Grace's bugle will shatter the silent spring with piercing streams of silver. Four notes will hold up the sky while they echo through the cemetery, layered like too many tears on a little girl’s cheek. Read More

It is worth noting that my sister was born with coal black eyes and orange fuzz on her head. It is also worth noting that I have seen her bite a worm in half and that her favorite game is called "Let's Go Die." Read More

I glance up from the piano and listen to his James Taylor-inspired voice sing the lyric we have crafted and feel dizzy with love, maybe for him, maybe for me, maybe for art. We do not have a romance, but this must count for something. Read More

As if a career in music isn’t perilous enough, American musician Robin Goldsby and her bassist husband take on a few critters roaming the German countryside.  Thwack. Or is it thwump? Skittle, scratch, scrape, thwop. It’s a quarter to three and there’s no one in the place except you and me—thonk—and Dumbo? Has a baby elephant… Read More

The huddled masses make it impossible for me to get anywhere near the hotel’s entrance. Middle-aged women and gay men stand alongside pierced and tattooed teens—necks craned, toes tipped, autograph pens at the ready. Read More

I hate November and I hate low-sodium lentil soup. And I wanted a goddamn drink. Is that so awful? Read More

Decades of slow progress towards gender and racial equality seem to screech to a halt, leaving ugly orange skid marks on the potholed highway to equality. Read More

Hold the zucchini. Or any type of squash for that matter. I’m not technically allergic to squash, but it gives me the creeps. Read More

I favored one dress—an electric-blue sateen-spandex thing—that was cut down to here and up to there. It threatened to expose my left breast every time I reached for the bass notes. Read More