Archive for July, 2008
“Tell-Tale Signs”
My son and I will head up the New York State Thruway in a few weeks to Saratoga Springs — for a concert featuring Bob Dylan and the Levon Helm Band! As we bow our heads and tip our hats while passing Woodstock and Saugerties, I bet we will be listening to Dylan and the [...]
Filed under: Bob Dylan, Music | 1 Comment
Tags: Bob Dylan, Dylan, Music
Pete Seeger keeps on singing
I’ve written about my encounters with Pete Seeger. Here’s some good news: The 89-year-old icon is putting out at album — titled, appropriately, “At 89.” Here’s an article from Billboard magazine: Folk legend Pete Seeger will release his first new album of studio recordings in five years this fall. The 32-track “At 89,” a nod [...]
Filed under: Music, Pete Seeger | Leave a Comment
Tags: "At 89", Pete Seeger
The death of Emmett Till
Friend and fellow writer Chuck Pizar offers this comment on “A look of agony,” the latest essay in my series titled “Man Has Premonition of Own Death.” “Maybe we need to look death straight in the eye.” That is exactly what Emmett Till’s mother thought. More precisely, she wanted the country to look hate-fueled murder [...]
Filed under: Bob Dylan | 6 Comments
Tags: " Montgomery bus boycott, "The Ballad of Emmett Till, Bob Dylan, Chuck Pizar, civil-rights movement, Emmett Till
A look of agony
This is the latest in a series of essays titled “Man has premonition of own death” I’ve yet to see a dead person as nature intended, pre-embalming, before the sewn lips and eyelids, before the makeup, before the pink powder and blush, before the hairdye to touch up the hair, before the mortician entwines the [...]
Filed under: Man has premonition of own death | 1 Comment
Tags: "I like a look of Agony", autopsies, Dylan, Embalming, Emily Dickinson, Mister Death
Bringing it all back home
The editors of the quarterly magazine published by the Yonkers Historical Society asked if they could reprint my essay “City of Gracious Living” in an upcoming issue of their quarterly journal! It will probably appear in the winter issue. If you’re interested in reading more about my old hometown, here’s a link to the Yonkers Historical [...]
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Tags: City of Gracious Living, Yonkers, Yonkers Historical Society
Like father, like daughter
Well, sort of. Emily DiGiovanni’s a writer and a reader, just like her father. But the scope of her talents far exceeds mine, which probably has something to do with genetics and evolution (with a sprinkle of creationism and a pinch of chaos theory!). Emily’s a writer, just like her father (although her father writes [...]
Filed under: Book talk, Poetry | 1 Comment
Tags: Emily DiGiovanni, identitytheory.com
The new Elvis
Thank God he didn’t become that, hanging out at his Jersey Shore mansion eating banana-with-peanut butter sandwiches and shooting out his television sets and making bad beach movies. But when I was 17 years old and saw unknown Bruce Springsteen in Niagara Falls playing on his first-ever tour of college campuses with his E Street [...]
Filed under: Music, New Jersey | Leave a Comment
Tags: Bruce Springsteen
Elementary…
My son just got back a month-long study abroad adventure, mostly in London (with excursions to Paris and Amsterdam). I’m sure I’ll never hear a true and thorough account of what he did while he was there, but I do know that while in London he visited Baker Street and went to a cheesy tourist [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: Basil Rathbone, Sherlock Holmes
Avoiding the void
This is the latest in a series of essays titled “Man has premonition of own death” I’m hearing – in my head – the Beatles, and John Lennon’s singing “Tomorrow Never Knows” from “Revolver,” with Ringo’s underrated and relentless drumming on that song, and Lennon singing “It is not dying…It is not dying….Lay down all [...]
Filed under: Man has premonition of own death | 2 Comments
Tags: "Tomorrow Never Knows", Beatles
