[contextly_auto_sidebar] SINCE I was a teenager, I've been fascinated by the lions of music journalism and rock criticism -- Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Ellen Willis, and others, especially from the field's 1970s heyday. The novelist Jonathan Lethem and his Pomona College colleague (and resident Dylanologist) Kevin Dettmar have collected 50 years of the stuff -- "From Elvis to Jay Z" -- … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2017
The Mess We’re In: Politics, Economy and Journalism
[contextly_auto_sidebar] OVER the last few weeks, I've been asked on several occasions if I can explain what the hell happened to this country. (I've been in London and Ireland for some of that time.) The simple answer is that I am as shocked as anyone by the turn in the US (and to some extent by the related idiocy of Brexit.) But I do have some hunches. So while I try to keep this blog … [Read more...]
“Money is a kind of poetry”: Lee Siegel’s The Draw
[contextly_auto_sidebar] ONE of the finest memoirs I've read in many moons comes from veteran literary and culture critic Lee Siegel. His book The Draw tells the tale of an intellectually serious young man in a family w/ a messy, complicated relationship to money and class, which set repeated roadblocks before him. It's lyrical, succinct, at times painful. Here is my Q+A with Siegel, who is … [Read more...]