bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood—

A lord of nature weeping to a tree.

I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What’s madness but nobility of soul

At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire! I know the purity of pure despair,

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall. That place among the rocks—is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!

A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon, And in broad day the midnight come again! A man goes far to find out what he is— Death of the self in a long, tearless night, All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.

My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?

A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.

The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

Out of the Sighs

Out of the sighs a little comes,

But not of grief, for I have knocked down that Before the agony; the spirit grows,

Forgets, and cries;

A little comes, is tasted and found good; All could not disappoint;

There must, be praised, some certainty, If not of loving well, then not,

And that is true after perpetual defeat.

After such fighting as the weakest know, There’s more than dying;

Lose the great pains or stuff the wound, He’ll ache too long

Through no regret of leaving woman waiting For her soldier stained with split words

That spill such acrid blood.

Were that enough, enough to ease the pain, Feeling regret when this is wasted

That made me happy in the sun, How much was happy while it lasted,

Were vagueness enough and the sweet lies plenty, The hollow words could bear all suffering

And cure me of ills.

Were that enough, bone, blood, and sinew, The twisted brain, the fair-formed loin, Groping for matter under the dog’s plate, Man should be cured of distemper.

For all there is to give I offer: Crumbs, barn, and halter.
James Schuyler (1923–1991)
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

The Payne Whitney Poems: What

What’s in those pills? After lunch and I can hardly keep my eyes open. Oh, for someone to talk small talk with.

Even a dog would do.

Why are they hammering iron outside? And what

is that generator whose fierce hum comes in the window? What is a poem, anyway.

The daffodils, the heather and the freesias all

speak to me. I speak back, like St. Francis and the wolf of Gubbio

The Payne Whitney Poems: Pastime

I pick up a loaded pen and twiddle it.

After the blizzard

cold days of shrinking snow. At visiting hours the cars below my window form up
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997)
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

from “Howl”

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating acrossthe tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night
Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

from “The Double Image”

1.

I am thirty this November.

You are still small, in your fourth year.

We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer, flapping in the winter rain,

falling flat and washed. And I remember mostly the three autumns you did not live here. They said I’d never get you back again.

I tell you what you’ll never really know:

all the medical hypothesis

that explained my brain will never be as true as these struck leaves letting go.

I, who chose two times

to kill myself, had said your nickname

the mewling months when you first came; until a fever rattled

in your throat and I moved like a pantomime

above your head. Ugly angers spoke to me. The blame,

I heard them say, was mine. They tattled like green witches in my head, letting doom leak like a broken faucet;

as if doom had flooded my belly and filled your bassinet, and old debt I must assume.

Death was simpler than I’d thought. The day life made you well and whole

I let the witches take away my guilty soul.

I pretended I was dead

until the white men pumped the poison out,

putting me armless and washed through the rigamarole of talking boxes and the electric bed.
Carl Wolfe Solomon (1928– )
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

Anti-Totalitarian Manifesto for Evergreen Review

(after 5 years of imprisonment for yelling at my mother)

Every psychiatrist is a prick. Literature and psychiatry are incompatible. These people are sophists.

Conrad believes in evil; Freud doesn’t. Freud is horwhit as Reich, his collaborator’s imprisonment in Lewisburg proves. Sullivan was a paranoid. Do I have to

pay these European refugee birds and their American competitors, the Sullivanians, to keep from being

put into a straitjacket, to keep from—Aw shit

they are keeping me in a bughouse accused of paranoia because I refuse to pay the pettifogging fucks. They are quacks. Admit it publicly. The handmaiden of timid librarians—10 years of these cocksuckers. Drop dead to every American Psychoanalytic Review. They’re just phonies. No Ginsberg isn’t mad.

Carl Solomon

And I’m not either. Long live infinity. Long live Ginsberg. Viennese prurient bourgeois crap.

Friendly reader in your other-directed household,

The “Irrational Man” is your friend. Join me in my

fight for freedom. Down with every mush-mouthed author who pays lip-service to an unproven “Science” with a

paraphenalia of worthless medicines and contraptions which cost lives—because it is stylish. It’s stylish

because they have loot and the patients don’t. It’s the new Gestapo. I never did nothing wrong. You read my article—so I like Isou and Artaud. Why the fuck am I

being held. I shit in your mouth. VIVE LAUTREAMONT. I’m just a nice boy. Why don’t you the American Public get

me out if it’s such a nice country?
Lucille Clifton (1936– )
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

shapeshifter poems

1

the legend is whispered in the women’s tent

how the moon when she rises full

follows some men into themselves and changes them there

the season is short

but dreadful shapeshifters they wear strange hands

they walk through the houses at night their daughters

do not know them

2

who is there to protect her from the hands of the father not the windows which see and say nothing not the moon that awful eye not the woman she will become with her

scarred tongue who who who the owl laments into the evening who

will protect her this prettylittlegirl

3

if the little girl lies still enough

shut enough hard enough

shapeshifter may not walk tonight
Quincy Troupe (1943– )
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

River Town Packin House Blues

Big Tom was a black nigguh man, cold & black,

eye say Big Tom was a black nigguh man, black steel flesh,

standin like a gladiator, soaked in animal blood, bits of flesh, wringin wet,

standin at the center of death,

buzzards hoverin, swingin his hammer called death,

260 workdays,

swingin his hammer named death

Big Tom was a black packin houseman, thirty years,

eye say Big Tom was a black packin houseman, loved them years,

& swang his hammer like ol John Henry poundin nails.

swang that hammer twenty years crushin skulls

of cows & pigs screamin fear

the man underneath slit their throats, twenty years,

the man underneath slit their throats

Big Tom was a ‘prentice for ten long years, watchin death,

eye say Big Tom was ‘prentice for ten long years, smellin death,

was helper to a fat white man, who got slow,

was helper to a fat white man,
Franz Wright (1953– )
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

Voice

I woke up at 4 in the afternoon. Rain woke me. Dark. Mail—a voice said, You’ll have mail,

scaring and gladdening my heart. Enough anyway to get me out of bed, attempt to make coffee, dress and begin limping down stairs. All

the boxes were empty. Of course. A voice said,

He just hasn’t come yet. But I knew. It is 4

in the afternoon—the others have already taken

the mail indoors. Hours ago. If this my box is empty now then it was always empty.

Rain. Darker

now. By the time I had walked, more or less, back up the stairs, the treacherous voice had nothing more to say.
Joe Bolton (1961–1990)
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

Laguna Beach Breakdown

You had come searching for a second chance, But trying to break through, merely broke down, Until at last any sense of purpose

Seemed nothing more than something else to lose. You let it go and, seeing no reason to mourn

What you could no longer name, kept silence Under the vast vacuum of a heaven.

Someone had nailed stars up to hold in place. You were hoping maybe a change of season

Might help, but there was none. You woke at dawn Shuddering in the indifferent embrace

Of your own arms, unable to turn or return, Dreaming of drowning, neutral as seaweed in the war The sea continually waged against the shore.
Brian Turner (1967– )
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

Eulogy

It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 a.m., as tower guards eat sandwiches

and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.

Prisoners tilt their heads to the west

though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them. The sound reverberates down concertina coils the way piano wire thrums when given slack. And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun, when Private Miller pulls the trigger

to take brass and fire into his mouth:

the sound lifts the birds up off the water,

a mongoose pauses under the orange trees, and nothing can stop it now, no matter what

blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices crackle over the radio in static confusion,

because if only for this moment the earth is stilled, and Private Miller has found what low hush there is down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.

PFC B. Miller (1980–March 22, 2003)
Ricky Cantor (1985– )
Authors: Bauer Mark S
Published: November 2023

E 9th Street

I’m from mental illnesses and corner bars and taking parts from stolen cars.

I’m from street fights at three thirty and ass whipping ‘til next morning.

I’m from a drunken father and a pissed off mother and was raised by my older sister and brother.

I’m from parents that are Mexican

and I’m ashamed to say that I’m American.

I’m from hard boiled eggs and government cheese oh, and did I mention ass beating.

I’m from joyrides at five

and a brother that loves to say access denied.

I’m from a little sister who’s worst than crazy and two little brothers that are fucking lazy.
Moral Issues about Animals
Authors: Beauchamp Tom L , Orlans F Barbara , Dresser Rebecca , Morton David B , Gluck John P
Published: November 2023

Humans use animals in a dazzling variety of ways. The fish and meat on the table for dinner come from farms, fish markets, and butchers. Many items of clothing are from the leather industry, the animal dye industry, and the fur trade. Circuses, zoos, and trained-animal fights (such as cockfights) are parts of the entertainment industry. Many cosmetics have been safety-tested on animals, and the pharmaceutical and chemical industries each year expend millions of research dollars on millions of animals in toxicological studies. Hunting and fishing are considered by many to be relaxing and pleasurable. Companion animals can reach to the level of “man’s best friend.” These examples touch little more than the surface of the human use of animals. All reflective persons find it difficult to determine precisely which of these uses of animals are morally justified and which are unjustified. Most of us are more than a little confused about how to make our moral views consistent. For example, we tend to be upset when we learn about abuses of and neglect of companion animals, but when we read fundamentally identical reports about the conditions of farm animals such as pigs and cattle, many simply regard these creatures as “animals
Veal Crates and Human Palates
Authors: Beauchamp Tom L , Orlans F Barbara , Dresser Rebecca , Morton David B , Gluck John P
Published: November 2023

On February 1, 1995, Coventry Airport in the United Kingdom was alive with animal welfare campaigners protesting the transport of very young calves to Europe to be reared for veal. The animal protesters were of all ages and backgrounds, even old-age pensioners. Some watched animal rights protester Jill Phipps try to block the path of a large transport truck by running alongside it and finally cutting in front of the truck and raising her hands. To their horror, she slipped and was crushed to death as the wheels ran over her chest and stomach. Just before her death she had said in an interview, “We will continue even if someone gets hurt. Someone will eventually be hurt.”1 This 31-year-old mother became a martyr for her cause. Representatives of many animal rights and animal welfare organizations attended her funeral some weeks later. The movie star and veteran animal rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot flew from France to attend the ceremony. The issue of veal crates has perhaps caught the attention of more persons than any other animal welfare issue in recent times. According to a senior police officer, on the force for more than 37 years, the protests in the United Kingdom were at a new level. He had never seen so many people, from such diverse backgrounds, unite on an issue. It had brought together “vegans [strict vegetarians] and villagers, grandmothers and mothers, animal rights and pensioners in a campaign of civil unrest.”
The Sport of Rooster Fighting
Authors: Beauchamp Tom L , Orlans F Barbara , Dresser Rebecca , Morton David B , Gluck John P
Published: November 2023

A young teacher in the midst of a separation from his common-law wife and reflecting on deep questions about his own recent conversion to Christianity was offered the opportunity to rest at a friend’s villa in Italy. He invited a small group of his students to accompany him to the villa to continue their work. He held daily seminar discussions that ranged widely. The core focus was on the works of the Latin poet Virgil, especially the meaning of evil and cruelty in a world presumably created by a benevolent God. One morning, as the group was proceeding to its place of study, members observed two barnyard roosters spoiling for a fight. They stopped and watched with fascination as the fight commenced and took a violent turn. They remained absolutely transfixed by the encounter until it was settled. Later, the teacher reflected on the nature of the episode’s fascination and its relationship to the larger question of the place of cruelty and pain in the world. Some of the questions he raised and discussed with his students included:
Monkeys without Mothers
Authors: Beauchamp Tom L , Orlans F Barbara , Dresser Rebecca , Morton David B , Gluck John P
Published: November 2023

Following approximately a six-month gestational period, a pregnant female rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta) begins to show evidence of the imminent birth of her infant. If she lives in a “natural” environment such as a forest in Southeast Asia, she starts to change her usual activity patterns and may move away from the typical social pathways of her group to more secluded and quieter parts of the environment. Her group likely comprises many other adult females, males, and immature animals of varying ages and temperaments. As the time of birth nears, she shows evidence of labor by hunching, squatting, leaning on vertical surfaces, and touching her vagina frequently. As the labor progresses, the placental sac ruptures and the head of the infant eventually emerges from the birth canal. The mother then reaches between her legs with both hands, carefully grasps the head of the baby with her fingertips, makes a gentle bending movement to the right or left and then firmly pulls the infant free. She immediately places the newborn on her chest.The rhesus monkey infant is born equipped with strong grasping, rooting, and sucking reflexes that help to secure the infant to the mother and help it to locate the nipples and to suckle.
The Experimental Study of Animal Aggression
Authors: Beauchamp Tom L , Orlans F Barbara , Dresser Rebecca , Morton David B , Gluck John P
Published: November 2023

Can aggression be studied in an ethical manner? Aggression is a behavior found almost universally in the animal kingdom. It is defined as a hostile act that poses a threat to another creature. It is exhibited in many ways, including threatening body movements, vocalization, fighting, wounding and inflicting pain, sexual attack, and killing. Commonly, animals act aggressively to exclude others from their territory, to capture food, or to control populations. Displays of aggression are influenced by age (newborns and infants below a certain age do not show aggression), by the physical environment, by previous social experience, and by the aggression level in a particular community. One manifestation of aggression is infanticide—the killing of infants by adults. It occurs in several species of animal. Human infanticide is practiced in several cultures to control population, to favor the birth of a particular sex (usually male), and in waging war. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, biologists reported anecdotal observations of infanticide in both male and female wild animals.
Prologue “Cant Matter”
Authors: Weinstein Philip
Published: November 2023

Because you make so little impression, you see. You get born and you try this and you dont know why only you keep on trying it and you are born at the same time with a lot of other people, all mixed up with them, like trying to, having to, move your arms and legs with strings only the same strings are hitched to all the other arms and legs . . . like five or six people all trying to make a rug on the same loom only each one wants to weave his own pattern into the rug; and it cant matter, you know that, or the Ones that set up the loom would have arranged things a little better.
Untimely
Authors: Weinstein Philip
Published: November 2023

They both were desperate as 1918 arrived and the likelihood of Estelle’s marriage with Cornell Franklin loomed unavoidable. Neither wanted it to happen, but it seemed to approach with a logic and momentum they could not counter. To the outward eye, Franklin was as appealing a candidate for marriage as Faulkner was not. Handsome, ambitious, the son of an established Southern family, he had graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1913, covered with honors. President of his class, captain of the track team, he was the most notable of the suitors the precocious Estelle attracted. He took her to the glamorous college parties she was otherwise too young to attend, and he may have spoken of a future they might share. Since older boys had been buzzing around her and saying similar things for years now, she knew that such chatter went with the pleasures of the chase. It augured little. When her parents sent her off to Mary Baldwin College that same year—to get a proper “finishing” to her education—she hardly thought of Franklin as a future husband. Her bond with Faulkner was deeper—something she unthinkingly drew on as a talisman that would protect her from the consequences of her own flirtations. For his part, Franklin hardly knew that Faulkner existed. Finishing law school at the university in 1914, Franklin headed to Honolulu, where family connections had secured him the post of collector of the port. His career was all before him and already on the rise. He knew that when the time came, Estelle would be the right partner to share it with him.
“When de Saints Go Ma ‘chin’ Home”: Sterling Brown’s Blueprint for a New Negro Poetry
Authors: Stepto Robert Burns
Published: November 2023

Perhaps it is fitting in celebrating Sterling Brown’s eightieth birthday and career of great achievement to turn once again to his first published poem, “When de Saints Go Ma’ching Home.”It is a Big Boy Davis poem—”the guitar-plunking” singer of marching saints is Big Boy—and it is the only “Big Boy” poem specifi- cally dedicated to him.The dedication reads: Such a dedication has a way of bringing a smile to our lips; so much is afoot here in what is, for Brown, a typically mischievous way. Obviously, Big Boy was a character, a roustabout, a “terribly unemployed dude” as Toni Morrison would remark. Evidently, however, he was much more than a colorful vagrant in the eyes of some, those folks including Sterling Brown, the author and persona. While Brown appreciates and often reveres the “characters” in our shops and churches, neighborhoods and towns, and while he often writes about them, he rarely if ever dedicates poems to them.
“Game to the Heart”: Sterling Brown and the Badman
Authors: O’Meally Robert G
Published: November 2023

Janie in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God agrees with Tea Cake that blacks are subject to quick and easy classification by whites: “De ones de white man know is nice colored folks. De ones he don’t know is bad niggers.”Nor has this subtle classification strategy been limited to the late 1920s South Florida of that novel’s setting. Instead it seems to have been an enduring American system, documented in the literature of the slave trade and in the execution narratives, as early as the eighteenth century. In these latter, a disproportionate number of the gallows narrators were black, and their grueling stories were popular among whites, perhaps because of what Ralph Ellison has described as a willingness, on the part of many whites, to project.
Authenticity and Elevation: Sterling Brown’s Theory of the Blues
Authors: Thomas Lorenzo
Published: November 2023

Every poet must confront a serious problem: how to reconcile one’s private preoccupations with the need to make poetry that is both accessible and useful to others. A failure in this area does not, of course, prevent the production of poems. Indeed, some poems—like many of T. S. Eliot’s—may be records of this struggle, while others have the disturbingly eloquent beauty of Church testifying or 12-step program witness. One manner of reconciliation is an embrace of what may be called tradition, but even this is problematic.
Sterling Brown’s Southern Strategy:Poetry as Cultural Evolution in Southern Road
Authors: Anderson David R
Published: November 2023

With the publication of Southern Road in 1932, Sterling Brown portrayed, and sought to address, what he perceived to be a profound cultural crisis facing African Americans: the gradual disappearance of their rural cultures as they entered the urban, industrialized economies of the North and South, and their consequent loss of autonomous art. Brown especially feared the loss of folk- lore, which he believed helped African American culture renew itself, not only by preserving and strengthening traditions and social practices, but also by serving as a conduit through which individuals devised and communicated new strategies for surviving racial oppression. Once African Americans moved to urban areas, Brown believed that they would no longer produce songs and stories reflecting their communities’ needs and interests and, accordingly, would no longer devise and communicate new strategies for survival. Instead, he feared they would passively consume a bigoted popular culture, or worse yet, be co-opted into producing art that pandered to the economic demands and stereotypes of the dominant culture.
An Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Sterling A. Brown
Authors: O’Meally Robert G
Published: November 2023

Sterling A. Brown is a distinguished writer whose poems, short stories, reviews, and scholarly works have appeared for nearly more than fifty years. His poetry reflects the innovative impulse of contemporary verse as well as the toughness, humor, and protest of black American folklore. His reportorial narratives and sketches of the Southern scene are alive with black talk, and they convey vividly the terror and the irony of “living Jim Crow” during the 1940s. Brown has studied the role of blacks in American folklore, literature, and music since the New Negro Renaissance period. His work also has provided perspective to New New Negroes, including Black Aesthetic writers of the 1960s and 1970s.
Late Summer Harvest
Authors: Velde Lea Vander
Published: November 2023

Another couple asked the agent to marry them in late July. The bride was the eldest daughter of a man named Perry, whose family members were early refugees from the failed utopian community founded by Lord Selkirk on the Red River in Canada, to the north and west. Ten years earlier, when the first refugees had arrived from the Red River, dragging their possessions across the plains, the fort commandant had taken pity on them and allowed them to build cabins and remain, even though the environs were supposed to be a military reserve. Over the intervening decade, a cluster of cabins had been built near the Coldwater Spring, a few miles from the fort. Old man Perry, Abraham Perry, who maintained a large herd of cattle, was regarded as a patriarchal figure in the settlement.
Battles and Baptisms
Authors: Velde Lea Vander
Published: November 2023

Even as the Ojibwa prepared to depart, more Indians arrived. The numbers of Sioux at the agency doubled as western bands came in expectation of their annuities. In total, more than 2,000 Indians, 846 Ojibwa, and 1,250 Sioux now camped on the plateau. Those chiefs who brought along their horses raced them back and forth through the tent city to demonstrate their prowess. Chief Strong Ground was thrown from his horse and bled considerably, requiring Dr. Emerson to bind his wounds.
The Peer Scene
Authors: Nathan Amy
Published: November 2023

Making great new friends is one of the best parts of playing an instrument. But, as with any activity, you’re bound to run into a few kids who get on your nerves. Our teen advisors have met their share of pesky players, such as the know-it-alls who boast about their so-called skills while dumping on other people’s playing. Also annoying are chatterboxes who talk through rehearsals, blasters who play too loud, stand hogs who set up a shared stand so only they can see the music, and jabbers who poke you with their bows (or flutes or trombone slides). Here’s how our experts survive. “Mostly, I ignore critical kids. They stop when they see you don’t react,” advises Allison, a horn player. Matthew, a double bass player, agrees, “Ignore them. Think about your part.” Pros use the same tactics. “When I was a kid, other kids tried to bother me and sometimes really got me down,” remembers cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio. “I just tried to focus on the music. I also kept a little bit off to myself so I wouldn’t get sucked into any of that.” Pro hornist Daniel Katzen advises, “Learn to cut away from those that detract from you and make friends with people who treat you well.” “I try not to let it bother me. It’s a shame
Gear Up
Authors: Nathan Amy
Published: November 2023

Even the best musician can be undone by poor equipment. Our advisors tell how to hunt down a super instrument, what to do if it starts giving you aches and pains, how to make the most of high-tech electronic gear that can help musicians, plus how to make pesky music books stay open to the right page. “A good way to find an instrument is to get advice first from music teachers or from older, more experienced players,” advises Rachel, a violinist. That’s a wise move whether you rent, buy, or borrow an instrument. Learning to play is tricky enough without struggling with troublesome gear. All those shiny instruments in a store seem wonderful, but some may be duds. A teacher or other expert can help point you toward brands, models, and sizes that will work best for you. Many of our teen advisors have a teacher try an instrument before deciding on it—a good plan to follow whenever possible. Teacher advice can also help with extras, such as a music stand, or that all-important time machine, a metronome.
Oaths, Honor, and the Sacred Foundations of Authority
Authors: Walton Charles
Published: November 2023

On the morning of October 21, 1790, the comte de Mirabeau thundered at the podium in the National Assembly. Debate concerned a measure that would require the French Navy to raise the revolutionary tricolor flag instead of the traditional white one. In arguing for the revolutionary ensign, Mirabeau excoriated the opposition in terms that amounted to an accusation of treason.
An Introduction: What is Collaboration Anyway?
Authors: Katz Martin
Published: November 2023

During my high school and college years, and indeed until very recently, I called myself an accompanist and never thought a thing about it. To me, it described everything I do. Nowadays, however, the word “accompanist” has been almost universally replaced. The old title seems to strike many as pejorative, demeaning, or indicative of a lack of self-esteem; as a result, a different word for this specialized art has come into common usage today: collaborative pianist. I still do what I always did, but now, instead of misspelling accompanist (accompianist or acompianist), people can trip over “collaborative” (how many l’s and how many b’s are there anyway?). The Latin roots of this word are patently obvious; “with” and “work” are found in equal measure here, and indeed, as collaborators, we work with others. As the reader will come to see, we are speaking of the largest meanings of both these root words.
Odds and Ends
Authors: Katz Martin
Published: November 2023

Most of the miscellany in this chapter are mechanical, technical, or procedural issues, but that is not at all to suggest that they are insignificant. Quite the opposite, actually. Paying attention to such details cannot make a performance excellent, but ignoring them or adopting a careless or casual attitude about them can certainly spoil the experience for everyone.
Role Play: The Four Angles of Arts Learning
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

How did you organize your answer to that delicious question? Did you start thinking about the genres of music you would like a young person to know about and enjoy? Perhaps you thought about a series of instruments you would like every kid to learn to play. Maybe you even thought about taking that child to live performances of many kinds of music. Whatever your answer, it was based on your experience of coming into music—including what worked for you and compensating for what was missing.
How to Succeed in School Environments
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

Got a gig in a school? Suspend your expectations of the norms. Both the goods we deliver and the realities of school environments dictate that we think and function differently there. You may find after-school situations different than school-day norms—many teaching artists prefer the extra time, relief from curricular demands, and self-selection of participating students in after-school programs, finding it easier to manage and succeed within such programs. Since there is so much variety in after-school programs, we will focus on the usually more challenging in-school setting to establish realistic expectations. These suggestions apply to all school settings but may be less crucial in after-school workshops. If you can succeed in the school-day realities, you are definitely going to succeed in afterschool hours.
Getting Schooled on School Performances
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

Agreed: the fi eld of teaching artists is disorganized, making it hard to learn how to create effective, original education/youth/family concerts—let’s refer to them as e/y/f concerts. To reap the benefits of being a skilled e/y/f presenter, take an honest look at your offerings. Even ensembles that feel adept at the e/y/f game always have the challenge of getting better. And did I say benefits? Yes, both tangible (more bookings, financial viability, responsive audiences) and intangible (building future audiences, exploring deeper ways to share your artistry, enriching your understanding of the purposes and pleasures of music).
The Dos and Don’ts of Assessment
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

As we did in chapter 15 to tease out embedded preconceptions about education programs, I invited a roomful of musicians to play a freeassociation game with me. I would say one word, and they would respond with the first words that came to mind. We warmed up with my saying, “Recess.” They hollered out responses like “Playground,” “Dodgeball,” “Cliques,” “Fights,” “Escape,” “Outdoors,” “Running,” “Friends,” and even “Alcove in a wall.” There’s one in every group.
Speak Up or Shut Up? Using Words in a Performance
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, I am going to argue that the actual answer is not always so obvious. If that viola player can pull it off, then I, sitting there in row D, want her notes and her words, because together they can take me further into Opus 131—and I will go home the happier for the combination.
The Essential Educational Entrepreneur
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

Earlier (see chapter 9), I mentioned the first-time conference of leaders of major American conservatories and arts service organizations (Chamber Music America, League of American Orchestras, Theatre Communications Group, and others) in 2002. I facilitated and helped design the conference, which was titled “Preparing 21st Century Artists.” I can tell you that with a topic that complex, the participants didn’t reach quick consensus or hammer out a tidy three-point plan. Rather, they grappled with the messy realities of today’s arts environment, considered many trends demanding change, and began to distill priorities for the future.
They Take the High Road
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

How is this possible?” I asked myself. Nine high school students from a rural Scottish town—average kids learning about music, not hardcore music geeks—were having their compositions performed by a quartet from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, live on national BBC radio. The students had worked with composer-educator Alasdair Nicolson and four instrumentalists (flute, violin, viola, bass) for just three days. The short pieces, including one called “Ode to Procrastination,” were all better than the best student compositions I have heard in ambitious school compositions programs in the United States. The professional performers took the kids’ pieces seriously; twice they asked to play a work again because they felt they hadn’t done it justice. And this was just the first hour of the “Music and the New Musicians” conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2006—three days that, to my mind, firmly planted Scotland as a world leader in connecting professional musicians and learners; three days that expanded my sense of the possible.
The Planet Gets It Together for the First Time
Authors: Booth Eric
Published: November 2023

The many separate worlds of arts education began to grow into one community during four days in Lisbon in March 2006. Twelve hundred arts education leaders from ninety-seven countries were invited to Portugal to attend the first-ever worldwide arts education conference, sponsored by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The United States had about forty people in attendance. Because the sole representative from the African country of Niger could get no funding support from his government, he sold his car to attend and to learn what the world knew about the present and future of arts education.
Simultaneous Capacity and Mental Bandwidth
Authors: Klingberg Torkel
Published: November 2023

Multi-tasking has long been a well-known strategy adopted by the overperforming and the impatient for getting more things done more quickly. Some simultaneous tasks, such as shaving while having breakfast, are difficult for motor reasons. Others, such as reading a map while driving, can be difficult because we can take in information from only one source and direct our gaze to only one thing at a time. Yet others are difficult to do simultaneously because they require the similar processing of information somewhere between input and output, between stimulus and response. In many cases, both tasks put demands on working memory. According to Michael Posner, the results of numerous studies in this field can be reduced, rather simplistically, to the graph in Figure 6.1. According to this model, performance will always lie somewhere along this curve.
Wallace’s Paradox
Authors: Klingberg Torkel
Published: November 2023

In 1858, Charles Darwin received a letter from a young explorer named Alfred R. Wallace. In it, Wallace described an idea about the origin of species that he had developed completely independently of Darwin while he lay in a malarial fever on a small island in the Malaysian archipelago. Darwin was shocked at the similarity with his own as yet unpublished theories, and the letter made him hasten the publication of his own manuscript, which came out the following year. Wallace and Darwin were to exchange their thoughts on evolution for several years. In many respects, their opinions were the same, but they also disagreed on certain points of theory; most notably, Wallace could never accept any principle other than adaptivity—which is to say that evolution is driven by the optimal adaptation of species to their surroundings for their survival.
Neurocognitive Enhancement
Authors: Klingberg Torkel
Published: November 2023

So the Flynn effect reflects how general intelligence is progressively increasing with time. Will this trend continue, with the growing demands of our environment matched by our equally expanding capacity? Will scientists be able to use our knowledge of the brain to boost its capacity further? In the introduction to this book, I cited an article by some neuroscientists who claimed that “humanity’s ability to alter its own brain function might well shape history as powerfully as the development of metallurgy in the Iron Age.” The authors aimed to identify a trend of neurocognitive enhancement and to provoke discussion on a number of related issues. Neurocognitive enhancement denotes the use of existing and potential techniques, such as braincomputer interaction, neurosurgery, and psychopharmacology, to exploit the brain’s capacity for change.
The Information Flood and Flow
Authors: Klingberg Torkel
Published: November 2023

When you are trying to listen to the newscaster on CNN while reading the news ticker showing share prices at the bottom of the screen, your subjective feeling may well be that you are teetering on the threshold of your ability to digest information. Your brain is being inundated. If we analyze the situation through the lens of the concept of working memory, we find that your feelings are matched by something quantifiable: the simultaneous inflow of two streams of information is extremely demanding on working memory. Certain parts of your frontal and parietal lobes are imposing a limit on how much information you can assimilate. When you try to read a complicated article on the Internet while ignoring the advertisements playing out at the edge of your visual field, you are confronted with a distraction task that places a heavy load on your working memory. When you use the help function in Word, you will likely have to read each instruction several times to assimilate all the information with which your working memory is being overburdened.
Reed Construction
Authors: Schuring Martin
Published: November 2023

Reed making preoccupies oboe players more than players of any other reed instrument. The complex construction and short life of oboe reeds combine to mandate daily attention to the craft of reed making. The steep learning curve for reed making frustrates oboists of all levels. The following thoughts and comments should help to reduce confusion and open some new doors. If you have never made a reed, find a teacher. Otherwise, continue reading. Before we begin, it is most important to understand that reed making is a craft governed by fairly consistent principles. It is not a black art; it is not swayed by astrological forecasts; it does not require even the smaller, less severe ritual sacrifices to the reed gods. It is a complex craft, and like anything else that you might wish to master, it will require years of careful work and study. But it will eventually become a consistent, logical activity that functions almost completely under your control.
On The Translation
Authors: Shapiro Alan , Burian Peter
Published: November 2023

Down three games to zero in the 2004 American League Championship best-of-seven series, the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees four straight times to win the Pennant. The Red Sox became the first team in any sport to win a series after losing the first three games. When asked how they overcame that deficit, Terry Francona, the Boston manager, said they tried to narrow their focus from winning the series, or even winning each game, to winning each inning, each at bat, each pitch. By breaking down the series into games, the games into innings, and the innings into at bats and pitches, the BoSox established small, achievable goals. As a result, he said, they were never overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge they faced.

Francona’s strategy aptly describes how I went about translating The Trojan Women. First of all, I had to forget who it was I was translating. I had to forget that Euripides is one of the greatest poet/playwrights who ever lived, and that of all the surviving tragedies, The Trojan Women is perhaps the purest, and most heart-wrenching expression of the tragic spirit—undeserved and unredemptive suffering.
. . . And from Time to Time Its Surface Moves Around
Authors: Officer Charles , Page Jake
Published: November 2023

Well water grew turbid and hibernating snakes took up their warm weather rounds. Groundwater levels rose and fell. Radon levels changed radically and sensors showed that the ground was tilting. Domestic animals behaved strangely. A report notes that “pigs bit each other and tried to run up walls, cows fought each other and pawed the ground, deer ran away, turtles were seen to jump out of the water and to make noise, and a hen was seen to fly to a tree top.”

This took place in Liaoning Province in northeastern China in early February 1975. Earlier, in January, the Earthquake Research Branch of the provincial government had predicted that a major earthquake would occur in the region that month or the following month. A massive quake had occurred in nearby Bo Hai in 1969, and Liaoning Province had been laced with monitoring devices in the intervening years.

By late January, the signs were growing more intense. Some wells stopped flowing altogether; others spouted water. The electrical conductivity of the ground itself changed. All of these signs were considered earthquake “precursor anomalies.” The most important of them all was a swarm of small tremors, or foreshocks, that were first sensed on February 1, and continued with increasing frequency and magnitude over the next three days, reaching a peak on February 4.
The Jewish Question and Political Liberalism
Authors: Rowland Lewis P
Published: November 2023

George Humphreys, a surgeon at Columbia, stated that both Putnam and his wife were political liberals, which was one cause of Charles Cooper’s enmity. Putnam himself attributed the animosity to his refusal to fire the Jewish neurologists on his staff. The political and religious issues overlap, and there is little documentation in the records of either Columbia University medical school or the Presbyterian Hospital. The Nazi-Soviet Peace Pact was signed on August 23, 1939. The alliance of these archenemies confused supporters on both sides. On September 1, the Germans invaded Poland. American reaction to these events was mixed; the opposing views were not “right” and “left” but rather “pro-” and “anti-interventionalist.” The “antis” were sometimes called “isolationists.” The differences were based on either a person’s views about helping Britain and France, targets of the pact, or the possibility that World War II might commence.2 People of diverse political persuasions found themselves on the same side with political enemies.
Putnam Establishes Basic and Translational Neuroscience at Columbia
Authors: Rowland Lewis P
Published: November 2023

Before Putnam arrived in 1939, there had been some neuroscience research at Columbia but not much. However, Putnam’s faculty appointments, conversely, led in a direct line from Harry Grundfest to Nobelists Eric Kandel and Richard Axel, from Fred Mettler to Malcolm Carpenter in neuroanatomy, from Putnam’s own work on multiple sclerosis to Elvin Kabat and, later, to patient-oriented research in the Department of Neurology for a panoply of human disorders: epilepsy, neuromuscular disease, Mendelian and mitochondrial genetic diseases, epidemiological studies of dementia and cerebrovascular disease, and child neurology. For a while, however, all neuroscience in the entire university was in Putnam’s Department of Neurology. Before Putnam, Tilney and Riley had produced The Brain from Ape to Man and a widely used anatomical atlas of the human brain and spinal cord,1a but the Department of Neurology had not carried out much disease-oriented research, in stark contrast to the epilepsy progress seen at the Boston City Hospital.
Merritt Moves to New York: Montefiore and Columbia— Another Tale of Two Hospitals
Authors: Rowland Lewis P
Published: November 2023

Montefiore Hospital sits on Gun Hill Road and 210th Street in an unfashionable area of the Bronx, a borough of New York City. The hospital opened there in 1913, but it originated in Manhattan as the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids in 1884. The physician who transformed the institution from one restricted to chronic care to a modern all-purpose hospital was Ernst Boas, son of Franz Boas, the famed anthropologist. Ernst himself was a cardiologist, ardent proponent of national health insurance for all, founder of Physician’s Forum, and a straight-talker. About Charles Elsberg, one the most famous neurosurgeons of the day, Boas said, “Elsberg especially causes many difficulties. There is nothing we can do with him and I am afraid we shall have to get rid of him.” Elsberg was also chief of Neurosurgery at the Neurological Institute at about the same time.
Merritt’s Last Days
Authors: Rowland Lewis P
Published: November 2023

Houston Merritt was famous among neurologists for many achievements; none was respected more than his monograph on the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). A disorder of CSF circulation may have killed him indirectly, and the irony was compounded because he had long doubted the validity of that particular diagnosis, which is called “normal pressure hydrocephalus” (NPH).