The Song I Can't Stop Playing
Jazz has been quietly filed away for decades under 'easy listening' and 'older music.' Coltrane's Giant Steps is the answer to why that filing is wrong.
Before the Lights Came On
I flew to Boston with a cold in my throat, a room full of professional voices, and every reason to believe I did not belong there. Here is what I decided in the minute before I sang.
The One I Keep Thinking About
Severance found me at exactly the age when I most wanted to be seen and least wanted to be caught looking. Two years later, I still cannot get it out of my head.
The Quiet Win
Five friends said they would help. Most of them dropped out. I still raised $1,320 for the Red Cross before the summer ended, and almost nobody knows I did it.
What I Notice That Others Don't
Cy Twombly's paintings look, to most people, like the work of a bored child. Read them the way he drew them, sometimes in the dark, always in reference to something older, and they become almost impossible to look away from.
The Story Behind the Scoreboard
Three years of DECA, one carefully rehearsed pitch, and a judge who called my speech dull. Here is what all of it added up to, in the end.