Culture
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: Culture
My Musical SoCal colleague Tommy Dodson and I are delighted to pass on the merry wishes of our melodious muses, as represented in the below lyrics, and as sung by Tommy Dodson.
- Written by: Michal Hamilton
- Category: Culture
My love with Salsa dancing started during summer of my Junior year in high school, the summer of 1999, the summer of the Latin Explosion! Across the Top 40 airwaves you could tune in any day and time to enjoy in heavy rotation 'Living La Vida Loca' by Ricky Martin, 'I Need To Know' by Marc Anthony, the hypnotic guitar riffs of the legendary Carlos Santana in 'Smooth'. These songs were a breath of fresh air on the radio, and I couldn't get enough of them! They all seem to call to me like how the Sirens called to the Argonauts. I found a new genre of music to appreciate but as a gringo (Spanish for a non-Latino) I was miserably uninformed regarding the various kinds of Latino musica and dance, but all that changed one faithful day.
- Written by: Curtis W. Long
- Category: Culture
Earlier this year, IFZ introduced the phenomenally gifted, young guitarist Eric Wesling. The occasion was his initiation into the exploding San Diego jazz scene. It took place at Croce's, a long-standing music temple to Jim Croce, established by his widow. At that time, the just-16-year-old Eric appeared as one of the aspiring Young Lions.
- Written by: Robert Easey
- Category: Culture
Here in Wisconsin October was strangely warm and the usual bluster was replaced by shirtsleeves and yet another chance to get that yard work done! If not for the fact that the sun sets so damn early now, it hardly feels like fall. But the leaves have gone from green to red to brown and and the song birds have moved on to more accommodating environs.
o, these past X number of Sundays, the Idiot Free Zone group on Facebook has been jointly, and solely for our own amusement, creating a weekly ad hoc musical melange comprised of YouTube offerings from the worlds of pop, punk, rock, rap, blues, be bob, r&b, soul, folk, funk and jazz, according to how well they fit into and/or wrap themselves around a weekly theme. We call it "The Sunday String." This past Sunday, November 8, 2015, for example, that theme was delineated thusly:
Moving to your own beat is all you can do to stay sane.
Chicago-based musician and performance artist Edwin Days is a shining example of that. Edwin kept his wits about while growing up gay in an extremely homophobic Spanish-Caribbean culture and a fanatically religious household. Despite the challenges he faced while growing up, he has always exuded an aura of confidence and belief in himself. As he says, "it is exhausting trying to change people's point of view" so why bother trying to be something you're not just to please others?
- Written by: Christopher Barnet
- Category: Culture
In this solemn act of remembering, the poet pulls onto his shoulders the terrible weight of 'this world gone wrong' and bears it for us all.
Continuing a tradition of Mayakovsky and Hikmet to read to people publicly 'to confront people more than to console them', this is a social poem to 'like' and 'share' mouth to ear.
- Written by: Robert Easey
- Category: Culture
Summer in Wisconsin is humid, hot, dry mostly, and the intense green of few weeks ago is broken up with some yellows and maybe even the occasional red (no!) The Mosquitos are not as bad as a couple weeks ago and the lawn might not have to be cut this week. These are photos from the last week or two. It was hot and humid again today, but a evening thunderstorm broke that up. Summer.
A Thistle. Just a weed? It's a work of art!
