August 27, 2014
Mid-Morning of the Planet of the Selfies
A few weeks ago I started flagging stories about selfies. I’m not sure why. I think I wanted to make the late-to-the-party claim that the selfie may be the emblem […]
October 28, 2013
Thought and Expression
About ten seconds ago, when I opened up my copy of Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story, a matchbook cover from an Italian restaurant fell out. I don’t recognize the restaurant […]
August 22, 2012
A selected history of selective history
For the past few weeks I’ve been reading John McPhee’s 1994 book The Ransom of Russian Art, a slim work of immersion journalism that recounts the adventures of Norton Dodge, […]
August 19, 2012
Interrogations of the blank page: on Bern Porter (part i)
The question “Is it art?” has, beyond its usual employment by philistines, a more serious philosophical consideration behind it. Usually this question is posed in the context of an apparently […]