Photo by SANDRO via NEW YORK MAGAZINE THE GUARDIAN: David Lynch works from a studio on a slope above one of three adjacent homes he owns in the Hollywood Hills, just a stone’s throw from Mulholland Drive. He is reclusive and seldom leaves this little realm, let alone grants audiences to journalists – but he is prepared to now, on the eve of publishing an unconventional memoir-cum-biography, Room To Dream. An assistant escorts me through the house (sleek concrete walls and surfaces, floor-to-ceiling shelves of VHS cassettes and CDs) and up through the garden to the studio. A snake slithered […]
BOOKS: This Is Your Book On Drugs
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Bantam, 1968, reprinted 1999) BY MAVIS LINNEMANN BOOK CRITIC You’re either on the bus, or off the bus, Ken Kesey chants. On the bus. Off the bus. With the Merry Pranksters. Or with the squares. On the bus. Off the bus. This phrase — a meaty reality bite all by itself, repeated like a mantra throughout the book — marks the metaphysical divide that is at the center of Tom Wolfe’s raw account of the psychedelic counterculture in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the legendary New Journalism chronicle of Ken Kesey (author of One Flew […]
Q&A: With Hampton Sides Author Of “Hellhound On His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin”
Hampton Sides is an acclaimed bestselling author and a National Magazine Award nominated journalist. He won the PEN USA Award for nonfiction and the 2002 Discover Award from Barnes and Noble for Ghost Soldiers, a historical narrative following the rescue of WWII Bataan Death March survivors that was later adapted into the Miramax feature film The Great Raid. His next book, Blood and Thunder, was adapted into an episode of the Public Broadcasting Service’s American Experience series. Hellhound On His Trail, is a taut and thrilling account of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 65-day manhunt […]
Q&A With New York Magazine Film Critic Matt Zoller Seitz, Author Of The Wes Anderson Collection
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on March 14, 2014 Matt Zoller Seitz is the TV critic for New York magazine and Vulture.com and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. A Brooklyn-based writer and filmmaker, Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image and The L Magazine, among other outlets. His five part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was later spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. Seitz is the founder and […]
JANE MAYER: Russkies Said ‘Nyet’ To Sec. Romney
NEW YORKER: One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.” The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When U Can’t
FRESH AIR: Antidepressants and medications for bipolar disorder can be life-changing and even lifesaving, but journalist Lauren Slater warns that the long-term side effects of these drugs are “cloaked in mystery.”“As a nation, we’re consuming them; we’re gobbling them down,” she says. “And we don’t really know what we’re taking into our bodies.” Slater, who suffers from depression and bipolar disorder, has firsthand experience with psychotropic drugs; she’s been taking medication for 35 years. Her new book, Blue Dreams, dedicates separate chapters to drugs such as Thorazine, lithium and psilocybin. Slater says she wanted to “unveil” the drugs by explaining […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: In Mueller We Trust
Illustration by TRACIE CHING via POLITICO FRESH AIR: As the investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election forges on, Robert Mueller, the Justice Department special counsel leading the investigation, has managed to stay largely out of public view. Journalist Garrett Graff says that is in keeping with Mueller’s personality: “This is not someone who in any way has tried to grab the spotlight, but instead has kept his head down and worked hard throughout his career.” Graff’s 2011 book, The Threat Matrix, explores the transformation of the FBI under Mueller’s leadership. Appointed by President George […]
BOOKS: ‘I Believe Anita Hill’
[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published on December 7th, 2011. We are re-posting it now, for obvious reasons. BY JONATHAN VALANIA In advance of her reading at the Free Library tonight to promote her new book Reimagining Equality: Stories Of Race, Gender And Finding A Home, we present a conversation with Anita Hill, professor of social policy, law, and women’s studies at Brandeis University. Discussed: The fantasia of a Post-Racial America; the mendacity, narcissism and hypocrisy of Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain; the right wing’s racializing the blame for the 2008 financial crisis; how she passed […]
BOOKS: Q&A With John Waters, Lord Of The Trash
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA This conversation with celluloid-transgressor-turned-authority-on-all-things-wicked John Waters originally ran back in 2010 upon the publication of his book Role Models. We are re-running it today to mark the auspicious return of his beloved one-man Christmas show at Union Transfer on December 9th. DISCUSSED: LSD, outsider porn, fuzzy sweaters, uptight gay bars, Charlie Manson, Johnny Mathis, censorship, why the Chipmunks are far superior to the Beatles, and why he hasn’t made a film in years. *** PHAWKER: Before we get started, I want to enter this little fanboy anecdote into the record: My first real […]
Q&A: Journey To The Center Of Mike Birbiglia
EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview originally published back in 2014. On the occasion of comedian Mike Birbiglia’s two night stand at Merriam Theater on Friday and Saturday, we present this encore edition. Enjoy. BY JONATHAN VALANIA Welcome to another round of Stupid Answers To Stupid Questions. Actually, that’s only half true. Comedian Mike Birbiglia, of Sleepwalk With Me fame, provided pretty smart answers to our stupid questions. DISCUSSED: Getting bladder cancer at 19; what he and Terry Gross talk about when they are not robbing banks; the strangest place he ever rubbed one out; whether the rumors are true that while […]
BOOKSHOP CASANOVAS: A Q&A W/ The Clientele
Photo by ANDY WILSH Generally speaking, and for good reason, it is considered poor form to simply cut and paste a band’s press kit bio onto your Q&A and call it an intro, but this time we’ll make an exception, for the following will likely be the closest we ever get to a definitive explanation of the hushed grandeur of The Clientele: The Clientele formed a long time ago in the backwoods of suburban Hampshire, playing together as kids at school, rehearsing in a thatched cottage remote from any kind of music scene, but hypnotized by the magical strangeness of […]
THE BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ BEFORE YOU DIE
Image courtesy of ERIC KIM BY DANIEL PATRICK WARD When Aldous Huxley composed The Perennial Philosophy, humanity was just beginning to recover from the epic horror show of the Second World War. Across the globe, communities struggled to understand the reality of the tragic events that allowed millions of people to perish at the hands of an evil that was previously unknown to mankind. Amidst all of the conflict and confusion, Huxley produced a masterpiece that could help unite a divided world through something that reaches every corner of the globe: spirituality. At its core, The Perennial Philosophy is an […]
BOOKS: Q&A With E.J. Dionne & Norm Ornstein
BY JONATHAN VALANIA These are dark days for American democracy. The combination of gerrymandering, dark money, fake news, voter suppression, foreign interference and a deeply divided electorate have had a profoundly corrosive effect on the credibility of America’s claim to be governed by majority rule — that the outcomes of our elections accurately reflect the will of the people. The result is a president with a 67% disapproval rating after just 10 months in office, according to a recent Associated Press poll, and a Congress that has repeatedly tried to ram through a repeal of the Affordable Care Act […]
