Static From My Attic

Since publishing my first issue of The Syncopated Times six years ago this month, the time has just flown. It doesn’t feel like a minute

Over the past two years all of us have had to recalibrate our definition of “normal.” It used to be typical that we would see

I’ve never considered myself one for taking risks. I was always that kid whose knees buckled at the notion of climbing to the highest diving

Let me confess here that I have long had a love of Classic Calypso. I’m referring specifically to the lively and witty Trinidadian music recorded

In every issue of The Syncopated Times, I mean to celebrate the life force; syncopation itself is the pulse of life. The beat of one’s

In my capacity as publisher of The Syncopated Times, one of the duties I must fulfill is that of cheerleader for the music. It’s necessary

It often happens that, when I need to cleanse my palate of the taste of drudgery that this gig engenders, I will browse our local

The reader will note that a rather morbid undercurrent has run through this column over the past two months. In May, I noted the death

By the time you hold this paper in your hand, I will have achieved the grim distinction of being exactly the same age New Yorker

I was reminded of my favorite childhood reading material this past month when I heard that Frank Jacobs, the extraordinary writer of light verse and

I’ve been putting off writing this column until the last minute—almost until I am physically unable to write it. (That would be an excellent method

I’m going to veer wildly off-format here in order to fulfill a promise I made in this column last month. Last year, a subscriber named

I was deeply honored this month to receive a message from the legendary jazz writer, editor, archivist, and producer Dan Morgenstern, who offered his kind

I begin to think I should rename this column “The Crisis of the Month.” A crisis is not necessarily a bad thing, but it demands

As I begin this column, it approaches six o’clock in the morning of my printer’s deadline. If I was able last month to glide to

This month’s paper, late though you may receive it, is something of a miracle. One week before this writing I was in a state of

I realize that most readers turn to this column with the expectation of somewhat light-hearted commentary, so I am reluctant to unpack this month’s stock

When I published my first issue of The Syncopated Times, I worked to compensate for the variables and uncertainties involved in getting started. Not the

If anything is musically analogous to this historical fermata, it must be the chorus-length note held by Carmen Lombardo on the Royal Canadians’ classic (and

Each month, it seems, represents a newer normal. Normal wants to update itself relentlessly, much like my Windows operating system—usually at no small inconvenience and

For the first 52 issues of this paper, page three has contained a column of my mental regurgitations which many readers, unaccountably, look forward to

In the second month of our siege against an implacable and impersonal enemy, I am a bundle of conflicting and untidy emotions. It really is

There is no point in attempting my usual meandering approach to the topic that preoccupies all of us at the moment. Just as unnecessary travel

I wasn’t going to write the column I’m about to write. It’s going to cause me more of the trouble I’ve lately been experiencing, but