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So summer officially began yesterday, traditionally inaugurating a season of cheesy beach music. Believe I’ll go in a different direction, starting with Patti Smith’s rather unusual vision of a summer trip to Georgia, or Hell, or the carnivorous love of her fans, or all of the above: “Summer Cannibals,” as performed on Letterman in 1996. Pretty sure that’s Tom Verlaine on guitar.
Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York Magazine; a longtime contributor to the Washington Monthly; and a former policy adviser to three governors and a U.S. senator from his home state of Georgia.
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