Saturday, March 30, 2013

'And Nothing Else Compares'



Traveling with our two beautiful, brilliant daughters, feeling so blessed, but struggling with next steps and college realities for "middle" class American, Brooklyn-based girls. Our other children, grown, living here and far away, as we  take our stutter steps to and fro, with our own  inevitable movement off stage and far away. This tune by Coldplay has been rattling around in my consciounesness since I heard it over 10 years ago, but now, movement, shared dreams, private myths, public secrets, it finally made so much sense, simply hit me dead on, and it takes all I have not to weep with joy and sublime sadness.
-Brooklyn Beat, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Boy from Weequahik: Newark Celebrates Philip Roth - and Vice Versa

The New York Times' Charles McGrath reports on the retirement of author Philip Roth following his 80th birthday and a celebration that was held for him in Newark, NJ, his home town and locale that has served as inspiration and material for his fiction.

Mr. McGrath writes: "The Irish novelist Edna O’Brien recalled her long and complicated friendship with the “scorchingly handsome” Mr. Roth, described his sometimes hermitlike work habits and ended decades of gossip and speculation by declaring that they were never lovers. The New Yorker critic Claudia Roth Pierpont touched on the role of music and of silverware in Mr. Roth’s work and spoke in some detail about the richness and lifelikeness of his female characters. She once complained to him, she recalled, about a female character who seemed too perfect, too snippy. Mr. Roth replied, “You should hear what she says about you.”

Link here

Peace and Rockets: President Obama's Visit to Israel

“I recognize that there are those who are not simply skeptical about peace, but question its underlying premise, and that’s a part of democracy and the discourse between our two countries,” Mr. Obama said in the speech at the Jerusalem Convention Center, which was televised live. “But it is important to be open and honest with one another. Politically, given the strong bipartisan support for Israel in America, the easiest thing for me to do would be to put this issue aside and express unconditional support for whatever Israel decides to do.”


"And as the president of a country that you can count on as your greatest friend -- (applause) -- I am confident that you can help us find the promise in the days that lie ahead. And as a man who’s been inspired in my own life by that timeless calling within the Jewish experience -- “tikkun olam” -- (applause) -- I am hopeful that we can draw upon what’s best in ourselves to meet the challenges that will come, to win the battles for peace in the wake of so much war and to do the work of repairing this world." (Applause.)


"That’s your job. That’s my job. That’s the task of all of us. "

Transcript of President Barack Obama's speech in Israel here

Friday, March 15, 2013

On the Trail of the Higgs Boson

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
"New results indicate that particle discovered at CERN is a Higgs boson."
ScienceDaily, 14 Mar. 2013. Web. 15 Mar. 2013.


At the Moriond Conference today, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented preliminary new results that further elucidate the particle discovered last year. Having analysed two and a half times more data than was available for the discovery announcement in July, they find that the new particle is looking more and more like a Higgs boson, the particle linked to the mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles.

It remains an open question, however, whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle physics, or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model. Finding the answer to this question will take time.


Whether or not it is a Higgs boson is demonstrated by how it interacts with other particles, and its quantum properties. For example, a Higgs boson is postulated to have no spin, and in the Standard Model its parity -- a measure of how its mirror image behaves -- should be positive. CMS and ATLAS have compared a number of options for the spin-parity of this particle, and these all prefer no spin and positive parity. This, coupled with the measured interactions of the new particle with other particles, strongly indicates that it is a Higgs boson.

"The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is." said CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela.

Full article from Science Daily here





Thursday, March 14, 2013

Et tu, Francesco?

Well, from the Borgias on down, the Catholic Church, as an institution with government, finances and secrets, has been nothing if not pragmatic.

The publication Business Insider appears to bear this out in an article by Geoffrey Ingersoll. While Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio appears to be a sincere, humble, scholarly Jesuit, at the same time, his role as a leader of the Church during the era of the Argentinian military junta of the 1970s, may give one pause and bring Pope Francis's "honeymoon" to a quick end. Perhaps as part of his humility, we will hear him address this issue in the coming weeks. Perhaps, for the reportedly media shy, contemplative, humble scholar and servant of G-d, assuming this role at the head of the Roman Catholic Church, with all its challenges and problems, and needs for reform, will serve as a form of penance and absolution. But whether the conservative Argentine will even see the need to address this potentially dark bit of personal and Argentine history remains to be seen.
--Anthony Napoli, Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

From the Business Insider by Geoffrey Ingersoll:

Bergoglio Has Ties To A Dark Period For The Catholic Church

New Pope Francis isn't a Hitler Youth like the last guy, but he has his own troubled history. Francis I along with the whole Argentine Catholic Church have faced criticism for their silence or complicity during the post-1976 military dictatorship — a failure for which the Church apologized in 2012.

Known as the Dirty War, this period saw a brutal battle between the ruling military elite and leftist guerrilla fighters, in which up to 30,000 Argentines were "disappeared" and others were raped or killed.

Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky chronicled how the Church and Bergoglio were involved in this dark era. As described by Hugh O'Shaughnessy of The Guardian in 2011:

Verbitsky] recounts how the Argentine navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment.

Bergoglio contended to writer Sergio Rubin that he hid these people to keep them from the violent military junta, not the Human Rights Commission — even as his Jesuit order and Church leaders publicly endorsed the dictatorship.

He later said the endorsement was one of political pragmatism, which is understandable in the face of certain death, if not exactly righteous, according to the AP.

Read more here

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

"Habemus Papam": Francis, Vicar of Rome

Quiet thunder in Argentina: as early as 2005 Jose Maria Poirer in the UK Catholic Herald was prognosticating the eventual election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis, vicar of Rome and leader of the Roman Catholic Church:

"What a surprise: it turns out that the main opponent to the unstoppable Joseph Ratzinger in the April conclave was none other than the severe, shy figure of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The revelation comes in the “secret diary” of one of their colleagues in the Casa Santa Marta – a cardinal’s account of the election published recently in an Italian magazine.

"The spotlight the news has placed on Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio – whether or not it is true – will be agony for this notoriously media-shy Jesuit, whose face will have gone even redder with the speculation by vaticanisti that Bergoglio should now be seen as the leading contender to replace Benedict XVI when his time comes: the first Jesuit, and the first Latin American, in Church history to occupy the See of St Peter.s. The revelation comes in the “secret diary” of one of their colleagues in the Casa Santa Marta – a cardinal’s account of the election published recently in an Italian magazine.

"The spotlight the news has placed on Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio – whether or not it is true – will be agony for this notoriously media-shy Jesuit, whose face will have gone even redder with the speculation by vaticanisti that Bergoglio should now be seen as the leading contender to replace Benedict XVI when his time comes: the first Jesuit, and the first Latin American, in Church history to occupy the See of St Peter."

Full story from the Catholic Herald that originally appeared in the publication on October 7, 2005

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2013/03/13/quiet-thunder-in-argentina/

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

"Extra Omnes": Vatican Conclave Begins

"Extra Omnes!" Ralph Kramden, iconic NYC bus driver could not have said it any better. "Everybody out!" With those words, the conversation and social discourse among all Cardinals, irrespective of age, comes to an end and the Cardinals younger than 80 who are deemed part of the 115 Cardinal electors go into Sacred Lockdown in the equally iconic Capella Sistina at the Vatican to make their choice.

The Boys in the Back Room speak, compare notes, and vote. We wait for the smoke. Black - Back to the drawing board. White- "Habemus papam."

As the BBC reported:

"After 10 general congregations open to all cardinals, regardless of age - at which 160 cardinals spoke of the issues facing the Church and the qualities needed by its next leader - no clear frontrunner has emerged.


"Last time around there was a man of stature, three or four times that of any other cardinal," French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin told reporters.

"That is not the case this time around. Therefore, the choice has to be made among one, two, three, four... a dozen candidates.

"We still don't really know anything. We will have to wait for the results of the first ballot."  New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan told his priests there was hope that a new Pope could be chosen by Thursday.

"Candidates named as contenders include Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, Brazil's Odilo Scherer, and Cardinal Dolan himself - though he told one interviewer anyone who thought he was in with a chance might be "smoking [something funny]". Full article here

The Boys in the Back Room speak, compare notes, and vote. We wait for the smoke. Black - Back to the drawing board. White- "Habemus papam."









The View from Over There: Pravda - "U.S. System Grows Necrophiliac Psychopaths"

"American reality today looks worse than darkest Hollywood movies" writes Vitaly Salnick in the Russian daily PRAVDA.

"Something wrong has been happening in the U.S. during the recent years. Children in schools are massively fed with a drug that has been used in psychiatric hospitals and is classified as amphetamine. At least 6 million U.S. students take Ritalin and a similar drug, Dexedrine. The drugs are used against the so-called hyper-activity."

"Many experts have repeatedly pointed out the fact that these drugs, also called children's cocaine, lead to unprovoked violence and mass shootings in American schools.


"Yet, the smart U.S. government turns American students into pharmacological zombies, trying to take guns away from adults, referring to the crimes committed by young psychopaths. To give you an idea of ​​the extent of such policies, we would like to note that the production of amphetamine-type drugs in the country has been growing exponentially. In addition, Americans consume large quantities of chemical food, which is also a part of the pharmacological industry. Natural food in the U.S. is very difficult to buy. The agency, which directly deals with the issues of changes among the population, is called the Food and Drug Administration, which obviously means that food and drug is one and the same thing."

"To crown it all, there are practically no mental health services provided to the population in America. They have been replaced with ambulatory narcotization. In 1955, there were 559,000 patients in state-funded psychiatric hospitals per 165 million people. Nowadays, their number has dropped to less than 50,000 per 300 million people. It is believed in America that about 20 percent of U.S. prison inmates are mentally ill. However, they will not be sent to "yellow houses", as they serve as a valuable labor resource in the American prison economy..."


The full article in Pravda appears here

Monday, March 11, 2013

MIKE 'SODAMAYOR': Judge Foils Bloomberg's Big Drink Ban

Good intentions aside, Mayor Mike "SODAMAYOR" Bloomberg's plan to ban large sugary beverages was overturned by a New York State Judge.

Wall Street Journal reports the judge stated that: "The city is "enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations," New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling decided Monday."


"The regulations are "fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences," the judge wrote. "The simple reading of the rule leads to the earlier acknowledged uneven enforcement even within a particular city block, much less the city as a whole….the loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the state purpose of the rule."

"Under the first-of-its-kind prohibition approved by the city Board of Health last year, establishments from restaurants to mobile food carts would have been prohibited from selling sugary drinks larger than 16 oz. After a three-month grace period, the city would have started fining violators $200 per sale.

Details here

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Tonight: Bushwick Galleries: In the Spirit of MCMXIII

In the spirit of the alternative art movements that shook the art world in the original Armory Show in 1913, Armory Late Night Bushwick and Ridge wood Galleries Saturday, March 9th, 2013 will remain open until 10 pm featuring the works of numerous artists in dozens of locations:

Galleries at 56 Bogart St.
Agape Enterprise agapeenterprise.com Art Helix arthelix.com CCCP/Northlight Gallery jahartny.tripod.com/cccp/id3.html
et al Projects etalprojects.com
Fuchs Projects fuchsprojects.com Robert Henry Contemporary roberthenrycontemporary.com Momenta Art momentaart.org NURTUREart nurtureart.org
Slag Gallery slaggallery.com
Studio 10 studio10bogart.com THEODORE:Art theodoreart.com
Galleries at 1717 Troutman St.
Parallel Art Space parallelartspace.com Room 220
Regina Rex reginarex.org
Room 329
Harbor harborbk.com
Room 258
Neighborhood Galleries
1. A Slender Gamut aslendergamut.com 131 Boerum St #1C
2. Airplane www.airplaneunderbushwick.com 70 Jefferson St.
3. Auxiliary Projects auxiliaryprojects.com 2 St. Nicholas Ave, space 25
4. Centotto centotto.com 250 moore St., #108
5. English Kills Gallery
englishkillsartgallery.com
114 Forrest St.
6. Interstate Projects interstateprojects.com
66 Knickerbocker Ave.
7. The Living Gallery the-living-gallery.com
1087 Flushing Ave. #120
8. Microscope microscopegallery.com
4 Charles Place
9. Norte Maar nortemaar.org
88 Wyckoff Ave., #1B
10. OUTLET Fine Arts outletbk.com
253 Wilson Ave.
11. Sardine sardinebk.com
286 Stanhope St.
12. Schema Projects schemaprojects.com
92 St. Nicholas Ave.
13. Secret Project Robot
secretprojectrobot.org
389 Melrose St.
14. Small Black Door smallblackdoor.com
19-20 Palmetto St.
15. Storefront Bushwick
Storefrontbushwick.com
16 Wilson Ave.
16. SUGAR sugarbushwick.com
449 Troutman St.
17. Signal ssiiggnnaall.com
260 Johnson Ave.
18. TSA tigerstrikesasteroid.com
44 Stewart Ave.
19. Valentine
valentinegallery.blogspot.com
464 Seneca Ave.
20. Wayfarers brooklynwayfarers.tumblr.com
1109 Dekalb Ave.
21. Weeknights weeknights.wordspress.com
566 Johnson Ave.

Public Transportation:
L train to Morgan, Jefferson or Dekalb Stops

More info here: http://nortemaar.org/2013/03/the-alternative-armory-bushwick/

Remember, Art Brings Inspiration, Provocation and Joy!

Friday, March 8, 2013

International Women's Day 2013: End Violence Against Women, Gaining Momentum, Remembering Women In Prison (including Members of Music Group Pussy Riot and Protestors Arrested in Moscow Today)


The UN theme for International Women's Day 2013 is "A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women," while International Women's Day 2013 has declared the year's theme as The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum.

LInks here and here

On 2013 International Women's Day, the [International Committee of the Red Cross](ICRC)draw attention to the plight of women in prison. All over the world, women and girls living behind bars often face particular hardship in terms of protection, privacy and access to basic services, including health care.

20 WOMEN ARRESTED IN MOSCOW FOLLOWING PROTEST MARKING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY AND THE CONTINUED DETENTION OF MEMBERS OF MUSIC GROUP "PUSSY RIOT"

In reflection of the above, 20 women were arrested in Moscow today following a protest of the continuing incarceration of members of the Russian music group, Pussy Riot, who were themselves arrested for protests against Vladimir Putin.

"MOSCOW -- At least 20 supporters of Russia's feminist protest collective Pussy Riot have been detained at a Moscow demonstration marking International Women's Day.


Dozens of activists staged the protest outside the Moscow headquarters of Russia's prison service on March 8.

They held placards calling for the release of two jailed members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina. Both women are serving two-year prison sentences after being convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred."

Tolokonnikova's husband, Pyotr Verzilov, was among those at the demonstration.

"March 8, as Nadya [Tolokonnikova] said in her message to me today, is not just Women's Day but it is also the day of women's liberation," Verzilov said. "It is indeed very important, because Nadya and Masha [Alyokhina's] situation shows that women's rights still need to be fought for."

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina, along with a third member of Pussy Riot, Yekaterina Samutsevich, were arrested in February 2012 after staging a protest performance against President Vladimir Putin inside Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral.

Samutsevich, who received a suspended sentence, attended the demonstration as well. She held a giant placard reading "Freedom for Pussy Riot."

"It's an act of support for Nadya and Masha and, of course, [March 8] is a day of solidarity in the fight for women's rights," Samutsevich said. Many of the activists adorned their placards with pictures of flowers to honor International Women's Day, a Soviet-era festival that is still a national holiday in Russia and celebrated with enthusiasm.

The protest came after the 23-year-old Tolokonnikova asked a regional court for her release on parole on several grounds -- including the fact that she has a 5-year-old daughter.

Meanwhile, police arrested several other feminist protesters in a separate rally at Moscow's central Novopushkinsky Park on March 8. Dozens of feminist activists and members of the opposition Yabloko party gathered in the park to demand equal rights for women in Russia.

Police intervened at that demonstration and began arresting people after a group whose members identify themselves as Russian Orthodox Christian activists confronted and scuffled with the feminist demonstrators.

Link here




Tuesday, March 5, 2013

A Centennial of Contemporary Art: The Armory Show Comes to NYC's Far West Side



Beginning Thursday, March 7, through Sunday, March 10, The Armory Show at Piers 92 and 94 (52nd Street and 12th Avenues)  on New York City's West Side once again takes front and center stage as a focus and source of excitement, creativity, inspiration and sometimes provocation. The original Armory Show in NYC in 1913 rocked the art world. This Centennial Edition commemorates and remains a leading international contemporary and modern art fair and one of the most important annual art events in New York.

The Armory Show is devoted to showcasing the most important artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries. In its fifteen years the fair has become an international institution, combining a selection of the world's leading galleries with an exceptional program of arts events and exhibitions throughout New York during the celebrated Armory Arts Week

For information, visit the link here

You can also check out a great preview of this year's Armory Show online at ArtSy here

As a personal metaphor, perhaps, for the anticipation of the art and excitement that the Armory Show engenders, below is the video of "King's Lead Hat" from Brian Eno's 1977 "Before and After Science":


Friday, March 1, 2013

Friday Musings: "As the Days Keep Turning Into Night"



Link here

Happy March. A reflective time here, as the changing seasons remind us of the changes in our own lives. The joys and sorrows inherent in the relentless rush from now to later, from morning to evening, from today til tomorrow, and the present to the future...

A beautiful rendition by Alexi Murdoch of his reflective and soulful "All of My Days"...."

..even breathing feels alright.."

have a great weekend.

-Anthony Napoli
Deep in the Heart off Brooklyn

Current Reading

  • Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War- Tony Horwitz
  • A Sultan in Palermo - Tariq Ali
  • Hitch-22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens
  • Negropedia- Patrice Evans
  • Dead Funny: Humor in Nazi Germany - Rudolph Herzog
  • Exile on Main Street - Robert Greenfield
  • Among the Truthers - A Journey Among America's Growing Conspiracist Underworld - Jonathan Kay
  • Paradise Lost - John Milton
  • What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Thinking the Unthinkable - John Brockman
  • Notes from the Edge Times - Daniel Pinchbeck
  • Fringe-ology: How I Can't Explain Away the Unexplainable- Steve Volk
  • Un Juif pour l'exemple (translated as A Jew Must Die )- Jacques Cheesex
  • The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
  • Pale King - David Foster Wallce
  • David Bowie: Starman bio - Paul Trynka
  • Tobacco Stained Mountain Goat - Andrez Bergen
  • The Future of Nostalgia -Svetlana Boym
  • Living in the End Times - Slavoj ZIzek
  • FIrst as Tragedy Next as Farce - Slavoj Zizek
  • How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Daniel Wilson
  • Where is My Jet Pack? -Daniel Wilson
  • Day of the Oprichniks - Vladimir Sorokin
  • Ice Trilogy - Vladimir Sorokin
  • First Civilizations
  • Oscar Wilde -Andre Maurois
  • The Beats - Harvey Pekar, et al
  • SDS - Harvey Pekar, et al
  • The Unfinished Animal - Theodore Roszak
  • Friends of Eddy Coyle
  • Brooklands -Emily Barton
  • Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahme-Smith - Entertaining and historical
  • Dictionary of the Khazars - Pavic
  • Sloth-Gilbert Hernandez
  • War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
  • Charles Addams: An Evilution
  • Life in Ancient Greece
  • Time - Eva Hoffmann
  • Violence - S. Zizek
  • Luba - a graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez
  • Life in Ancient Egypt
  • Great Apes - Will Self - riveting and disturbing
  • Lost Honor of Katherina Blum - Heinrich Boll - could not put it down
  • Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed (author deserving of new wide readership)
  • Living in Ancient Mesopotomia
  • Landscape in Concrete - Jakov Lind - surreal
  • 'There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby'-Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - creepy stories - translation feels literarily "thin"
  • Mythologies - William Butler Yeats (re-read again & again)
  • How German Is It ? - Walter Abish
  • The Book of Genesis - illustrated by R. Crumb - visionary
  • "Flags" - an illustrated encyclopedia - wish I could remember all of these. Flag culture
  • Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
  • Ubik - Philip K. Dick
  • Nobody's Fool - Richard Russo
  • Hitler's Empire - Mark Mazower
  • Nazi Culture - various authors
  • Master Plan: Himmler 's Scholars and the Holocaust - Heather Pringle
  • Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
  • Living in Ancient Rome
  • Traveling with Herodotus -R. Kapuszynsky
  • Oblivion - David Foster Wallace - Some of his greatest work
  • Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace - still wrestling with this great book
  • Netherland - Joseph O'Neill - staggeringly great read
  • Renegade - The Obama Campaign - Richard Wolffe
  • Mount Analogue - Rene Daumal
  • John Brown
  • Anathem - Neal Stephenson - love Stephenson but tough slogging first few chapters
  • 7 Deadly Sins
  • ALEX COX - Alex Cox
  • FIASCO by Thomas Ricks
  • I, Fellini - Charlotte Chandler & Federico Fellini
  • Best of 20th century alternative history fiction
  • Judah P. Benjamin - Eli Evans - Confederacy's Secretary of State & source of the W.C. Field's exclamation
  • Moscow 2042 - Vladimir Voinovich - Pre-1989 curiosity & entertaining sci fi read; love his portrayal of Solzhenitsyn-like character
  • Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano - Mafia without the It-Am sugar coating. Brutal & disturbing
  • The Sack of Rome - Celebrity+Media+Money=Silvio Berlusconi - Alexander Stille
  • Reporting - David Remnick - terrific journalism
  • Fassbinder
  • Indignation - Philip Roth
  • Rome
  • Let's Go Italy! 2008
  • Italian Phrases for Dummies
  • How to Pack
  • Violence - Slavoj Zizek
  • Dali: Painting & Film
  • The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - Jimmy Breslin
  • The Good Rat - Jimmy Breslin
  • Spook Country - William Gibson
  • A Blue Hand - The Beats in India - Deborah Baker
  • The Metaphysical Club - Louis Menard
  • Coast of Utopia - Tom Stoppard
  • Physics of the Impossible - Dr. Michio Kaku
  • Managing the Unexpected - Weick & Sutcliffe
  • Wait Til The Midnight Hour - Writings on Black Power
  • Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed
  • Burning Down the Masters' House - Jayson Blair
  • Howl - Allen Ginsberg
  • Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
  • The Palace Thief - Ethan Canin
  • John Adams - David McCullough
  • The Wooden Sea - Jonathan Carroll
  • American Gangster - Mark Jacobson
  • Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Gawker Guide to Becoming King of All Media
  • Jews and Power - Ruth Wisse
  • Youth Without Youth - Mircea Eliade
  • A Team of Rivals - Doris Goodwin
  • Ghost Hunters -William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death - Deborah Blum
  • Dream -Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy - Stephen Duncombe
  • Love & Theft - Eric Lott
  • Exit Ghost - Philip Roth
  • Studio A - The Bob Dylan Reader

Current Listening

  • Alexi Murdoch Wait
  • Wilco Summer Teeth
  • Wilco The Album
  • Carmina Burana - Ray Manzarek (& Michael Riesmann)
  • Polyrock - Polyrock
  • 96 Tears - Garland Jeffries
  • Ghost of a Chance Garland Jeffries
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra
  • Mustang Sally Buddy Guy
  • John Lee Hooker
  • Black and White Years
  • Together Through Life - B. Dylan
  • 100 Days 100 Nites - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
  • DYLAN: 3 disc Greatest...
  • Glassworks - Philip Glass
  • Wild Palms - Soundtrack -Ryuichi Sakamoto
  • Dinah Washington - Best of..
  • Commander Cody& His Lost Planet Airmen Live at Armadillo