THE Internet has brought us lots of good things; it's also put an enormous number of people out of work, especially members of the creative class who've been turned into underpaid, unstable content providers. Information, after all, wants to be free."It's tempting to believe that the devaluation of creativity we've seen over the last decade was somehow inevitable," writes former Billboard editor … [Read more...]
The Roots of Christine Ebersole
YOU'VE got to be in awe of an actress who can portray both Little Edie and Big Edie from Grey Gardens. Winning a Tony for the feat is not likely easy, either.I spoke recently to Christine Ebersole, the actress and singer who's done everything from Tootsie to Saturday Night Live to Noel Coward. That piece, part of my Influences series for the LA Times Culture Monster page, is here.I should not … [Read more...]
Novelist Neal Stephenson
ONE of the smartest, as well as the toughest, writers I've ever encountered in Neal Stephenson, who is somewhere between a cyberpunk writer, a science-fiction novelist and a cultural historian.I met Stephenson, who has a new novel out, in his hometown of Seattle just before the publication of Anathem. HERE is my interview with the author of Snow Crash and The Baroque Triology.One of Anathem's … [Read more...]
The Hell of Freelancing – or is it Purgatory?
FOR some people, going it alone is a blast, and lucrative as well. Advocates of the "free agent nation" see it casual, flexible, energetic -- a way to tap into your real talent and potential.Free agent Reggie JacksonThey say we've moved beyond the stodgy, gray-flannel-suited Organization Man of mid-century, who was all about conformity and corporate loyalty.But for many writers, artists, musicians … [Read more...]
Catalina’s Jazz Club at 25
SOMETIMES culture works in strange ways. Twenty-five years ago this month, Catalina Popescu, who had emigrated to LA from an authoritarian Romania, a country without an especially rich jazz tradition, met the horn player Buddy Collette, and within a week had opened a jazz club.A quarter century later, Catalina's on Sunset is still open. With the demise of the beloved Jazz Bakery (soon to rise … [Read more...]
Introducing Pacific Standard Time
IT'S finally happened. After a lot of talk, the postwar art blowout Pacific Standard Time has opened at dozens of museums and spaces across Southern California.Your humble blogger wrote a piece for Los Angeles magazine about the origins, offerings and meaning of the whole thing -- it includes a dozen recommended shows, from the Getty's overview, Crosscurrents, to a show of swimming pool … [Read more...]
The Perils of the Creative Class
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
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
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
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...]