Clips

108 years ago next week, Henry Houdini premiered his “Great Escape.” The famed magician was handcuffed and shackled, then nailed into a crate which was roped and weighed down with two hundred pounds of lead. The crate was then lowered into the East River from a tug; police had forbade him to use a local…

“Sometimes, two things are true at the same time. The world is grim and hilarious; the future is bright and unthinkable; you are sad, but you are dancing; you are home, but it is not the same.” For weeks, as I tumbled this poetic truism over and over and over in my head, I thought…

There are magical moments every morning these days. This is one. The girls are seated and still (for now) in their makeshift classrooms: plastic folding tables and antique chairs salvaged from the basement. They’re tapping away at their Chromebooks. Elsie is smiling through the blank spot filled, until yesterday, with her canine. All is silent,…

“I wish I wasn’t born during this time!” “Everything started getting bad when the coronavirus showed up!” “It’s ruining my life!” The walls have closed in on all of us here in Greenville, Delaware. Streets are empty. Skies are quiet. Schools are shuttered. Storefronts frozen. Maggie and Elsie are back to school: a few Zoom…

Flashback: New York City, January 2020. I planned the “Only You (DJ Latenight Remix)” release for Valentine’s Day (duh), and needed a simple music video idea quickly. What we came up with now feels eerily prescient. “What if it’s like a Warhol screen test?” my pal Whitney Mattheson suggested. I Googled “Warhol Screen Test.” “Yes!…

When the walls collapse, the storm passes, and the dream ends. When the bones are healed, and the song is over. What’s left behind? New York City singer/songwriter Benjamin Wagner probes these depths with lyrical nuance and melodic faculty in his extraordinary new album, “What’s Left Behind.” The 11 songs reflect the zeitgeist: entropy, decadence…