[contextly_auto_sidebar] Back in the spring, when I pitched the Los Angeles Review of Books on a regular column on musicians and their literary interests, my editor immediately came up with the title All the Poets. The phrase, of course, comes from the Velvet Underground song "Sweet Jane." So it seems somehow symmetrical that the latest installment of this feature is a conversation about Lou … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2017
Arts Funding, US vs. UK, and Chamber Music
[contextly_auto_sidebar] ONE of the key issues which underlies this blog and the book which inspired it is the role of public funding in the arts. I hate to give the end away, but one of the concluding points of Culture Crash is the need for more funding in the US, and something closer to a British or European model. (This is hardly an unpopular opinion among my colleagues.) Similarly, I am … [Read more...]
Camerata Pacifica and Chamber Music in SoCal
[contextly_auto_sidebar] RECENTLY I've enjoyed a performance by the chamber group Camerata Pacifica and several conversations with its founder, Adrian Spence. I disagree with the cheeky Ulsterman on some points -- I am in some ways an American Anglophile with a European bent, he is a Brit who prefers American ways -- but I find him insightful and, with his group, unorthodox in an intriguing … [Read more...]
Comedian Dick Gregory and The Wallis in Beverly Hills
[contextly_auto_sidebar] WHEN I moved back to Los Angeles about a year ago, I was not surprised that the cultural life was rich and wide-ranging. But one spot surprised me: The Wallis Annenberg in Beverly Hills. I had covered some of the early planning for the LA Times, and had liked both architect Zoltan Pali, working to transform a WPA-era post office, and director Lou Moore, who like me is a … [Read more...]
Unions, Journalism, and the Creative Class
[contextly_auto_sidebar] IF we needed another reason to disdain the billionaires who increasingly dominate our political and cultural life: The Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts shut down several news sites, including Gothamist and LAist because the New York staff tried to unionize. This is from a new New York Times op-ed by Hamilton Nolan, "A Billionaire Destroyed His Newsroom Out of … [Read more...]