RECENTLY I spent some time with Casey Affleck, who appears in Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the Jim Thompson noir novel, The Killer Inside Me.I don’t often write about actors – I’m not usually that curious about their inner worlds the way I am with novelists, musicians, or directors – but Casey Affleck is so strong, and so elusive, in his films that I welcomed the chance to sit down with … [Read more...]
The Eternal Return of Bret Easton Ellis
THESE days I am digging into Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel of sorts to Less Than Zero, one of the most famous and at least initially controversial novels ever written about Los Angeles.It makes me think back to the stories I've written on Ellis over the years and our conversations about literature, fame, the heartlessness of Hollywood and the records of Elvis Costello. Here is the most extensive … [Read more...]
Legends of the High Desert
A few weeks back I had the pleasure to visit Joshua Tree with my wife and son. I guess for some people the place invokes U2, but it always makes me think of Gram Parsons and his hippie/ Dylanesque updating of the high-lonesome sound.Here is my piece that runs in this Sundays' LATimes. It's both a meditation on the power of music and a trip-with-kids story. It's also one of the few trips I've taken … [Read more...]
The Twisted Mind of Geoff Nicholson
THE Los Angeles-based novelist and recovering Englishman Geoff Nicholson had a smart, counter-intuitive and oddly funny essay in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review about his passion for old Guinness Books of Records and "the joys of outdated information."Geoff, whose book The Lost Art of Walking I like very much, was part of a small posse I ran with at Guadalajara’s International Festival of … [Read more...]
The Agony and Ecstasy of Daniel Clowes
I GUESS I expected one of those harsh, shriveled social misfits with which he he populates his books. But the comics artist I met in Los Feliz recently was a very cool, reasonably well adjusted guy.But as I write in a piece in Sunday's LA Times: "In person, Clowes — who has created an oeuvre marked by hard-edged social criticism, over-the-top satire and obnoxious, confrontational characters — is … [Read more...]
Shocked and Appalled at UCLA
David Sefton -- generally the most intriguing and unpredictable of Los Angeles' arts showmen -- has resigned from his post running the UCLA Live series that takes place at Royce Hall and other venues. Sefton, a native of Liverpool, is being coy about this, but it's hard not to imagine that someone as passionate about his programming, and about his particularly fervent niche of high and low, … [Read more...]
Nada Surf at the Troubadour
The Brooklyn band Nada Surf are one part '90s indie, one part chiming power pop, one part '60s songcraft, and last night they melded all three styles in a loud, forceful Troubadour show that left my ears ringing. The tour -- which continues tonight at the same club -- supports their new record of idiosyncratic covers, If I Had a Hi-Fi.The show, of course, wasn't perfect, with a few songs that … [Read more...]
Art’s "Cool School" Returns
THE Ferus Gallery is probably the most famous gallery in the history of Los Angeles – the site of Warhol’s first-ever solo show, obscenity charges over a Wallace Berman exhibit, and home base of the “cool school” of L.A. artists which included Ed Moses, Robert Irwin and Ed Ruscha. Quite an impact for a place which only lasted from 1957 to '67.The other night the storied space held an opening – … [Read more...]
Philip K. Dick at UC Irvine
ON Friday I braved some of the worst traffic in Southern California for A County Darkly, a panel on Philip K. Dick's years in Orange County.Overall, the event was lively and fun, even without offering few genuinely new insights. (I wrote about the symposium briefly, here, on the LA Times Jacket Copy blog. And I wrote a lengthy piece on his years in SoCal here.)UC Riverside scholar Rob Latham read … [Read more...]
Neck and Neck Over Nabokov
WELL gang, Misread City readers seem to be equally split between Pale Fire fans and Lolita fans -- there is a joke here I can't quite summon. In any case, because the vote ended in a dead tie, I have put up this blog's first ever runoff to break the tie.Please vote for one OR the other and please tell your friends.All my best,Scott … [Read more...]