Street poetry is my everyday

No heart

A few grace notes aside — Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) emptying an orange juice carton of his own urine; the scarily accurate fourth-rate bowling alley updated with an incongruously garish, modern bar; the way Robert Duvall handles a fishing pole; the relief that floods over Bridges when he meets a keyboardist with real promise  —

Thanks.

I’m very flattered that GQ linked to my Roxy/Ferry conversation with Scott Woods. And, wow, that picture of Ferry…

2009: Best Films

Rather late, but I needed to catch up on a couple more films; in the case of Bright Star, I’m very glad I did. I’m not comfortable with the results, particularly the high showing for Inglorious Basterds, but my ambivalences aside, I can’t shake how well its good sequences play, and how audacious and stupid

A man of letters: Louis Auchincloss R.I.P.

He was so compulsive a writer that after completing the Roosevelt book, he showed up unannounced at the offices of his publisher with a finished text for Calvin Coolidge, only to be told the president’s life had been assigned to someone else. Pace the AP’s obituary on Louis Auchincloss, dead at ninety-two. Gore Vidal’s appraisal,

I tried and finally found a way (cont)

Scott Woods posts more updates to our Roxy-Ferry talk. In this installment: These Foolish Things, Another Time, Another Place, Stranded, Country Life, and Siren.

Housecleaning

The last round of Singles Jukebox stand-offs before we start a new year this week: Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Dirty Projectors and Electrik Red vs DJ Quik and Kurupt.

Whew.

I’m so happy Fred Kaplan is listening to me, as I made this argument last week to a couple of students: the health care bill in its current reform reminds me a lot of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. To get the full story of how Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson cajoled and threatened senators for

Like the future was supposed to be: Vampire Weekend and the state of pop

A quick relisten, then I voted to reaffirm: Vampire Weekend’s eponymous debut “is as good as it’s supposed to be and not one note more.” Contra is what I expect from a damn good second album: it consolidates and clarifies. The musical and conceptual vaporousness of “Oxford Comma” is replaced by the fully formed “Run,”

I tried and finally found a way, Pt. II

Another edition of the Woods-Soto interview re Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry; this time we address These Foolish Things and Stranded.

News flash: corporations are people too

The consequences of a misreading of this case continue, evinced by today’s Supreme Court ruling. A couple of weeks ago I finished a superb history of the period, Jack Beatty’s Age of Betrayal. Pick up a copy. The Santa Clara County controversy is discussed in full.

Message to Democrats: Don’t turn America into Sweden

Margaret Coakley lost because she was a liberal, and the grand liberal experiment of the last twelve months has failed. Let’s see. Obama is a liberal because he: (a) hired Rahm Emmanuel as chief of staff? (b) filled his Cabinet with former Wall Street and New York Fed scions like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner?