THERE’s a phrase of John Cage’s I think about once in a while, despite having radically mixed feelings about the man and his work. “Theater exists all around us,” he once wrote, “and it is the purpose of formal theaterto remind us this is so.” This notion came alive for me the other night as I caught one of the last performances of Invisible Cities, the wild-ass, Calvino-inspired opera that … [Read more...]
Radar Bros and Overseas at the Satellite
Still buzzing from some recent cultural highs -- Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio at UCLA Royce Hall, the Glass/Wilson Einstein on the Beach at Los Angeles Opera -- we're looking forward to a smaller but no less welcome event in town this week. That's LA's own Radar Bros -- who we've written about several times -- with Overseas, the new collaboration between Matt Kadane (Bedhead, The New Year) with … [Read more...]
Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl
SOME years, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl become the highlight of the summer. I know I'll miss a lot of things about Los Angeles whenever we end up departing, but these night with the sun setting and the scent of eucalyptus from the canyon will be very near the top of the list. This year, we've only been twice so far. We saw the fireworks on the 4th of July, a show at which I learned that Josh … [Read more...]
The Runaways: Queens of Noise
THESE days I am digging Queens of Noise, the new book by Evelyn McDonnell, onetime Village Voice rock critic now settled in Los Angeles. The book, subtitled The Real Story of the Runaways, looks at the ‘70s LA punk/hard-rock band best remembered, probably, for a teenaged Joan Jett, the song "Cherry Bomb," and some pretty amazing feathered hair.I’ve admired McDonnell’s work for two decades now, and … [Read more...]
Rachel Kushner and Laura Owens
RECENTLY I spoke to novelist Rachel Kushner, whose The Flamethrowers is far and away among the most celebrated novels of the year, and artist Laura Owens, whose recent show of recent paintings in her own Boyle Heights space reminds us why she became the youngest artist to have a career retrospective at the MOCA.The two -- longtime friends and aesthetic allies -- talked about their own work, their … [Read more...]
Peter Rainer’s Movie Criticism
IT’S almost impossible to find a word that can be changed in Peter Rainer’s film criticism, or a way to express an idea better than he already has. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way, during the year I served as Peter’s editor. It makes his work a pleasure – sometimes a revelation – to read. I can’t recall many critics who you really feel thinking on the page quite as well as Peter does; the … [Read more...]
Fathers and Sons
ONE of the liveliest voices on the pages of the New York Times Magazine has just released a beautifully observed and heartbreaking book. Stephen Rodrick's The Magical Stranger: A Son's Journey Into His Father's Life justifies the overused word "poignant." Rodrick is known to sharp-eyed readers for a wide range of stories in the Times magazine as well as Men's Journal; a recent story, on Lindsay … [Read more...]
Chamber Group Salastina Society
THE other evening I saw a sextet performance of Transfigured Night. To say that I have mixed feelings about its composer, Arnold Schoenberg, is about the only way I can put it: The dude wrote some lovely and powerful music, but also left the state of western classical music, especially in the academy, a smoking ruin for about two generations after his 120-stone and serial systems. He was clearly a … [Read more...]
Folk Duo The Milk Carton Kids
YOUR humble blogger caught a very good show at Largo last night by the LA folk duo The Milk Carton Kids. I've dug their Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings-like songs on their recordings -- their mix of old-time vocal harmonies, smooth melodies, and bits of guitar dissonance -- but the show took it all to a higher level. (Others will hear the Everly Bros or early Simon and Garfunkel.) Beautiful … [Read more...]
Rachel Kushner’s "The Flamethrowers"
ONE of our favorite debuts in recent years is Rachel Kushner's Telex From Cuba. I was aware of this novel only because of a tip from New York literary agent Chris Calhoun, and once I read the galleys I was a bit abashed to see what a substantial talent was here in my city, until then invisible to me.In any case, Rachel is invisible no more. Here sophomore novel, The Flamethrowers, which came out … [Read more...]