Two hundred years ago, the great Russian poet stood up against tyrants — and was exiled — The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin charts antithetical, Romantic themes — Liberty and Tyranny — in two famous poems, “Ode to Liberty” and “The Bronze Horseman.” It seems like today, all around the globe, too, Tyranny has Liberty on the run. Although radically different in maturity, design, and structure, each concerns…

Take Dr. Feelgood’s prescription for raw-pop, brilliant R&B — I was gardening, transplanting a few azaleas that needed more sun for blooms. My Bluetooth headphones vibrated around my dirty blonde hair — loud enough for the Noise Cancelling feature to be useless for the neighbors. My finely curated Spotify Clash mix ended. Then this incredible song followed. Who was…

For well over a century, this American folk story still inspires brilliant music —

Hawthorne has many takeaways for the writer and the reader — Hey, fans of literature! Walter “Down with” Bowne here. So — you read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter — whether you want to or you were forced in English class. It’s boring. Nothing happens. The plot — well — what plot is there? The language is prohibitive. The sentence structure…

The New England Mystic — a Voice of Youth in an Old Soul: An Introduction — Good morning, readers! Walter “Down With” Bowne here. For today: Emily Dickinson. Depending on your age, Dickinson’s poems function at various levels. For someone like me, at Four and Fifty, her poems about Death and Legacy may register different responses to someone who is Seven and Ten — someone who…

Country and the Blues largely originated in the South with this ‘Steel Drivin’ Man’ — Is it possible that one person inspired both Blues and country music? Yes. His name is John Henry — of folklore legend, a legend that was forged in muscle and might in the Age of Reconstruction and the Golden Age of the Railroad, but recent research from Scott Nelson has…

Short fiction — On Easter morning, I would wake up early, walk downstairs, and peek inside my Easter basket. Before I could bite off the head of a yellow Peeps chick, my mother poked her head around the corner in her Sunday-Morning-Going-to-Church-Pink Curlers and yelled: “Not before breakfast, Maria Susan Gordon!” Don’t you…

Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” (1967) — “And I was ‘round when Jesus Christ Had his moment of doubt and pain Made damn sure that Pilate Washed his hands and sealed his fate.” — “Sympathy for the Devil” — 1968, The Rolling Stones, Richards/Jagger. Resigned to accept the over-the-shoulder stare of a censor, Mikhail Bulgakov, like most…

Emotional memory hangs on every note, sharp, flat, and bass line — At twenty-five, I was at Mary Jane’s ‘flat’ in 1994 for the first time, leafing through her album collection. I use British terms for pure pretension. Let’s see: “Bruce Springsteen. Billy Joel. Prince. The Clash. Phil Collins. Led Zeppelin. Huey Lewis. Human League. The Boomtown Rats. R.E.M. The Mary Jane…