December 2009
42 posts
heartbeatcity:
What editors do for writers is mysterious, and does not, contrary to general belief, have much to do with titles and sentences and “changes.” The relationship between an editor and a writer is much subtler and deeper than that, at once so elusive and so radical that it seems almost parental: the editor was the person who gave the writer the idea of himself, the idea of herself,...
November 2009
35 posts
Signs You're Secretly Mad
When you’re resorting to passive-aggressive behavior on facebook.
Stories about Nelson Algren
Life advice: if your favorite writer is doing a presentation at the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, go! It will be wonderfully un-crowded. You will watch a film, skipping along the way, projected off a DVD. You can get in, and you don’t have to wait in a line that stretches city blocks. This is very dissimilar to any writer events I have gone to in Boston and New York,...
Voices on the Long Island Railroad
Over the loudspeaker, telling me about safety:
1. Alec Baldwin
2. Steve Guttenberg
3. Jean Reno (was Natalie Portman busy?)
4. Carl Bernstein
Why I love Wings of Desire:
The Criterion DVD version of this film is so good. It reminds you why it’s a gorgeous, beautiful film that stretches open your heart just a little bit more when you see it. The Brattle Theater in Cambridge tends to show it during Christmastime, which is where I first saw it in the theaters. Magical. Here’s some of what I wrote on it for TribecaFilm.com. Check the link for the full...
Films You Should See: Keane
One of my favorite pieces for TribecaFilm.com:
Keane is an unforgettable film experience, and those aren’t words that I choose lightly. It’s probably number one with a bullet on the short list of “films that I think are brilliant, I still think of fondly, but I never want to sit through them again” list. As a director, Lodge Kerrigan has a peculiar talent for placing the...
Isaac Brock’s voice will always hit me, somewhere, in the heart. Modest Mouse have been one of my favorite bands since 1997 or so - I have a lot of memories wrapped up around them.
I hadn’t listened to them much since their last album (“Dashboard” is not the best song, but others are good. The “Little Motel” video, which reminds me of the film Keane, is perfect and heartbreaking. Save the 20...
In thinking about my favorite albums of the 2000s, these three bands come to mind: The Hold Steady, Okkervil River, The Thermals. Of course two (it can be argued three) are concerned with Catholicism, faith, and its discontents. A fair summation of being in your twenties.
Jobs that could be interesting
I am generally fascinated by:
1) Person who works for the MacArthur Foundation and finds and studies geniuses, in order to gift them with half a million dollars.
2) Trendspotters/Trendsetters/Trendcreators. Evil shadow company-style. Would love to be in those halls to see how culture is sold.
On self consciousness and the internet
Like anyone who has ultimate goals of being able to put the word “writer” as their profession in their tax returns, I have a real push-pull love/hate relationship with the internet and its usefulness, in general, for writers. And a deep fear of being classified solely as a blogger, particularly since it’s a very ugly word!
So this post is mostly to say that my corner of the internet, while I’m...
