The same old thing wasn’t going to cut it in the early 1970s. And just about anything recorded before Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, in other words before 1969, was the same old thing. That wasn’t going to grab the ears of the hip new audience Miles had attracted with his…
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Truth is veiled, if visible, in Paul Auster's latest novel.
Gary Indiana's recast of the fantastic villain brims with drugs, evil and laughs.
Music
When Jazz Went Bad
A new collection recalls the satisfying aspects of the music's early-'70s struggle for identity
January 3rd, 2010 · No Comments
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The Rabbit Rants
Holden Caulfield, Guru
Identity struggle makes J.D. Salinger's Catcher In the Rye timeless .
January 31st, 2010 · 1 Comment
UPDATED (at end): Since the death of J.D. Salinger, there’s been scads of comment declaring his books as life-changers (or not) and plenty of speculation on what waits in his safe to be published or what might be made into a movie and even some of that personal, David Copperfield kind…
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Books
Flat-Earth Theory
The ABCs of John Ashbury
January 16th, 2010 · No Comments
John Ashbery, now 82, has said that his goal is “to produce a poem that the critic can’t even talk about.” Planisphere proves that he keeps trying, even as the critics keep talking. Helen Vendler finds meaning in Planisphere’s title. She notes that it comes from Marvell’s poem “The Definition of Love,”…
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Comics
TinTin’s Century
New biography of Herge calls out the French comic hero
January 10th, 2010 · No Comments
Did the past century belong to Tintin? That’s the suggestion in Pierre Assouline’s new biography Herge: The Man Who Created Tintin when Assouline, using redundant hedges, writes, “some speak with some justification of a ‘Tintin century,’ signfying the 20th.” Writer and Vanity Fair editor Bruce Handy, writing in The New York Times…
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