Tell me if you recognize any of these names: The Antlers. Real Estate. Tune-Yards. M83. Beirut. Wye Oak. Feist. Tom Waits. The Head and the Heart. James Blake. Radiohead.

If you do, then I can probably predict this about you: you prefer music on the margin over music in the mainstream.

And you had your ear to the ground in 2011.

If you don’t, and prefer mainstream over the marginal, then you at least recognize two names: Tom Waits and Radiohead. I tell you why that’s important in a few minutes. [Read more...]

Time named “The Protestor” its person of the year. I think it fits.

The only other person that dominated the news this year was…

[Read more...]

out of the way

Creativity doesn’t come naturally. You have to cultivate it. And you have  to be creative with your cultivating.

My typical well for ideas is books. But that’s limited in a sense because it only challenges the part of my brain that deals with language.

Sometimes to get that killer idea you need to finger other parts of your intellectual organ. Here are three ways I do that. [Read more...]

Hot for Teacher circa 1860

I graduated from college in 2000. Freshly minted diploma, I knocked around the idea of going to graduate school. And then from there pursue advanced work. My dream was to teach on the collegiate level and write bad poetry on the side. [Read more...]