It is now commonly understood that “Little Green”, one of the most arresting tracks on Joni Mitchell’s classic 1971 album Blue is a work of autobiography. More specifically, it’s about Mitchell, alone and freezing in the middle of winter in downtown Toronto, giving her child up for adoption, a fleeting last wish for her daughter’s happiness that the two will no longer share. Rendered in slightly veiled language, the song nevertheless spins a heartbreaking portrait of intermingled loss and hope, even divorced from its specific subject matter. The crucial thing, though, is that this context was not known at the time of the album’s initial release, and many had assumed it was simply a story song in the vein of many that were common from singers-songwriters of the time, such as James Taylor and Carole King.…
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Ryan W. Bradley has pumped gas, painted houses, swept the floor of a mechanic’s shop, worked on a construction crew in the Arctic Circle, fronted a punk band, and more. He is the author of eight books of poetry and fiction, including the story collection Nothing But the Dead and Dying. He received his MFA from Pacific University and lives in Oregon with his wife and two sons.
In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Bradley about balancing life as a writer and graphic designer, reflections on a scary run-in with a white supremacist, and thoughts on Twin Peaks and the new Queens of the Stone Age LP (among many other things).
– Ryan W. Bradley…
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The ‘sixties went by in a blur for Jerry and Mike,
remembered in fragments, bright and discontinuous.
Phil Spector shadowing them in the studio,
his head swiveling like a bird of prey.
The Dixie Cups, Jewish Valkyries, setting up
harmonies that made Mike’s scalp cringe.
Hearing in ’64 The Beatles’ version of “Kansas City,”
knowing then something of the curve and contour of time.
Jerry at dinner with Motherwell and DeKooning.
Jerry wrestling with Mailer by the bar at Elaine’s.
Mike at the Village Gate hearing Stan Getz
blow long and long into the coming dark.
The stone-faced Customs man at Heathrow
who liked to say: “If you’re Stoller, where’s Leiber?”
These were not, like the fifties, the time of their time:
the days in diminuendo, a falling away.…
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“I’d love to turn you on.”
AN EXPLOSION OF POSSIBILITIES
In the early 70s, a little after my 10th birthday, I sifted through my parents’ stacks of 50s and 60s Broadway musicals (South Pacific, My Fair Lady), James Bond soundtrack LPs, comedy albums (Bob Newhart and Beyond the Fringe), and one-off oddities like God Bless Tiny Tim.
In that stack was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Putting aside my childhood fear that rock and roll was somehow scary or indecent, I put the record on the turntable and gazed at the densely packed cover.
I was intrigued by the faux-audience sounds that accompanied the title track; moved by the communal sympathy of “With A Little Help from My Friends”; captivated by the throwback music hall charm of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” and transported by the visionary landscapes that unfolded in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “Being for the Benefit of Mister Kite,” and “A Day in the Life.”…
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Julia Tagliere is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Writer and Hay & Forage Grower magazines and online at Buzzle; in various anthologies, including Here in the Middle: Stories of Love, Loss, and Connection from the Ones Sandwiched in between, Candlesticks and Daggers—An Anthology of Mixed Genre Mysteries, and in the juried photography and prose collection Love + Lust. Her short story, “Te Absolvo,” was named Best Short Story in the 2015 William Faulkner Literary Competition. Julia currently resides in Maryland with her family, where she recently completed her M.A. in Fiction Writing at Johns Hopkins University. Look for more of Julia’s work in the forthcoming anthology The Way to My Heart—An Anthology of Food-Related Romance, Issue 61 (August 2017) of Potomac Review, or at her blog/website.…
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Bruce Bauman, an instructor in the CalArts MFA Writing Program, released his second novel, Broken Sleep, last year on Other Press. Chronicling both the individual struggles and tense interrelationships between several family members (via several shifting perspectives), it’s a humorous yet heartfelt saga that touches on several themes, including the search for identity, the uncertainties of religious devotion, and the quest to fulfill one’s purpose in life. In this first episode of Cover to Cover with . . . , Editor-in-Chief Jordan Blum speaks with Bauman about the book, as well as the processes of writing and teaching, what it’s like having a visual artist as a spouse, the importance of music, and the 2016 election, among other things.
– Bruce Bauman…
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