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Ashes to ashes

Could be verse: poetry ripped from the headlines

By JAMES PARKER | August 29, 2007

Lines upon learning of the Russian man whose penis was set on fire by his ex-wife as he sat naked in front of the TV, drinking vodka

Surprised? Oh, not at all. For years I felt
Her fury’s laser aimed below my belt.
As Hendrix with his instrument, so she
Cremated every high-strung part of me.

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ARTICLES BY JAMES PARKER

BLACK SABBATH ARE BACK — IN PRINT AND ON FILM | November 14, 2011
The literature on Black Sabbath — already extensive — will continue to grow, as we try, try, try again to wrap our poor noggins around the irreducibly cosmic fact of this band.

REDISCOVERING METALLICA WITH A NEW BIO | August 26, 2011
Write the Lightning

REDISCOVERING METALLICA WITH A NEW BIO | August 24, 2011
That the biggest metal band in metal history should be called METALLICA — it's just so frigging metal .

REMEMBERING HÜSKER DÜ WITH TWO NEW BOOKS | June 09, 2011
"Readers of this book will be disappointed," declares Andrew Earles, rather sternly, in the introduction to his Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock (Voyageur Press), "if they hope to be rewarded with the gritty details of any band member's drug use."

A POET FACES THE ABYSS | June 08, 2011
Depression: the mind grapples — the culture grapples — to frame it. Serotonin hiccup? Existential banana-skin? Anger blow-back? Fall from grace?

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ANARCHISTIC AND SELF-TRAINED, ARE STREET MEDICS THE FUTURE OF FIRST AID?
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Armed with an idea, a hastily written manifesto, a press release, and some software to disguise my computer's IP address, I was able to raise the question, "How do you know that what you're illegally downloading is the actual music it claims to be?" This is a story about how my pop-music infatuation led me to fabricating a web of lies I called the Overdub Tampering Committee.

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Next weekend at the Democracy Center in Harvard Square, Vermont DIY label Get Stoked! Records and bike safety group Helping Everyone Live Long (H.E.L.L.) will co-host a weekend with a stacked line-up of Northeast punk, hardcore, indie rock, pop-punk, and emo bands.

BOSTON BALLET'S 'SIMPLY SUBLIME'
Boston Ballet's "Simply Sublime" (at the Opera House through February 19) traverses 20th-century ballet's arc from Russian romance to a robust and confident neoclassicism.