November 2011
55 posts
3 tags
John Cage Bonus Material - 'Water Walk' Live on TV
To accompany Marjorie Perloff’s essay on John Cage’s Silence today, check out the remarkable 1960 appearance by Cage on CBS-TV’s I’ve Got a Secret, via WFMU’s Beware of the Blog.
5 tags
Yu Hua’s Way with Words
Jeffrey Wasserstrom considers celebrated Chinese author Yu Hua’s new essay collection, China in Ten Words, originally published in Taiwan. It is due out November 8th in an English language edition—the product of a collaborative effort between Yu Hua and Pomona College’s Allan Barr. In 2002 Yu Hua became the first Chinese writer to win the prestigious James Joyce Foundation Award. His novel To...
14 tags
The Natural Look
MARJORIE PERLOFF
on the 50th anniversary of John Cage’s Silence. John Cage with Mushroom. Courtesy of John Cage Trust John Cage Silence: Lectures and Writings, 50th Anniversary Edition
With a foreword by Kyle Gann
Wesleyan University Press, September 2011. 276 pp. John Cage John Cage (October Files 12)
Edited by Julia Robinson
MIT Press, September 2011. 240 pp.
In 1961, Wesleyan...
9 tags
Radar LARB
Some recent blips: “Conquering Hero or What I Saw From the Train” by LARB Poetry Editor Gabrielle Calvocoressi: “Back when I lived in New York and worked at a job I didn’t love I’d get off the train at Bergen and walk home and think about all the things I’d do once I didn’t have to work that stupid job anymore. Usually by the time I got to Berkeley Place I’d have crafted a...
15 tags
Words, Words, Words
PETE L’OFFICIAL
on Glenn Ligon. Untitled (I Am a Man) © Glenn Ligon. 1988 Courtesy of the artist
and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Photograph by Ronald Amstutz Glenn Ligon Glenn Ligon: AMERICA
Edited by Scott Rothkopf
The Whitney Museum of American Art, distributed by Yale University Press, April 2011. 304 pp. Glenn Ligon Yourself in the World: Selected Writings and Interviews
Edited...
October 2011
55 posts
“Boo!”
– Three Halloween treats: Jenna Brager on Richard Sala’s The Hidden, Joe McCulloch on the joys of pre-Code horror comics,
and Jonathan Penner on the monsters in his life.
9 tags
Postmodern Prometheus
JENNA BRAGER
on Richard Sala’s The Hidden. The Hidden, page 14 © Richard Sala Richard Sala The Hidden
Fantagraphics Books, September 2011. 120 pp.
The artist Richard Sala’s work first debuted in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s comics anthology, Raw (the “comics magazine for damned intellectuals”), and he has since drawn for publications ranging from The New York Times...
17 tags
Let Us Compare Terrologies
JOE McCULLOCH
on the grisly joys of pre-Code horror comics. Image Courtesy of Fatbottom Books Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s
Edited by Greg Sadowski
Fantagraphics Books, January 2011, 2nd ed. 320 pp. The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn’t Want You to Read!
Edited by Jim Trombetta
Abrams ComicArts, November 2010. 304 pp.
It’s clear in retrospect...
3 tags
Letter from Oakland
As part of the LARB’s continuing coverage of the Occupy movement,David Lau reports from Oakland. Occupy Everything, Liberate Oakland! Late last Tuesday night, October 25th, social media feeds buzzed with the story of a two-tour Marine veteran of Iraq, Scott Olsen, struck by a police projectile fired at close range and left unconscious with a fractured skull. By Wednesday morning it was the...
12 tags
The Horror
JONATHAN PENNER
in a Halloween Eve examination of the monsters in his life. The author in a still from Amityville 1992: It’s About Time John Landis Monsters in the Movies
DK Adult, September 2011. 320 pp. Shade Rupe Dark Stars Rising: Conversations from the Outer Realms
Headpress, February 2011. 568 pp.
Got two exciting books for the “LARB Halloween Roundup” I was...
3 tags
Famous Monsters
A few additional pictures to accompany Jonathan Penner’s Halloween Eve piece on horror. On top are Penner’s first two books in the genre, Denis Gifford’s Movie Monsters and Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland # 91; the bottom is another still from the direct-to-video classic Amityville 1992: It’s About Time.
8 tags
The Worst
See below for credits The Los Angeles Review of Books has given its pages this week to discussions of Joan Didion on the occasion of the publication of her latest book, Blue Nights. Didion, an icon of literary L.A. despite living in New York much of her life, wrote in 1976 that “[t]o shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the...
4 tags
Van Dyke Parks on "Wall Street"
Today we offer music and commentary from pop music legend (and LARB Contributing Editor) Van Dyke Parks, best known for his collaboration with the Beach Boys’s Brian Wilson on the long-delayed Smile album. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg: VDP has worked as an arranger and producer for everyone from Harry Nilsson and Ry Cooder to Bonnie Raitt to Joanna Newsom, a range amply...
LARB Recommends
Some recommended happenings in the Los Angeles area this week, for your potential enjoyment. Friday, October 28th: Libros Schmibros reading group hosted by Colleen Jaurretche and David Kipen exploring Reyner Bahham’s Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies beginning at 12:00 pm. Paul La Farge reads and signs his novel Luminous Airplanes at Skylight Books beginning at 7:30 pm. ...
12 tags
Having, or Making, or Thinking About Making a...
MEGHAN DAUM
on Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. Joan Didion © Brigitte Lacombe The Los Angeles Review of Books gives its pages this week to discussions of Joan Didion on the occasion of the publication of her latest book, Blue Nights. Didion, an icon of literary L.A. despite living in New York much of her life, wrote in 1976 that “[t]o shift the structure of a sentence alters the...
6 tags
Kind of Blue
AMY EPHRON
on Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. Joan Didion © Scott Laumann The Los Angeles Review of Books gives its pages this week to discussions of Joan Didion on the occasion of her latest book, Blue Nights. Didion, an icon of literary L.A. despite living in New York much of her life, wrote in 1976 that “[t]o shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence,...
7 tags
Where the Morning Went
AMY WILENTZ
on Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. Joan Didion © Corey Cooley The Los Angeles Review of Books gives its pages this week to discussions of Joan Didion on the occasion of her latest book, Blue Nights. Didion, an icon of literary L.A. despite living in New York much of her life, wrote in 1976 that “[t]o shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence,...
7 tags
The Baby
SUSAN STRAIGHT
on Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, and Quintana Roo Dunne Central Park, New York, 1970 © Dominick Dunne The Los Angeles Review of Books gives its pages this week to discussions of Joan Didion on the occasion of the publication of her latest book, Blue Nights. Didion, an icon of literary L.A. despite living in New York much of her life, wrote in...
2 tags
Unleash the Poems
Dylan Thomas would have been 97 today. He’s been gone for more than half a century and still his voice sticks around, death-defying. But that’s poetry’s best point, isn’t it? Or the point of poetry at its best: going out on a wire, crashing through windows, skipping over the Grand Canyon. Not with the delusional costuming of a superhero, just a stunt man’s balls....
3 tags
The Lasting Impression
Steven Corbin Photo Source: The Elegant Variation (http://marksarvas.blogs.com) The fifth installment of our Writers on Teachers series: Mark Sarvas with a remembrance of his mentor, writing instructor, and friend, Steven Corbin. Steven Corbin was the first novelist I knew personally. (How exciting and rarefied that seemed to me at the time!) He died in 1995 at the age of 41 from AIDS-related...
