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...]
Philip K. Dick’s Late Work
MY latest piece on Philip K. Dick is the only one built of all-new material: That is, none of this appears in the LA Times story about the writer's Orange County years that ran a couple of Sundays back.This latest piece, which just went up on the Hero Complex blog, looks at the impact Southern California had on Dick's work. Did it move him toward an interest in consumerism, religion, or change his … [Read more...]
Philip K. Dick’s Last Decade, Parts 1 and 2
TODAY the second of my six-part series on Philip K. Dick's life in Orange County, Calif., went up on the LATimes' Hero Complex blog.This second section gets him to OC from his often troubled life in the Bay Area and a really disastrous trip to Vancouver.Yesterday's installment started out with a 1976 scene in Fullerton in which his marriage unravels and the author tries suicide.Please stay tuned … [Read more...]
Philip K. Dick and the Suburbs
THE science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick was a bearded Berkeley bohemian -- the last guy you'd expect to move to Orange County, Calif., at a time when its John Birch reputation was still well-deserved. But after a disastrous year or so, the author relocated from the Bay Area to SoCal, and wrote some of his most important work.Dick has also become the first sf writer to land in the Library of … [Read more...]
Happy Birthday to Philip K. Dick
This blog has drifted into Africa and Italy recently, so let me return for a moment to our West Coast home ground: Today would be the birthday of one of America's most intriguing, frustrating and brilliant writers -- Philip K. Dick.It's hard to know where to start on a figure like this, but let me defer to David Gill, a Bay Area lecturer who runs the clever and instructive Total Dick-head site. … [Read more...]
Eight Decades of Ursula K. Le Guin
TODAY one of the most innovative and intriguing writers in the english language marks her 80th birthday. there aren't many novelists who i enjoy as much today as i did when i was in elementary school; ursula le guin is one of them. here is the recent LA Times piece i wrote on her after visiting her in portland and re-immersing myself in her body of work and the debates around it. she was a very … [Read more...]
Steve Erickson’s West Coast Dreams
THE recent release of "a new literary history of america," has gotten me thinking again about longtime LA writer steve erickson. this fascinating volume, edited by greil marcus and werner sollors, includes a brilliantly counter-intuitive essay by erickson, which manages to wrap thomas jefferson and john adams around the songs of stephen foster. (he was born on the day in 1826 on which those two … [Read more...]