"Woman Part One"

a tiny thing

a small thing

a tornado whip
lashed on to her feet
but,
she cannot be pulled
into richter's scrum.

she howls
and
he runs -

falls! -

outward, but to the center;
stymied
by the very thing
he had beseeched to
enslave her...


a wee bit -

lilliputian -

of her drops against him.
his jaw falls off...
but,
she is kind, merciful,
and lets him run.


the lash falls
and both run. Continue Reading...

"Way Down In The Land Of Twins"

A.C. Newman - Get Guilty
(Matador: 2009)

Allan Carl Newman (AC or Newman hereafter) has, in a single decade, cemented an enviable place for himself in the history of great Canadian music.  To me, that's both at once a remarkable and an immensely difficult thing to do.  And I'm not necessarily talking record sales, profit made, or legions of adoring preteen/teen youngsters scratching at the heels of his celebrity (although he probably does dandily in all three categories).  No, we are talking about quality, about perceived sensibility, about ability, and finally about legacy, to name a few aspects.  From his early days with Superconductor to his meteoric rise with The New Pornographers to his more recent solo records, Newman has been a lightning rod for success.

While these are kind words, it wasn't always this way.  It has taken me literally years to "get into" Newman's stuff.  I was always more partial to Dan Bejar's and to a lesser extent, Neko Case's musical styles.  I should mention that I still like Destroyer more than The New Pornographers or anything Neko Case has done, but I suppose what has changed is: a) Neko Case falls to the bronze position, and b) Newman is now in the silver position.  I still feel AC is much too polished for my liking but that doesn't mean he's not uber-talented; his songs are well written and most of them are much better than quite a lot of the Pornographers' stuff.

Continue Reading...