MUSIC

HAS TOM WAITS LOST HIS VOICE

a concerned and loving review of Waits' Bad As Me

By Nathan Gale

He's listening, are you?

It’s difficult to judge the career of a living artist. Sometimes the career is going up, sometimes down, sometimes it looks like it’s going up when its going down, sometimes what seems a break is actually continuity. You never know until they’re dead. In addition, public praise or criticism are wild cards that makes it difficult to properly assess what an artist is doing, or the difference between what an artist wants to do and what an artist needs to do in order to change and grow. So, careers of the living are difficult to understand.

LITERATURE

BEN MARCUS ROARS A FLAME ALPHABET

a review of Ben Marcus' The Flame Alphabet and more!

By Nathan Gale

The Flame Alphabet erupts like a tale straight from the Old Testament. Set in a suburban community of “Forrest Jews” in upstate New York, our protagonist Sam, and his wife Clair and their daughter Esther, a family of Forrest Jews, (I just wanted to write that because it sounds neat) are beset by a plague that is spread through children’s voices. The plague causes adults to wither and shrivel, dying of sores, blackouts, diarrhea and vomiting. Like all healthy tweens Esther is resentful of her parents for merely being alive, and abuses them with the sound of her voice, nearly killing her own mother.