LAST week my wife and i made a trek to california's central coast to visit wineries and olive farms. more on the olives and oils later. and what a beautiful time to be up there, with its rolling, deep green hills and plentiful wildflowers.we had time to visit only three wineries, tho it's quite impressive how many of the local juice ends up on menus of san luis obispo restaurants like big sky and … [Read more...]
Archives for 2009
Kurt Andersen vs. Art Center
THE writer, public radio host (of the eclectic culture show "studio 360") and SPY magazine co-founder kurt andersen has been at pasadena's art center college of design over the last few months. his title -- this gives him the appropriate degree of embarrassment -- is "visionary in residence." (art center is a very cool design school, in a stunning hillside/modernist setting, that has experienced … [Read more...]
Back From the Grave: Charles Dickens
HE was the star of the 19th century, and has become fiercely relevant in ours: take a bow charles dickens!!thanks to the plunging economy, the awesome show "the wire," and a bunch of bbc adaptations, dickens is back in a big way. HERE is my piece from today's LAT in which i speak to a producer at mastepiece (theatre), a ucla literary scholar and former wire scribe (and onetime baltsun colleague) … [Read more...]
Kicking Ass with Evan Wright
SO far the most acclaimed first-person account of the current Iraq War is "Generation Kill," in which LA journalist evan wright embedded himself in a marine battalion quite different from the soldiers who fought the vietnam war.today i have an LA Times piece on wright, who i sat down with recently. a very serious, sincere and complicated dude who makes the case (both in his work and in … [Read more...]
Marking Six Decades for Richard Thompson
THE godlike guitarist and peerless singer-songwriter richard thompson turns 60 today.thompson is in my dont-get-me-started category of musical obsessions: i've loved his work since i was a teenager and songs like "valerie" and "a bone though her nose" were showing up on alt-rock radio. when i dropped into his back pages i was riveted; speaking to him over the years has been a real education.Here … [Read more...]
Celebrating — and Fearing — J.S. Bach
THIS may jar some, but i think it's fair to say that the greatest composer in the history of western music -- all due respect to beethoven, mingus, lennon/mccartney, etc -- was johann sebastian bach... the old man's birthday -- born in 1685, you dont look a day over 300! --- is today.those with a good memory for interplanetary expeditions recall that bach's music played a prominent role on the … [Read more...]
Chasing Women with James Ellroy
OVER the last year or so i've been lucky enough to hang out with james ellroy, self-proclaimed demon dog of american crime fiction, including a bizarre/memorable dinner at taylor's steakhose at which the author insisted i bring along some good looking women.because he always seems to be on camera -- barking like a dog, offering off-color anecdotes and ethnic jokes, and generally acting out -- it … [Read more...]
Happy Birthday Kurosawa, and New Poll
MONDAY was the birthday of titan akira kurosawa, born 1910, one of the guys who got me into international cinema and japanese film. from him i ventured into ozu, mizoguchi, ichikawa's "burmese harp" and takeshi kitano... but will never forget first time i saw "rashomon."dont want to say too much more lest i bias the poll (to right) but a towering artist with more range than usually acknowledged. i … [Read more...]
Hats off to Oscar Wilde
LET'S have a big irish "cheers" for oscar wilde, winner of my "world's coolest irishman" poll, which just expired. (he drew slightly more than a third of votes.) for much of the poll, joyce (whose "dubliners effectively taught me to read) was leading, but st. oscar made a last minute rally. yeats, that master of swoony celtic romanticism (and later, crisp, steely modernism) came close. van … [Read more...]
Grant Lee Phillips at Largo
THE other night i caught grant lee phillips at what i still think of as the "new" largo. i know the phrase "underrated singer-songwriter" is almost always redundant, but it has a special meaning for phillips. the leader of a critically acclaimed but never bestselling 90s band, grant lee buffalo -- who played a kind of sweeping americana that was out of step with everything around them in the LA … [Read more...]