What Gold modeled for me was the idea that the writer delivers stories that the reader needs. The point is to do that job well.
December 28th, 2011
Tintin est Mort!
December 27th, 2011
"There are some howlers among the pros as delectable as the successes and just as fine a tool of learning."
December 26th, 2011
"The Ghost of Books: Past, Present, and Future" is an experiment not in terror and not necessarily Dickensian.
December 23rd, 2011
What truly sets Babitz apart from L.A. writers like Joan Didion or Nathanael West is that a part of her still buys the Hollywood fantasy.
December 18th, 2011
Stein recommends Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize, just as Freud "recommends" the Gestapo — with the same perfect irony.
December 17th, 2011
Los Angeles was different. No tear gas here: our elected representatives wanted us to be comfortable.
December 13th, 2011
Faulkner tried the personae of mentor, father figure, and literary conduit in an effort to have a love affair that trumped the other roles.
December 11th, 2011
A response to Glen David Gold’s piece about William Faulkner and Joan Williams.
December 11th, 2011
Writing can't be planned for or predicted, and when it happens, when the surge begins, it brings a satisfaction like nothing else.
December 5th, 2011
Because riot police aimed their firearms at protesters’ faces, over 80 Egyptians lost one of their eyes.
December 5th, 2011
He seemed poised at last for the first-class recognition he had worked for so vigorously his whole life.
December 4th, 2011
On poetry and riot.
December 2nd, 2011
This play unfolds, as so many contemporary dramas now do, over the medium of email.
November 25th, 2011
It is ironic that Ovid had barely finished his long poem when his exile was decreed.
November 24th, 2011
"The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it." — F... More
"Mere flim-flam stories, and nothing but shams and lies." — Miguel de Cervantes... More
"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers... More
"Read. Always read. No one can take that away from you."... More
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"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them.... More
"All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated." — Comics Code, 1954... More
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." — Frank Zappa... More
