Your Life Is In Your Foot's Hands. … [Read more...]
Fabled Loins
David Thomson updates his scabrous, eye-peeling, brain-sizzling Biographical Dictionary of Film with an entry on Angelista, She To Whom Attention Must Be Paid: "...Who knows, the world may last long enough for her to play Dagny Taggart in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, or the mother of apocalypse in … [Read more...]
None But the Brave
Marc Crispin Miller on HBO's RECOUNT in the Huffington Post: ...However, it is at the very end that Recount cops out most egregiously. The last shot is a great one: a grim Kubrickian view down a long corridor, with floor-to-ceiling shelves on either side, all loaded up with crates of ballots -- … [Read more...]
Turn On Your Radio
Second half of On Point this morning, at 11:30 EDT, I'll talk about Gnarls Barkley, Erykah Badu, and Beck... will post podcast as soon as it's available. This gets repeated tonight across many public radio stations. … [Read more...]
Let’s Get Lost
Web Habits, Effectively A juicy sampling of writerly links from Granta. Quote of the Year 'If you fight terror with terror,' the authors ask, 'how can you tell which is which?' … [Read more...]
Schiff’s Schubert at the Wigmore
For tragic albeit fortuitous reasons I find myself in London teaching a Beatle class, put up and well-paid only homesick for my family beyond words. For solace I seek out culture, and last week I caught Andras Schiff playing Schubert at the Wigmore Hall. (The link goes to the Guardian excellent … [Read more...]
RINGO AT THE FLOWER SHOW
Contemporary Britain is still so much more a literate culture than America that the GUARDIAN gives away paperback books in its Sunday Observer (whereas the Mail gives away pop CDs). And this past Sunday's special Music section included a feature article on My Bloody Valentine by... Sean O'Hagan, who … [Read more...]
Less Is More
Portishead's THIRD was worth the wait. … [Read more...]
Yoko Ono Blocks Documentary in Boston court
This aired on NPR on Wednesday's Morning Edition, a slightly longer version aired on WBUR's Morning Edition local break. … [Read more...]
CD OF THE MONTH
In case there was any doubt: Filing on this today for NPR, stay tuned for air date. PS: please oh please notify us all about Prince boots from Coachella. Trade you for last year's Super Bowl sound-check ("Johnny B. Goode"). … [Read more...]
Tabloid Negative
Here's reflexive enigma worthy of Joe Pesci: does Ellroy's masterful novel (or Dillelo's Libra) read like the nightmare forecast of David Kaiser's voluminously detailed history or the other way around? Is history more like fiction or does fiction tend to anticipate and generate history? Was there … [Read more...]
Old White Men, Unite!
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" played as warmonger Bush greeted His Papal Self at the White House. Wonder if either of them could name the song's lyricist, Julia Ward Howe, who went on to write the Mother's Day Proclamation, a call for peace. … [Read more...]
Card Shark
OH! Canada!
So, Jim and Brian and I wander around Vancouver this afternoon ... then we wander over to the old hockey arena and pick up our our all-access passes to the Foo Fighters show. And we're hanging out back in the bowels of this arena until Brian's friend Nate, who plays bass in the Foos, wanders in … [Read more...]
LESBIANS LOVE BRUCE
Well, I thought it was a great night. The 'backstreets' online review is oddly mixed -- though they're right it took 20 minutes or so for the band to kick into gear. But when they did, it was pretty incredible. Surprises: back-to-back requests in the middle of the set, for "For You" and then "Lost … [Read more...]