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Brushes with Joe Strummer
by Jim Merlis 12/26/2002Neighborhood: Brooklyn, Dumbo
It’s frustrating being over two thousand miles away from home and hearing about the death of the great Joe Strummer, the Clash singer, guitarist. As I read his obituary in the LA Times (on page 1 – nice to see he got the respect he deserves) all I want to do his to listen to [...]
Jam Master Jay: His Sounds Will Stay
by Patrick J. Sauer 12/11/2002Neighborhood: Jamaica, Queens
I would like to believe that I went out to Queens to leave the My Adidas sweatshirt in tribute to Jam-Master Jay, but I’d be lying. I’ve long gotten a superiority chuckle watching "mourners" on television who bring hand-painted signs, 99-cent store teddy bears, daily newspapers with 64-pt. headlines announcing the celebrity death, and acres [...]
A Star Shines in Marie’s Crisis
by Virginia Vitzthum 11/24/2002Neighborhood: Greenwich Village
I don’t like show tunes and don’t really understand how any one does. But the idea of piano bars intrigues me the same way pick-up basketball games and gay sex clubs do, as a place where men get to play with strangers. So when my mus ical theater friends Jim and Andy invited me to [...]
Among The Thugs, Part Two
by Thomas Beller 11/23/2002Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Continued from Part One It’s tough playing to a half-empty house, but there is some consolation if the house you’re playing holds 60,000 people. It’s been a beautiful day in Oakland, and now, in the cool blue dusk, the crowd upfront is getting seriously pumped. As usual, Oasis are immobile. Arthurs is, for reasons no [...]
Composer’s Haven
by Charles Waters 11/15/2002Neighborhood: Midtown
My first job in Midtown Manhattan was as a clerical assistant in a large law firm on Fifth Avenue. It’s the building of the beast with the illuminated neon red 666 emblazoned across the top of the structure. It wasn’t glamorous work, but I made the best of my surroundings by exploring the neighborhood during [...]
Violins at School
by Thomas Beller 11/14/2002Neighborhood: Harlem
Roberta Guaspar Tsavaras purchased fifty violins in 1978, while married to a naval officer stationed in Greece. She assembled her collection piecemeal, from stores in Athens and neighboring towns. “The idea was that I would teach violin at schools and when he was transferred to a new base, I would take the violins, show up [...]
Sad Song Scenarios Part One
by Jeff Johnson and Hunter Kennedy 11/08/2002Neighborhood: Uncategorized
There are some songs that if heard in the right situation might push you to the brink of something horrid. Some of these situations are real, some are fiction. D.C. Berman: “Rain” by Blind Melon, through the ceiling of a Married Student Housing apartment while you’re bidding for ’70s cereal boxes on eBay against a [...]
Sad Song Scenarios Part Two
by Jeff Johnson and Hunter Kennedy 11/01/2002Neighborhood: All Over
There are some songs that if heard in the right situation might push you to the brink of something horrid. Some of these situations are real, some are fiction. Tim Rutili: 1.”Whoop There it is,” rapped over by a Melrose Park wedding DJ with a cordless mic as the dance floor was heating up at [...]
A Few Facts About Tuba Repair
by Rebecca Toby Letz 10/25/2002Neighborhood: Chelsea
Charles McAlexander is a big man, maybe 220 pounds and 6 foot 1. He wears an old work shirt that used to be bright red but now is more of a calm royal maroon with the inscription of Brass Lab in gold cursive on the chest pocket of the left-hand side. The button up shirt [...]
Basement Tapes
by by Charles Waters 04/29/2002Neighborhood: Brooklyn
My life lies in piles around my feet. It is mostly paper things; boxes of musical scores, boxes marked STORAGE and HOME. Why does the Rilke go to STORAGE and the Hesiod makes it to HOME? Who knows? I take the G train to my studio at the Classon stop in central Brooklyn. The G [...]
A Few Facts About Tuba Repair
by Rebecca Toby Letz 04/29/2002Neighborhood: Chelsea
It begins with a button marked Brass Lab. I press it and there is no answer and behind me groups of men in tank-tops work in automotive repair shops and listen to to Spanish music on mini-stereos set up next to the cars. Finally, a voice from above bellows, “It’s open!” and I look up [...]
Among the Thugs, Part I
by Thomas Beller 01/02/2002Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad, Midtown
“I LOVE THAT MAN A BITCH!” SHOUTS LIAM GALLAGHER. HE JUMPS OUT OF HIS CHAIR and paces around the room in a small tight circle. “If anyone stepped on his toes, I’d cut them off!” Liam sits down, and his voice becomes grave and somber. “I’d do time for ‘im. I luv ‘im. Me and [...]
