I don’t want to come down too hard on John Updike. Not only haven’t I read the Rabbit Angstrom novels, but the sheer weight of his achievement – novels, collections of poetry, short stories, and essays, plays – defies appraisal. At the university library, his collected oeuvre, like the thick, mucus-green, neglected hardcovers of the

Looking more swollen and deformed than he did in Sin City, Mickey Rourke reminds us that he’s got a hardscrabble poetry in him — only don’t remind him, please. In The Wrestler, he and Marisa Tomei have a handful of scenes in which he displays the quiet insinuating flirtatiousness that, in Diner so many years

Looking more swollen and deformed than he did in Sin City, Mickey Rourke reminds us that he’s got a hardscrabble poetry in him — only don’t remind him, please. In The Wrestler, he and Marisa Tomei have a handful of scenes in which he displays the quiet insinuating flirtatiousness that, in Diner so many years

Depressed poodle bites Jacques Chirac

I don’t normally post news of the weird type shit, but I couldn’t resist this: The couple’s white Maltese poodle, called Sumo, has a history of frenzied fits and became increasingly prone to making “vicious, unprovoked attacks” despite receiving treatment with anti-depressants, Chirac’s wife Bernadette said. “If you only knew! I had a dramatic day

Depressed poodle bites Jacques Chirac

I don’t normally post news of the weird type shit, but I couldn’t resist this: The couple’s white Maltese poodle, called Sumo, has a history of frenzied fits and became increasingly prone to making “vicious, unprovoked attacks” despite receiving treatment with anti-depressants, Chirac’s wife Bernadette said. “If you only knew! I had a dramatic day

I had a few comments published in The Village Voice‘s Pazz and Jop poll. Here are the rejected ones. My favorite album this year was Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), not least because in a confusing time, I expect artists to be confused themselves. Heady, gnomic, often inscrutable, NAPO is an

I had a few comments published in The Village Voice‘s Pazz and Jop poll. Here are the rejected ones. My favorite album this year was Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War), not least because in a confusing time, I expect artists to be confused themselves. Heady, gnomic, often inscrutable, NAPO is an

I’ve never seen such a crowd in the student union building today as I did an hour before Barack Obama’s inauguration. The euphoria is over; let the work begin. Glenn Greenwald: I can understand someone being moved by the events of today, even though pageantry, ceremony and ritual of this sort doesn’t move me personally

The Economist gets the award for the best obituary on the long national nightmare of the last eight years. George W. Bush’s lasting achievement? Appointing “an army of over-promoted, ideologically vetted homunculi.”

My review of Jon Meacham’s tenderfooted Andrew Jackson biography is up.

Mike’s essay on Animal Collective for Village Voice Media is likely the most tantalizing thing I’m likely to read about a band I don’t like, and, really, I disagree with most of his conclusions; he should have been more careful about statements like “They’ve exposed the young white world to dub, South American, and African

I’m a sucker for a a man or woman strumming electric rhythm, espousing a certain kind of twinkle-eyed caddishness. Favorites: Ray Parker, Jr.’s “The Other Woman,” the Go-Betweens’ “Man O’Sand to Girl O’Sea,” Lou Reed’s “Don’t Talk To Me About Work,” Liz Phair’s “6’1,” Lloyd Cole’s “She’s a Girl and I’m a Man,” Luna’s “Rhythm