The pantheon of chanteuses whose voices and phrasing could jackhammer your buried feelings from the tomb of defenses that life inevitably creates is not especially large—but its members are truly gifted in rising out of harrowing narratives to give unique voice to grief, torment, and tribulation. Nina Simone, Edith
For the purpose of this communiqué I don’t need to resolve whether myth-making is both a necessary and sufficient ingredient of nationalism—let’s agree that it is at least a sufficient condition. Hence, the various fabricated or embellished narratives regarding the Pilgrims and their Native American hosts, the
Back in the closing years of the last century, Jon Lee Anderson, who currently writes lucid and useful dispatches from the world’s hotspots—current and future—for the New Yorker, hied himself and his young family to Havana and wrote what is currently the definitive biography of Ernesto Che
My sense of the fin-de-siècle years in American pop culture and the decades leading up to them is that the reactionary ‘70s were followed by an era of escalating exuberance—one barometer of that was the burgeoning importance of design and designers, in fashion, interiors, and consumer goods. In the
Given the subject—Barack Obama—and the author—Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and New Yorker editor David Remnick—it makes sense that Remnick’s new tome, The Bridge (Knopf), would receive widespread attention and review coverage. And it probably would, at some point, make more sense or be (at the least)
Avante-garde composer John Cage's composition 4’33” created at the midpoint of the twentieth century, was conceived of without a single musical note. In his monograph No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33”, composer and Bard music mentor Kyle Gann writes: 4’ 33” Gann unpacks
Had friend David Meggesey, author of the highly regarded Out of Their League (selected by Sports Illustrated in 2002 as one of the top 100 sports books ever written) and former NFL Players Association apparatchik not recommended Rus Bradburd’s Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson
David Kirby (The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems), who is a poet by profession (as in calling, not career), put together an extended hagiographic essay on the life of one Richard Wayne Penniman, Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll (CONTINUUM BOOKS)—Richard, a favorite son
These days geography has devolved to a chauvinism and regional rivalry not quite as virulent as evidenced in the Balkans and former Yugoslavia. Much of this can be laid at the feet of New York City—that cesspool of ambition, striving, and air-kissing. Who coined that slander on the best
If you are attuned to such things, you might note that occasionally the Academy Awards honor one of the motion-picture industry’s faceless, behind-the-scenes people known as producers with an accolade named after Irving Thalberg. Thalberg is something of a Hollywood legend as he was successful at a young age
There are some people who believe Alfred Nobel and Joseph Pulitzer are better known for the prizes that bear their names than their places in history. Such an optimistic claim is at the least arguable especially now that there are so many awards that even the bad is celebrated—bad
Although I have soured on professional sports (because as we all know, money changes everything), my memories of various experiences remain vividly cherished (sitting in the Wrigley Field bleachers as teenager). I was still a fan when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, and Dennis Johnson not only made the
These days bookstore shelves are littered with biographies of defrocked, repentant (and repulsive), scandal-laden politicians, not to mention the sorry batch of whatcha-ma-call-its by their current and former wives, courtesans, and sycophants. Now I find it understandable that many people are fascinated by train wrecks, car accidents, and fires, but
Not to name drop or anything but I had the pleasure of “interviewing” (I don’t call my conversations with writers and the like interviews, but that is not what I am writing about today) Molly Ivins (Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?) a couple of times and
There are artists—musicians and actors—who once they take the stage, their power up there is so compelling that for those moments when they are before you, nothing else matters. Probably the list of such gods is different for everyone (mine includes Thelonious Monk, Astor Piazolla, Abbey Lincoln). But
Will Self (The Butt), the author of six novels, four story collections, three books of novellas, and five works of nonfiction, is also well known for immoderate behavior fueled by overindulgence in various controlled and uncontrolled substances. Thus his second partnering with Ralph Steadman, the inimitable illustrator and Hunter Thompson
There was a time when people would joke that they read Playboy for the interviews, eschewing any interest in the centerfolds and other decorative editorial. It should be obvious that what you can find on the newsstand is indicative of something about the cultural moment, and Loyola (of Chicago) University
The death of the great caricaturist David Levine reminded me of another great artist, political cartoonist Herb Block (better known as Herblock). Herblock, whose career spanned 70 years and four Pulitzer Prizes, began at the Chicago Daily News and then moved on to the Washington Post (he was also syndicated
Last summer I had occasion to comment on caricaturist David Levine’s most recent tome collecting his assorted drawings of American presidents. Sadly, Levine succumbed to prostate cancer over the holidays. Bruce Weber’s precise obituary hit some of the high points for those ignorant of the hand behind the
Speaking of Andy Warhol, I suppose it would be missing the point to complain that the person given credit for the prescient observation that everyone would be allotted fifteen minutes of fame had exceeded his own share. Artist, political activist, filmmaker, writer, magazine publisher, philosopher Andy Warhol, who died in
Typically, sports biographies fall into two categories of uselessness: takedowns (e.g., A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez) or tell-alls (Jose Canseco's Juiced). However, recently there have been a few that break those predictable, banal parameters--either because of the subject or the story or both. Wil Haygood&
Film (theatrical and television) director Robert Altman, auteur of some 40 movies (you know what I mean, the stuff that, during what may one day be referred to as America's Golden Age, was shown on very big screens in halls that held hundreds of people) was unarguably a
Inexplicably, 27 years after passing to his glory, there are only a handful of biographies of the great American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. To paraphrase an obscure rhythm and blues tune, Monk was an original original who ranks with John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis
