Michigan Ear Institute, it’s no surprise, is a noisy place. I’m sitting in the waiting room when Mr. Robinson walks in. He steps up to the check-in window, signs in, and waits. The receptionist looks up. Her lips move. “What?” he says. Lips, again. “What?” he says, again. “HAS ANY OF YOUR INSURANCE INFORMATION CHANGED,…More
Tag Archives: music
The Scream in My Heart–from And Now This
Chimps are funny. When I was a kid there was a television commercial for Red Rose Tea. Four chimps, dressed in plaid jackets and black slacks, playing swing music at a club called The Savory Ritz. On stage there was piano chimp, trombone chimp, and string bass and drummer chimp. Also, in the foreground, lady…More
Beans and Baroque
This morning I have a pot of bean soup on the stove. These are pinto beans. We buy them still in their pods at a local grocery store. Tizi is obsessed with them. Whenever we find a basket full of pinto beans, she buys all of them, carrying out a whole shopping bag stuffed with…More
The Birds and the Beatles
I’m reading a New Yorker article about Paul McCartney at the breakfast table one morning. At the top of the page there’s a black and white photo of the Beatles, circa 1965. It’s the year, the caption tells us, of Help! and Rubber Soul. My wife and I are leaving for Italy in a week…More
Toothpicks–walking, Uncle Buck, an old song
“Did you bring a flashlight?” Tizi asks. We’re setting out on our morning walk. It’s January, cold and dark. The snow that fell a few days ago has all melted, leaving puddles in the depressions in the asphalt pavement. She’s wearing her bright yellow Flectson vest over her many layers. A passing car will light…More
Sing It–the music, the spaghetti
I should take delivery of a ukelele today. That’s a fun word to write. Try it. Ukelele. The instrument is coming in the mail. It’s been twenty years since I played the guitar. My fingers have grown soft and lost their muscle tone. I have muscle memory of chords and songs and licks, but when…More
Anyone Who Had a Heart
Listen to a short excerpt from “Anyone Who Had a Heart” in Get Thee to a Bakery.More
The Summer of 1964–wheels, young love, tiny transgression
A few years after he went to New York and started his work in advertising, my son came home for a weekend visit with a skateboard under his arm. He said he rode it to work. Over the next day or two, he stepped outside the house a couple times and rolled around the neighborhood…More
Play It
I came home from school one day, my mother was sitting at the kitchen table with pencil and paper. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m helping you think of a name for your band.” Well that’s nice. That’s what I said. Grateful she had stopped saying “combo.” What I also thought was: Is there…More
Sing It–but keep it to yourself
Since the beginning of Covid time, four or five days a week we take this walk. And every morning a song visits me, unbidden. This morning it’s the theme from “The Odd Couple.” Where did that come from? Yesterday it was “I Think I’m Going Out of My Head,” which, for sentimental reasons, I was…More