Could be verse: poetry ripped from the headlines
By JAMES PARKER | July 6, 2007
Lines upon the Multimedia and Internet-enabled Mobile Phone Newly Produced by the Apple Corporation
Lover, I have no need of you. Sweet lover, please be gone, for your pretty face will be erased when I turn my iPhone on.
It pays my bills and combs my spam and self-selects my porn, and I can watch John Stossel while I'm listening to John Zorn.
Lover, my dented mattress, and the warm dent in my heart — these you-shaped absences I feel, now that we’re apart.
But you and hearts and mattresses are from another era — now I watch A Night in Paris while I’m listening to Pantera.
Rattling into Ruggles, creaky Kenmore, dark Back Bay, I Photoshop, I text myself, I blog the blues away, I think of you, my lover, and the fineness of your wrist . . .
And then I listen to the Shins, while watching Schindler’s List.
Related:
Gigantourism, Visionary sounds, Road warrior, More
- Gigantourism
You don’t get in a fistfight over Opeth — you wilt, and shed a few petals.
- Visionary sounds
Sonic Youth, Andrew Hill, Bob Dylan, and more
- Road warrior
Plucked cello and the open road may suggest overly earnest guitar folk, but Friedlander’s music is as tough-minded and original as it is elegiac.
- Dark passage
As we grind collectively toward the Apocalypse, let us pause for a moment to salute the last-ditch efforts of the Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research.
- Planet of ass
Collapsed Catholic that I am, I’ve always had trouble with the concept of “erotic photography.”
- Bon appétit
With apologies to those of my readers who were expecting a poignant analysis of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s Shalom in the Home .
- Choke holds
That interesting man Chuck Barris has written another book.
- Skimming the cream
Some of my favorite things from among the people, CDs, and performances I wrote about this year.
- Animal Collective
They may call each other Panda Bear and Geologist, but these boys can kick out the wibbly-wobbly jams.
- Houses of pain
Stay tuned, motherfuckers. Watch a preview for the second season of Meerkat Manor (YouTube)
- Surprisingly good
Leonard Cohen once said that living in England was like living inside a cabbage, a simile I can improve only by adding: an electrified cabbage.
- Less

Topics:
Lifestyle Features
, John Zorn, Pantera, The Shins