April Lindner

One of the highlights of spring 2015 was a visit by my old friend and collaborator  Gerry LaFemina .  Gerry read from his poetry and fiction for a rapt crowd of students at Saint Joseph's University  and he answered our many questions about his life as a writer, an advocate for poetry, and a punk rocker. Gerry also treated us to a preview of his latest project--one that's especially thrilling to a poet-slash-music enthusiast like myself. Yes, that's Gerry on the cover! The first in a projected series of anthologies inspired by classic albums, Clash By Night gathers poems responding to specific songs on The Clash's seminal album  London Calling .  For instance, this classic-- --which inspired this poem by George Yatchisin: Clampdown It wasn't the socialism--I had the Gang of Four for that. Plus who doesn't want  to chuck work, especially when there's rock 'n' roll, a chance to chant with our chosen likeminded young ...

Sound check on the Mall No, I'm not in D.C.  I'm in bed, watching the Concert for Valor on t.v., thinking with gratitude of the veterans I've known. First and foremost, my Dad, Edward Lindner, who served in World War II, at first in the Engineers' Corps, then in the big Red One, and finally as a sergeant in Company L, 16th Infantry Regiment, guarding prisoners in Hammelburg, Germany.   Though he was a man of (very) few words, he did speak once or twice to me about his time in the army--of creamed chipped beef on toast (which he liked), of how much he enjoyed seeing Europe while on leave--Scotland, England, France, even Italy.  He never spoke about combat, though--not even to my mother. I wish I'd asked him to tell me more about those days when I had the chance. Souvenirs Thank you to all veterans for your service.

Though my favorite hobby is taking off to Asbury Park at a moment's notice to catch a show at the Stone Pony or Asbury Lanes or the Wonder Bar, I've always felt like something of a poser when it comes to the Jersey Shore Music Scene.   Why? Because I'm a relative newcomer to the scene.  Because I have never actually lived in Jersey or even summered on the Shore.  And, most of all, because I've never seen Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Until a few weeks ago, that is. Southside and the Jukes played the Ardmore Music Hall, a quirky little venue just fifteen minutes from our house, and this time we were there, in the front row.   Everything about the show was fun and so familiar to anyone who loves the Asbury Scene, probably because Southside IS the scene.  He was one of the handful who helped invent it.  Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny (photo courtesy of Billy Smith and BruceBase ) To anyone who loves the Jersey Shore so...

Why do I love Asbury Park, New Jersey?  Let me count the whys. 1.  Its charming, friendly coffee shops and restaurants:  Breakfast at Toast 2.  Its boardwalk, perfect for a stroll. 3.  Its history, as embodied by the formerly grand Casino building, name checked by Bruce Springsteen in "Sandy," now a picturesque ruin. 4.  Its moxie.  Asbury has done a great job of bouncing back after that other Sandy (the hurricane) and some very rough decades. A peek inside the carousel house 5.  Its funky storefronts on the boardwalk and beyond. The cops finally busted Madame Marie for telling fortunes better than they do 6.  And most of all: its incomparable music scene.   Eddie Manion with Joe Grushecky at the legendary Stone Pony

For almost two weeks now, I've been meaning to write about my latest concert experience--two nights of  Joe Grushecky and the Iron City Houserockers with special guest Bruce Springsteen.  The shows were excellent--does Bruce ever give less than 200%?  And the setting was thrillingly intimate--"a lovely little jewel box of a venue" as promised by my friend Diane, who had seen Bruce and Joe at Pittsburgh's Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall before.  It was Diane who talked me into this outing, who scored us excellent tickets, and whose company made the long trip to and from Pittsburgh go by in a flash. After the shows, I struggled to find a way to write about the experience.  First I thought I should discuss how different the Soldiers and Sailors shows were in feel from E Street Band shows; I could focus on the acoustic mini-sets he played at the start and finish of both shows, and how, in this setting, Springsteen the storyteller really came out to play. ...

In case you're wondering why you haven't heard from me for a while, it's because I've been road tripping again, this time to Pittsburgh to meet up with friends and converge on Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Museum for two nights of Bruce Springsteen with Joe Grushecky and the Iron City House Rockers. A review will follow.  For today, I thought I'd just celebrate Pittsburgh, a city that fascinates me more with each visit, for its hometown pride, and for the way it's risen out of its rust-belt roots: Glimpsed downtown US Steel Tower Jerry's music, a mecca for vinyl mavens And for Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall: ....a small and lovely venue that for two recent nights served as the capitol of Springsteen nation. Kelly, Chris, and Dan (photo by Patty Colman) Rhonda, Patty, Diane and me Magnus and Zeke

Last Tuesday night, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played an amazing show in Albany, New York.  My friend Diane and I made the long drive to meet up with a group of our fellow hard-core Springsteen enthusiasts. Springsteen Nation As I mentioned here, a big part of the concertgoing experience is the cameraderie of it all.  You get to know a person really well when you road trip with them, or crash on their couch...or when you undergo the pit lottery with them.  The lottery determines which holders of General Admission tickets get to spend the concert in the small area right in front of the stage.   The pit lottery is a grueling experience. You get your wristband early in the day.  Then you kill a few hours and come back, packing into a sardine-like line, and wait for a number to be pulled out of a hat.  Your fate rests on that number.  And after it's pulled, you stay in line, because if you leave, you lose your place. Why go...

Photo by Rhonda Delaune Welch When you've seen Bruce Springsteen perform over fifty times (most of those in the last decade), people tend to ask you why, often in the gentle, concerned tone reserved for dealing with the delusional. Why spend so much time and money chasing one performer?  Isn't one show pretty much the same as all the others?    Here's my answer, in seven parts: 1)  Every show is different, with Bruce drawing from his extensive catalog, tossing in new material and rarities among old standbys like Born to Run, Dancing in the Dark, Badlands, and The Rising.  Miss a night, and you might just miss that one song you've been chasing forever. photo by Michael Zorn, from www.backstreets.net 2)  Every show is special.  Of course Bruce is famous for playing concerts that clock in at over three and a half hours--playing longer and with more gusto than musicians a third his age.  He starts with a setlist, then calls audibles, ...

I'm just back from a very ambitious little roadtrip--Philly to Charlotte, North Carolina and back, and all to see a single show.  Of course when the act in question is Bruce Springsteen, it's a given that the show will be epic and the journey worthwhile, even if that journey includes a flat tire on a very busy highway.   Luckily, that highway ran through North Carolina.  Also luckily my travelling companion, Diane, thought to call our local buddy Todd, who got on the phone with IMAP--Incident Management Assistance Patrols--a wonderful North Carolinian institution that saved the day and got us on our way. Special thanks to Ronnie Minor of the North Carolina Department of Transportation  for being so kind, prompt, and helpful.  Did I mention that it was Easter Sunday, and that we felt pretty stranded and helpless beside route 85 on an Easter Sunday with traffic whooshing by us...until he showed up and saved the day? Of course I'll be writing about ...

List of things to pack: Song request sign: check Dancing shoes: check And that's about it. There's nothing better than a road trip to see Bruce Springsteen, unless it's a last minute surprise road trip to see Bruce Springsteen.  I'm so grateful to my husband Andre for this late birthday present, and for holding down the fort while I run amok.  And I'm thankful to my friend Diane for scoring some tickets and for being Thelma to my Louise...or Louise to my Louise...since neither of us wants to be Thelma, and for the fellow Bruce fanatics who are opening their home to us.  And for the friends we'll meet up with along the way. In case you're wondering, Susan Sarandon is Louise Next stop: Charlotte!

Window Shopping in Florence, Italy Love, Lucy gets her first  Waiting on Wednesday mention  from Stories and Sweeties.  Waiting on Wednesday is a fun weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine .  Every Wednesday book bloggers list the soon-to-be-released Young Adult books they can't wait to read. The January 2015 release of Love, Lucy feels so far away.  In the meantime, though, it's spring break, and I'm writing up a storm, working on the yet-untitled Greek novel.  For research and inspiration purposes, I've been digging around, looking for the lost Greek memory card, the one with a thousand pictures from my last trip.  Instead, I've been finding all sorts of other old pictures, like the one above, taken when I was in Florence, researching Love, Lucy . And then there's this, taken two summers ago: Some of my friends will undoubtedly recognize the handwriting, but for all the others, this is a speech, spelled out phonetically by...

These days I spend a little of every day dreaming of Chile,  where I'll be teaching a poetry workshop next summer if all goes well and enough students enroll.  The pile of books beside my bed has gotten very Chile-intensive lately.  Right now, each night before I fall asleep, I read a little of Isabel Allende's My Invented Country .   At the book's start, Allende thrillingly captures what's unique about her homeland's geography: "This elongated country is like an island, separated on the north from the rest of the continent by the Atacama Desert--the driest in the world, its inhabitants like to say, although that must not be true, because in springtime parts of that lunar rubble tend to be covered with a mantle of flowers, like a wondrous painting by Monet.  To the east rises the cordillera of the Andes, a formidable mass of rock and eternal snows, and to the west the abrupt coastline of the Pacific Ocean.  Below, to the south, lie the sol...