[contextly_auto_sidebar id="6RDST6owlrC0x8P60LIwnB5J7Z8Ftt9Q"] HOW does an aspiring novelist, poet, or essayist break into the business? What kind of ecosystem does he or she inhabit after getting established? Does grad school help? Among the best answers to those questions came from novelist Chad Harbach in his essay "MFA vs NYC," and he's expanded it into a provocative anthology that … [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...]
Playwright Donald Margulies in the Southland
RECENTLY, I had the good fortune to spent part of the day strolling through the Orange County Museum of Art's Richard Diebenkorn exhibit. This enchanting show of the California painter's Ocean Park paintings was even better because I took it in with a trained painter who could point out what I might have overlooked. That this former artist was the New York/New Haven playwright Donald Margulies … [Read more...]
Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus
THE other day I was lucky enough to speak to Sonny Rollins, the tenor saxophone legend who performs at UCLA's Royce Hall tonight, Thursday, and at Segerstrom Hall in Orange County on Sunday.These days, the once-brash, mohawk-rocking Rollins is 81, and, he's many decades from authoritative, agenda-setting records like Saxophone Colossus and Way Out West.But the Rollins I spoke to was easy to speak … [Read more...]
The 5 Browns on the Piano
Photo Andrew SouthamA GROUP of cherubic, Julliard-educated young people came to Irvine this weekend to play 5 pianos in tandem. This could be heaven or it could be hell, but this group of siblings is good.HERE is my interview with the band in the LA Times. There is more to the story than met the eye when I accepted this piece -- their backstory is a bit complicated. I enjoyed talking to two of the … [Read more...]
Martha Graham vs. Isamu Noguchi
TWO very different artists -- with equally contrasting temperaments -- enjoyed one of the richest collaborations of the 20th century. They were also shaped in some ways by their time in California.Graham with Bertram RossDance pioneer Martha Graham and sculptor/ designer Isamu Noguchi worked together for more than two decades on about two dozen sets; three of them, including Pulitzer-winning … [Read more...]
The Return of Franz Liszt
I STILL remember the elementary school assembly in which a local musician in a long white wig came in to play piano and talk to us about classical music and the 19th century craze Liszt-omania.And while it's true that Franz Liszt inspired all kinds of insane behavior, especially from swooning young women, there's more to the composer than that.In today's LA Times I speak to Louis Lortie, HERE, a … [Read more...]
The Past Envisions the Future
LOOKING back at mid-century optimism is always both fascinating and depressing. All the labor-saving devices and exotic holidays -- weekends on the moon! -- we were going to get by now.The science-fiction writer Gregory Benford, who teaches at UC/Irvine, and the editors of Popular Mechanics have put together hundreds of these predictions, from asbestos dresses to personal jetpacks, along with the … [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...]
Death — and New Life — for Philip K. Dick
IT seems appropriate for a writer who was fascinated by religion for much of his career that Philip K. Dick's own trajectory tracks that of many a religious messiah: He died in 1982, but in the years after his death he has seemed to rise again.HERE is the last of six pieces in the Hero Complex blog about the author's decade in Orange County. It looks at his final years, his death, and the movie … [Read more...]