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Continue reading →: Make women subservient again
On the eve of Labor Day, the Trump administration wants women to abjure employment for child rearing. This change to federal law would permit married couples “with one stay-at-home parent in certain income brackets” to collect a subsidy, The Paper of Record reports: Mr. Vance, whose wife Usha, a former…
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Continue reading →: Ranking #76 singles, U.S. edition: 1969-1972
Except for obvious exceptions, glam never caught on in America. Too fast? Too much lipstick? Is it metal? Is it pop? So we reach the #76 position during the Nixon years and observe an astonishment that shouldn’t have surprised: T. Rex’s “Ride a White Swan” and Slade’s UK #1 “Mama…
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Continue reading →: My Alternative Oscars: Best Actress 2021
The nominees: Jessica Chastain – The Eyes of Tammy Faye Olivia Colman – The Lost Daughter Penélope Cruz – Parallel Mothers Nicole Kidman – Being the Ricardos Kristen Stewart – Spencer
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Continue reading →: Smile like you mean it: ‘Maddie’s Secret’
Maddie reminds me of Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky and my late grandmother: they regarded sadness as a disease requiring vaccination. As played by John Early, Maddie is one of those ambitious women who beguile husbands, coworkers, and friends with their cheer. Things happen to her, she would claim, she doesn’t…
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Continue reading →: Ranking #85 singles, U.S. edition: 1980-1986
Besides a savvy PR team, R.E.M. broke because their mush had protein. Bill Berry and Mike Mills made sure the band moved. “So. Central Rain” is mush without protein — and it tastes fine. No way a song like this would’ve gone top 40 in 1985; perhaps after The Bangles…
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Continue reading →: Your baby doesn’t love you anymore: Songs about failure
Epic despair rarely reached the heights at which Roy Orbison owned it with “It’s Over,” a melodrama so intense that listening to its Ravel-inspired martial beat combined with Orbison’s ascending vocal melodies is akin to standing before a firing squad. To revel in self-pity in rock ‘n’ roll is to…
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Continue reading →: Wendell Berry — RIP
I’ve come across Wendell Berry’s poems in anthologies without paying them much mind. In December 2020 I bought a used pristine copy of The Poetry of William Carlos Williams of Rutherford at Gene’s Books on Sanibel, since destroyed by Hurricane Ian. Practical criticism of a poet who more than many…
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Continue reading →: You’re just a memory: Songs about groupies
As long as rock ‘n’ roll has existed, sexual imbalance has defined the star and the fans. When rock was here to stay in the sixties, what we call the groupie became institutionalized, for better or worse — and often, invariably, worse. A gruesome subject regardless, rife with exploitation: an…
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Humanizing The Vacuum 