Hearing Ilya Read for the First Time (live)
Sebastian Matthews reading “Hearing Ilya Read for the First Time” live at Bowdoin College, September 14, 2007.
Sebastian Matthews
Detour Ahead (live)
Sebastian Matthews reading “Detour Ahead” live at Bowdoin College, September 14, 2007.
Winter Residency (live)
Sebastian Matthews reading “Winter Residency” live at Bowdoin College, September 14, 2007.
We Generous
Long past midnight; hard rain. Somewhere twenty, thirty blocks west the downtown Chicago grid, in a neighborhood taxis don’t come to or stop in this late: in search of the sublime, gawkers at the Velvet Lounge, “soul hole” wedged alongside Fitzsi’s Famous, fresh out of two epic sets— avant-garde jazz played wildly but seriously by […]
The Green Man Walks Across America
The Green Man walks across America in order to best assist the whales in their valiant attempt at being left alone as a whimsical bet made late in a poolhall before an impossibly beautiful billiards shot walks across America to resurrect his soul, over and over, at all the odd mile markers and in men’s […]
What Love Is
You could tell he was a Marsalis brother, even sitting in the back: he had that muddy river lilt in his voice, the bristling intellect and the irrepressible need to teach the storied history of African- American classical music. Jazz was in his blood as legacy. The Funky Butt was jammed, only this […]
Ian at the Waiters’ Party, Out Behind the Barn, Bread Loaf
for Patrick We watch him as he climbs the ladder of drunkenness and falls off. Laughing, we help him to his feet. “You’re Assholes #1 & #2,” he tells us gleefully. “You’ve disappointed me greatly.” The night before he presided over our debate with raw, easily spurned grace, mockingly demanding that […]