John Hiatt’s Random and Open Artistic Journey
John Hiatt is a legendary songwriter, a dynamic performer, and an inspiration. Michael Elliott’s biography, Have a Little Faith, carries the legend well.
Books
Author and Podcaster Rax King Is Irresistibly Cheeky in ‘Tacky’
Author and podcaster Rax King shares her love of tasteless kitsch in her funny book on pop culture, Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer.
Still Stranger than Fiction: An Interview with Chuck Palahniuk
How, in this era of cancel culture, does the idiosyncratic and transgressive Chuck Palahniuk keep publishing? On this and his new work “People, Places, Things”.
On Manager Alan Walden’s Rough and Tumble Music Memoir, ‘Southern Man’
Alan Walden’s Southern Man tells the lively tale of promoting music from the turbulent American South with Otis Redding and his brother Phil of Capricon Studios.
The Imagination of Disaster 2.0: Revisiting Susan Sontag in the Age of the Pandemic Horror Narrative
Considering Susan Sontag’s “The Imagination of Disaster” and modern apocalyptic narratives, are sci-fi and horror still “inadequate responses” to our world?
How George Orwell Inspired Hunter S. Thompson’s Gonzo Journalism
Hunter S. Thompson’s primary muse was not F. Scott Fitzgerald, but rather George Orwell and his fact-bending 1933 memoir, Down and Out in Paris and London.
Yanis Varoufakis Anticipates Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse in ‘Another Now’
Disguised as sci-fi, Yanis Varoufaikis’ Another Now contemplates how life post-capitalism might be more free and equal – and how that might be destroyed.
The Unmentionable Whiteness of ‘Americanaland’
John Milward’s new history of Americana puts the mixed genre at the corner of country and rock while slighting race and the music’s Black roots and performers.
Recorded Music Is Everlasting and That’s a Problem Argues ‘Decomposed’
Kyle Devine’s Decomposed is a landmark contribution to musicology, offering a sobering but sorely needed account of recorded music’s environmental consequences.
Belarusian Fiction ‘Red Crosses’ Creates Story with Confusion
With its deliberately disjointed narrative shifts, is Sasha Filipenko’s Belarusian fiction Red Crosses a story of memory or memory of a story?
Ariel Dorfman’s Novella ‘The Compensation Bureau’ Is a Fantastical Plea for Hope
A thin book of big ideas, Ariel Dorfman’s ‘The Compensation Bureau’ leaves much to the imagination, like a brilliant sketch of a fantastical parable.