[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6L1vQwHGvhhhWxyn2fDj3qlLYwI011YD"] ATYPICALLY, I'll start the week by recapping the weekend a bit. First, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is partway through its second Minimalist Jukebox. The Phil is doing its best to take an expansive view of this oft-caricatured movement. On Saturday I caught a John Adams-conducted concert that included a world premiere, U.S. … [Read more...]
More Trouble at the LA Times
THIS week saw the fourth (or fifth?) wave of executions since I myself was sent to my bitter end in October 2008. My heart goes out to my old colleagues who've suddenly lost their jobs -- you deserve better. Unlike a lot of former Times people, I still get the paper delivered and derive some -- though it looks like in the future, less -- of my income, from the place. (The company that gave Cereal … [Read more...]
Tribune Corp, 2010
IN the spring of 2008 I was called into the office of the editor who was supposedly running my section, Calendar. He said good things about my previous year of output and how much he was looking forward to what I’d turn out next. (Nearly every day I had a story in the paper, he came by my desk with a smile to tell me how much he liked it.)The LA Times building after its bombing 100 years agoHe … [Read more...]
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
THIS Saturday I am quite honored to be moderating a panel with three very fine novelists of my generation at the LA Times Festival of Books. The panel -- "Writing the Fantastic" -- takes place at 2, in Moore 100 on the UCLA Campus.One of my obsessions the last few years has been the move away from realism -- and in many cases toward genre -- by writers born in the late '60s and early '70s. I sort … [Read more...]
American Newspapers and the Los Angeles Times
OVER the last few months, the only thing i've heard more than Thomas Jefferson's line -- that he would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers -- is people telling me they plan to cancel their LA Times subscription.i can't say i'm surprised by this -- the paper has become a poster child of bad ownership recently, and it's lost so many talented staffers, in … [Read more...]