In 1968 John Sinclair of the band DC5 wrote that “rock and roll music is a weapon of cultural revolution.” But this overtly political attitude – emblematic of 1960’s music, or at least of the retelling of the story of … Read More
We demand the most from musicians who are also drug addicts. We expect them to give all of themselves to us, to emote fully, to express their vulnerability through their music in the starkest of terms. All this is true, … Read More
About ten days ago, the Nassau Weekly’s editor in chief Jacob Savage interviewed (via telephone) Princeton’s most recent wunderkind, Jonathan Safran Foer ’99, author of the critically acclaimed best-seller Everything is Illuminated, and the recently published Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
Listening to The Band, I sometimes imagine myself walking through wild cornfields on a cool summer’s night, across ivy lanes, past broken baseball fields and mom-and-pop diners, trying to find my way home.
Bill O’Reilly is obsessed with how long it takes a murder victim to die. In his novel – that’s right, his novel – we find out, for example, that “the soft tissue gave way quickly and the steel penetrated the correspondent’s brain stem. Ron Costello was clinically dead in four seconds.” Or, “Lance Worthington couldn’t feel the razor-sharp box-cutter blade slice through his throat…. it was exactly two seconds before he lost consciousness.” Some deaths come even quicker: “A slab of sizzling white hot metal fell directly on his head. Death for Shannon Michaels came one second later.”
Senior David Brundige has written and directed two hit shows at Princeton, “Bums and Monkeys” (2003), and “PigTails” (2004). He has won awards for his writing, been jetted out to Hollywood to meet with studio executives, and has had many beautiful women beg him for roles in his future films.
Two dark autumns ago, the Arcade Fire made me believe, all over again, in the all-encompassing power of rock and roll. Those were depressingly political times, and the un-political nature of the record offered me an escape. “Funeral” was a triumphant album about loss and renewal, about picking up the pieces in a cold, wintry world; it made me feel that I wasn’t the only one who was strung out and sad and suddenly and pathetically sober.
Toward the end of June, as the dog-days of summer fell upon New York City suddenly and definitely, I made a religious pilgrimage to Corona Park, Queens, to see Billy Graham’s supposedly Last Crusade. Riding a crowded 7 train out to Queens I felt a palpable sense of excitement….It was like going to a Mets game, only more diverse.