This Woman Was a Prophet

Ellen Willis's writings are trickling onto a Tumblr run by her daughter, though the links keep breaking almost as soon as they are linked. But it gives me the chance to see some of her articles I hadn't seen before, like this New York Press piece on the Elian Gonzalez controversy. For those who've forgotten the case, five-year-old Elian was rescued from the waters off Florida after his mother

This Woman Was a Prophet

Ellen Willis's writings are trickling onto a Tumblr run by her daughter, though the links keep breaking almost as soon as they are linked. But it gives me the chance to see some of her articles I hadn't seen before, like this New York Press piece on the Elian Gonzalez controversy. For those who've forgotten the case, five-year-old Elian was rescued from the waters off Florida after his mother

I Can Talk to Strangers If I Want To, 'Cause I'm a Stranger Too

(The title comes from Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby?", a song I'd almost forgotten until Ellen Willis mentioned it in her review of Newman's Twelve Songs.)Some more quotable bits from Out of the Vinyl Deeps.From a review of Song Cycle by Van Dyke Parks (102):His most nearly perfect triumph is "Donovan's Colours," an exquisite three-and-a-half-minute instrumental track that sounds like a

I Can Talk to Strangers If I Want To, 'Cause I'm a Stranger Too

(The title comes from Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby?", a song I'd almost forgotten until Ellen Willis mentioned it in her review of Newman's Twelve Songs.)Some more quotable bits from Out of the Vinyl Deeps.From a review of Song Cycle by Van Dyke Parks (102):His most nearly perfect triumph is "Donovan's Colours," an exquisite three-and-a-half-minute instrumental track that sounds like a

Out of the Vinyl Deeps

I found something today that I'd known I wanted, but didn't expect to turn up: a new collection of Ellen Willis's pop/rock criticism, Out of the Vinyl Deeps (Minnesota, 2011), edited by her daughter Nona Willis Aronowitz.Because her main interest was political (left/feminist/Zionist), Willis didn't write much about music after about 1980, though her rock criticism was always political. After her

Out of the Vinyl Deeps

I found something today that I'd known I wanted, but didn't expect to turn up: a new collection of Ellen Willis's pop/rock criticism, Out of the Vinyl Deeps (Minnesota, 2011), edited by her daughter Nona Willis Aronowitz.Because her main interest was political (left/feminist/Zionist), Willis didn't write much about music after about 1980, though her rock criticism was always political. After her