I was a middle-class migrant worker for most of my adolescence because my father believed in hard work. I started at twelve in California picking bruised plums up off the ground to be dried for prunes. I walked acres of soy beans in Illinois, pulling weeds too small for equipment or chemicals. In Iowa, I [...]
Good readers,
It is with great regret that I announce that for the next two months I need to concentrate on preparing for my Psychiatry boards. Until Thanksgiving I will be setting aside sledge hammers, power drills, and computer keyboards to focus on much less creative projects. I hope soon to pass through the final door of examination purgatory [...]
The other day I ran into a colleague, and while we were doing our post-summer-chitchat-thing, she told me she had spent the better part of her summer volunteering as a wilderness ranger in the Sierra National Forest, an experience that involved hiking and working in some of the most remote and picturesque parts of California:
But [...]
I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, Yo La Tengo (Matador, 2006)
What do fans expect from long-established, long-loved bands? When we love them for what they are, are we really loving them just for what they’ve done for us in the past? How far are we, any of us, from [...]
That’s me, exactly five years ago — the morning of 11 September 2001. Until I dug this picture out today, I’d forgotten how long my sideburns were back then. My hair, too. I guess it was closer to the nineties than I realized at the time.
There’s a lot more about that morning that I haven’t forgotten, though, [...]