PicoBlog

As I was leaving Monday night’s press screening, I turned to the fellow critic walking next to me and mentioned how I thought the movie we’d just seen could easily be interpreted through a lens of Zen Buddhism, as an epic journey through delusion, suffering, and realization all the way to enlightenment. “Funny,” he replied. “I thought of it as a Catholic film. It’s all about grace.” So, yeah, we were talking about “Barbie” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, in theaters Friday).

[A portrait of Donne as a young man, c. 1595, in the National Portrait Gallery, London; image in public domain] "Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” John Donne is one of the most brilliant poets you will ever read. I pray I can do him justice as we embark on this series reading some of his poetry together. Even if not, I pray I can help you fall in love with (or more in love, as the case may be) his wit, his humanity, and his God.

The story of Charles Joseph “Buddy” Bolden — also known as King Bolden — is the story of jazz itself at its very beginnings. A trumpet player in New Orleans in the first years of the 20th Century, Bolden influenced several generations of jazz players. No recordings of Bolden exist, but the great Jelly Roll Morton called him “the most powerful trumpet player I’ve ever heard.” This tune was Bolden’s only known piece of original music, a song that he called “Funky Butt.

There is a very popular 4chan meme that goes - Wait. Before we get started, I need to issue a disclaimer here. The following article touches on a topic that is not politically correct at all, namely the true - but unpopular - idea that not all people are equal. In this degenerate time of social media lynch mobs and cancel culture, I’m confident that some people looking for outrage bait will immediately label this a “racist dogwhistle.

One of the songs to get Gordon Lightfoot noticed outside of the Toronto folk scene was the roguish “For Lovin’ Me.” The folk music boom loved a song about wandering. And country jukeboxes were always filled with honky-tonk cads. The song was covered by by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Ian and Silvia, and Chad and Jeremy before it even appeared on his 1966 solo album Lightfoot!, and it soon crossed over to country with versions by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and The Carter Family.

All right, let’s dive back into “Cat in the Rain,” by Ernest Hemingway. Just to review, here’s the opening paragraph: There were only two Americans stopping at the hotel. They did not know any of the people they passed on the stairs on their way to and from their room. Their room was on the second floor facing the sea. It also faced the public garden and the war monument. There were big palms and green benches in the public garden.

Every Tom Waits Song is an email newsletter covering just that, in alphabetical order. Find more info here and sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox: I recently read sound engineer and producer Mark Howard’s memoir Listen Up! I picked it up to get more information on his work with Bob Dylan and Daniel Lanois on Bob’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind, recently the subject of a new box set.

Every Tom Waits Song is an email newsletter covering just that, in alphabetical order. Find more info here and sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox: We’ve got a special treat today: A guest entry by Mitchell Stirling. Mitchell writes the terrific Substack newsletter The Run Out Grooves, where he explores the closing tracks of albums across all genres and eras, from Marianne Faithfull’s harrowing “Why’d Ya Do It” to Elliott Smith’s Xena: Warrior Princess-inspired (who knew?

Every Tom Waits Song is an email newsletter covering just that, in alphabetical order. Find more info here and sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox: Is there a Tom Waits album closer better than “Come On Up to the House"? It’s a great song, of course, and also works wonderfully as a gospel-belting summation of the 15 tracks that came before. But is it the best?