All Essays

• The Battle of the People’s Kitchen

  At first I was skeptical about Occupy Riverside. But the more I heard about what was going on downtown, the more enthusiastic I became.

  Nov 13, 2011

• Crimson Front

  I heard a student exclaim, "This isn’t a protest or demonstration — it’s a process."

  Nov 13, 2011

• Letter From Oakland

  It was decided, a species of what we might call a “postmodern general strike” will come lumbering out of the revolutionary textbook.

  Nov 12, 2011
• 

  People's Libraries

  Writing my book, I kept asking myself: Why haven’t we fought back? Why don’t 21st century writers organize?

  Jason BoogNov 12, 2011
• 

  Big Tent

  As the tent city grows, a community has sprouted, igniting human interaction in ways that are often anathema to Los Angeles’s sprawl.

  Sonali KolhatkarNov 12, 2011
• 

  Another L.A. Look

  A symptom?! Why does a book celebrating the talents of individual Los Angeles artists suddenly go all Fernand Braudel on us

  Peter PlagensNov 11, 2011
• 

  My Disappointment Critic

  I hadn’t realized until Wood was off my pedestal that I’d built one. That I’d sunk stock in the myth of a great critic.

  Jonathan LethemNov 7, 2011

• Letters to the Editors

  The real human problem is not the need to remember everything: it is the necessity of deciding what it is important to remember.

  Nov 6, 2011
• 

  Around the Table

  These unanticipated truffles hiding deep in the gratin dauphinois of Gopnik's larger story remind us that food permeates every facet of our lives.

  Thane TierneyNov 3, 2011

  • Cultural Studies

  • Food & Drink

• The Natural

  Cage, so long associated with the New York avant-garde, now strikes me as quintessentially Californian, and more specifically, Angeleno.

  Nov 2, 2011
• 

  Let Us Compare Terrologies

  The pre-Comics Code era was so lawless and raw it was apparently Ageless.

  Joe McCullochOct 31, 2011

• The Horror

  I’d found my thing. I embraced the scary. I befriended it. The monsters and I fell in love, and I didn’t question why. I was home.

  Oct 30, 2011
• 

  Unmentionables

  The theme of male friendship is virgin territory for Rush, but the basic framework of the protagonist-couple and their idioverse is a Rushian staple.

  Magdalena EdwardsOct 23, 2011

• Romero, Blew, Aciman, Hughes

  Some doors opened, were squeezed through, then slammed shut, trapping women like Blew in lives filled with unprecedented challenges.

  Oct 22, 2011

• New York City, October 19: The Sense of a Movement

  Does this movement want to curb the plutocrats? Or does it just want to be?

  Oct 21, 2011

• Recessionary Measures in Support of Occupy Seattle

  Many have been sleeping in money.

  
  

  The money is congregating in the street.

  Oct 21, 2011