In her titular poem bodies like gardens, which opens the chapbook, Montreal poet Salena Wiener shows us how gardens are fertile ground for capturing the unique experience of being a woman. I feel weeds push my back, grasp my hips pull me under I gasp for breath but cough up mud The beautiful, evocative, sometimes […]
Books
Disgraceland: Musicians Getting Away with Murder and Behaving Very Badly by Jake Brennan (Grand Central Publishing, $35)
“Rock stars aren’t like you and me. They act insane and have insane things happen to them. They are more like feral, narcissistic animals than functioning members of society, and this is in part what makes them entertaining.” -Jake Brennan (from Disgraceland) “…on my tombstone when I go/Just put ‘Death by Rock and Roll’…” Thus […]
Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother by Barry Sonnenfeld (Hachette Books, $37)
“Somehow, I’ve managed to live an unusual and amazing life. Was it in spite of or because of what follows?” -Barry Sonnenfeld (from Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother, page xvii) Back before COVID-19 when people still got excited about new theatrical releases, the movie industry would invariably parade a film’s star around for a promotional […]
Acid for the Children by Flea (Grand Central Publishing, $37)
“All my life has been a search for my highest self and a journey to the depths of spirit. Too often distracted by the competitive world, tripping over my own foolish ego feet, but driven by the beauty, I keep trying, and I stay the course, trying to let go and feel the truth of […]
The Ox: The Authorized Biography of The Who’s John Entwistle by Paul Rees (Hachette, $38)
“Entwistle’s contemporary and fellow bassist, the former Rolling Stone, Bill Wyman, once dubbed him ‘the Jimi Hendrix of the bass guitar’. This was meant as the highest compliment but, with it, Wyman also inadvertently conjured the very demon that would haunt Entwistle throughout his professional life. Indisputably, he was a virtuoso musician, easily the most […]
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart (ECW Press, $22.95)
“Parking my motorcycle in front of a motel at the end of a long day on the road could certainly be sweet, like finally exhaling after holding my breath all day, but best of all was setting out in the morning. Whatever torments the night had brought; whatever weather the new day threw at me, […]
Music: A Subversive History by Ted Gioia
“The real history of music is not respectable. Far from it. Neither is it boring. Breakthroughs almost always come from provocateurs and insurgents, and they don’t just change the songs we sing, but often shake up the foundations of society. When something genuinely new and different arrives on the music scene, those in positions of […]
Rush: Song by Song by Alex E. Body (Fonthill Media, $36.95)
“Even from their earliest days, the band developed and changed constantly, losing and gaining fans along the way – but famously retaining their integrity – always moving in the direction that they chose.” -Alex E. Body (from Rush: Song by Song, page 2) If there was a research poll conducted to […]
Bring It on Home by Mark Blake (Da Capo Press, $35)
“Grant, the pioneering manager, revolutionized the business and helped shape the modern music industry. At the time of his death in 1995, a proposed film about his life had been in development for more than five years. It was never going to get made. And if it had, nobody would ever have believed it anyway.” […]
The Lady From the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara (Hanover Square Press, $33.50)
“I don’t know a single woman working in my field, or any creative field, or any field at all, who cannot relate to Milicent Patrick. It’s not just her story. It’s mine, too.” -Mallory O’Meara (from The Lady From the Black Lagoon, page 15) Back in the 1990’s my friend Hill and I managed to […]