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A la Maniere de Pauline Kael - the new Anna Karenina
There has always been a strong tradition of fantasy in Hollywood films, and the re-cycling of classic material was present from the beginning. In theatrical productions, big panoramic narratives were...
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The Elephant in the Room - How Population is Ruining the Planet
As non-human species continue to be pushed into extinction, so must the intellectual metaphors derived from them become extinct too. Trends in human expansion and exploitation of the earth are nearing...
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Eggleston's Tricycle
William Eggleston - Memphis [circa 1969-70]. Dye-Transfer PrintIt's not always easy to say why a certain photograph works. Often, that difficulty is a measure of a picture's success. Our brain...
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The Expostulation Surveyed
Ever noticed how many kinds of sneezes there are?The word sneeze has precious few synonyms. There's sniffle, snuffle, snort, sputter, wheeze, whoosh, sneer and puff. But none of these really is an...
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As If There Were No Tomorrow -- Four Concoctions (Delayed)
Popular historians describe the "Roaring Twenties" as a kind of dionysian revel in which people were inebriated, partying, senselessly throwing inflated money around, and generally getting into...
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Stein and Knitting and Time: An Almanac of Probable Subjects (with Notes)
This post is a reflective response to a recent podcast, Talking Tender Buttons, featuring a panel/response group moderated by Al Filreis, and including Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Bob Perelman, Julia Bloch...
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Tropic of Capricorn
PescadorUn remo flotante sobred las aguasfue tu solo epitafioFishermanAn oar floating on the waterswas your only epitaph.--Pablo Antonio Cuadra from "Songs of Cifar, 1967-1977"
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The Gift Outright
The Gift OutrightThe land was ours before we were the land’s.She was our land more than a hundred yearsBefore we were her people. She was oursIn Massachusetts, in Virginia,But we were England’s, still...
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Indian Summer
In the San Francisco Bay Area, we have what is often called a "Mediterranean climate"--by which is meant a temperate zone median, without much wide fluctuation in temperature extremes. Just a few miles...
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A Valentine from Satan
This last weekend, Dick Cheney, former Vice President under George W. Bush ("Dubya"), was tramping the media road hawking his new book Heart: The Story of a Patient, A Doctor, and 35 Years of Medical...
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Minimalism XV: Truscott's Toward Branches
Phenomenology is the study of the structure of subjective experience--how we perceive the empirical world. Wittgenstein reminded us that whenever we attempt to describe anything in the world of...
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Minimalism XVI: Creeley's Rest
Robert Creeley's collection Pieces was published at the end of the Sixties [New York: Scribner's, 1969], at the height of his minimalist period. It was important not just because it expressed a radical...
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Padgett's Collected Poems
Ron Padgett's Collected Poems has just been published by Coffee House Press [Minneapolis: 2013]--and it's a monstrous big collection, 50 years in the making. I've been reading Padgett's work for almost...
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The Full Moon - Two Recipes
What is it about the moon? An astrological, astronomical object of curiosity since before the beginning of time. Object of inspiration, fascination, speculation, apprehension. We know a great deal...
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My Favorite PARIS REVIEW cover - #38, Summer 1966
Back in the days when The Paris Review actually represented avant garde writing, they used to commission covers by important modern or post-modern artists. For the first 34 issues, they retained a...
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Classic / Cinematic / LA Confidential / Quiet City
"The best artists don't invent; they steal." This has been one of the semi-apocryphal adages in the arts for a generation or three. Each generation of makers builds on the shoulders of the one...
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In Memoriam - Coco Rose Faville ("Sunshine") RIP
Coco Rose Faville - Dates: 7/15/94 - 11/24/13For almost 20 years, we lived every day with Coco, a "mini-" Siamese cat whom we acquired from a family on the Peninsula shortly after she was born....
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Green Season
As the holidays approach--well, I guess they've already arrived, since Black Friday has happened, and "holiday shopping" has already begun--our thoughts turn to celebration, and partying, and family...
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The Bachelor
All men are bachelors at some point in their lives. Except, I suppose, those of cultures in which boys are matched from birth to a picked bride. Bars or taverns used to be places pretty much restricted...
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O'Hara / Dean
James Byron Dean - 2/8/31 - 9/30/55On September 30th, 1955, the popular young screen actor James Dean was driving his new Porsche 550 Spyder convertible towards a racing event in Salinas, California....
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