By the Book, the weekly Q&A conducted in writing for the New York Times’ Sunday Book Review, uses boilerplate questions to peek into the reading lives of writers and other prominent figures, especially actors with sideline literary careers. It lets us imagine, perhaps erotically, Jesse Eisenberg’s nightstand, and encourages interviewees […]

Almost thirty years ago, Lorrie Moore came up with the “Lovesick” anagram “Sock Evil,” but still no one has recorded a complete anagrammatic reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind album. I’ve at least gotten a start, which spurred a few outstanding contributions from Dustin Long. I figured it […]

Last night I saw Terence Davies’s 1988 movie, Distant Voices, Still Lives, for the first time. Some of you may know the movie; if not, it’s a somewhat autobiographical collage about working-class Liverpudlians in the forties and fifties, told largely through music: from Benjamin Britten to torch ballads to British […]

Something like Less Than Zero crossed with Dirty Mind, Miguel’s latest album, Wildheart, is a murky exploration of decadence, ambition, alienation, and sex, quite a lot of sex, as performed in the singer and auteur’s native Los Angeles. As on 2012’s Kaleidoscope Dream, we’re offered a tasting menu of romantic […]

… making progress on what I ought to be working on, so I jotted down some notes on Trainwreck instead. As has been noted, the movie to some degree subverts romantic comedy formulas by giving its female protagonist qualities customarily reserved for the male love interest in a gigolo-reformation plot. […]

I’m really excited to put on this show Thursday, Jan. 15 at Walker Art Center. Also I’m looking forward to being able to sleep without a pill. 

Here’s a longer piece I wrote about Prince for Mpls.-St. Paul magazine.    

1. Brown-and-green argyle with orange toe stitch 2. White athletic, red paint stain near right toe 3. Brown dress, left behind by houseguest and never returned 4. White and off-white baby socks, mismatched 5. Cream dress, above the calf 6. Blue-and-white winter socks with red accents and snowflake motif 7. […]