Because seasonal change tends to be pretty subtle in Southern California, summer doesn't officially begin for me until the first show at the Hollywood Bowl. Last night's performance was dedicated to retro-minded guy-girl duos: The Bird and the Bee, She & Him, and the Swell Season. The evening, at the end of what was by far the hottest weekend of the year, was very fine without being especially … [Read more...]
The Wide World of David Mitchell
If there's a more inventive, most linguistically alive mid-career writer than David Mitchell, I've not read him. Best known as the author of the century-jumping, continent-hopping cult novel Cloud Atlas, he'll be appearing at Skylight Books on July 23 to read from his new novel, set mostly in the late 18th c., The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I was able to speak to the English-born, … [Read more...]
California Vs. The Great Plains
The writer and urbanist Joel Kotkin has a fascinating piece in a recent Newsweek called "The Great Great Plains," which looks at the way cities like Fargo and Bismarck -- as well as most of Texas -- are booming while much of the rest of the country languishes in a dead economy.It got us here at the Misread City wondering: What are Omaha and Dallas doing right that Los Angeles and other West Coast … [Read more...]
Ozu’s Films vs. Adrian Tomine
It's one of the best and most natural aesthetic marriages imaginable: The nuanced, meditative Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu and the nuanced, meditative comics Adrian Tomine, best known for the Optic Nerve series.Tomine has designed some covers for Ozu's lesser known films, The Only Son and There Was a Father. Here is more info on the films, which the Criterion Collection will release next week. … [Read more...]
Slake Tells LA’s Stories
PORN, celebrity, poetry and sharp graphic design: It’s got a little of everything, just like the city it chronicles. I’D heard enough good things about the new LA-centric quarterly, Slake, to have high hopes for it. But so far, to my initial assessment, Slake – a publication of fiction, art, photography and journalism -- has exceeded he high expectations I had for it.Part of the reason for my high … [Read more...]
New Offerings at UCLA
WHEN I moved to the Eastside five years ago, the main think I knew I'd miss from my more central position in the city was the cultural stuff at UCLA. The last few days -- which has seen a new schedule for UCLA Live and a season preview at the Hammer Museum -- reminds me just how much is going on there.One of the best developments since I landed here 13 years ago has been Ann Philbin's revival of … [Read more...]
The Killer Inside Jim Thompson
WITH the film adaptation of Michael Winterbotton’s The Killer Inside Me opening in Los Angeles today, I turned to the author's biographer for insight into this very complicated pulp figure. If there is a better biography of an American writer than Robert Polito’s Savage Art, I’ve not read it. (The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award.)Polito’s book describes Thompson as a “profoundly … [Read more...]
The Eloquent Ache of Joe Pernice
THERE are only a handful of musicians of whose work I own virtually every release. Among this group is Joe Pernice, whose recordings with alt-country band Scud Mountain Boys, chamber-pop band the Pernice Brothers and assorted side projects share an easy melodic sense, knack for both American-roots and British Invasion production styles and an aching voice that recalls the Zombies.I still remember … [Read more...]
Bert Jansch at Largo
SUNDAY night I was lucky enough to catch Britfolk guitarist Bert Jansch at Largo. It may've been the most stunning display of acoustic guitar I have seen in my life -- and I have seen legendary axe-man Richard Thompson at least a dozen times. Now I know why Neil Young calls him the Hendrix of the acoustic: The shadings and nuance this stolid and unremarkable looking man coaxed out of his … [Read more...]
The Germans are Coming
IN the years just before, during and after WWII, the flow of exiles and emigres from fascist Germany to Los Angeles became so strong that an injection of wit and decadence transformed parts of the city. I wrote about this period -- and a present where German culture exists mostly in dispersed form -- in Sunday's LA Times. Here is my piece, which looks at both the era where Marlene Dietrich, Thomas … [Read more...]