What's your favorite Dylan album? (with poll)
Dylan is perhaps the trickiest man in rock, and the hardest to put in a box. In the 60s there were people who thought he was the messiah. Eric Clapton had the same experience, until Hendrix came along....
View ArticleHighly Evolved Pop Quiz (w/ best 60s band poll)
Why? Why not? Because I'm sitting wide awake in West L.A. at 2A.M., because I'm bored, and because I can.What was Elvis's 1968 comeback album called?What band did Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters...
View ArticleRock Quiz & answers (w/ best 70s band/singer poll)
Below are 35 quotes from 70s songs. Your job is to name each song (1 point for each right song name) and the artist who did it (1 point for each). A lot of these quotes are from well-known songs, so...
View ArticleAre all the best punks English? (w/ poll)
When I was a teenager I lived in England. At about that time, punk came along and captured the front pages of the tabloids: `The Filth and the Fury'. The Sex Pistols brought out `God Save the Queen'...
View ArticleRock & Roll & Quiz & Poll: double albums
The golden age of vinyl LPs has passed, and the silver age of CDs may well be passing. Yet there is a real beauty in the LP: it looks better and often sounds better than any other music format. It...
View Article30 Good Double LPs
The golden age of vinyl LPs has passed, and the silver age of CDs may well be passing. Yet there is a real and unique beauty in the LP: it looks better and often sounds better than any other music...
View Article4:20 Rock => Greatest Double Albums
It's 4:20 in California, so here's some good music to elevate you towards the zenith of your weekend.Last weekend I wrote my first diary in 3 years. This one is the second half of that one. If you're...
View ArticleThe Himalayas of my Bookcase
Some books are meant to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; That is, some books are to be read only in parts; Others to be read, but not curiously; And some few...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: J. M. Coetzee & the Pursuit of Happiness
I just read Life & Times of Michael K. J. M. Coetzee wins many prizes (including two Bookers and the Nobel), and much praise. He is interesting and challenging. So is his fiction. I am still...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: Cultivating Conversation
In the early '70s, after the break-up of the century, John Lennon spent a lot of breath badmouthing the Beatles. Finally an interviewer asked him, "Is there anything you miss about the Beatles?" John...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: What is Contemporary Fiction?
You've met these two words before. You know what Contemporary means, and what Fiction is. Have you met the two words together, walking arm-in-arm, along the boulevard? And when they introduced...
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: Jhumpa Lahiri's subtle tapestries of the heart
Jhumpa Lahiri has achieved much with just three books. Her most remarkable accomplishment, which you spot before even opening her work, is that she has earned both popular success and critical acclaim....
View ArticleContemporary Fiction Views: Christmas Catalog
This will be my fifth, and final, Contemporary Fiction Views diary. It has been a great pleasure to fill in for bookgirl. You should try it. Limelite will be writing a diary here on Tuesday, January...
View ArticleBooks That Changed My Life — Tristram Shandy
This book changed my life before I was even born. Just how it managed that is an amusing tale, which I'd like to share with you. But, in a Shandean spirit, not just yet.Tristram Shandy lies, in many...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! Meeting Michelangelo
This diary is like a house salad: it's got some interesting tomatoes, carrots and peppers on top; once you've eaten those, all that's left is a bowl of lettuce. First I'll recommend some books; but...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! Painting the Sistine Chapel
If you've seen the Sistine Chapel, you know how sublime it is. I'm not surprised that they failed fifteen times before they got it right.Some stories bring epiphanies, they strike you like light...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! Hemingway on Writing
"I have all the copies of The Paris Review and like the interviews very much. They will make a good book when collected and that will be very good for the Review."...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! Meanings of Sad
Here we stand, hand in hand, gazing out across the rippling surface. Let's dive into the depths and see what we discover there. I don't mean the deep wintry midnight blue of grief and depression. Let's...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! 100 Greatest Novels Lists (& the 5th best Russian Novel)
I think too much. It's easier and sweeter than doing real work. I set out, a couple of months ago, to write an essay on my favorite short story, The Grand Inquisitor. So far, I've only reread the first...
View ArticleBooks Go Boom! Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor'
The Grand Inquisitor is a chapter in Dostoevsky's longest novel. On the one hand, The Brothers Karamazov belongs among Middlemarch, Moby Dick and Anna Karenina: it is one of the Great Novels of the...
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