[contextly_auto_sidebar id="KUST1tJRtgkRnoQOLlZRPbrZOASSJtA8"] I'M not sure there's a novelist alive whose work I look forward to more than David Mitchell's. I say this even while sharing some mixed feelings about his new novel. The parts of this that work -- four and a half of its six parts -- are simply spectacular. In fact, I can't think of two many writers of any kind whose storytelling is … [Read more...]
Archives for 2014
Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="GoFGOT4Q6EPfBqiYMIbBn4gpMbiXLSMV"] IT would give me a contrarian thrill if I could come out against what may be the best-reviewed movie of the year. But Boyhood, which I finally caught up with, struck me as the most profound film I've seen in years. The New York Times review, by my friend Manohla Dargis, caught a hint of the movie's poetry. The realism is … [Read more...]
Are We Really in a Gutenberg Moment?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="n4bv9MRmUDoFtO6zdRvCDUwfVj0rxy5C"] OFTEN these days, we hear that the shift from the analog world of print to the online and digital world resembles what happened when Gutenberg's printing press reshaped Renaissance Europe, crushing Catholicism, spreading literacy and perhaps democracy, and overturning old ways. People who frame our current transition this way often … [Read more...]
Where Does the Creative Class Go After Brooklyn and Berlin?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="yn9axOyZHqiOw8ewg8ssVPhGCVhfNenL"] RECENTLY we've been hearing that artists and writers are being priced out of Brooklyn, and the search for "the new Berlin" -- an affordable city for creatives -- is on. (Krakow? Vilnius?) And is Portland getting better, or worse? A number of stories have tackled the issue from different angles. (It all reminds me of the Talking … [Read more...]
Poet Dana Gioia Endorses Culture Crash the Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="i8fGP35j28y9jQ6G5JGv4lGoSeq95eDP"] NOTORIOUS to some, beloved by others, the California poet has this to say about Culture Crash, my upcoming book: Scott Timberg has written an original and important study. He explores some of the most pressing cultural issues affecting the arts and intellectual life with remarkable clarity. This is the first analysis of our current … [Read more...]
Have We Lost the Ability to Be Alone?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wInG9qIiyZXfe5IWkw9gGzmkXV2eQ06T"] A COUPLE of decades into it, we're still figuring out what the Internet is doing to us, as individuals and as a society. A fascinating interview with the author of a new book, The End of Absence, get at this in a nuanced way. Author Michael Harris talks about the difference between the digital era and the age of Gutenberg, the … [Read more...]
The Pixies and Cat Power at the Hollywood Bowl
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="nc1kP0QNXqToOtKKMBYEWF1PA492NXRw"] WELL, the Bowl's 2014 season ends with a show a lot of us had looked forward to for a long time. The Pixies are a band from the George H.W. Bush administration -- from before the indie-rock boom inaugurated by Nirvana's Nevermind -- and they've been tighter and more taught since their reunion. Their Bowl debut, then, did not take … [Read more...]
Philip Roth, Le Guin Take on Amazon
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="65McoqrzvnW78eClGabJ9zi1OijdJLHZ"] WRITERS and artists are notoriously difficult to corral; it's both built into the job description and something that keeps the creative class from asserting itself. But lately a number of scribes have united in an effort to resist the bullying of the online bookseller. The New York Times reports : Now, hundreds … [Read more...]
The Pleasures of Waiting
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="V6NmBVYqb2qdo87yWjeHN0SrNINzHk4V"] NO, this hasn't become an abstinence-themed blog while you were napping. But I'm struck today by a piece about the joys of waiting for culture, whether it's a weekly music newspaper or the new singles or LPs that those publications served to announce or assess. No matter what kind of culture you care about, you'll find something you … [Read more...]
Switching Sides in the Digital War
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="eJnmz4EFyiZtMYvvDKNPqiDekKwUDUR1"] DIDN'T we hear about how great it was going to be? Those early days, when we were told how funky and non-commercial and liberating the Web was going to be, now seem like ancient history. One writer who believed in the promise of the Internet in the early days has come to see what a much more complex issue the digital revolution … [Read more...]