‘Pronto?’ I lift the phone in our bedroom.
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Paolo
Tim Parks
‘My last glimpse of Paolo was on the platform at Verona station when I pointed him out to the police.’
Music
A Bleed of Blue
‘I had always thought that in Blue Joni had taught me about love, about being in love and losing it.’
Amy Key on Joni Mitchell’s seminal album, released fifty years ago in 1971.
Work, or the Swet Shop Boys
‘My work life – like, maybe, yours – is built around another, non-paying vocation.’
Hilary Plum on listening to the Swet Shop Boys while (not) working.
Shirley from a Small Place
‘The highs and lows of fame, have been far better and far worse than both mother and daughter could have hoped for.’
Fiction by Alexia Arthurs, inspired by Rihanna.
On M.I.A.
‘Only M.I.A. could juxtapose the tropes of bad diaspora poetry against the horrors of interrogation techniques and get away with it. For a while, at least. ’
Momtaza Mehri on M.I.A.
American Folk
First published in Granta 76: Music, an essay by Greil Marcus on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, which inspired the Grateful Dead, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan.
