[contextly_auto_sidebar id="8lG1gx076ac8sMEbh9E4fK0epPYBWHeb"] THERE is a great new-ish journal out of San Franscisco that not only has the right idea, it has the follow-through. Radio Silence includes work by established elders (peerless short story writer Tobias Wolff), an interview with Lucinda Williams, and appearances by Carrie Brownstein, Rick Moody, even F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's all … [Read more...]
Housing for Artists, Upcoming Doc and What Twain Tells Us
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="hLRQi16APGHGAa7vr6agsGJdgdO8X6ef"] IT’S taken a while, but as rents and real estate prices have surged over the last few years, the issue of living space for artists has started to get the attention it deserves; David Byrne and Patti Smith have helped shine a light on the plight of creative folk in New York. A new story by fiction writer Catherine Lacey highlights … [Read more...]
Will Gentrification Kill Music Scenes?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="TrbR7MBr156tnxxUjyokh6h5WiyTPKma"] ONE irony that members of the creative class lives with every day is that we help bring neighborhoods up, and then get priced out sometime after the ascend. This has been going on for decades, but it's taken on a special fierceness in places where the tech boom and high finance have reshaped the cost of living. We see a … [Read more...]
The Invasion of San Francisco, and Intellectual Property
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="HKpgUBHFGiXW1ahrZaq596c8kILm1OXt"] FEW scribes write more eloquently than Rebecca Solnit about sense of place, especially San Francisco's. She’s got a very fine piece in the London Review of Books today about the way the tech boom is remaking the Bay Area. Cities and the arts have a long and fruitful relationship, so this has serious consequences for the creative … [Read more...]
The Torments of Stephen Elliott
SAN francisco writer stephen elliott is the baudelaire of the mission district. after reading his new book, "the adderall diaries" -- which begins with a possible murder and winds its way to a certain one -- i wasnt sure what kind of guy i'd be meeting for my interview at alcove cafe in los feliz. this is a man with numerous drug episodes, childhood years in rough group homes, a heroin OD after a … [Read more...]