Give me your music, your art, your huddled masses of words and rhythms yearning to breathe free.
Dana Spiardi 
Let me not to the bleating of true goats admit false excrement. Poop is not poop that alters when it constipation finds. Or bends with the mucker to remove. No, it is an ever-tumbling rain of pellets That stick to hooves and shan’t be shaken. It is the dung on every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s … Read more
“No, Spiardi. I bought myself a ring that’s too big.” This is how Miss S.T. sarcastically answered when I asked if her boyfriend bought her the yarn-wrapped ring she was sporting on her finger. It had never occurred to me that the fuzzy bands worn by the A-list girls began their lives as one-size-fits-all pieces … Read more
Ah, you always remember your first time. There I was, in a dimly lit room…body tense and trembling under crisp sheets…heartbeat wild in anticipation…breaths short and shallow…spellbound by my first glimpse of something big, scary, and invasive…a spectacle that would excite me for the rest of my life: the 1935 classic, “The Bride of Frankenstein.” … Read more
Ten-year-old kids shouldn’t be worrying about the after-effects of unprotected sex, mind-altering drugs, and adult unemployment, but thanks to several artful public service announcements (PSAs) that aired on network television in the early 70s, I once considered pre-booking a room in a nunnery! As a boob-tube loving adolescent, I was equal parts baffled and delighted … Read more
The Iron Curtain. That was a term I heard often as a kid growing up in the Cold War ’60s. What exactly was this metallic barrier, and who or what was behind it, I wondered. Little did I know back then that British Prime Minster Winston Churchill had coined the term to refer to the … Read more