WHEN people think about LA urbanism, they still invoke the same old cliches -- Woody Allen's line about the only "cultural advantage" being a right turn on red, the notorious "sprawl," and so on. They recite Getrude Stein's line about "no there there" (applied originally to another California city) as if the early town fathers just sort of forgot that part.So it was refreshing to hear from two … [Read more...]
Jim Gavin’s Los Angeles Stories
IT'S not often that a book of short stories as good as Jim Gavin's Middle Men rolls across our desk -- rarer still when a book of any kind captures Los Angeles, especially its overlooked, non-mythic aspects, quite so intelligently.And don't take our word for it: The galleys of Middle Men come with so many raves from execs, editors, and publicists at Simon & Schuster than I can picture dewy office … [Read more...]
Return of the Shoegazers
FOR a few thousand of us, last week marked one of the musical events of the decade. After more than 20 years of near-silence, My Bloody Valentine released a new, noisy, hazy, dreamy new album. I spent part of 1990 in England, where the shoegaze revolution was roaring full force, and passed much of the '90s sulking through record stores trying to find out of print EPs and import singles by this … [Read more...]
Benjamin Nugent’s "Good Kids"
EVERY once in a while, something – a book, a short New York Times story, an n+1 essay – appears by a mysterious character named Benjamin Nugent, and damn if every time it isn't funny, smart and insightful.Now Nugent – who I’ve interviewed over the years on Elliott Smith, songcraft, and the history of nerd-dom – has a new novel called Good Kids. All I can tell you so far is that its opening … [Read more...]
Farewell to a Los Angeles Chronicler
SOMETIME during that hazy, gray zone around Christmas and New Year’s Day, one of LA’s finest scribes left town, maybe for good. I’m talking about former Village Voice/LA Weekly/Los Angeles magazine writer and editor RJ Smith. He’s also the author of two acclaimed books, The Great Black Way: LA in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance and last year’s The One: The Life and Music of … [Read more...]
Why Jazz Happened
THE history of an art form is more than just the biography of its exemplars. But you wouldn’t know it by reading most histories of jazz. (I’m speaking here of some books I really like, by the way.) A fresh, engaging new book by Marc Myers, a Wall Street Journal contributor, tells the story so differently than the way we normally hear jazz history that reading it is a kind of unfolding revelation. … [Read more...]
Los Angeles Gets a Poet Laureate
WELL, folks, the mayor has appointed Eloise Klein Healy the city's first poet laureate. Here's the LA Times story.Healy and I have a second-hand connection since we've both published on Red Hen Press, so I will not evaluate her work except to say I'm pleased with her appointnent. Here's poet Dana Gioia, who was part of the selection committee, on her commitment to the city:Healy has devoted her … [Read more...]
Robinson Jeffers at USC
READERS of this blog know that we've got a special place in our collective hearts for Robinson Jeffers, the great California poet of the '30s and '40s who settles in the rugged, unpopulated coastline north of Big Sur. (He was voted Best California Poet right here on The Misread City.)On Thursday, a festival devoted to Jeffers' life and work will take place at USC, one of his two alma maters (he … [Read more...]
In Search of Ryan Adams
EVERY few years, Ryan Adams surprises me. He'll put out a song or album that reminds me what a goddam genius the self-destructive lad can be. He's someone I'm always on the verge of writing off as a narcissistic showboat, or a pastiche artist, but he comes through with some of the most poignant and alive work in the entire alt-country tradition. It's a bit low-key for me, but last year's Ashes … [Read more...]
Remembering Rodney King
IT'S not often that a theater performance stops me cold. But last week's Rodney King, a one-man-show by Roger Guenveur Smith at the Bootleg Theater left me both impressed and a little shaken up at the very least.When I moved to LA in 1997, the city seemed like a sunny, youthful, high-spirited place after a few years in New England. But underneath the good times, there was a sense that I was living … [Read more...]