NORMAN BALL is a Virginia poet, playwright, essayist and musician. His essay collections, How Can We Make Your Power More Comfortable? (2010) and The Frantic Force (2011), both widely available on the web, are published by Del Sol Press and Petroglyph Books, respectively. His recent play SIDES: A Civil War Musical (Inspired by The Red Badge of Courage) is currently being produced for TV by Last Tango Productions, LLC. Visit his Wordpress blog RedBookRedSail which explores the Jungian facets of David Bowie’s work. His Youtube channel ‘desertrun’ has enjoyed over a million views.
Features
Tuesday, April 23 2013
The Stubborn Speed of Sound Advice
We should have more thinking in our writing, even if it slows the normal process of reading to a useful crawl. Intellectual death has already claimed the distracted reader. May vital writers and their dwindling audiences always remain one paragraph ahead of the goon squad.
Monday, March 25 2013
Scott Walker, The Only One Left Alive
Scott Walker is succeeding, devilishly well, at keeping himself to himself. Each release finds him more withheld to the point where the solipsism on Bish Bosch becomes deafening. We’re still here Scott, some of us anyway, and we are not all store-room dummies.
Wednesday, March 13 2013
The Angel of History’s Outstretched, Crumpled Wings: Marketing David Bowie
The process of arrival behind David Bowie’s The Next Day album was revelatory and every bit deserving of Harvard Business Review case-study.
Tuesday, March 5 2013
The Stars Are Out Tonight at Our Thoughtless Instigation: David Bowie's New Day
In an era when the Stones relentlessly seek to extend, exploit and parlay their accrued fame (as do legions of lesser legacy acts), David Bowie, ever the brave contrarian, is doing his level best to open the shutters on a fresh new day.
Thursday, June 23 2011
This Is Your Brain on YouTube
We seem headed towards a videosphere that captures and subdues the totality of human activity like some goopy, billion-eyed, grass-roots-driven surveillance cam.
