VELVET DREAMS

Now for really serious things: a magazine swimsuit issue starring Albert Einstein, which needs no further comment, and tonight's broadcast of the 20th MTV Video Music Awards, which has starred so many media-made creatures that the ever-reliable celebrity site MSNBC.com insists on offering them more free publicity.

Ryan McGee, a former Harvard man with a beautifully named Weblog, Wading in The Velvet Sea, has followed the MTV Awards for a long time -- maybe too long. It seems to have  infected his brain with fame fever. The other day, he had this to say:

Roughly a year ago, I "hit it big" with a rundown of the Video Music Awards. It was my first taste of widespread readership, and the positive feedback I received basically transformed my blog into what it is today. So I know all too well, even in my miniscule version of celebrity, how intoxicating it can be, and why you strive towards it.

Without question, McGee feels the pulse of pop culture in his finger tips. But attentive, earnest musings on celebrity such as his -- though honest, smart and often funny -- make you wonder about the value of a Harvard education.

August 28, 2003 11:42 AM |

Categories:

Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
HERMAN WOUK'S LATEST 
It's hard to say which comes off worse in Herman Wouk's latest novel, his first in a decade: the U.S. Congress or the American press. "A Hole in Texas" offers the choice between two emblematic stereotypes: a red-faced opportunist who heads the House Armed Services Committee and a mustachioed investigative reporter for the Washington Post.
more picks

Sites to See

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by published on August 28, 2003 11:42 AM.

AROUND THE BEND was the previous entry in this blog.

DREAMING OF JUSTICE is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Stage Write
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.