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Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

Audrey Hepburn Vs. Wilco

July 6, 2009 by Scott Timberg


This blog has held two recent polls, which i’ve been meaning to report back on.

the first was on “best audrey hepburn film.” this idea was suggested by my old man, who introduced me to her movies way back when, and i was glad to have reason to include one of my favorite actresses of all time, who defined each film she was in with class, intelligence and self-possession. (i like her so much i even briefly went out with an absolutely crazy lass in the 90s largely because her name was audrey.)
so the winner, by a pretty big margin, was “breakfast at tiffany’s” — no surprise. this italian poster used to hang in my old apt. the runner up was “roman holiday” (anyone remember the LA opera staging in homage to the film?) tho several other films, including the now obscure/cult “two for the road,” which i must admit i’ve never seen but which is in the mail to me, also drew support.
the torrent of wilco related events — new album, tour, lots of press coverage, even an interview by yours truly — led to a poll on best wilco album. the winner, of course, was the star-crossed but eventually triumphant, cryptic and forceful “yankee hotel foxtrot,” drawing a large percentage (63%) of votes.
interestingly, the record i and many others discovered wilco with — the rootsy double-cd “being there” — drew about a third the votes as “yankee.” that earlier record changed my life when i heard it as a 20-something new englander not yet persuaded by the alt-country revolution. (by coincidence, 3,000 miles away, a young lady much saner than my audrey was reviewing “being there” for the LA times and would go on to become my wife.)
so whichever phase you prefer, hats off to one of america’s greatest bands and one of cinema’s real class acts.

Filed Under: '50s, '60s, alt-country, audrey hepburn, film, wilco

Scott Timberg

I'm a longtime culture writer and editor based in Los Angeles; my book "CULTURE CRASH: The Killing of the Creative Class" came out in 2015. My stories have appeared in The New York Times, Salon and Los Angeles magazine, and I was an LA Times staff writer for six years. I'm also an enthusiastic if middling jazz and indie-rock guitarist. (Photo by Sara Scribner) Read More…

Culture Crash, the Book

My book came out in 2015, and won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. The New Yorker called it "a quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life"

I urge you to buy it at your favorite independent bookstore or order it from Portland's Powell's.

Culture Crash

Here is some information on my book, which Yale University Press published in 2015. (Buy it from Powell's, here.) Some advance praise: With coolness and equanimity, Scott Timberg tells what in less-skilled hands could have been an overwrought horror story: the end of culture as we have known … [Read More...]

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