Hillside fourth-grader James Feinberg must rank near the top of the list of talented and motivated kids here in Baristaville. We told you in December '06 that a poem written by James caught the attention of the band Astrograss. They set it to music and performed it at Symphony Space.
James' song writing career has now taken another leap forward -- Astrograss decided to use James' song on their new CD, which is being released this month. So James and his family will be partying alongside the band this Sunday at the CD release party at Joe's Pub in NYC. But this young artist probably won't pause to party for long. He's too busy writing his bylined column, "Grandkid's Eye View" for "50+ Lifestyles" and serving as president of the kids' division of Montclair's Parents Who Rock.
That's nothing. I was 3 when Bob Dylan took my poem "Jokerman" and turned it into a hit song. When I was 5 I played flankerback for the New York Giants (though I didn't start until I was 7). The Nobel Prize came when I was 10 (for discovering the Black Hole) and the Pulitzer for fiction came in my teens, for the novel Henderson the Rain King (published under a pseudonym).
For my kids, though, I have much higher expectations.