Neil Sedaka was so talented, and he inspired me to follow my dream of being a songwriter. With love and gratitude and condolences to his family. www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-...

Someone should 100% write a TV series about Neil Sedaka, Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow & Carole King growing up at the same neighborhood in Brooklyn

"Growing up in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, he displayed a musical talent so obvious that his second grade teacher encouraged his parents to get him a piano. His mother took a job at a department store to help raise $500 for a secondhand upright." (gift article) #MusicSky

“If there were a Hall of Fame for book publishing, Ann would be voted in on the first ballot.” (gift article) #BookSky #Books #Publishing

Brave guy

I'm just a guy, holding my book, asking you to love it. COUNT THE DUST is available in ebook and paperback from @leftoverbooks.bsky.social: a.co/d/05djMDK0

"Nobody wants to take a risk—but (as I’ve learned through painful personal experience) that’s often the riskiest move of them all. Live by the formula, and you die by the formula." #BookSky #Books #Publishing

“It’s been a trend in this country to suppress any kind of expression that’s going against what this administration is doing to civilians and this regime that’s been harming and murdering people.”

Pritzker’s invoice to White House: (via @nbcnews.com) @govpritzker.illinois.gov

“Somebody once said that the best life in the world is the life of a second leading man,” Mr. Duvall told The Times. “You travel, you get a per diem, and you’ve probably got a better part anyway.” (gift article)

"A member of Nashville’s A-Team of first-call session musicians, Mr. Kennedy appeared on several tracks on Bob Dylan’s 'Blonde On Blonde' while also unleashing the ferocious guitar solo that opens Mr. Orbison’s 'Oh, Pretty Woman.'” (gift article) #MusicSky

🎯

"There is the bitter irony to consider that this literary erasure was done by the man who owns the largest bookselling entity on earth." #BooksSky #Books

"Empathy isn’t just about being nice. It’s a superpower that helps children predict behavior and navigate social situations safely. It makes them better at reading faces and emotional cues." #BookSky #Books #Reading

"Today’s playlist is a baker’s dozen of tracks on which Black artists reinterpret, revise, and reimagine the Beatles." #BlackHistoryMonth #MusicSky (gift article)

Today's Tune: Carole King BEEN TO CANAAN (with an assist from J.T.) youtu.be/dBuXb13oRMY?...

This is absolutely insane. The sort of Kafka-esque nightmare you would find in a Philip K Dick book set far in the dystopian future. A window on America tumbling into autocracy. www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

One of the greatest composers in pop history, Carole King (born Carole Klein) turns 84 today. She wrote or co-wrote such hits as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Up on the Roof" & this number, one more song about movin' along the highway. youtu.be/zBMGovfHccI?...

"Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin joined Bad Bunny in the first halftime show that was performed mostly in Spanish. His appearance had become a political flashpoint amid his criticism of ICE." (gift article) #MusicSky

"It is remarkable, even miraculous, that people who possess the most addictive devices ever invented will occasionally choose to turn those devices off and pick up a book instead." #BookSky

"It seems the president really did think he could just remake the Kennedy Center in his own trashy image, and that people would, like zombies, continue to book shows and buy tickets there. Instead, he got his stink all over the place, and now no one wants to be associated with it."

It's not the National Prayer Breakfast. It's a fascist pep rally.

Today's Tune: Dar Williams FEBRUARY youtu.be/GDgOc3gMtFk?... The nights were long and cold and scary Can we live through February? #MusicSky

The least cynical explanation is that Bezos simply isn’t paying attention. Maybe he was charmed by Lewis’s British accent and studied loucheness that mask an emperor whose bespoke threads are no clothes at all. Or maybe, as many of us who deeply love the Post fear, the decimation the*is* plan.

During McLemore’s tenure with The 5th Dimension, the group twice won record of the year Grammy Awards for “Up, Up and Away” and “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures),” the latter of which spent 6 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100. #MusicSky

From sun-soaked harmonies to confessional folk, these 17 classic Laurel Canyon albums defined a countercultural golden age. #MusicSky

“President Trump says his favorite word is ‘tariffs.’ My favorite word is ‘public’ — public schools, public service, public parks, public universities, public libraries, public health... Many Americans want to strengthen the public institutions, not to rename them all 'Trump.'” (gift article)

So much for 2A…

Corruption much? (gift article)

A reminder that the Kennedy Center is the literal and legal and congressional designated presidential memorial to JFK. This would be like Trump tearing down the Lincoln Memorial to build something “better.”

The president’s announcement comes as the nation’s preeminent performing arts center contends with a flood of cancellations that began soon after the board added the president’s name to the complex.

"There is something about the physicality of doing that, the ritual of doing that, which helps them collect their thoughts in a busy, fractured kind of world."

“It shows that the United States is still unwilling to reckon with the horrors of its past and would rather prefer to sanitize the history that it has and try to present a convenient lie.” – Timothy Welbeck, director of Temple University’s Center for Anti-Racism

English professors double down on requiring printed copies of readings. “When you read a book or a printed course packet, you turn real pages instead of scrolling, so you have a different, more direct, and (I think) more focused relationship with the words.”

Let's do this! #ICEout

Fun article about the writing of "Take it to the Limit." Inspiration came following a night at The Troubador in W. Hollywood. Any of my fellow #music lovers see a show @ this iconic room when so many greats were cutting their teethi? How a Night Partying at the Troubadour Led Randy Meisner to...

"FIRE & RAIN endures because Taylor refused to tie it up with a bow. There's no redemption arc, no lesson learned, no triumph over adversity. The song just ends." #MusicSky

"In a blistering opinion, Judge Fred Biery of Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas condemned 'the perfidious lust for unbridled power' and 'the imposition of cruelty.'” (gift article)

"Moira Rose will be remembered for her wildly fluctuating accent, outlandish fashion sense, and brilliant one-liners. (A personal favourite: "Never assume, Twyla, because when you assume, it makes an ass out of... both of us.")"

“I’m always drawn to characters who have no idea of the impression they’re making on other people,” she said in 2021. “We’re all delusional, really, and I love that about us humans and I love playing it.”

“They thought Ozzy and I would just end up in the toilet. It was really about getting up every day and showing everyone: F–k you, this is what we’re going to do. I never took no for an answer.” #MusicSky

Today's Tune: Bruce Springsteen STREETS OF MINNEAPOLIS youtu.be/wWKSoxG1K7w?... #MusicSky #IceOut

"Glass informed the Kennedy Center that he did not want his symphony, based on Lincoln’s 1838 Lyceum Address, performed on its stage. “Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the symphony,” (gift article)

“Pity the Nation”

I wrote a TNY Take about Jane Kramer’s The Founding Cadre, a reported piece from 1970 in which Kramer embedded with a radical feminist CR group for nearly a year— which ended up getting published using pseudonyms, bc the editors found the topic too alarming: www.newyorker.com/magazine/tak...

"If you are sickened by what you saw this weekend — say that. Out loud. And don't qualify it with "both sides" framing — just say that the thing you saw, with your own eyes, is appalling."

Today's Tune: Buffalo Springfield FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH youtu.be/gp5JCrSXkJY?...

Wistful memory www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRF3...

Today's Tune: Katie Pruitt OUT OF THE BLUE youtu.be/kUYguQagCNU?... #MusicSky