Everyone's a Critic: Cold Cuts

"I love Roberto Bologna!"

-Comment by Reader on November 9, 2009 at 6:36 am, on an article by Horacio Castellanos Moya about the construction of the "Bolaño myth" in the US

Everyone's a Critic: Spanish or in Spanish?

Yesterday in a small bookstore I came across the latest copy of Granta. It was a collection of stories by "The Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists"—the next Llosas and Bolaños, as the back cover put it. Of the twenty or so writers included, eight were from Argentina, six were from Spain, and only one was from Mexico.

It occurred to me that this was the first time I had seen a copy of the literary magazine in Mexico.

Everyone's a Critic: Stars and Criminals

"If I hadn't been an actor, I've often thought I'd have become a con man and wound up in jail."
—Marlon Brando


"They experienced failure after failure after failure, and decided that rather than being a 'nobody,' they wanted to be a 'somebody.' "
—Robert Fein, on people who attempt to assassinate politicians

Everyone's a Critic: What Justin Bieber is Good For

I listen to a lot of music on YouTube, and the most frequently used put-down in the comments section goes something like this:

If you don't like this go listen to your fucking Justin Bieber.

Everyone's a Critic: Captain Beefheart on Politics

From a 1980 performance of "Dirty Blue Gene" on French TV.

Beefheart: (singing) "She's. Not. Bad. She's. Not."

(Song ends. Applause.)

Beefheart: (speaking) "Reagan's bad!"

(Applause, shouts of approval from audience.)

Beefheart: "He saddle-soaps his hair!"

(Confused silence.)

Everyone's a Critic: I Thought of Josephine Baker, He Thought of Rousseau

(Art Ensemble of Chicago, by Anthony Barboza)

See the new issue of Whitewall magazine for my interview with photographer Anthony Barboza, who shot the cover of You're Under Arrest (Miles Davis's greatest album ever??) and owns the gun featured therein. If you're lazy you'll want to know that the piece is on page 76.

The issue also has interviews with Marina Abramovic and Patti Smith.

(Sun Ra at the Knitting Factory, 1992, by Anthony Barboza)

 

(Chico Freeman at Visiones NYC, 1996, by Anthony Barboza)

 

Everyone's a Critic: Dylanology

Dylan:           That song sure as hell wasn't written for you.

Weberman:  It wasn't?

Dylan:          It sure as hell wasn't, no. I was not even aware of you
                     at that time.

Weberman:  Isn't 'landlord' 'critic,' though, in your symbolism?

....

Dylan:           If you took some of that energy and spread it out a little,
                      you could get involved in a whole new thing.

Weberman: Dylanology's working out fine for me.

Dylan:          Well I don't know if there's going to be enough there.

—from a phone conversation between Bob Dylan and "radical" music critic/journalist Alan J. Weberman, taped June, 1971

Everyone's a Critic: Is There Some Kind of Jazz in Your Poetry?

The interview with Lil Wayne at the end of this video is like a real-life Brüno segment.