Eve Babitz (1943-2021)
The unforgettable Eve Babitz has died at age 78. May her memory be a party invitation.
Author: Rufus F.
Sunday Morning! “Nightmare Alley” x 3
William Lindsay Gresham heard a story he never forgot. Guillermo Del Toro’s recent adaptation of his “Nightmare Alley” is the latest verion
Sunday Morning! “The Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham
Maugham’s story “The Razor’s Edge” is about a WWI pilot who heads East seeking spiritual peace resonates even with those of us who haven’t gone very far on the path to sainthood.
Sunday Morning: “Come and See” (1985)
The actors in Elem Kllimov’s 1985 film “Come and See” look into the camera until it seems like we’re staring at the bottom of a well
Sunday Morning! Traveling with Laurence Sterne and Michel Houellebecq
Two visions of pleasure travel from Laurence Sterne and Michel Houellebecq 230 years apart, offer two very different ideas of being-in-the-word.
Sunday Morning! Dean Stockwell in “Blue Velvet”
It’s a cameo role as memorable as Brando’s is “Apocalypse Now.” It’s also the exact point at which Lynch’s masterpiece seems closest to tipping over into genuine madness.
Sunday Morning! “In the Shadow of Forward Motion” by David Wojnarowicz
On a recent trip to New York City, a David Wojnarowicz booklet from 1989, and the artist as explosive device.
Sunday Halloween Morning! Seconds (1966)
Seconds is an existential horror movie scarier than any B-movie slasher- they can only kill you once; this film suggests you can be killed so surely long before that physical death is only an afterthought.
Sunday Morning! “Jacket Weather” by Mike DeCapite
“Jacket Weather” by Mike DeCapite is an elegiac meditation on love and aging in New York with two lovers who could talk all night.
Sunday Morning! “I Will Die in a Foreign Land” by Kalani Pickhart
Kalani Pickhart’s hugely ambitious debut novel about the 2013 Ukrainian Revolution tells of how we struggle against the forces of history in order not to bury the ones we love.
Sunday Morning! “First Person Singular” by Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami returns with “First Person Singular”: eight short stories that read like memories that might have been dreamed or imagined. In the end, it’s all the same.
Sunday Morning: “Solstice” by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is a great novelist and I admire in her 1986 novel, but alas, it was an attraction that never turned into love.
Sunday Morning! “808s & Otherworlds” by Sean Avery Medlin
Sean Avery Medlin sings, and dreams, and recreates, and dances themself in 808s and Otherworlds, a book of “Memories, Remixes, and Mythologies” released this week by Two-Dollar Radio
Walking Around Thoughts: Disasters and Human Nature
Questions about how we behave in disasters are always questions about human nature and its relation to civil society, subjects that have obsessed writers
Sunday Morning! “Ethan Frome” by Edith Wharton
Wharton’s American Gothic at least makes the case that hell is a lot colder than we’d imagined. Her character, Ethan Frome isn’t so lucky.
Twenty Years Into the Future
Back then. I didn’t think what had happened would really change the country, or the course of my life. But, sometimes grieving takes longer than you expect it to.
Sunday Morning! The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy’s great short story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” is really about how we avoid thoughts of death, and in doing so, sidestep our lives all together.
Sunday Morning! The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
Dawnie Wilson’s rocking debut novel “The Final Revival of Opal and Nev” is about the greatest musical group that never existed and all the things they took from each other, and left behind.
Sunday Morning! Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
As a thought experiment, let’s consider Virginia Woolf to be a horror writer; all of her characters are going to die, and they all know it very well.
Sunday Morning! The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola
The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola about the Paris food market is crammed full of enough tasty detail to make your mouth water. It was Antony Bourdain’s favorite novel and Zola’s favorite of his own. Let’s eat.
