far the worst of treasons.” “They never fail who die in a great cause.” – George Gordon, Lord Byron Today is Lord Byron’s 229th birthday. Much of what is written […]
S&R Honors John Lennon – a great writer, a great composer, a great man
Despite every attempt to marginalize and discredit him, John Lennon still matters and always will. ” I can’t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can’t cure you. You can […]
Should artists retain the rights to their work and images after they die? Jane Austen, zombies and undead mashups
What do we want from our art – novelty or originality? “The… idea, then, is that every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use […]
Book Review: Goldhead by J. Haviland
Goldhead is the best kind of novel of its genre – it is a novel that provides a great ride even as it reiterates a great lesson. “People start acting stupid when […]
