'Worldly' editor
"[F]or all his patriotism, [William F.] Buckley is indifferent to American exceptionalism. Indeed, he is probably the most worldly American conservative since George Santayana. ... Buckley's first language was Spanish, which he learned from household servants. He did not speak English easily until he was 7 or 8. His famous prose style, with its ornate syntax and rococo vocabulary, conveys, at times, a subtle hint of 'foreignness,' like that of his friend Vladimir Nabokov. [. . .]

Complete review at following URL: http://www.calendarlive.com/music/la-wk-popbright22mar22,0,5049679.story?coll=cl-music

Chasing the ephemeral in wistful melodies


			Tragedy (Sam Erickson)

The music on Elvis Perkins' debut "Ash Wednesday" sounds like sorrow set to melody — which puts the singer-songwriter's ensemble in a tenuous position when presenting it live.

It's an attempt "just to hold on, really, to something invisible," Perkins says. "It's easy to get derailed by the turning of my own mind, and its distractions by what's going on in the minds of everyone else in the room. Sometimes I find it can be like being in the middle of an existential crisis."

[ ... ]

Filter in his musical influences, which include Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" and Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire," and you get the picture. Perkins possesses a hint of the Irish bard's ability to evoke sadness with soul and the Russian writer's love of the subtleties of language.

The trick, though, is to render it all into a shape someone else wants to hum. "I want a song to become what it wants to become, with my help — the way, I guess, good parenting works," he says. "I don't turn one away if it's ready to be born quickly. But they don't just fall out."

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Chasing the ephemeral in wistful melodies