COMING from BBC America this summer is a new series called Copper, created by Tom Fontana (Oz, Homicide, Borgia) and set in 1860s New York. Much of the show takes place in Five Points, the rough Irish neighborhood some of us know from Scorsese's Gangs of New York. The protagonist is a tormented, Irish born detective named Corcoran.I've not yet seen much of the show, but it hits several of my … [Read more...]
Archives for 2012
Owen and Kidman as Hemingway and Gellhorn
SOMETIMES, in this business, you have to do things you don't want to do -- deal with unpleasant people, write about a production that bores you to tears. Other times, you get to talk to Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman about Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, the strong-willed war correspondent who would hate to be remembered at Papa's third wife.Later this month, HBO will broadcast a film, … [Read more...]
Elaine Stritch and Her Inspirations
EVERY two weeks, I speak to a performer coming to town and ask them about their influences, figures who drove them into a life in the arts or helped shape what they do. But my latest subject -- Broadway's tough dame Elaine Stritch -- was having none of it.Here is my latest Influences column, which I nearly had to rename.She was also surprised to note that despite the success of her Elaine Stritch … [Read more...]
Wily Finn Magnus Lindberg
NEXT to Esa-Pekka Salonen, the most visible Finnish classical musician over the last few decades has been his old partner in crime Magnus Lindberg, who is completing a three-year term as composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic.Lindberg is a playful kind of modernist who has recently, as he told me, started to blend his avant-garde tendencies (interest in electronica, industrial music, … [Read more...]
LA’s New Opera Company
WHAT would it look like if Hurricane Katrina blew across an Italo Calvino fable? We might be able to find out when Crescent City, whose creators call it a "hyperopera," comes to Atwater Crossing later this week.Recently I visited the set, much of which was designed by local visual artists, and met with director Yuval Sharon and composer Anne LeBaron of CalArts. Here's my story.Sharon, who used to … [Read more...]
Remembering Maurice Sendak
EVEN when someone has hit their 80s, it can be hard to think of them disappearing if they're as ornery and vital as Maurice Sendak. Famously cranky and contrary, he was also a giant of 20th century literature, and it's with great sorrow that The Misread City says goodbye to the writer and artist, who died today in Connecticut.I spoke to Sendak just once, for my story on Spike Jonze's Where The … [Read more...]
Collecting the Creative Class
MY recent stories on the struggles of the creative class have hit some people hard -- I've gotten more emotional responses from these, I think, than anything I've written in two decades as a cultural journalist. (Due to the mean-spirited, anonymous nature of Internet culture, I've also gotten nastier comments than I expected, along with some smaller doses of smart, reasonable criticism.)In … [Read more...]
The Roots of Tony Bennett
THIS week my Influences column looks at the great crooner Tony Bennett. I figured that his Italian background and Frank Sinatra were important to him, but I was surprised to hear Leonardo da Vinci and Art Tatum, the most ornate and technically accomplished pianists in the history of jazz, as major inspirations. (His Sinatra anecdote, by the way, is one of my favorite things I've heard this … [Read more...]
Creative Class on Studio 360
MY latest Salon story on the plight of the creative class has gotten more attention than anything I've written this year -- thanks to those who read and passed around this story."No Sympathy For the Creative Class," as it's called, looked at the distance between our assumptions about artists, musicians, writers, etc. and the reality of a life in the arts, especially during times that are hitting … [Read more...]
Farewell to the Man Behind Ecotopia
HE wrote a book that a lot of people haven't heard of, but one that influenced many and presaged a lot of the way we live now, especially on the West Coast, where it's set. That's Ernest "Chick" Callenbach, the Berkeley author of the book Ecotopia. Chick, as he was known, died on April 16.This month has seen a lot of death in my world -- a very dear elderly relative, an old friend's mother, … [Read more...]