WHEN I moved to the Eastside five years ago, the main think I knew I'd miss from my more central position in the city was the cultural stuff at UCLA. The last few days -- which has seen a new schedule for UCLA Live and a season preview at the Hammer Museum -- reminds me just how much is going on there.One of the best developments since I landed here 13 years ago has been Ann Philbin's revival of … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2010
The Killer Inside Jim Thompson
WITH the film adaptation of Michael Winterbotton’s The Killer Inside Me opening in Los Angeles today, I turned to the author's biographer for insight into this very complicated pulp figure. If there is a better biography of an American writer than Robert Polito’s Savage Art, I’ve not read it. (The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award.)Polito’s book describes Thompson as a “profoundly … [Read more...]
The Eloquent Ache of Joe Pernice
THERE are only a handful of musicians of whose work I own virtually every release. Among this group is Joe Pernice, whose recordings with alt-country band Scud Mountain Boys, chamber-pop band the Pernice Brothers and assorted side projects share an easy melodic sense, knack for both American-roots and British Invasion production styles and an aching voice that recalls the Zombies.I still remember … [Read more...]
Bert Jansch at Largo
SUNDAY night I was lucky enough to catch Britfolk guitarist Bert Jansch at Largo. It may've been the most stunning display of acoustic guitar I have seen in my life -- and I have seen legendary axe-man Richard Thompson at least a dozen times. Now I know why Neil Young calls him the Hendrix of the acoustic: The shadings and nuance this stolid and unremarkable looking man coaxed out of his … [Read more...]
The Germans are Coming
IN the years just before, during and after WWII, the flow of exiles and emigres from fascist Germany to Los Angeles became so strong that an injection of wit and decadence transformed parts of the city. I wrote about this period -- and a present where German culture exists mostly in dispersed form -- in Sunday's LA Times. Here is my piece, which looks at both the era where Marlene Dietrich, Thomas … [Read more...]
The Killer Inside Casey Affleck
RECENTLY I spent some time with Casey Affleck, who appears in Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the Jim Thompson noir novel, The Killer Inside Me.I don’t often write about actors – I’m not usually that curious about their inner worlds the way I am with novelists, musicians, or directors – but Casey Affleck is so strong, and so elusive, in his films that I welcomed the chance to sit down with … [Read more...]
The Eternal Return of Bret Easton Ellis
THESE days I am digging into Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel of sorts to Less Than Zero, one of the most famous and at least initially controversial novels ever written about Los Angeles.It makes me think back to the stories I've written on Ellis over the years and our conversations about literature, fame, the heartlessness of Hollywood and the records of Elvis Costello. Here is the most extensive … [Read more...]
Legends of the High Desert
A few weeks back I had the pleasure to visit Joshua Tree with my wife and son. I guess for some people the place invokes U2, but it always makes me think of Gram Parsons and his hippie/ Dylanesque updating of the high-lonesome sound.Here is my piece that runs in this Sundays' LATimes. It's both a meditation on the power of music and a trip-with-kids story. It's also one of the few trips I've taken … [Read more...]
The Twisted Mind of Geoff Nicholson
THE Los Angeles-based novelist and recovering Englishman Geoff Nicholson had a smart, counter-intuitive and oddly funny essay in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review about his passion for old Guinness Books of Records and "the joys of outdated information."Geoff, whose book The Lost Art of Walking I like very much, was part of a small posse I ran with at Guadalajara’s International Festival of … [Read more...]