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
An excerpt from "The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning."
July 8th, 2011
I was inchoate and jelly-like in graduate school (kind of like a slime mold), but Cavell was kind to me anyway.
January 5th, 2012
I sometimes say that Jeremy Prynne taught me everything I know about poetry: which is why I know nothing about poetry.
December 28th, 2011
Given the choice between a book and a baseball bat, there is no choice for Buster. He’ll take the bat every time
April 19th, 2011
When it comes to trying to make a piece of fiction, scaling down is an essential strategy. The world has "scalability" in spades.
July 25th, 2011
Swimming pools, movie stars.
April 18th, 2012
For every abandoned business, store, school, or church in the city, a new one has been built in the suburbs.
January 16th, 2012
The legacy of the hurricane in literature and Louisiana
October 17th, 2012
Awakening A Dreaming, Comfortable King
January 21st, 2013
"Read. Always read. No one can take that away from you."... More
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"The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it." — F... More
"All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated." — Comics Code, 1954... More
"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them.... More
"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers... More
"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." — Samuel Goldwyn... More
