2009
-
Ted Wilson Reviews the World #10
THE FOR SALE SIGN PLACED IN MY YARD ★★★★★ (5 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing the ‘for sale’ sign placed in my yard.
-
An Extra March to Fetch the Year Around
Thoreau’s Journal is forthcoming in a new edition from NYRB Classics, abridged by Damion Searls; the Quarterly Conversation’s Geoff Wisner has given a favorable and interesting review of the book:
-
LA Times on Art Laboe
So there was a great piece in the LA Times last week about Art Laboe, an 84-year-old veteran radio host in Los Angeles whose long history and oldies show has forged a deep cross-cultural connection with the Latino community. Laboe…
-
Gladwell Agonistes
I’m not sure why Malcolm Gladwell‘s fourth book, What the Dog Saw, which collects 19 of his New Yorker essays, has been the one to incite a riot of review-essays. Were the first three books not successful enough? Was something…
-
Morning Coffee
Actually, blowing up the moon WAS successful! Guardian UK on In Cold Blood 50 years on. Don’t try and bring snow globes on an airplane. Don’t do it! Modern day Alpine witch houses. Everything that could possibly exist on the…
-
The Rumpus Interview with Robert McKee
Robert McKee is best known to the world in two ways: as the guy who teaches the popular STORY seminar in Los Angeles and around the world to would-be screenwriters, and as the character in the film Adaptation who teaches…
-
Portnoy’s Complaining Again
I’m not sure why Philip Roth seems so concerned about the future of the novel; perhaps because he’s about to die, he thinks the novel should go with him? Or maybe he’s talking about it because he has a new…
-
From the Bowels of the Game Developers Conference
Joshuah Bearman has an article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about the burgeoning independent video game developer scene. Basically, technology and distribution has enabled a do-it-yourself, ‘zine movement in video games. It’s a raucous avant garde, and wants…
-
Lights in Your Throat
The 2009 music release schedule is winding down, so people have started making their arbitrary top-whatever lists. While such rankings might be more potent some years from now, when we see which albums are actually still in rotation (like tomorrow’s…
-
The Hurricane and the War
A new book about a soldier who murdered his girlfriend examines the similar traumas of combat veterans and Katrina survivors.