In a recent article, “Smashing Culture,� I briefly described a scene in Philadelphia from 30+ years ago. Sitting in McGlinchey’s, I was drinking Rolling Rock. This trivia triggered a most curious yet telling response from a commenter, “Rolling Rock? – really? Were you listening to the Eagles too? Nice street cred attempt, but it’s either... Read More

To represent anything is to reduce and deform it, obviously, for even Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is but a stick figure compared to the witty, voluptuous and redolent broad, whose repartees, smiles, jokes and burps, from moment to moment, can only increase her charm and terror, and that’s why man never allowed himself to be engulfed... Read More

5:05 AM. February 4, 2012. It’s almost pitch dark. No one has slept this night. The only morning illumination comes from scores of dimly glowing dots of blues, greens, yellows, reds or orange inside a patchwork of hundreds of still standing tents. Most sit empty for the first time in months; a lamp left on... Read More

I would have liked to know what the drummer hoped and what she expected. We’ll never know why she decided to take a drum to the central markets of Paris on October 5, 1789, and why, that day, the tinder was so ready to catch fire and a drumbeat was one of the sparks. To... Read More