Even the Angels Thought Mick Was An Ass
from the London Telegraph
Hells Angels plotted to kill Mick Jagger
By Richard Eden, Deputy Editor of Mandrake
Last Updated: 2:25am GMT 03/03/2008
Sir Mick Jagger has long been regarded as one of rock music’s greatest troupers, but, until now, he has been unaware of how much of a survivor he really is.
The Rolling Stones singer was the target of an assassination attempt which only failed because the boat the would-be killers were using was swamped in a storm.
Details of the plot have been revealed by an FBI agent as part of a BBC series on the American crime fighting agency.
The attempt to kill Sir Mick was made by a group of Hells Angels after the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Concert in 1969, which the Rolling Stones had organised and for which the motorcycle gang reportedly provided security.
Meredith Hunter, a black 18-year-old member of the audience, was stabbed and kicked to death by a group of Hells Angels, in an attack captured on film cameras. As a result, Sir Mick allegedly refused to use their services again.
According to Mark Young, a former special agent, interviewed in BBC radio series The FBI at 100, which begins tomorrow, a boat of Hells Angels set out to take revenge on the singer at his holiday home in the Hamptons, Long Island, New York.
“The Hells Angels were so angered by Jagger’s treatment of them that they decided to kill him,” said Tom Mangold, who presents the series. “A group of them took a boat and were all tooled up and planned to attack him from the sea.
“They planned the attack from the sea so they could enter his property from the garden and avoid security at the front. The boat was hit by a storm and all of the men were thrown overboard. All survived and there was not said to have been any further attempt on Jagger’s life.”
[ click to read rest of article telegraph.co.uk ]
Dorm Gossip Turns Slimy on the Internet
By Marc Fisher at Washington Post
T.J. Bateman had never heard of JuicyCampus.com until a friend told him he had been discussed on the Web site, which urges college students nationwide to “give us the juice.” Someone wrote, anonymously, that Bateman, a senior at the University of Virginia, is a “pretty cool dude, but I hear he is part robot.”
Could be worse, Bateman figures. “I thought it was pretty funny, but then I saw a post on the same page with a couple of racial epithets, and that rubbed me the wrong way. The anonymity lends itself to much more vindictive attacks.”
Such as one that names another U-Va. student and says she “will sleep with any guy.” This sort of post has given JuicyCampus — which features message boards for 50 colleges, including the recent additions of U-Va. and the Naval Academy in this area — instant notoriety and the sadly resulting success.
The subject of that posting, a junior at the Charlottesville campus, didn’t know that a thousand people had read the slur against her until I told her about it.
“Initially, I wasn’t too concerned about it, although I did get angrier the more I thought about it,” she says. “Everyone I know feels that the Web site merely serves as an outlet for petty and immature people who have nothing better to do with their time.”
Not wishing to be associated with sexual sleaziness for the rest of her life, she contacted JuicyCampus asking that her name be removed.
Nothing doing. JuicyCampus guarantees anonymity to those who slime others, but disavows any obligation to those who are maligned on its pages.
From the site’s FAQ:
” Is the site really anonymous?”
“There is no way for someone using the site to find out who you are. And we at JuicyCampus . . . prefer not to know who you are.”
” How do I remove a comment I posted?”
“You can’t. Once it’s out there, it’s out there.”
Blogs Of Death
By HOLLY M. SANDERS in the New York Post
February 26, 2008 — No one seems to know why Paul Tilley, the 40-year-old creative chief of ad agency DDB Chicago, jumped to his death from the window of the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago on Friday. But that hasn’t stopped a barrage of finger pointing on several advertising blogs at the center of a controversy about what role, if any, they played in Tilley’s suicide.
Most of the anger appears to be directed at two sites – Agency Spy and Adscam – that subjected Tilley to scrutiny leading up to his death. Both bloggers defended their coverage yesterday.
“I see in the comments of this post that many will point fingers at this blog for Mr. Tilley’s death. That is unacceptable,” Agency Spy wrote in a posting.
The defense was in response to readers who blamed the public scrutiny and “snarky” comments for driving Tilley over the edge or – at least – contributing to the pressure-cooker atmosphere in the ad industry.
One commentator wrote on AgencySpy: “Trust me… as someone who’s known Paul for over 20 years… he heard and felt all those comments and whispers.”
The controversy reached the upper echelons of the ad agency world, when Nina DiSesa, the chairman of McCann Erickson New York, jumped in to complain about the blogs.
“These hateful advertising blogs seem to be written by people who are bitter about the business,” DiSesa wrote on AgenCySpy.
Although AgencySpy doesn’t disclose its blogger, George Parker, a veteran ad executive, writes AdScam.
“I suggest anyone who still feels pissed off at me and Agency Spy should contact DDB Chicago,” Parker wrote on his blog yesterday. “They know why he committed suicide. And it didn’t have anything to do with what he read on a blog.”
Do Your Part for Independent Publishers
Thirty-One Things to do for Small Press Month for Small Presses & Independent Publishers
(Sponsored by The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) and PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association)
Click for the Small Press Month press release.
*Check out the events publishers have planned for this month and a larger version of this poster at www.smallpressmonth.org
1. Contact your local bookstore or library and suggest they put together a special display for National Small Press Month. You can obtain posters from: Small Press Month Coordinator at PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, 627 Aviation Way, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, Phone 310/372-2732. Or email April@pma-online.org. Please order in sets of two.
2. Suggest that your local bookstore offer a discount off Small Press titles this month. Offer a special discount on all of your titles.
3. Hold a seminar on “How to Get Published” or on a subject related to your books. You might wish to cooperate with other small presses in your area to get this event off to a roaring start. You might wish to charge a nominal fee for the seminar.
4. Contact the book review editor at your daily newspaper about any events that you plan. Also speak to the features editor. The business editor is always interested in a successful publishing story.
5. Send PMA your list of participating bookstores and libraries so that they may recieve Small Press Month Materials.
6. Be sure to inform PMA and The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) about any activities you have planned for Small Press Month. PMA would like to include your information when contacting the media. Please send your plans to Lisa@pma-online.org.
[ click here to read the other 25 Things you can do for indy pubs ]
Bradley Center Moves Milwaukee Bucks Game To Basement
MILWAUKEE—The Milwaukee Bucks home game against the New York Knicks was relegated to the basement of the Bradley Center Tuesday, arena president Steve Costello announced to reporters, saying 
he was forced to hold the more popular Smucker’s Stars On Ice event in the main venue. “Normally only 200 to 300 people are in attendance for most Bucks games, so the basement will provide plenty of room,” Costello said, adding that the Bradley Center’s basement had a quaint and intimate atmosphere most NBA fans never get a chance to experience. “Every figure-skating event we host sells out, while it costs more for us to keep the lights on during Bucks game than we make off of ticket sales.” Costello said that when he created the event schedule for the year, he naturally assumed the Bucks season would either be over by now or that ownership would have moved the team to another city.
[ from The Onion ]
The Hippie Revolt
Pencil
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.
To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius.
The Russians used a pencil.
Frank Zappa Discusses Pornography with The Prince of Darkness
Classic clip of a clean-cut Lead Mother discussing censorship on CNN. Check about 7 minutes in when Zappa tells a Washington Times columnist who accuses him of glorifying satanism, incest and suicide to “Kiss my [bleep]”, and the columnist comes back with “Oh yeah, take your teeth out and we’ll talk about it”???
The Best Theater in LA (Now Disinfected Daily)
The New Beverly Cinema is LA’s premier revival movie theater. Running for 30 years, the New Beverly is proud to bring Los Angeles the finest in independent, classic and foreign films.
Every show is a double feature and are all presented on 35mm high quality studio prints.
March 2-4: a double bill of classic thrillers directed by Alan J. Pakula!
+———+
Amoeba Music and Phil Blankenship present New Beverly Midnights! Click HERE for more information on upcoming shows! Next show is Walter Hill’s STREETS OF FIRE on March 8, 2008!
Richard Price’s New LUSH LIFE
YOU might not know it to look at him, but the novelist Richard Price has over the years picked up what one of his characters might call some cheddar. He has a house in Gramercy Park and a summer place out on the Island; his work has earned him an Edgar award for television writing, an Academy Award nomination and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. But Mr. Price, who grew up in the Parkside Projects, has shed neither his Bronx accent nor any of his street-smarts.
He is still wary, even a little jumpy at times. Walking around the Lower East Side, where his new novel, “Lush Life,” is set, he could easily be mistaken for one of the locals. Pale, thin, high-strung, with the baggy eyes of someone who doesn’t get enough sleep, he could even be a guy looking to score a little coke — something Mr. Price admits to doing with regularity back in the ’80s. He walks quickly, jokes a lot without smiling much, and, as readers of his books know, has a pitch-perfect mastery of urban speech in all its varieties. He may be the only middle-aged white man in America who can say “True dat” without sounding ridiculous.
Now 58, Mr. Price published his first book, “The Wanderers,” set in the blue-collar Bronx of his childhood, when he was just 24 and barely out of Cornell — from which he emerged, he has said, even streetier and more Bronx-sounding than when he began — and the M.F.A. program at Columbia, where his models were Hubert Selby and Lenny Bruce.
He has published steadily every since, eventually turning from more or less autobiographical work to books like “Clockers” and “Freedomland,” big, Dickensian novels about the drug trade and life in the projects. He has also written the screenplays for “Clockers,” “The Color of Money” (for which he received the Oscar nomination), “Sea of Love” and “Mad Dog and Glory,” among other movies, and recently he has written some episodes for the HBO series “The Wire,” which won him the Edgar. He’s one of a handful of contemporary novelists to work for Hollywood and emerge more or less unscathed.
Peter Jackson Meets Stanley Kubrick’s Finger
copped from Seth Abramovitch‘s FB feed (thanks)
Arguably the greatest special effects sequence in cinemadom, since it was made before SFX existed to any presently appreciable degree.
NYT Bestseller List – March 9, 2008
Hardcover Fiction
| This Week |
Last Week |
Weeks On List |
|
| 1 | THE APPEAL, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $27.95.) Political and legal intrigue ensue when a Mississippi court decides against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste. | 1 | 4 |
| 2 | STRANGERS IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. (Putnam, $25.95.) Lt. Eve Dallas investigates a businessman’s scandalous death; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously. | 1 | |
| 3 | 7TH HEAVEN, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) In San Francisco, Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women’s Murder Club hunt for an arsonist and a missing teenager. | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | LADY KILLER, by Lisa Scottoline. (Harper, $25.95.) When her high-school rival disappears, possibly as a result of foul play, a Philadelphia lawyer must confront her past. | 1 | |
| 5 | DUMA KEY, by Stephen King. (Scribner, $28.) A Minnesota contractor moves to Florida to recover from an injury and begins to create paintings with mysterious power. | 3 | 5 |
| 6 | A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead, $25.95.) A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war. | 4 | 40 |
| 7 | WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett. (Dutton, $35.) Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth.” | 6 | 20 |
| 8 | THE KILLING GROUND, by Jack Higgins. (Putnam, $25.95.) A spy helps a man whose family has terrorist ties. | 7 | 2 |
| 9 | STRANGER IN PARADISE, by Robert B. Parker. (Putnam, $25.95.) Jesse Stone, the police chief of Paradise, Mass., must protect a hit man’s intended victim. | 5 | 3 |
| 10 | THE FIRST PATIENT, by Michael Palmer. (St. Martin’s, $25.95.) When he becomes doctor to his old friend the president, a country physician discovers a conspiracy to kill him. | 1 | |
| 11 | PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, by Geraldine Brooks. (Viking, $25.95.) A n expert unlocks the secrets of a rare manuscript. | 8 | 8 |
| 12 | PLUM LUCKY, by Janet Evanovich. (St. Martin’s, $17.95.) Stephanie’s grandmother finds a bag of cash and goes gambling in Atlantic City, pursued by the money’s owner. | 9 | 7 |
| 13 | THE SENATOR’S WIFE, by Sue Miller. (Knopf, $24.95.) A woman lives with her husband’s persistent infidelity. | 10 | 7 |
| 14 | AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE, by Jacqueline Winspear. (Holt, $24.) The psychologist and private investigator Maisie Dobbs investigates vandalism and arson in a village in Kent in 1931. | 1 | |
| 15 | THE GHOST WAR, by Alex Berenson. (Putnam, $24.95.) A C.I.A. agent in Afghanistan tries to learn who’s behind the resurgent Taliban and finds a global power struggle. | 11 | 2 |
| 16 | * SIZZLE AND BURN, by Jayne Ann Krentz. (Putnam, $24.95.) A member of the Arcane Society, dedicated to paranormal research, helps a woman with psychic powers. | 12 | 4 |
| Also Selling | |||
| 17 | CHARM!, by Kendall Hart (Hyperion) | ||
| 18 | THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON, by Lauren Groff (Voice/Hyperion) | ||
| 19 | VICTORY CONDITIONS, by Elizabeth Moon (Del Rey) | ||
| 20 | FIREFLY LANE, by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 21 | SONG YET SUNG, by James McBride (Riverhead) | ||
| 22 | WHERE THE HEART LEADS, by Stephanie Laurens (Morrow) | ||
| 23 | CELEBUTANTES, by Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 24 | THE SHOOTERS, by W.E.B. Griffin (Putnam) | ||
| 25 | SWORD SONG, by Bernard Cornwell (Harper) | ||
| 26 | BLASPHEMY, by Douglas Preston (Tom Doherty/Forge) | ||
| 27 | THE SECRET BETWEEN US, by Barbara Delinsky (Doubleday) | ||
| 28 | L.A. OUTLAWS, by T. Jefferson Parker (Dutton) | ||
| 29 | SUCCULENT: CHOCOLATE FLAVA II, edited by Zane (Atria) | ||
| 30 | BETRAYAL, by John Lescroart (Dutton) | ||
| 31 | DAKOTA, by Martha Grimes (Viking) | ||
| 32 | DOUBLE CROSS, by James Patterson (Little, Brown) | ||
| 33 | BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN, by Charles Bock (Random House) | ||
| 34 | SOMETHING ON THE SIDE, by Carl Weber (Dafina) | ||
| 35 | SIN NO MORE, by Kimberla Lawson Roby (Morrow) | ||
Almost Creepy
Judith Jamison to Retire from Alvin Ailey Dance Theater
from the New York Times
February 29, 2008
By JENNIFER DUNNING
Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced on Thursday that she would retire in 2011. She plans to maintain her connection to the company, which she joined as a dancer in 1965, as artistic director emerita.
Judith Jamison working on stage with the dancer
Matthew Rushing at New York City Center in 2007. More Photos
The 30-member Ailey troupe now has a 42-week work year, with 9 weeks devoted to international touring in 2007-8 and 14 weeks touring in the United States, as well as seasons at City Center in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The company’s school trains 3,000 students a year from 21 countries, independent of classes for the general public, and has a long-established junior troupe, Ailey II, and dance camps in seven American cities. Under Ms. Jamison, a bachelor of fine arts program for dancers was established with Fordham University.
Like Ailey, Ms. Jamison is an immensely private person with a warm, down-home public persona and an irrepressible sense of humor. Her long association with Ailey has enabled her to speak easily about his humanist take on the arts and their importance. Dance comes from the people, he said frequently, and it should always be delivered back to the people.
Ms. Jamison was a tall ballet-trained dancer from Philadelphia when Ailey spotted her in a disastrously unsuccessful audition with the choreographer Donald McKayle and invited her to join his company. She was his “gangly girl with no hair,” his beauty, Ailey would later say, and his classic piece “Cry,” created for her, summed up her qualities.
She became a star in her 15 years dancing with the Ailey company, which she left in 1980 to perform on Broadway in “Sophisticated Ladies.” With Ailey’s encouragement, she eventually created a modern-dance troupe of her own.
“Alvin took care of me, my artistic self and my human being self,” Ms. Jamison said. “He merged those two into what you saw onstage. That, to me, was his greatest gift. The choreography, yes, but understanding who I was as a person. And he did that for all of us.”
What To Do With That Don’t Care Attitude
28th Annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
Friday, April 25, 2008
8 p.m. • Royce Hall, UCLA
The 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes will be awarded Friday evening, April 25, 2008, at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Master of Ceremonies
Gay Talese
Presenters
•Jim Newton/Biography •Scott Simon/Current Interest •Ngugi Wa Thiong’O/Fiction •Susan Salter Reynolds/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction •Douglas Brinkley/History •Paula Woods/Mystery-Thriller •Mark Doty/ Poetry •Dava Sobel/Science and Technology •Francesca Lia Block/Young Adult Fiction •David L. Ulin/Robert Kirsch Award.
2008 Book Prizes Event Information, Friday, April 25th
“Dinner with the Authors” Package — $65
Buffet dinner at UCLA’s Faculty Center, 6–7:45p.m.; prime reserved seat in Royce Hall for Awards Ceremony, 8p.m.; convenient parking at Royce Hall for the entire evening.Ceremony Only — $18
Reserved seat in Royce Hall for Awards Ceremony, 8 p.m.
Click here to purchase tickets on line
or call UCLA’s Central Ticket Office: 310-825-2101
Click here for a complete list of 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists.
For a complete list of the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winners and finalists, click here
28th Annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
Friday, April 25, 2008
8 p.m. • Royce Hall, UCLA
The 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes will be awarded Friday evening, April 25, 2008, at UCLA’s Royce Hall.
Master of Ceremonies
Gay Talese
Presenters
•Jim Newton/Biography •Scott Simon/Current Interest •Ngugi Wa Thiong’O/Fiction •Susan Salter Reynolds/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction •Douglas Brinkley/History •Paula Woods/Mystery-Thriller •Mark Doty/ Poetry •Dava Sobel/Science and Technology •Francesca Lia Block/Young Adult Fiction •David L. Ulin/Robert Kirsch Award.
2008 Book Prizes Event Information, Friday, April 25th
“Dinner with the Authors” Package — $65
Buffet dinner at UCLA’s Faculty Center, 6–7:45p.m.; prime reserved seat in Royce Hall for Awards Ceremony, 8p.m.; convenient parking at Royce Hall for the entire evening.Ceremony Only — $18
Reserved seat in Royce Hall for Awards Ceremony, 8 p.m.
Click here to purchase tickets on line
or call UCLA’s Central Ticket Office: 310-825-2101
Click here for a complete list of 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists.
For a complete list of the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winners and finalists, click here
Dirda On Books: ‘Once It Was Exciting to Go Out Booking’
snipped from ShelfAwareness newsletter
“Once I could have sold my books to any number of local used bookshops for a reasonable sum–now nobody much wants anything, aside from rarities–because everything is available online. I myself understand the attractiveness of being able to buy everything you want, but I don’t like the whole outlook. It’s like a billionaire buying a beautiful woman any time he wants one to sleep with–where’s the romance, where’s the excitement, the heartache, the attendant glories and sorrows of romance? Once it was exciting to go out ‘booking’–and there were scores of places to go. But now, now. To make everything freely available makes everything seem that much less interesting and desirable. But I begin to rant.”–Michael Dirda in a live, online discussion at Washingtonpost.com
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Stuff White People Like
from the stridently caucasian blog Stuff White People Like
#63 Expensive Sandwiches
post by clander
Having already covered breakfast and dinner options, the question remains: what do white people like to do for lunch? The answer: expensive sandwiches.
In most cities, if you need to find a cache of white people get yourself to a sandwich shop. Generally these places aren’t open for dinner, have a panini press and are famous for their bread. There are always vegan options and the selection of meats and cheese are strongly European.
The waiters and waitresses in these places are highly coveted by the white population. They are not quite as cool as bartenders, not quite as snobby as coffee shop workers, but still artsy, young, and more than likely to be a musician/artist/writer (since they only have to work from 11-3).
If you are in the position where you need to take a white person to lunch for business or pleasure, saying “I know a great sandwich shop,” will always bring out a smile. The white person will then tell you about the great sandwich shop in the town where they went to college and how they had a crush on a waiter, or that there was some special sandwich that they always ordered. This will put the person in a good mood.
It’s important to note that this type of restaurant is best for business or friendship situations as it is very neutral and does not carry connotations like Sushi or Breakfast.
These sandwiches generally start at $8.99. Remember that whenever a white person says they wants to go to a sandwich shop you are looking at at least a $15 outlay after tip and drink, $20 if the place has a good selection of microbrews.
Also note: white people will wait up to 40 minutes for a good sandwich.
Posted in Food & Beverage | 145 Comments »
Velvet Hammer Burlesque Photo Show
from LA Weekly
La Luz de Jesus hosts the exhibit and signing of Michelle Carr’s sexy new book of photos
Photo by Mark Mauer
1 of 20 images [ click to view entire slideshow at LAWeekly.com ]
LA-based burlesque troupe The Velvet Hammer gets the coffee-table book treatment fromfounder Michelle Carr.
The big book is full of photos, backstage, onstage, and specially posed, as the one above. Carr signed copies of her book at La Luz de Jesus on Friday night.
Desire, photo by Austin Young
Deliriant Isti Romani!
Editorial from the Washington Post
Leap Day No thanks to Julius Caesar.
Friday, February 29, 2008
THIS EXTRA day of February is part of the legacy bequeathed us by the Romans, along with their contributions in law, engineering, language, arts and letters, and the development of a numbering system that allows us to properly identify our Super Bowls. The institution of leap years was strictly a necessity, created by the failure of the 365-day year to match up with the astronomical year. The discrepancy is only about a quarter of a day, but just try to figure out where to put that six hours.
Julius Caesar, a man used to acting decisively on thorny problems, solved this one, somewhat, by adding a day to every fourth year, placing it, unfortunately, in the month of Februarius. He made the calendar change in 46 B.C. and was assassinated not too long after, possibly a coincidence. We have been stuck with this extraneous day ever since, an extension of a dreary and unpopular month and an occasion for obscure and quickly forgotten acts not suitable for anniversary remembrance. It is a day for senators to make speeches about the turnip tariff, for manufacturers to issue lint-filter recalls, for children to sullenly celebrate birthdays knowing that, unlike their peers, they will have only five or six such observances before they have to start paying rent. But keep this in mind: It’s only a day. Tomorrow it will be March, a better month for almost everyone, Julius Caesar excepted.
Buckley + Vidal = Must-See TV
by Ben Greenman @ the New Yorker
The conservative author, publisher, and commentator William F. Buckley, Jr., has died at the age of eighty-two. This is not primarily a cultural story, and so shouldn’t really be on this blog, but it is in some small way a television story, if only because of Buckley’s decades hosting “Firing Line” and appearing on countless other talk shows. His most notorious appearance, of course, came in 1968, when he tangled with Gore Vidal over America’s policy in Vietnam. If you think today’s news-panel shows can get nasty, take a look at what things were like forty years ago: Vidal calls Buckley a crypto-Nazi and Buckley calls Vidal a queer. The incident led to further acrimony—Buckley and Vidal wrote essays for Esquire attacking each other, and then each man sought damages in court.—Ben Greenman
T.C. Boyle Closes the Book on His Favorite Bookstore
Dutton’s final page
After more than 20 years, an author closes the book on his favorite bookstore.
By T.C. Boyle
In 1985, I was living in Woodland Hills with my wife and two young children, about to publish my fourth book of fiction and beginning, in a vague way, to wonder about such things as marketing and retail establishments.
Up the street, squeezed into the mall next to the grocery, was a scion of the giant Crown Books chain. This particular Crown Books seemed entirely given over to titles and authors I’d never heard of; even more puzzling was the fact that these books were exclusively of the mass-market variety and that trade paperbacks (the sort that represented my modest backlist) wouldn’t even fit on the shelves.
Ever resourceful, I sent my wife and 5-year-old daughter in to reconnoiter. My wife, posing as an interested customer, told the clerk how disappointed she was not to find any of her favorite author’s books on the shelves, and she talked up my latest title until my daughter, unable to contain her enthusiasm, burst out with “Yes, and he’s my daddy!”
Ah, the sting of that. But salvation was at hand: Within the week — at the prompting of my editor all the way back in New York — I discovered the towering stacks and shadowy warrens of Dutton’s Books in Brentwood. I stepped tentatively through the door, fresh from the humiliation of Crown Books (and further blows at other chain stores), only to be tenderly wrapped in the aura of a bibliophile’s paradise — the lighting dim, the interior hushed, a smell of print investing the air as if the presses were even then churning away in the basement.
It was like stumbling into a Borgesian reality in which everything was made of books — the walls, the floors, the ceilings, even the employees. Before I could think, there was Scott Wannberg, one of the true literary zealots of our time, exploding from behind a cordillera of books to greet me. Within minutes, I’d signed the well-represented editions of my own titles, which were on permanent display right alongside those of all the authors I most admired, and then Scott was piling my arms high with books I absolutely just had to read. He had a sixth sense, knowing exactly what I wanted and needed, and from then on, though it was a bit of a haul from Woodland Hills, Dutton’s was my bookshop.
SOME PAINTINGS – The artists in the third L.A. Weekly Annual Biennial
By DOUG HARVEY
Wednesday, January 9, 2008 – 3:45 pm
Some paintings give me diamonds, some paintings, heart attacks
Some paintings I give all my bread to, I don’t ever want it back
Some paintings give me jewelry, others buy me clothes
Some paintings give me children I never asked them for.
—Jagger/Richards/Harvey
Painting is dead. Painting isn’t dead. Painting is dead! No, it isn’t! Yes, it is! Isn’t! Is! Shut up shut up shut up shut up!!! Okay, now that we have that out of the way… Painting isn’t the denial-plagued zombie elephant in the room — art theory is. It’s one of the lines Leonard Cohen left out: Everybody knows a work of art that doesn’t speak for itself is a failure as a work of art. Fortunately, in spite of the best efforts we critics have mustered to impose Artforum’s Rules of Order on the rabble, art — and particularly the medium non grata of painting — just won’t shut up.
Brad Eberhard, Let’s Have Another Baby (2007)
Painters in the contemporary art world, particularly those from L.A., have to maintain a chameleonesque indeterminacy about their artistic intentions — be all things to all people — or face ghettoization. Is this an abstract painting? Or a painting of a painting of an abstract painting, wink wink? It’s the emperor’s new clothes all over. The ultimate irony is that the emperor is actually decked out in an Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — the plausible deniability cultivated by painters for the social sphere creates a temporary autonomous zone in the studio wherein a thousand flowers have blossomed. No one can pin them down, so they can get away with anything. The psycho art-market bubble hasn’t hurt production either.
Boy George denies chaining escort to wall
David Byers and agencies (from TimesOnline UK)
Boy George, the former Culture Club singer, appeared in court today accused of chaining a Norwegian male escort to the wall of his Shoreditch home.
The 46-year-old pop-star and DJ denied assaulting and imprisoning Audun Carlsen on April 28 last year when he appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court, east London.
Dressed in black and wearing dark glasses, the 1980s icon stood outside the court and smoked a cigarette before entering the building.
During the 20-minute hearing the singer, appearing under his real name George O’Dowd, spoke only to confirm his name, state his not guilty plea and say he understood the terms of his bail.
Related Links
The singer spent time talking with lawyers before leaving the court building, thanking fans who turned up to offer support.
He said only “no comment” to waiting press before leaving in a black Volkswagen people carrier. He was bailed to reappear for trial at the same court on November 24.
Held in a web of infected indifference…
Barnes & Noble 15th Annual Discover Great Writers Award
2007 Award Winners in Fiction and Nonfiction
Find the best new literary talent from 2007! Our distinguished panel of jurists have voted — and this year’s Discover Awards go to Joshua Ferris for his dazzling Then We Came to the End and to Kate Braestrup for her inspiring Here if You Need Me.
Salman Rushdie Is Worthy Of Armed Guards Again
On Monday, Salman Rushdie headed to Pennsylvania for a speaking engagement at Widener University, located outside Philadelphia in the suburb of Chester
The town of Chester decided to act with prudence when they found out Rushdie would be visiting. So they swarmed the Widener campus with police SWAT teams and K-9 units. As a matter of fact, they even forced a police escort on Rushdie at a Philadelphia train station.
Rushdie, who frequently travels the New York subways unescorted and is a bit of a man about town in these post-fatwa days, was terrified and said:
“It’s insane! […] I was absolutely horrified. Assault rifles, tracker dogs – they scare me!”
Hmm. Maybe the Chester police department just wanted to protect Rushdie from Padma Lakshmi and the risk that his ex-wife would have had been in posession of her (alleged) favorite herb.
However, the most depressing part of this story is that Chester is one of the most crime-ridden municipalities in America. The police resources deployed to “protect” Rushdie could have been put to much better use elsewhere… It’s too bad for the good people of Chester that few of them happen to be famous writers — then maybe they could actually put a dent in the crime rate.
(Image via Southbank Centre)
21-year-old Playwright To Join Theatre History
Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Tuesday February 19, 2008
The Guardian
A 21-year-old playwright is to join theatre history as one of the youngest writers to have a debut play performed in London’s West End.
 Photograph: Alex Macnaughton/Rex Features |
Polly Stenham’s story of a dysfunctional middle class family, That Face, surprised most critics when it opened at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, central London, last year, and went on to win a string of awards.
Now a wider audience will have the chance to see it when it opens at the Duke of York’s theatre for a 10-week run in May.
Sonia Friedman, a West End producer, said she wanted to be involved in the play as soon as she saw it. “I can’t remember the last time I sat in a theatre and felt so moved and stunned by a theatrical experience. It was just so extraordinarily insightful and exciting,” she said.
The critics also loved it, with the Observer calling it “gob-smacking” and the Daily Telegraph critic calling it one of the most astonishing debuts he’d seen.