Insert Foot vs. “Let Them Play.” I involuntarily cringe every time I see something on social media about the “Let Them Play” movement. It seems we’ve become big-picture immune. Perhaps not enough people know someone dead from COVID. Suffering is somehow still an abstract notion that’s someone’s else’s problem.…

Insert Foot and his new, imaginary “dog” vs. 2021 resolutions. They were totally right: Everything immediately changed in 2021! I woke up New Year’s Day four inches taller, with body fat down to three percent, next to an intelligently hilarious and gorgeous woman/scholar who loved my scent. Two snuggly…

Editor Daniel J. Willis’ reaction to just about everything this year. Here’s his 2020 in review. The last couple years I’ve done a column of the Worst of the Year in Music. This is not a normal year. It’s been so bad that the worst of music is, at…

Insert Foot is ready for 2021 with a little help from John Wooden. I usually hate optimists; maybe out of jealousy. Maybe because they always seem to have better teeth than me. I also hate packaged inspiration–memes, office posters, smiley faces, etc. I believe life is gray, one size…

First Avenue in Minneapolis photographed on May 19, 2020. Photo: Todd Johnson. While most headlines about the newly-passed, long-awaited second round of COVID relief are focused on the $600 individual payments, it also includes help for the nation’s independent venues. According to a joint statement by Nancy Pelosi and…

Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF. Lauren Kwei is a 23-year-old paramedic in New York City. Lauren Kwei is a 23-year-old sex worker in New York City (technically, she has an OnlyFans account, which makes people money through posting content to subscribers–in many cases, with naked photos). So, fine, let’s call her…

Czech composer Hans Krása, courtesy Wikipedia Commons. The string trio we played was born of suffering, written in turbulent times. The man who wrote it had just lost his home and was forced to live in crowded, unsafe conditions while witnessing people around him become ill and die as…

Dolly Parton circa 1976. Courtesy: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images. There’s Dolly Parton. Then there’s the rest of us. Before joining the media pile-up pledging eternal love for one of history’s greatest country singer-songwriters—deserved without saying she’s a better human than us—I’ll start with “the rest of us.” It’s sort…

Insert Foot vs. the COVID test and conspiracy theories. Smell that? We have to get the cat fixed. I don’t get where an animal not smart enough to wear clothes in November gets such a sense of entitlement. The cat just peed in a no-urine zone again, my daughter says.…

Children playing recorders. Photo: Getty. StubHub and Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation have gifted recorders to 4,300 San Francisco Unified School District fourth graders, spread across 72 schools in the district. The donations, part of StubHub’s commitment to putting more than $3 million in music instruments into public school music…