Music history looks different when you track it not by groups or musicians, eras or styles, but by the songs themselves. That’s part of the fun of Ted Gioia’s new book, The Jazz Standards, which looks at more than 250 songs --. He pays special attention to their origins, the varied way jazz artists have interpreted each one, and a handful of the finest versions of each. (There are a few technical … [Read more...]
Surfing With "Savages" Writer Don Winslow
ONE of my liveliest conversations with an author came the day a few years ago when I met with the crime-fiction writer Don Winslow. We met in Laguna Beach to talk about what was then his crisp new novel, The Dawn Patrol, which includes a posse of surfers.Winslow struck me right away as a great storyteller -- he talked about growing up in a Navy family where well-told tales were taken very … [Read more...]
Christopher Buckley at Track 16 Gallery
FOLKS, this Thursday, I'll be interviewing novelist/satirist/National Review apostate Christopher Buckley at Track 16. He may be best known on these shores for his New Yorker humor columns and for writing the novel, Thank You For Smoking, that was adapted into a very good Jason Reitman movie.His new novel involves U.S. dealings with China and is called They Eat Puppies, Don't They?Here are the … [Read more...]
RIP Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012
TODAY The Misread City mourns the death of Ray Bradbury. He was the first science-fiction writer, and the first Los Angeles writer, many people read. I still remember devouring the stories from The October Country and The Martian Chronicles in elementary school.In a rush of emotion and recollection, I wrote my first piece for Zocalo Public Square on Bradbury's complicated relationship with Los … [Read more...]
The Roots of Sandra Bernhard
MY Influences column in the LA Times always tries to be unpredictable, but this time I think we've really gotten there.This installment on Sandra Bernhard -- whose REDCAT show last year was one of the highlights of the season -- begins with John Updike, for instance. The singer/comedian/Letterman mainstay is working a new show at REDCAT this month.(By the way, in the last two nights I have seen … [Read more...]
"I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts"
EVER wondered what it would sound like if the British writer J.G. Ballard fronted an L.A. punk band? I hadn't either, frankly, but the question crossed my mind reading the new anthology of essays and articles by Mark Dery. Twisted, brilliant, overly ornate and penetrating, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts brings him to Skylight Books on Tuesday. (I only regret there is no essay on the Bavarian … [Read more...]
Owen and Kidman as Hemingway and Gellhorn
SOMETIMES, in this business, you have to do things you don't want to do -- deal with unpleasant people, write about a production that bores you to tears. Other times, you get to talk to Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman about Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the strong-willed war correspondent who would hate to be remembered at Papa's third wife.Later this month, HBO will broadcast a film, … [Read more...]
Farewell to the Man Behind Ecotopia
HE wrote a book that a lot of people haven't heard of, but one that influenced many and presaged a lot of the way we live now, especially on the West Coast, where it's set. That's Ernest "Chick" Callenbach, the Berkeley author of the book Ecotopia. Chick, as he was known, died on April 16.This month has seen a lot of death in my world -- a very dear elderly relative, an old friend's mother, … [Read more...]
Imagining Mars
WHATEVER the faults of John Carter, the new film based on the early work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, we're happy to have the chance to head back to Mars. Given the way NASA funding is going, this may be our only chance.As a species, we've been fascinated with the Red Planet for a long time -- the film is only the latest of a long line. Why does it draw us to it, and how has our thinking about Mars … [Read more...]
Nerds, Autism and So On
THE writer Ben Nugent just had a funny and serious op-ed on the New York Times about being falsely diagnosed, as a kid, with the form of autism often associated with musical and mathematical genius. ("FOR a brief, heady period in the history of autism spectrum diagnosis, in the late ’90s," the piece begins, "I had Asperger syndrome.") Turns out he was just an awkward, artsy teenager who had not … [Read more...]