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Shostakovich’s “Tahiti Trot” [by Lewis Saul]
SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri (1906-1975) Tahiti Trot (1928)Staatsoper BerlinDaniel Barenboim, cond.(4:08) Vincent Youmans composed Tea for Two for his musical No, No, Nanette in 1927. Shostakovich and his friend, the conductor Nicolai Malko, recalled hearing…
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Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” — Great Poems of the World, Episode 20, with David Lehman and Mitch Sisskind
Desolation Row — Bob Dylan They're selling postcards of the hangingThey're painting the passports brownThe beauty parlor is filled with sailorsThe circus is in townHere comes the blind commissionerThey've got him in…
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Gene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb [by Mitch Sisskind]
Gene asked Jesus for a moment of his time& they got together at the bottom of a mine& Gene asked Jesus for a couple of bucks& Jesus said ducks quack & chickens cluck& Big…
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Hey, YOU: Don’t Stop Writing Up a Squall Just Because It’s May! [by Martha Silano]
Some of us will wake on the first day of May with a giant sense of relief. Why? Because we know we can attend to the laundry, bills, dishes in the sink, and our paying…
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“Pink Dust” by Ron Padgett [reviewed by Martin Stannard]
Ron Padgett, Pink Dust (New York Review Books, £14.99) Every time I approach a blank page the poems in it shout, “Oh no! Here he comes again! Run!” I grab at them as they flee like terrified little…
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“Music, When Soft Voices Die” [by Percy Bysshe Shelley]
Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory— Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the belovèd's…
