The pocket of the Blue Ridge Mountains where my parents dwell—and where, consequently, I am spending the holidays—is isolated. Mom…
Birthdays are the niftiest invention. It’s like having an extra national holiday, except that, instead of honoring a bunch of…
On a sunny autumn afternoon, a man walks into a bar packed with laughing patrons. “I’d like a drink, please,”…
FELIX DA HOUSECAT, DJ EVA Baltic Room, 625-4444, $12 adv. / $15 9 p.m. Thurs., June 13 Andy Warhol was…
Recently, a reader compared my work to Lester Bangs’. Curious as to why, I started reading the pioneering rock critic’s…
INITIALLY, WHEN MY boyfriend asked me to celebrate this Christmas, our first together, with his brother’s family in Lake Oswego,…
I fancy myself a tough guy. I while away weekends lurking in leather bars redolent with cheap beer, smoke, and…
When singer Ian Curtis hung himself in May 1980, two days before Joy Division’s first North American tour, he abruptly…
I’ve been spending a lot of time with teenagers lately. No, I didn’t drill a hole into the boys’ locker…
THE FIRST TIME I heard the name Hoagy Carmichael, I scratched my chinit was college, and I rarely shaved, so…
For somebody who works at a dot.com—and I don’t mean as a Kozmo delivery guy—my ignorance of technology is astonishing….
A few weeks ago, when Radiohead’s Kid A debuted as the No. 1 album in America, after a summer that…
If jealousy is a green-eyed monster, my bosom is chief among the beast’s favorite nesting spots. Recently, upon opening Entertainment…
I am an inveterate journal keeper. Partially, it’s because it helps me organize thoughts and emotions, but mostly it’s because…
I can’t stand to think I’m missing out on anything. Occasionally I’ll deliberately eat foods I don’t like, just to…
CONSIDER YOURSELF warned: Should you approach High Dive, the fourth solo album from Maria McKee, expecting spirited alt-country, à la…
Regardless of the size of the bulge in your jeans or the cut of your six-pack, it takes something extraordinary…
“Do you play disco?” This is not a question one typically expects to hear from a massage therapist. “Have you…
After all these years: Loretta Lynn.
Me and my big mouth. One minute, I’m contentedly digesting Thanksgiving dinner, and the next, I’m running laps in the…
