Category: Arts & Culture
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Timeless Soul
Nick Ashford was born in Fairfield, South Carolina, and Valarie Simpson was born in the Bronx in New York City. They met at Harlem‘s White Rock Baptist Church in 1963, and developed a musical partnership as songwriters and performers that spanned five decades. After recording unsuccessfully as a duo in the early 1960s, Ashford and…
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Born in ‘47
I cannot shut my eyes without seeing A parade of black and white passport photos, Monochrome faces of men who look uniformly old, Gaunt and unblinking in the sight of the camera man, Leaning on each other, having just dug their communal grave. Women, segregated, sunken-cheeked, unknown Outside the boundaries of memory, eyes unflinching……
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José Mateo's The Nutcracker
Born in Cuba and raised in the Bronx, José Mateo first studied ballet and modern technique at Princeton University. Mateo told SCN that he “got lucky” so to speak. “I attended Princeton the first year that is it became co-ed and they offered modern dance”, Mateo recalled walking up the steps to his dance company’s…
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Book Review: The New Jim Crow
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (New Press, $19.95) Michelle Alexander shines a light on the underbelly of the criminal justice system in her book The New Jim Crow (2012). She is bringing to our attention the fact that there is now, as there has been for…
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Poems by Doug Holder
Change My Breath The sardines Sliding in oil A dash of mustard A delicious hot dollop My tongue Ravished By horseradish. It dances Like a flapper Across my teeth. Now change My breath My love Before we kiss Sometimes I think All things so sweet Will inevitably stink. The Suburbs 1962 Mom a gurgling scream…
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thereabouts: greater boston has a thriving cultural arts scene
Even though a friend of mine who worked at the Tasty knew her—back before the Tasty, that little Harvard Square heaven, was swallowed up whole—Ani DiFranco’s music somehow didn’t cross my path until days ago, at her Wilbur Theater show. I’m not sure why I never found out about her. Maybe it was because I…
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"Common Cathedral," "Sestina: Journey to New Land," and "Song of War and Peace" by Maria Termini
Common Cathedral It’s too cold for a Sunday in spring, I have been waiting for warmth so much, but I am here on the Boston Common, and have come to pray, praise, and sing with homeless people of faith, now scattered around a dry fountain. I wonder if I can play my guitar with cold…
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"What I’m Made Of" and "My Excavated Heart" by Kathy Engel
What I’m Made Of I am a crab I am chemical dispersant spill, I am spilled spilling, fish swelter stone, I am slick, eyes burn bleed oil, nose oiled mucous, talk spits from my oil swollen lips, gurgle and sputter drip from my ears, crude ruts my cheeks, neck scar leaks oil, hair sheens nipples…
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F the #'s: Writer J. Marechal Argues that Poverty Is More than Statistics
F the #’s. I’m not giving you any. One doesn’t have to look far to see poverty wide. It’s not about numbers. It is about having to give in to tears when officers are summoned to oust a homeless mother and her three year old from a shelter. It is two, three people sharing a…
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Bohemian Beats: SCN Chops It Up with Boston’s Avant-Garde Hip Hop Artist, Catch Wreck
Q. Where in Boston are you currently residing? A. Roxbury, MA Q. How would you compare Boston to other cities you’ve been in or know about? A. Boston has a very unique mind state I would say. The people are disconnected, their living in their own zone. The people don’t really travel outside of their…