Arts and Culture

Neil Young has a new album called Fork In The Road. Just heard a song from it called Light A Candle - very nice (not sure that's the phrase/praise he was looking for review wise). WFUV also just played a new Jill Sobule song. She did a remarkable thing with this new album, putting out an independent yet professional work (produced by Don Was) by raising $75,000 dollars from fans - with relative ease. (I recently wrote that I was awaiting the album and sorry I missed the chance to help. Here's Jill's reply: "Thanks! You can still go on jillsnextrecord.com or get the record when it comes out. I'm excited. And I love Rabbis. I need to find one and a congregation in my new home, LA Xo, jill). A friend of mine told me on Shabbos that Amy Hempel is a writer's writer. I just got hold of her complete works and am looking forward to reading her short stories. (Here's the transcript of a Hempel interview) I don't know if I stressed enough how much I enjoyed Nancy Peacock's memoir. I feel like I gave more press to Debra Winger, but Nancy probably needs me more and I found her book amazing, just haven't had the ko'ach to copy out passages. In a poem he wrote on December 13, 2008, John Updike, who doesn't much need me, writes about the neighborhood he grew up in and how fond and appreciative he is of those people and that time (Peggy Lutz, Fred Muth):

To think of you brings tears less caustic

than those the thought of death brings. Perhaps

we meet our heaven at the start and not

the end of life. Even then were tears

and fear and struggle, but the town itself

draped in plain glory the passing days.

u

- John Updike