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Michael AntmanAbout Michael Antman Michael Antman writes on books, movies, the visual arts, and marketing. He is the author of the novel Cherry Whip (ENC Press) and the recently completed memoir Searching for the Seagull Motel, which is about door-to-door Bible salesmen, sailors, strippers, bar brawls, beached whales, hermits, hurricanes, larcenous preachers, the pirate Jean Lafitte, and an administrative assistant to a pimp. His website, where most of his writing is collected, is at Michael Antman Author.com and he also blogs frequently at When Falls the Coliseum.com. Features
John Updike: The Final OrnamentEver the completist, John Updike had managed to finish his life-long project of drawing and connecting the things of his world. A kind of psychic recycler, he never let anything go to waste. [22 July 2009] The Future is an Empty RoomAs digital technology consolidates its conquest of the known universe, emptying our living spaces and assimilating our lives, all that will be left in our future is space. Lots and lots of empty space. [29 May 2009] ‘Art’: A Diminished MagnificenceHas any other art, even literature or music, ever exceeded the visual arts in its ambition, its richness, and its sheer beauty? [28 January 2009] Linden Frederick and the Magic of RealismThere is a love in Linden Frederick's paintings – a love for, in the broadest sense, civilization and, in the narrowest sense, for the virtues of merely hanging in there. [20 January 2009] A Cooler Head PrevailsA humane and practical corrective to an argument that has grown far too overheated, Cool It is a breath of fresh air that needs to be read by everyone who fears for the future of our world. [21 February 2008] Columns
The Lives of OthersThere's a higher ratio of disposable schlock in the memoir than in other literary genres, but the best memoirs permit access to lives strange, twisted, wasted, brave, and glorious -- lives, in short, other than our own. [1 February 2010] (more Read Only Memory) The Inevitable Death of Julian Barnes and Everyone ElseAccording to Julian Barnes, the fear of death is "the most rational thing in the world." But denying the certainty of death also can be a rational act, at least until that time when it is not. [17 December 2009] (more Read Only Memory) A Cat’s Triumph and the Midlife Crisis of a DogThe popularity of the “pet memoir” can be traced to a lot of factors, ranging from honest sentiment to rank anthropomorphism. But our pets, and our books about them, reflect spirit of our age, as well. [16 November 2009] (more Read Only Memory) Looking for the Lost: Memoirs of a Vanishing JapanWith its narrow streets and dark and hidden infoldings, there’s a distinctly feminine, mysterious, and inexplicably magnetic aspect to Japan that exists in few other places in the world. [16 October 2009] (more Read Only Memory) She and I: A FugueSlapping the word 'Fiction' on the cover of a book is not a "get out of jail free" card or, more accurately, a license to kill – just because memoirs have to be true, it doesn’t follow that novels should be allowed to be false. [11 September 2009] (more Read Only Memory) Is Alyse Myers’ Life More Important Than Yours?Ding dong! Ding dong! Another dysfunctional-family memoir bearing a terrible secret is at the door! [17 August 2009] (more Read Only Memory) Augusten Burroughs: The View Through a Saltine CrackerAs a memoirist, Burroughs is highly skilled at the art of aestheticized self-pity. [23 June 2009] (more Read Only Memory) Reviews
The Original of Laura by Vladimir NabokovAs a reminder of a great writer's genius and obsessions, for its historical value, for its fragments of beautiful prose, and as a objet d'art, this book is a ten. As an actual work of literature, it's no more than a four. [20 November 2009] 
thitysomething: The Complete First SeasonThe last American television series before Mad Men to treat the world of advertising seriously was this more satisfying, actual period piece. [17 November 2009] 
Invisible by Paul AusterPaul Auster is a spellbinding storyteller, sometimes thanks to, and other times in spite of, his post-modern narrative trickery. [29 October 2009] 
Automats, Taxi Dances, and Vaudeville by David FreelandFreeland dreams of a New York that once was and never can be again, a city of pleasures now buried under strata of concrete, commerce, and neglect. [28 October 2009] 
Trouble the WaterThe Lower Ninth Ward, where less than 20 percent of the houses are occupied, is still as bad as it was pre-Hurricane Katrina -- or worse. [14 September 2009] 
Brooklyn by Colm ToibinA genuine love story, with a sex scene that is a swirl of lust, tenderness, pain, panic, quiet humor and complicated happiness. [19 August 2009] 
The Friends of Eddie CoyleBack in the day, Robert Mitchum would have eaten William Petersen for lunch and polished off David Caruso for dessert. [28 May 2009] 
The WrestlerLike 'The Ram', we do whatever we can to make it in this world with our dignity or our bodies – though rarely both – intact. [1 May 2009] 
Amberville by Tim DavysA drug-intoxicated homosexual prostitute gazelle and other scary stuffed animals populate this extremely odd mystery novel. [24 April 2009] 
Polis Is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of PlaceCharles Olson was above all a poet of place, and whatever one thinks of his verse, it is hard not to sympathize with his championing of the unique and the indigenous. [2 April 2009] 
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha HuntNikola Tesla was one of those rare humans of whom it could be said he was too strange and marvelous to ever be a believable fictional character. [24 March 2009] 
Black Orpheus: Essential Art HouseThis exotic and excessively frenetic movie must have felt to moviegoers of the era like a quick trip to Brazil after a long, hard winter. [2 March 2009] 
I Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like by Mardy GrotheGrothe doesn't merely sweep his broom around a few dusty corners of the Web and print whatever sticks -- he’s after something deeper. [25 January 2009] 
101 Forgotten Films by Brian MillsMills is a movie lover who, like a penniless kid with his nose pressed against the windows of a wonderful restaurant, aches for the unobtainable. [8 January 2009] 
Night Gallery: Season TwoUpon second viewing, this half-remembered nightmare was as terrifying as ever -- and even weirder. [15 December 2008] 
The Films of Morris EngelA reminder of how garish and grotesque the pleasures of early childhood can be. [10 December 2008] 
The Modern Wit by Shelley KleinCombining blurts from celebrities with well-crafted words from comedians just because they make us laugh is rather like comparing rollercoasters with root canals because they both make us scream. [20 November 2008] 
Man in the Dark by Paul AusterThis superb small novel isn’t about war or politics at all, but about, in the face of guilt and horror, choosing whether to die and how, if that is the choice, to live. [15 August 2008] 
America America by Ethan CaninJust like its title, Ethan Canin’s ambitious new political novel is twice as long as it needs to be. [11 July 2008] 
Manhattan Nocturne: by Colin HarrisonThe story turns on the fate of two illicitly filmed voyeur videos – the saddest and strangest sexual encounters ever conceived. [4 June 2008] 
Kluge by Gary MarcusMarcus notes amusingly that people with bigger shoe sizes tend to know more about history and geography than people with small shoe sizes. [14 May 2008] 
The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen by ed. Maria TatarWhat a loose-limbed, witty, and even oddly post-modern writer Hans Christian Andersen was. [4 April 2008] 
Contraptions by Heath RobinsonThis amusing book is an interesting commentary on our own overly complicated civilizational arrangements. [11 February 2008] 
The Elephanta Suite by Paul TherouxIn Paul Theroux’s brackish, world-weary new collection, India is inherently unknowable and inevitably dangerous, the result of such knowledge being disappointment at best and, at worst, rape, dissolution, or death. [27 November 2007] 
The Almost Moon by Alice SeboldAlice Sebold has achieved in The Almost Moon something vastly more resonant and real than the fairy tale that made her name. [30 October 2007] 
Exit Ghost by Philip RothNo one can complain that Philip Roth, of all authors, is politically correct, or that he pretends to be something other than his highly sexualized, readily outraged, and coruscatingly intelligent self. [8 October 2007] 
Mission Accomplished by Khalil BendibPolitical cartooning in America is in terrible trouble. [31 August 2007] 
Poison Woman by Christine L. MarranThe most infamous of the "Poison Women" became notorious because her every action upset the natural order. [7 August 2007] 
The Maytrees by Annie DillardThe image of an enormous sack stuffed with love and sagging from a hat rack is not one of Dillard’s finest moments. [20 July 2007] 
Heyday by Kurt AndersenBen makes the mistake of characterizing the evident pleasure that Polly takes in sex by using the new-fangled word "nymphomaniac." [2 July 2007] 
Wall Street Noir by Peter Spiegelman [Editor]For desperate acts, psychosexual kinks, and a pervasive sense of fatalism, there are better places to look than the office of a CFO. [30 May 2007] BlogsConsuming Consumables: Trouble the Water [2 December 2009] |
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