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Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

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Archives for 2011

The Perils of the Creative Class

October 2, 2011 by Scott Timberg

WE were supposed to be entering a laptop wielding, latte-sipping world where the Internet made us all more "connected," weren't we? But the Internet, combined with the bad economy and a restructuring of American life, has led to an erosion of the very creative class it was supposed to invigorate.HERE is my new piece in Salon which looks at the state of the much hyped creative class in 2011. It's … [Read more...]

Colin Meloy on Gillian Welch

September 28, 2011 by Scott Timberg

YESTERDAY I had this story on country/folk duo Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, who perform in LA Thursday night.One thing I did not have room for that in that article was a long quote given to me by Colin Meloy, who employed the two on The King is Dead, his latest record by the Decemberists. Meloy turns out to be a longtime fan -- here's his entire thought. Thanks to Meloy, whose last … [Read more...]

Refracting the Tradition with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings

September 27, 2011 by Scott Timberg

I DON'T think I've been this starstruck since I interviewed Martin Scorsese a few years back. Meeting Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings -- two of most distinctive and harmonically complex figures in the new acoustic movement -- was one of the thrills of the summer.My story on the duo -- and recent years and a solo album have shown how important Rawlings contribution is -- runs today in the LA Times. … [Read more...]

Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus

September 22, 2011 by Scott Timberg

THE other day I was lucky enough to speak to Sonny Rollins, the tenor saxophone legend who performs at UCLA's Royce Hall tonight, Thursday, and at Segerstrom Hall in Orange County on Sunday.These days, the once-brash, mohawk-rocking Rollins is 81, and, he's many decades from authoritative, agenda-setting records like Saxophone Colossus and Way Out West.But the Rollins I spoke to was easy to speak … [Read more...]

Pacific Standard Time’s Life and Times

September 19, 2011 by Scott Timberg

WE'RE getting close to the launch of a gargantuan art blowout -- much bigger than an exhibit, not as cheesy as a "celebration" -- called Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945 to 1980. This will be a six month initiative involving museums and galleries from Santa Barbara to San Diego, Santa Monica to Palm Springs.For Sunday's LA Times I put together a timeline intended to be helpful in … [Read more...]

Violinist Ray Chen Nods to Elvis

September 14, 2011 by Scott Timberg

Ray Chen is a young classical violinist who's got both a golden tone and the kind of catholic taste I find all too infrequently in conservatory trained musicians.Chen is the latest subject of my Influences column: Here he talks about his love of J.S. Bach, Yo-Yo Ma and Elvis Presley.The Taiwan native also wrote to me about his love of friends and family, food and drink, and exercise. For a touring … [Read more...]

Pres. Obama and the Plight of the Middle Class

September 9, 2011 by Scott Timberg

FOLKS, I'll be appearing on KCRW's To the Point with Warren Olney, which will broadcast today at noon on 89.9 FM in Los Angeles and later, presumably, elsewhere around the country on the PRI network.We'll be talking about Obama's jobs speech and the larger issue of the middle class during the economic downturn. I'm there to discuss my experience as a laid off newspaper reporter who's struggled … [Read more...]

The Struggle Over Middlebrow

September 8, 2011 by Scott Timberg

I JUST finished a very intriguing Louis Menand piece on culture critic Dwight Macdonald and the notion of middlebrow. (For those Easterners snorting that I am getting to the story so tardily, let me quote my friend and fellow Angeleno Manohla Dargis, who says that most weeks we get the New Yorker so late it seems to've been delivered by pony express.)The notion of cultural hierarchy -- which works … [Read more...]

Christianity and Tom Perrotta

August 30, 2011 by Scott Timberg

ONE of my favorite-ever author meetings was a lunch interview with Tom Perrotta around the time of The Abstinence Teacher. (I was in New England and swung to the fringe of Boston to meet him.) The novel's film adaptation was already rolling despite the fact that the book hadn't come out yet -- credit the success of Little Children for that one.The Abstinence Teacher, like his new one, The … [Read more...]

The Roots of Philip Glass

August 24, 2011 by Scott Timberg

THE minimalist composer is the latest subject of my Influences column in the Los Angeles Times.We spoke about his teacher Nadia Boulanger, sitar player Ravi Shankar, composer/philosopher John Cage, Gandhi and Allen Ginsberg, who Glass got to know well.I mentioned to Glass before we started to talk for real that I had a new respect for anyone who wrote music since I'd started a very amateur study … [Read more...]

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Scott Timberg

I'm a longtime culture writer and editor based in Los Angeles; my book "CULTURE CRASH: The Killing of the Creative Class" came out in 2015. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles magazine, and I was an LA Times staff writer for six years. I'm also an enthusiastic if middling jazz and indie-rock guitarist. (Photo by Sara Scribner) Read More…

Culture Crash, the Book

My book came out in 2015, and won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. The New Yorker called it "a quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life"

I urge you to buy it at your favorite independent bookstore or order it from Portland's Powell's.

Culture Crash

Here is some information on my book, which Yale University Press published in 2015. (Buy it from Powell's, here.) Some advance praise: With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have known … [Read More...]

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