Short Takes
January 6, 2013
Field Trip: Garland Jeffreys, NYC, 1/18
Garland Jeffreys and his band deliver a seriously satisfying high-octane show, with stops at reggae, new wave and actual rock. He’ll be at the Highline Ballroom on Friday, 1/18, early enough (8 PM) for kids. Holler if we’ll see you there.
December 29, 2012
Terence Malick: I’m counting the days
If you hated "Tree of Life" — and most of you did — you’ll probably be equally appalled by "To the Wonder." But consider the preview…
December 19, 2012
Sonia Taitz: First the 4-star novel, then the 4-star memoir
I am a huge fan of Sonia Taitz’s novel, In the King’s Arms, the story of a young New York City woman who heads off to England — the obvious destination of any English grad student whose parents are Holocaust survivors — and has memorable romantic entanglements. Using much of the same material, she’s now written a memoir, “The Watchmaker’s Daughter.” My parents didn’t come here after surviving the concentration camps, but they were children of the Depression, which carried its own trauma. Which is to say: This story has hooks for a great many readers. Including the hook of gifted writing. Like the opening: “You could say that my father was a watchmaker by trade, but that would be like saying that Nijinsky liked to dance. Fixing watches was not only his livelihood but his life. This skill saved him when he had been imprisoned at the death camp of Dachau, during the Second World War, and he continued to fix watches until the day he died. Simon Taitz was nothing less than a restorer of time. And I was his daughter, born to continue his life work — restoration and repair.” [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
December 11, 2012
Josh Ritter: ‘I guess it adds up/ to joy in the end.’
Two years ago, on tour in Canada, Josh Ritter got a phone call from his wife. Marriage over. After 14 months. Okay, so at the lowest moments of our lives it’s music that gives us comfort. But what if you’re a musician whose life gets flattened — whose music do you turn to? After you’ve played Bach and the Blues, I suspect you take out your notebook and guitar and…. bleed. Which Josh did. And then made a CD, “The Beast in Its Tracks” (to be released on March 5). Are these songs howls of unfiltered, primal pain? Not possible. Josh is one of the best singer/songwriters we’ve got. Emotion may hit him hard, but it leaves him changed. Filtered. Transformed. Listen to Joy to You Baby, which I hear as an unlikely but completely Joshlike good wish to his ex — and a reminder that a beating heart can’t help but seek love, joy, transcendence.