A more important day for the Beatles than we tend to think. 

A twenty-five minute discussion of four Chekhov stories--"Gooseberries," "Misery," "Children," "Boys," --that will teach a person--for free--more about the art of writing than anything they could learn in however many years in any writing program. 

A discussion about Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947).

A discussion on Downtown about Gene Vincent's first album, Cliff Gallup, recordings from Alan Freed's Rock 'n' Roll Dance Party in August 1956 and the BBC's Saturday Club in March 1960, an appearance on Italian television in 1960, and Vincent's cover of "Over the Rainbow." 

On Downtown discussing the band's wide-ranging BBC radio session from July 16, 1963. 

Thoughts pertaining to key recordings from the Doors, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Jefferson Airplane. 

Weighing in on Chimes at Midnight on Downtown. 

On the story of "I Saw Her Standing There" in Best Classic Bands. “'I Saw Her Standing There' is a story about being amazed. Teenage boys and young men play affairs of the heart close to the breast. They don’t effuse. To do so is to look less tough, generally regarded as inadvisable."

Talking about the 1928 film, Steamboat Bill, Jr. on Downtown. 

"But we are an auto-pilot society, and that’s reflected in the telling refrain, 'My favorite book is The Great Gatsby!' The horse won’t go to the water on its own. And even when it’s led there, it requires someone else to submerge its head. We don’t go looking. We aren’t open. The water has to be brought to us."

Going around the diamond and the outfield, and also determining a four-man rotation, long reliever, closer, and DH. 

A feature on the Beatles' oft-maligned--and undervalued--cover of "Mr. Moonlight" in Best Classic Bands. "The power of the singing—which requires commitment by design of the song—implies that this person behind it has reason to believe his wish may be granted if he asks hard enough. Even the announcement that the song was next to be played had power in Hamburg: the audience knew that from out of the silence would emerge this blast of a John Lennon vocal, naked and reverberating in the air."

Talking about the Boston Bruins' historic collapse. 

How "Eleanor Rigby" is really a short story set to music. 

A discussion regarding audio productions and readings of works by Algernon Blackwood, Shirley Jackson, E.F. Benson, M.R. James, and Washington Irving. 

The final issue of JazzTimes--dated April 2023--has a 2500 word piece on Wes Montgomery and his first album. There won't be a link to the piece online, but it will eventually appear in Play the Words: Writing on Jazz. 

On Carlton Fisk and a lifelong love of catchers. "If the New England soul — the spirit of what it means not just to be from these parts, but of them — could be encapsulated in what others humans might look to and say, 'Oh, yes, I get it,' it would be the Fisk dance."

Thirty-five minute segment on Downtown about the Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox, and two works of sports literature. 

From Best Classic Bands. "Was McCartney just a natural? Did he practice regularly? There’s a difference between writing a song on a guitar—which takes minimal technique (Sam Cooke, for example, wrote his songs on guitar, and there aren’t Sam Cooke guitar solos that we celebrate; there aren’t any)—and playing a solo to marvel at."

On Downtown to discuss America's first true auteur, with a special focus on an essay 1937's Make Way for Tomorrow, the so-called most depressing film of all-time, from Watching Back: Writing on Movies that Light Us Up.  

The real meaning of prayer. 

On the remarkable Francoise Gilot, the talented artist and writer whom Pablo Picasso treated poorly, and who is still with us at 101-years-old. 

This is an opinion piece on David Ortiz's finest moment on a baseball field which ran last August and was only now discovered to have done so. 

A conversation on Frog and Toad, The Children of Green Knowe, Bagpuss, the BBC adaptation of Edith Nesbit's The Railway Children, and the excellent Scottish series, Maggie. 

Back on Downtown for an in-depth analysis of John Lennon, guitar player.