• Home
  • About
    • CultureCrash: The Blog
    • Culture Crash: The Book
    • Scott Timberg
    • Contact
  • Culture Crash: The Book
    • Culture Crash: The Book
    • Book Events
  • Other AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

CultureCrash

Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction

You are here: Home / Archives for 2010

Archives for 2010

New View of General Lee

December 30, 2010 by Scott Timberg

OKAY, get ready for a deluge of coverage of the Civil War, whose 150th anniversary begins in the new year. One of the first shots fired will be a new documentary on Gen. Robert E. Lee, who emerges as a complex, brilliant, at times tormented, and deeply human character. The doc, which goes up Monday on PBS, avoids the hero-worship of neo-Confederates and a debunking approach that might have been … [Read more...]

Great New Novel

December 28, 2010 by Scott Timberg

THIS week the first novel by a former indie rock guitarist comes out on Crown. The novel, The Metropolis Case, has a lot to do with opera, though you don't have to be an opera fan to enjoy the book. If you dig Tristan und Isolde -- or have every been transported by music -- the novel will have special meaning and depth.HERE  is my review from today's New York Times.I pick up a lot of novels, old … [Read more...]

Show of the Year: Pavement

December 24, 2010 by Scott Timberg

HERE at The Misread City, we saw a lot of great shows this year -- from a roaring Ted Leo and the Pharmacists to a funky Belle & Sebastian to a spooky Esa-Pekka Salonen returning to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic.But the concert that stands out the most for us is one with a lot of history and symbolism behind it, as well as plenty of kickass guitar playing: The first North American show by … [Read more...]

The Glories of the Marin Coast

December 17, 2010 by Scott Timberg

OVER 13 years in Los Angeles, I've seen much of this beautiful state. But my trip to Point Reyes Station, which I visited in September because novelist Philip K. Dick lived there 50 years ago, stands out for the area's mellow natural beauty.I wrote about the town, and the surrounding National Seashore, in a travel story for the Oregonian, HERE.West Marin has a fortuitous setting: tiny towns that … [Read more...]

Masters of Cinema, Through French Eyes

December 16, 2010 by Scott Timberg

THE French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema may be the most important, game-changing publication in the history of film, thanks to its role in the auteur theory and its instigation of the New Wave. The magazine also rethought film history in a way that honored directors like Hitchcock and Hawks at the expense of supposedly more serious French filmmakers. Some of Cahiers’ advocacy (Sam Fuller) now … [Read more...]

Christopher Isherwood’s LA

December 10, 2010 by Scott Timberg

LAST night the Hammer Museum held an event about Isherwood's years in LA that included his companion Don Bachardy and and journalist David Kipen. Connection problems keep me from filling this out further, but HERE is the piece I wrote on the British author's years in California, which included a visit to his old house in the Palisades. The story begins: He abandoned a … [Read more...]

A Happy, and Sad, 70th to John Lennon

December 8, 2010 by Scott Timberg

THIRTY years ago, on a cold December morning, I woke up to see my mom, a bit addled, standing in my bedroom doorway. "I've got some bad news," she said. "John Lennon was shot." "Well, is he okay?" I asked. I was in 6th grade, and I'd spent much of the previous few years sitting in the basement while my head spun along with the turntable to the Beatles music -- especially "Revolver" and an … [Read more...]

James Franco and The Adderall Diaries

December 6, 2010 by Scott Timberg

ONE of the best and most unpredictable memoirs I've read in years is The Adderall Diaries, which is a weird hybrid of a murder trial, S&M chronicle, and document of drug abuse. I just bumped into its author, Stephen Elliott, who is a far more level guy than you'd expect given that previous description, at the local coffee shop. Elliott, who's an editor at the excellent literary site The Rumpus, is … [Read more...]

WikiLeaks and Daniel Ellsberg

December 3, 2010 by Scott Timberg

IN September, I interviewed Daniel Ellsberg, famed for his role in leaking the Pentagon Papers and thus helping to end the Vietnam War. At the time he spoke of the importance of the actions of WikiLeaks, arguing that governments keep so much secret that almost any leak is a good one. (Here is my piece, timed to the excellent documentary on the former RAND analyst.)Now he has come out again in … [Read more...]

Salman Rushdie in Los Angeles

November 30, 2010 by Scott Timberg

ONE of my best experiences as a books/authors reporter was spending most of a day wandering around LA with Salman Rushdie. We discussed his longtime interest in film while strolling through his old neighborhood in West Hollywood, talked about the Beatles and the English '60s over iced coffees at the Kings Road Cafe, and got into his years in hiding while having lunch nearby.Rushdie is in town … [Read more...]

Next Page »

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...]

Follow Me

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

Archives

@TheMisreadCity

Tweets by @TheMisreadCity
May 2025
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Dec    

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Scott Timberg Has Passed Away
  • Ojai Music Festival and JACK Quartet
  • What’s in a Name?
  • Time Pauses For Valentin Silvestrov
  • The Perverse Imagination of Edward Carey

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in