Henri Salvador, the great Guyanese singer/songwriter, died this year (back in February), and we never marked his passing here.  I wanted to salute him, briefly, before this dismal year evaporated for good. He had a long and active career in Europe and South America, but never crossed that baffling cultural divide to win much of an […]

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(I delivered something like the following at an event called “Bigfoot Night,” curated by Kevin Maher and Meg Sweeney Lawless, at the Sci Fi Screening Room in NYC, 11/17/08.)

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Yes, it’s an election year; and no, I won’t add to the punditry.  It’s not that I have nothing to say on the subject, but this site is devoted to the other part, and that’s what I’ll stick to. I would like to mention, however, that religion is playing an ever larger part in US politics.  […]

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The idea is a simple one: if you have trouble learning the notes on your ukulele, simply paste this chart onto the fingerboard. As someone who has played and taught uke for many years, however, I’d like to point out that this is not a good idea.  First of all, you don’t really want to play while […]

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As we gape at the continuity and chaos of the world, a chance meeting draws our attention. One way to approach the ineffable is to consider the mismatched pairs that time and space have thrown together. Here’s one. ERIK SATIE AND LE PÉTOMANE Satie is sometimes depicted as a sort of musical monk, writing his radically simple […]

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