Vassals – Drawings of Wildflowers
A landscape does not exist in its own right... It is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives subjects their true value.-- Claude Monet In 'Drawings of Wildflowers,' Vassals surrounds the simple scenario of a couple hanging pictures with an atmosphere of loss and...
Farrow and the Peach Leaves – Goddamn
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.-- Kierkegaard Need a woman to love me The last two let me down But what does love mean, anyhow? -- Farrow and the Peach Leaves You only need a few notes to tell a story, if you put them in the right...
Little Waters – I Am Holden Caulfield
The demons that followed Holden Caulfield like ducks behind their mother don't end their stalking when the high school sheepskin is handed over. Lean out of your corporate cubicle and you will see Bernice, Marty, and Laverne scavenging for doughnuts in the break room,...
Cedarsmoke – Let the Wind Blow
All at once Jukes understood he would have to go. 'Do you think she may?' he screamed. But the wind devoured the reply, out of which Jukes heard only the one word, pronounced with great energy, '....Always....'-- from Typhoon, by Joseph Conrad The Nan-Shan steamed...
Gavin M. – Don’t Forget Me
We spend our lives building relationships that give our lives meaning. We spend our lives building an intricate web of these that depict our loved ones. Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia are the thieves that rob an entire lifetime of these memories and replace it with...
Leon Russell and the Allman Brothers – Captain Marvel Jones
Captain Marvel, the latest expansion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU to those in the know), is exploding in a theater near you and I can't wait for it to light up the screen of our local Studio Movie Grill. The traditional Friday dinner-and-a-movie date night...
Joshua Powell – Bliss Is a Flak Jacket
We each bear a talisman, a shield over our heart against the slings and arrows hurled by Life and Love. A door sealed by an ancient skeleton key, your father's tortoiseshell sunglasses, a punctuality pin from a private academy, a suitcase carrying Shelly and the...
Ryan Tanner – A Hymn for Me and You
Sometimes all you want is a quiet song with a steel guitar and some harmony and that will be enough. That's a lot. I don't have to say 'love song' because quiet songs with a steel guitar and some harmony are always love songs, one way or another. In 'A Hymn for Me and...
The Hired Hand – What’s His Face
The multiplicity of life's demands beckons to one, the living beckon to one and say: 'Come to us, we will take care of you.' One who is dead, however, cannot beckon... Little by little, as the dead crumbles away, the memory crumbles away between the fingers and one...
Jhohn Arlie – Chain of Sparks
We step down from the Green Line bus, late as usual, and enter the theater well into the third reel. The 'Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl' plot devices have spun away, to be rewound after the crowd departs. And as 'Chain of Sparks' plays over the rolling credits, our...
