In Search of Lost Time: J.G. Ballard’s Magical Objects
Live, now, at Thought Catalog: “Memory Palace: Fay Ballard’s ‘House Clearance,” a review-cum-essay-cum-interview inspired by J.G. Ballard’s daughter’s exhibition of drawings.
The Rat King
Live, now, at Boing Boing, “The Rat King: On the Fascinations (and Repulsions) of Rattus.” Click here to read. Teaser: In what he calls “an Experiment in Controlled Digression,” Mark […]
Inspector Magritte is on the Case
“Pipe Dreams: The Curious Case of Rene Magritte,” the latest in my ongoing series, “Self-Help for Surrealists,” is live at Thought Catalog. Teaser: The method Magritte used to solve his […]
“Permission To Laugh: Isa Genzken’s Exceedingly Unsmiling Art”
So I was at MoMA, having just seen Magritte and, at the Morgan, Poe, when I stumbled on the Isa Genzken retrospective, a reeking midden of craptastic art-school self-indulgence. My […]
I MUST NOT THINK BAD THOUGHTS: OUT IN PAPER, FEBRUARY 2014
This just in: the revised, final cover for the paperback edition of I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, due out from the University of Minnesota Press, February 2014. “An absolute […]
All Work And No Play Makes Mark A Dull Boy: Bad Thoughts Needs You!
WIN FREE SWAG! File Under: Ironic Exploitation of the Creative Class…By a Fellow Impecunious Hack. Dear Friends: The University of Minnesota Press is bringing out a PAPERBACK EDITION of my […]
Dean Martin Existentialism: Bobby Darin’s “Beautiful Things”
“Why the Nightingale Sings: On Bobby Darin’s ‘Beautiful Things’”: HERE. Attention-Conservation Keywords: Dr. Dolittle, “Dean Martin existentialism,” memento mori in the cocktail lounge, lovers with wings, the Greek myth of […]
The Obscure Pleasures Of Medical Libraries—Tomorrow, Live!
This Saturday, at the extraordinary New York Academy of Medicine Library, I’ll be speaking from 12:30-1 PM on “Gray Matter: The Obscure Pleasures of Medical Libraries,” at a conference brilliantly […]
The Politics Of Style: Reading T Magazine
Men’s fashion mags make my left knee jerk. Then again, why should fascists have the best boots? The Politics Of Style: Reading T Magazine. Historically, the Left, in postwar America, has […]