[contextly_auto_sidebar id="eJnmz4EFyiZtMYvvDKNPqiDekKwUDUR1"] DIDN'T we hear about how great it was going to be? Those early days, when we were told how funky and non-commercial and liberating the Web was going to be, now seem like ancient history. One writer who believed in the promise of the Internet in the early days has come to see what a much more complex issue the digital revolution … [Read more...]
The Roots of Author Jeff Hobbs
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vsIAkFjrXusRtaqu8qZ48niChaYcVmTM"] ONE of the breakout books of the fall is Jeff Hobbs's new chronicle of his Yale roomate, a young black man who escaped the streets of Newark and found himself, in the end, pulled back down by some of the same old forces. I'm reading The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace now and amazed at how rich the detail is: It's powerful -- … [Read more...]
Musician Dean Wareham Raves on About Culture Crash the Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vyqP11F1681n3YcQlEIIXhqmzlNi3MAa"] ONE of my favorite indie rock musicians -- a member of Galaxie 500, Luna, and Dean & Britta -- has endorsed my upcoming book. Here's what he says: I read Scott Timberg’s pieces every week without fail. It’s great to see his book Culture Crash debunk the mumbo jumbo about the long tail, file-sharing, free information, and … [Read more...]
Do Artists Embrace or Resist Technology?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="YYQ5BrKAlLhK2VSvLagOYij5KMvYrB2z"] WELL, both, and neither, I can hear someone out there growling. But what I mostly hear in the culture at large is that we -- citizens, worker bee, student, scribe -- need to "adjust" to the brave new world of digital technology. Some of us do. But as someone who's been to numerous exhibits and conferences on "art and tech," I've … [Read more...]
Who Broke Hollywood?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="aA6rMNBdTA1u43J91OGEfmvqLnJK7cWf"] WITH an awful and low-yielding summer movie season recently concluded, I've been meaning to try to make sense of the continued decline of grownup film, independent and otherwise. Two LA Times stories get at the problem, which is both economic and aesthetic. The first story, by Josh Rottenberg, takes the point of view of … [Read more...]
Was Adorno Right?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6oJMFpFGim9R2BdzLisDHKzhOIShkqfL"] I WANT to go back for a minute to Alex Ross's wonderful piece, "The Naysayers," on the Frankfurt School. Ross drifts between interpretations here, but he comes up with a very resonant description of what's gone wrong with our culture over the last few decades: If Adorno were to look upon the cultural landscape of the twenty-first … [Read more...]
Neutral Milk Hotel at the Hollywood Bowl
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hoQprz2ypgmwVraWLQKLkTyU9PmJUJUE"] WHAT would the world look like if a bomb wiped out everyone who wasn't a Gen Xer? A lot like the crowd that filed into the Hollywood Bowl last night. I kept telling myself that we were a very small generation as I saw the rows of empty seats for a show by the Breeders and Neutral Milk Hotel -- both cult bands who only released two … [Read more...]
The Big Lie of Jeff Koons
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="vgKZ6xRHRblYrS2DIdm6RSmRakPmvRv4"] IS it possible that the most characteristic artist of our time could also be almost entirely full of b.s.? From what I can tell, that's exactly what we've got. Over the last week or so I've been underlining lines from Jed Perl's New York Review of Books piece on the art world's Gilded boy, thinking and talking about Perl's argument, … [Read more...]
Who Still Buys CDs?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="xAHGZG01AXb2m1exlG5WmI0Swyjbu2cn"] BESIDES Luddites and hipsters? (I'm borrowing here from the stage patter of the young folk duo the Milk Carton Kids.) Turns out, Japanese people still buy CDs. A country famous for loving technology and novelty are moving into the future by acting like it's the past. From a New York Times story: Japan may be one of the world’s … [Read more...]
What Killed Adulthood? Pop Culture or Capitalism?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="jery8F5jteMew95L1w4tWKmHZdFvaBDv"] ONE of the smarter back and forths over the last week or so has been the response to A.O. Scott's essay "The Post-Man," on how genuine adulthood has seeped out of American culture. He's taken the usual hits for being a nostalgic, entitled, puritanical white man -- charges I'm sure he could see coming a mile away -- most of which … [Read more...]