by Lauren Jonik “Please carry this in and give it to Nana — carefully,” my mother instructed when handing me the aluminum foil covered cherry pie she had baked. Leaves crackled beneath my feet as I walked up the stone driveway, past my grandfather’s rose bushes now dormant, to the front door of the home he built. The combined scent of turkey, pumpkin pie and coleslaw greeted me as I entered. As a child, the last Thursday in November meant…
by Andrea Crowley-Hughes Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine was dreamily enthusiastic when she explained how performing “Various Storms and Saints” live led her to regard the song in a different way. To a packed Barclays Center on June 14, Florence said she initially wanted the song cut from the album she was touring to promote, “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.” “At the time when I wrote it, I was still very much in the feeling of this…
by: Lauren Jonik I buttoned my black pea coat and spied my breath in the dim light spilling from the window of the internet café I just exited. I regretted that the sun had set. All of the other businesses on the block had closed. Two men looked me up and down before reaching for the door, their gazes obvious and lingering. I walked to the end of the street, but had nowhere else to go. Even if I knew how…
Amy Oestreicher I’m the youngest kid in my family, and I grew up pretty well. With two doting parents and three big brothers to overprotect me, I guess I was used to getting what I wanted. And when I didn’t, I was used to whining about it, while my oldest brother belted out “You can’t always get what you want,” as he sang along to his Rolling Stones Album. That made me cry harder – I hated waiting. I still…
by Christine Stoddard I slathered more acrylic onto the set and sighed. It was one of the last days we had to paint theatrical scenery at a large church in Queens. After three weeks of leading volunteers to realize my vision for the upcoming play, I was exhausted. I was ready to peel off my paint-covered rags and hit the hay. Unfortunately, we still had hours left in the day and my “hay” was several neighborhoods away in Brooklyn. This…