Field Recordings

Now the Drum of War: Walt Whitman and his Brothers in the Civil War, by Robert Roper, Walker Books, $28.00 War opens with a barrage of blood and shells, as “false twilight” falls upon George Washington Whitman’s unit, “the scent of pennyroyals, crushed by soldier’s shoes remained intense,” as Walt’s younger brother navigates America’s critical junctures for identity and union: Antietam, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, and Vicksburg. And War remains aloft, backtracking through the family’s lean years as America saw artisan carpentry work replaced by faster, less disciplined construction as America began to engender itself as a nation of great cities, in particular New York, and we see New York growing as Whitman moved about its river run streets, New York of the busy working class, New York of the freewheeling prostitution days. War is very much about how young George, Jeff and Walt came to embody the restless, ambitious, and independent spirit of America. Robert Roper’s work is an insta...

The Beats are fun. Period. Say what you will about their lit merit, but they shook it up and did it with style. Without them there would be no Andy Warhol, no factory, no Velvet Underground and the boho NY scene would be very different. The video is a nice montage to the original Kerouac and Steve Allen (of late night TV show fame) recording. A nice blend of ...Cody and ...Road.