When David Lynch went to Philadelphia

One Saturday night when I was about nine years old, I found myself lying in bed, leafing through a hardcover book of biographical sketches while half watching a movie on the small black-and-white television set in my bedroom. Perhaps I was watching a film starring Spencer Tracy, because at one point I turned to his … Continue reading When David Lynch went to Philadelphia →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums)

In five previous essays (here, here, here, here, here), I detail how I used appearances on 434 mixes (August 1981 to November 2023) and total plays to calculate a score for 9,560 tracks. Using these Track Scores (“TS”), I ranked my favorites from a tie for #7,529 (2,032 tracks with one play and no mix … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums) →

Crafting the “Soundtrack” to my Interrogating Memory book

In 2005, Rupert Holmes published his second novel, a murder mystery called Swing. Being, well, Rupert Holmes, he also wrote and recorded an accompanying seven-track CD of swing-inflected music; both are well worth finding. The combination, meanwhile, led him to quip, “I’ve been singing songs from my new book.” In the past month, I received … Continue reading Crafting the “Soundtrack” to my Interrogating Memory book →

Moving, Non-Publication…and Dada?

I rarely break the fourth wall here: personal stories I tell are usually contextualized within some larger theme, like interrogating memory. Today, however, I speak directly to you – to explain why, after 16 posts in 3½ months, I have not posted since June 25. I will not, however, explain why I did not post … Continue reading Moving, Non-Publication…and Dada? →

Dispatches from Brookline: Home Schooling and Social Distancing VI

I have described elsewhere how my wife Nell, our two daughters—one in 4th grade and one in 6th grade—and I were already coping with social distancing and the closure of the public schools in Brookline, Massachusetts until at least April 7, 2020. Besides staying inside as much as possible, we converted our dining room into … Continue reading Dispatches from Brookline: Home Schooling and Social Distancing VI →

Separating the art from the artist

The director David Lynch—who I dressed as this past Halloween—gave this response to a question about the meaning of a puzzling moment toward the end of episode 15 of Twin Peaks: The Return. “What matters is what you believe happened,” he clarified. “That’s the whole thing. There are lots of things in life, and we wonder about … Continue reading Separating the art from the artist →