music
-
I never know exactly what poets and lyricists mean when they refer to an angel. often they’re writing about someone they’re just really into, and sometimes an angel in Heaven’s Holy Host. sometimes we call someone an angel to affirm the light in that person. I like this designation: that somebody not apart from life on this earth can bring you a light, sweep air…
-
today it’s a girl on the train in a red KITH oversized hoodie and black old school Vans tapping her foot to whatever beat, looking like she’s worked all day, dreams of pressure-flips and stair jams, and the snow’s about to fall. Brooklyn Banks is a dark, secret place under the Manhattan end of the…
-
in the hood of being beautiful/the N holds its breath like snow/soundless as disco/I search out the window for you/while we’re still close enough to Surf Avenue/I know I’m failing/running out of time/it’s me on the inside/and you on the out/I open Notes to write you a letter/the train seems to sigh/please let’s never die…
-
when I was a little kid, I wrote a letter to my favorite TV show, Scooby Doo. I told them they should do an episode where the monster turns out to be real. I’m grown up now (pretty much), and I still know that monsters are real. and that when you’re fighting one, it’s really…
-
as a songwriter and performer, the work of opening the heart can be a lot.it can seem like you’re going around feeling everything — and that can be overwhelming. the audiences I seem to connect with the most are the ones that are feeling some of the same things I am. sometimes I play for…
-
you can take a walk through East New York, or Navy Hill, or Greenwood Heights, and one person will think these are really frightening, dangerous places and rush right out of there. and someone else will take their time and explore the history of those neighborhoods, sample the unusual foods and sounds on the streets,…
-
I never know what to say after someone says, ‘your music is beautiful,’ except to agree with them. for me, beauty is an end of conversation. the beginning is different: this is when you have to be suspicious of your best lines, your best melodies, tell the unusual from the boring. beginning kills. but beginning also produces all the discoveries. that’s when you start…
-
winter arrives early and takes its place at the window. the sky this afternoon has filled the air with snowflakes. there’s a single ray of light now in my little apartment, pale and thin as the subway rail carrying the Q … from Prospect Park to 7 Av, then Atlantic, then DeKalb.
cookie nieves 