The City and the City, by China Miéville (Random House, 2010) It’s hard to explain what is so cool about this book without giving the whole thing away. Set in a reality almost like our own, it follows a murder investigation through two city-states that somehow overlap or coincide. Citizens spend their whole lives in […]
Author Archive
Weekend recs
The Moth book Started in 1997, the Moth storytelling shows provide a stage where anyone can come up and tell a five-minute story. Famous people and not-famous people tell stories of heroism, pathos, joy and the quirks of everyday living. These stories are often mesmerizing, and this new book collects 50 of the best. It’s […]
Weekend recs
Some tunes for your holiday weekend: The soundtrack to the 1975 film adaptation of The Day of the Locust. (I haven’t actually seen this. Have you?) Also recommended: losing several hours in archive.org’s fantastic, eclectic collection of 78rpm records. — BW
Weekend recs
Hopkinson Smith Early music people tend to be musical polyglots, and such is Hopkinson Smith. A founding member of Hespèrion XX, Smith plays lute, vihuela (see below), theorbo, and for all I know, electric guitar. I’m recommending him not as a specialized interest, I hope, but as a delight for anyone who enjoys soulful instrumentalism […]
Weekend recs
A Night with Lou Reed (live at the Bottom Line, 1983) Here’s a full hour of Lou Reed in great form, not long after The Blue Mask was released, and featuring (as the album did) Robert Quine. There’s so much good stuff here, but it’s best just to think about this as 40-year-old Lou, back […]
Weekend recs
Hidden things on hills, San Francisco, California San Francisco gives up its secrets slowly, but they are fabulous. Relying on Google map directions to visit friends-of-a-friend, we ended up climbing the Filbert Steps up Telegraph Hill. They rose through an improbable fairyland of Victorian cottages and exotic plants, some kind of vertical Shire tucked right […]
Weekend recs
Sam Francis: Five Decades of Abstract Expressionism from California Collections, Pasadena Museum of California Art, now through January 5, 2014 Do giant, colorful abstract paintings make your heart thrum? Does your very being vibrate at a special frequency when you are in the presence of overwhelming visual beauty? Do you dig the mysteries of the […]
Weekend recs
The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan 2006-2010 The humor in British TV series The IT Crowd is both ridiculous and exceedingly clever. Richard Ayoade and co-star Chris O’Dowd play incurably dorky computer techs Roy and Moss, managed by computer illiterate Jen (Katherine Parkinson), working in the IT department of a huge multinational corporation. Ayoade […]
Weekend recs
Tracey Thorn, Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star (Virago UK, 2013) Tracey Thorn’s voice: simply sublime. It evokes salted caramels, rainy English afternoons, Dusty Springfield 45s. It can do anything: orchestral pop, trip-hop, house music for grown-ups. So what a treat to discover that she can write, […]
Weekend recs
Turn Around Bright Eyes, by Rob Sheffield (2013) Part memoir of sweetness and falling in love, part musing meditation on the cultural relevance of ubergods like Rod Stewart and Neil Diamond, part spelunking exploration of the shimmering psyche of why we Must Sing Karaoke. Nobody remembers every second of pop culture and every conversation he […]
