In 1985, four young members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band traveled to the Soviet Union as tourists and met with refuseniks, most of them Jewish, who had applied to leave and were harassed, denied work, or wrongfully imprisoned. To encode vital...
Gene from the Badlands of South Dakota grew up hearing his grandmother’s temperance-flavored line, Cold water is the cup that cheers away, away the bowl. The clue is away the bowl, a refrain in abstinence songs and rhymes going back at least to the...
roast n.— «In musicians’ parlance, a “roast” refers to a particularly challenging gig. I am currently stuck in snowy Gatwick awaiting a plane to the Matterhorn, on the way to a prog-rock roast presided over by the...