Explore the Phoenix
Clif Garboden, 1948-2011
Remembering Clif Garboden
Never Got Rich, But We Are Going To Heaven
My Life and Good Times in Alternative Journalism

Content by Clif Garboden

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PBS looks at the darker side of changing the world
Sometimes you want to give PBS a big grateful kiss just for staying the course while most of TV, losing ground to the interweb age, hovers between cultural hemorrhage and commercial death.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Tuesday, January 11, 2011
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Review: God in America
For all our bragging about separating church and state, throughout our nation's history, religion has never been on the sidelines. If
By CLIF GARBODEN • Sunday, October 10, 2010
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A blood-boiled appeal to the young and bewildered Boston newbies
You students are back. We locals, many of the best of whom began our lives here as scholar-transplants from that Other America ourselves, know this without consulting a calendar.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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Review: The World That Never Was
Some marketing wizard gave Oxford-based historian Alex Butterworth's exhaustive history of the international anarchist movement a fun title it doesn't deserve.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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Fashionably great
New-York-born-and-based photographer Richard Avedon (1923–2004), who's rightly credited with revolutionizing fashion photography, was more than a couturier-mag genius.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Tuesday, August 10, 2010
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Review: My Tale of Two Cities
The smoky, solid-iron Pittsburgh that Woody Guthrie sang about faded away after WW2, leaving a vacuum eventually supplanted by a cleaner but still soulful civic iteration.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Wednesday, July 28, 2010
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BU offers the class of 1970 a second chance at complacency
Boston University’s class of 2010 celebrates its commencement this weekend, and BU has invited the class of 1970 to tag along.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Wednesday, May 12, 2010
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This must be the place
It is a place so confident, so much an institution, as to presume to call itself by its last name. When someone says they’re going to the Square, nobody expects them to turn up at the Statler Building in Park Square or under the CITGO sign in Kenmore Square or in Elmer N. Buswell Square.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Friday, April 23, 2010
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Fess Elisha Parker, 1924–2010
The King of the Wild Frontier is dead.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Wednesday, March 24, 2010
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Wild about Harry
What I want to do — what most photographers want to do — is write Harry Callahan a love letter. At the very least, he deserves an elaborate thank-you note for innovating or validating 80 percent of the successful photographs we ever took.
By CLIF GARBODEN • Wednesday, December 09, 2009

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Bill Jensen
One of the good guys.
Posted: February 11 2011 at 3:39 PM
Sam Pfeifle
He was such a good teacher. Clif loved what he did and he made you love it, too, even if it was typing listings... more
Posted: February 11 2011 at 4:14 PM
faulkeyue
my condolences to the family and friends of Clif...
Posted: February 11 2011 at 4:47 PM
Ian Donnis
Clif was a brainy, incisive guy with a great BS detector and a sharp sense of humor. He'll be missed.
Posted: February 11 2011 at 5:09 PM
Clea Simon
Clif was writing a history of the alt-press and last I heard, he had two interested publishers. Anyone know if there was any progress... more
Posted: February 11 2011 at 5:14 PM
Lyn
I remember looking forward to "Hot Dots" on 'FNX; that seems like lifetimes ago now. The local media landscape is the better for having... more
Posted: February 11 2011 at 5:46 PM
charles pierce
He was my first editor when I walked in the doors of 100 Massachusetts Avenue, and my friend forever after, and the heart, soul,... more
Posted: February 11 2011 at 6:37 PM
Jess Kilby
Clif was one of the few people I encountered in my career who made me feel like I was a part of something noble... more
Posted: February 11 2011 at 7:37 PM
Jose Invencio
Sometimes nice guys finish first. We'll miss you Clif Garboden!
Posted: February 11 2011 at 7:38 PM
Barry Crimmins
Clif taught me how to write by editing me. He would take something it took me weeks to twist and gnarl and email it... more
Posted: February 11 2011 at 8:32 PM
Memphis Ken
Counselor,confidente,curmudgeon: thanks, Clif, for all you did to make all our lives infinitely richer!
Posted: February 12 2011 at 1:26 AM
Quaker Karen
I told him once "You're a closet nice guy."  He bowed his head and smiled a way-sardonic smile. One memory, held dear.... more
Posted: February 12 2011 at 9:15 AM
Paula Childs
I am deeply saddened by the loss of Clif.  Though I never knew him personally, he was one of the giants in the alternative... more
Posted: February 12 2011 at 9:42 AM
Johnny Angel
Funny how in real life, Clif kept to himself and was the polar opposite of verbose, but on the page and in print, kicked... more
Posted: February 12 2011 at 11:38 AM
Andrea Fischman
Clif opened the door for me at the Phoenix and helped me get my first photo gig there as photographer just out of college.... more
Posted: February 12 2011 at 2:21 PM
Erin Sullivan
Clif was really and truly a believer in alternative-newsweeklies and all they stood for. He chided, he criticized and he goaded us all to... more
Posted: February 12 2011 at 2:49 PM
Theresa Regli
Clif Garboden was no doubt one of the most influential people in my career, an entertaining writer, excellent editor, and an incessantly questioning cynic... more
Posted: February 12 2011 at 4:22 PM
Steven Stark
A wonderful man -- a wonderful editor. Journalism wouldn't be the same without him and won't be now. Already, we miss him. ... more
Posted: February 13 2011 at 7:46 AM
Kyle G.
I'm sure Clif is smiling a "way-sardonic smile" seeing the picture of B. Dolan where his should be on the friends' activity/popular tags ... more
Posted: February 13 2011 at 10:08 AM
Jason Notte
Clif took a chance on me when few other people were lining up for the opportunity. I knew him for only three years, but... more
Posted: February 13 2011 at 6:53 PM
rhea
He was good to me. He gave me some of my first freelance writing assignments when I was about 20. Thanks, Clif. RIP. ... more
Posted: February 14 2011 at 10:33 AM
Karen Bitter
Clif truly was an original, and I find myself quoting him still after all these years. "There's a light at the end of the... more
Posted: February 14 2011 at 11:11 AM
Mark Jurkowitz
Like a number of others here, Clif assigned and edited the first story I ever wrote as a journalist. And I think it can... more
Posted: February 14 2011 at 12:21 PM
Eva_b_w
Clif edited the hell out of my freelance assignments while simultaneously making me believe I could be a writer. Thank you, Clif.... more
Posted: February 14 2011 at 3:15 PM
Erica C
Thank you for showing me the ropes and telling me like it is...we'll miss you. All my love, Erica... more
Posted: February 15 2011 at 1:07 PM
Tory Carlson
Clif took a chance and gave me my first job out of college. Somehow thought that four years in a liberal arts ivory tower... more
Posted: February 16 2011 at 5:28 PM
Mark Edmonds
Few now probably remember when The Phoenix had a Worcester-area edition from '92-8 and Clif was the guy charged with quarterbacking The Phoenix's alt-media... more
Posted: February 20 2011 at 10:00 PM
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