The apocalypse novel is one of my favorite literary genres, and I've been thinking lately about a subgenre I'm calling the soft apocalypse. It's halfway between Noah's Arc and the Book of Revelation -- midway between "London Calling" and "Ecotopia" -- and for historical reasons has been picking up steam the last few years. It's typically rustic, sad and often ambiguous rather than ultra-violent … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2010
Cool Polish Pianist in Los Angeles
One of the finest young(ish) pianists in the world appears with the Los Angeles Philharmonic this weekend -- Polish-born Piotr Anderszewski. His Bach, Beethoven and Chopin are magnificent -- a truly deep, probing player. (He's also interested in the oft-overlooked, harmonically interesting Karol Szymanowski.)I spoke to the pianist the last time he was in town, and he talked about his choice of … [Read more...]
Philip K. Dick’s Last Decade, Parts 1 and 2
TODAY the second of my six-part series on Philip K. Dick's life in Orange County, Calif., went up on the LATimes' Hero Complex blog.This second section gets him to OC from his often troubled life in the Bay Area and a really disastrous trip to Vancouver.Yesterday's installment started out with a 1976 scene in Fullerton in which his marriage unravels and the author tries suicide.Please stay tuned … [Read more...]
Tim Burton Goes Home to Burbank
I'D say director Tim Burton has done pretty well for himself -- successful cult filmmaker becomes bigtime filmmaker, is subject of a show at MOMA, lives near London's best cemetery, and he sleeps (presumably) with Helena Bonham Carter every night. And he was just announced to head the jury at Cannes this May.“After spending my early life watching triple features and 48-hour horror movie … [Read more...]
The Misread City Goes Into the Future
THIS week yours truly will be serving as guest editor for the blog io9, which is devoted to science, futurism, and science-fiction in all its forms. I'll be posting on some topics familiar to readers of The Misread City -- some news regarding author Ursula K. Le Guin, a new film based on a Philip K. Dick novel -- as well as topics largely new to me such as eco-tourism and UFO abductions. (Or … [Read more...]
Philip K. Dick and the Suburbs
THE science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick was a bearded Berkeley bohemian -- the last guy you'd expect to move to Orange County, Calif., at a time when its John Birch reputation was still well-deserved. But after a disastrous year or so, the author relocated from the Bay Area to SoCal, and wrote some of his most important work.Dick has also become the first sf writer to land in the Library of … [Read more...]
Our Favorite Guitarists
SOME of you -- especially if you are a musician, music writer, or serious listener -- have already taken part in my informal poll of favorite guitarists. This was conceived not exactly as a historically rigorous greatest-of-all-time but the work you'd grab either if your house was burning down, or to take to the proverbial desert island. (I'm aware that these are two slightly different categories, … [Read more...]
Eagle Rock and Small Business
TONIGHT I go to a wake of sorts for Paper, a shop on Eagle Rock's Colorado Boulevard. The shop sold cool books, smart gifts, letterpress printed cards, and leather journals -- exactly the kind of combination that signals the arrival of a neighborhood into bobo heaven.The closing of the store -- done in by the recession, of course -- is especially poignant because owner Shannon Bedell lost another … [Read more...]
Robert Crais vs. LA Noir
TOMORROW is the release date for the new novel by Robert Crais, "The First Rule." Crime fiction aficionados know Crais as a deft, literate writer with a strong sense of place and of social history -- one of the great inheritors of Ross Macdonald in the world of West Coast noir.HERE is my profile of Crais, who is one of the best adjusted novelists I've ever spoken to -- someone who seems … [Read more...]
Elmore Leonard Goes to Kentucky
ONE of the programs that showed me that television could, at its rare best, offer the quality of acting, direction, set design and thematic development of the finest films was "Deadwood," that saga of the Wild West that HBO cancelled after three all-too-short seasons.So it's exciting for me -- and the few dozen others who followed the show -- that "Deadwood" sheriff Timothy Olyphant will star as a … [Read more...]