Pete Townshend: Who, He? (and Us)
Pete Townshend is writing his memoirs. Or rather, he’s blogging them. This differs from a decade ago, when Townshend signed with Little Brown to write...
A Bad TV Show About Good Movies
Today we focus on movies by way of a glitzy, Vegas-style revue show that has almost nothing to do with brilliant film-making. It’s Hoillywood celebrating...
Walking the Red Carpet: When Stars Were Stars
When I was young, the Academy Awards still retained an unmistakeable aura of glamor and remove. There in one big room for one long evening,...
Bob Dylan: Spinnin’ Those Cool Records
The voice seems familiar, but the venue’s different. I’m driving down the highway, and there’s a guy on the radio talking about a record he’s...
The Fabulous Iggy Pop
Watching Anthony Kiedis sleepwalk through the motions while the rest of the Red Hot Chili Peppers delivered a technically brilliant and emotionally spirited set last...
Jim Webb & Graham Greene: With a Vietnamese Baby on Your Mind
Senator James Webb invoked Andrew Jackson in his response to President Bush on Tuesday, he used a classic bit of the novelist’s art put the...
Swedish Cop, Timeless Murder
There’s a distinct darkness on the edge of the old towns along the coast of southern Sweden in the dangerous world created by Henning Mankell...
Executioner’s Songs
Televised executions are all the rage these days, but the long drops in Iraq brought to mind two made-for-television movies that I saw decades ago,...
Portraying Dr. King
Much critical ink has been spilled, and deservedly so, on the merits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a writer. King was a master...
Richard Ford’s Jesus of Suburbia
A fortnight after I finished it, Richard Ford’s trilogy-ending novel The Lay of the Land was still with me. And yet, I cannot tell you...
