Jason Makansi

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03/14/10--14:01: Sublime Mobility! (chan 1452301)

I’ve owned seven cars. I lived in Manhattan for eight years so I’ve owned fewer than if I didn’t. It is the one place you can live, truly, without an automobile in this country. I am about to go pick up my fourth bicycle. Well, since I’ve become an adult. The number would have been [...]


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11/12/10--08:07: What are words? (chan 1452301)

Words are what we use to get what’s inside to the outside, to construct, destroy, confuse, explain, articulate, cogitate, coagulate,comprehend, and confound. Each one, spoken or written, is nothing more than a musical note, a sentence a musical fragment, an essay or a lecture, a song, a story, an epic. Words are heard and committed [...]


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12/16/10--15:53: Christmas poem (chan 1452301)

Who  isn’t at moments sappy around Christmas? Candle in the Window Candle in the window Flirts with moonlit shadows beyond the glass Colorful box beneath the tree Bulges with love between you and me From David’s star to shaved soaking trunk This pole of limbs, needles, and evergreen scent Flickering Lights of red, blue, yellow, [...]


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06/13/11--20:34: An Unfinished Score – Elise Blackwell (chan 1452301)

I gravitate towards fiction that judiciously weaves in my favorite topics, interest areas, and passions. Music qualifies. Recently, I read A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan) and An Unfinished Score (Elise Blackwell) back to back. The former, which weaves in rock and roll, is known for winning the Pulitzer, the latter, weaving in [...]


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06/22/11--08:08: Baclava – The world’s greatest dessert, the world’s greatest recipe (chan 1452301)

Baclava is the world’s greatest dessert and my extended family has the world’s greatest recipe.  I claim nothing else so bold for me our my family (although my other family members may vehemently disagree). It is best made by two (although one can do it). Make it with someone you love, or like a lot. [...]


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07/01/11--11:47: A strong new voice in rock n roll (chan 1452301)

In 1980, I saw U2 at a small venue called Privates on Manhattan’s upper east side. Believe it or not, I went for the opening act (I think, memory getting fuzzy), Teardrop Explodes. Anyway, I remember thinking after hearing U2 that this was a group that whose fame would grow larger than anyone, probably even [...]


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10/15/11--19:03: Occupy Wall Street (chan 1452301)

I’ve been posting on my Facebook page a “fact” or message a day about Wall Street to show my sympathies with this movement, even though my definition of Wall Street is different from that of the movement. I define Wall Street as the the circuit of elite power that runs through Wall Street, Congress and [...]


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10/18/11--15:46: Occupy St Louis: Actions and solutions (chan 1452301)

So, last week I arranged to conduct a “forum” at Occupy St Louis (ground zero is a few blocks from my office) on practical solutions to Wall Street. It took me a while to figure out their very democratic system and in the process I had a few great conversations with a union organizer and [...]


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11/03/11--18:38: Barbara Harbach – Music and the Spoken Word (chan 1452301)

I know about incandescence, I’ve been the victim of incantations (don’t ask), and have heard of contatas. Last Sunday, I heard Paul Muldoon’s Incantata, a long poem, read aloud by Eamonn Wall, and interpreted by St. Louis composer Barbara Harbach for nine instruments – violin, viola, cello, piano, flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and trumpet. This [...]


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11/05/11--09:30: Hallucination in D Minor (chan 1452301)

Reading in The New Yorker (November 7, 2011) that the highly acclaimed pianist, Helene Grimaud, ranks Brahms Piano Concerto in D Minor one of her favorite pieces, a work I have been obsessed with since I first heard became acquainted with it thirty years ago, I’ve reprinted here a short story I wrote incorporating that [...]


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