Dear Reader: I often shy away from the popular, which occasionally means missing out on the great. A surfeit of hype clouds the original and layers it with expectation. However, I have tried to make a habit of tackling literary classics—in spite of the dreary image that this moniker and their popularity promote in my […]
Archive for November, 2007
Thursday Playlist: Calculated negligence and everyday noise
1. Psychedelic Horseshit – Both Sides Now 2. Blues Control – Mashpotato 3. Maximum Awesome – German Loser 4. Pink Reason – By A Thread 5. Immortal Technique – The 4th Branch (EXPLICIT LYRICS) 6. Roy Smeck – Steel Guitar Rag 7. Les Reines Prochaines – Opfer Dieses Liedes (Wicked Game) 8. Pascal Comelade – […]
To Live and Ride in LA
Los Angeles is known as a city of millions of cars. Things are just too far apart, and public transportation just too slow and sparse, to make it easy *not* to own one. Houston, apparently, has the most cars per household in the country, but we’ve got the worst traffic-related congestion and pollution. Debates are […]
Favorite band, part I: It was 20 years ago today …
I have a confession to make. Twenty years ago, when I was in the middle of my senior year in high school, I built a shrine to my favorite band, right there in my bedroom. I had concert posters, magazine cut-outs, liner notes, record store promo album covers, handwritten lyrics, all pinned up on the […]
People in my neighborhood
As a relatively new New Yorker and Brooklynite, I like to participate in the enjoyable pastime of deploring gentrification. I marvel at how quickly neighborhoods are changing, complain about the Starbucksization of uniquely New York or Brooklyn streets. Gentrification is a much-debated phenomenon in many cities all over the country, but New York has a […]
It was only the darkened house that could contain her
Let it be known that competition for these West Coast spots is fierce. Our editor throws some dates out there and a free for all often ensues. I boxed out my fellow TGW’ers like Carlos Boozer (still averaging a smooth 24 and 11 at 55% from the field, thanks for asking) under the boards to […]
The Apple of My Eye
After I moved to Los Angeles last spring, I soon learned that people don’t communicate here quite like they do in Washington D.C. I’m not talking about think-tank dissertations, multi-footnote policy papers or the monotone dronings of C-Span speeches. I’m talking about text messages. In D.C., people picked up the phone and called each other. […]
Ex-Patsy
A couple years ago, at a dinner party in the East Village, a friend told me he was looking for a bass player for his band, a Patsy Cline covers outfit with a German lead singer. They were hoping to pull together a line-up for Performa 05, a big performance art biennial that fall. They’d […]
Help
I was all set to write my blog about something else, when I ended up spending 90 minutes on the phone with a friend who is breaking down mentally, emotionally and physically. This is not the first time you have heard of this friend. So, it’s making me think about how we help each other, […]
