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On Dana Goodyear and "The Oracle of Hollywood Boulevard"
Bleeeehhaaarrrrgh. That’s the long, exasperated noise of inarticulate dissatisfaction I make after finishing Dana Goodyear’s The Oracle of Hollywood Boulevard. With collections of poetry like this, and there are a hell of a lot of them, it’s very hard for me to find something concrete to object to (“hideous misuse of trochaic spondee!” “epic ( Read more... ) -
"Incident in a NYC Bookstore," by Ron Kolm
Incident in a NYC Bookstore
for Anne Waldman
I’m sitting behind the cash register
In an East Village bookstore
On St. Mark’s Place
Near Second Avenue
Looking at a postcard
That’s taped to the wall
Of Anne Waldman, topless-
It’s been there a long time
But I’ve never actually read
The message she wrote on it.
So I’m kind of distracted ( Read more... ) -
On Vilém Flusser's "Vampyroteuthis Infernalis"
In 2013 I read some pretty weird books… but this slender, sinister work from the late Czech-born philosopher Vilém Flusser is so out-there that it makes even Tan Lin’s mashup seem like chick lit. Flusser’s book is so deeply bizarre that saying it “resists categorization” or “defies summary” qualifies as a ridiculous understatement; but here goes. ( Read more... ) -
Jim Feast on Ron Kolm and "Divine Comedy"
The writer and critic Jim Feast dissects Ron Kolm's Divine Comedy in a review on Tribes. -
On Michael Bloomberg: A Contrarian View of his Legacy
As we wind down these last few hours of 2013 there’s something I’d like to get off my chest, especially in light of the endless encomia to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure, and the relentless anointment of him as perhaps the greatest mayor in the history of New York City. Well, I sure don’t see it that way. To my mind, Mayor Bloomberg’s reign has ( Read more... ) -
"Claire" a short film by J. Boyett
Here we have a mysterious seriocomic short film by my friend J. Boyett, starring Mary Sheridan and William Kozy… -
On Jonathan Franzen and "What's Wrong with the Modern World"
Well, I’m late to the party again, but I finally backtracked the famous - or notorious - Franzen essay in which he attacks Twitter, Apple, Amazon, the Internet in general, and modern life pretty much as a whole… and all I can say is, hear, hear. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about cool-ness and its discontents, and I’ve been feeling, not angry, ( Read more... )
