Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock 'n' Roll by Marc Dolan
Disclaimer: I’m biased on this subject. Bruce Springsteen and I are the same age, and we’ve known each other for a long time. We met in the mid-‘70s at his first West Coast gig. I interviewed him, then watched him and the Davey Sancious-era E Streeters play the holy living snot out of a four-hour set to a packed house in Phoenix—where they had gotten early airplay from the unformatted FM rock radio station I worked for—and then, the next night, play the same insane set to 200 astonished neophytes in a half-full high school gym. I’d been covering music... read more
Railsea by China Mieville
French philosopher Paul Valery once said “The future is not what it used to be,” and he died in 1945, before the introduction of such world-changing inventions as the atomic bomb and the electric toothbrush. To judge from the pulp magazines of the Eisenhower era, the 21st century would be an era of hot-rod spacecraft, ray guns and Art Deco cities on other planets. But, in a sentiment expressed by the name of the Scottish rock band We Were Promised Jetpacks, the actual 21st century bears little resemblance to those shiny sci-fi visions. Most of our most impressive innovations are... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (5/30/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (5/23/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
Open City by Teju Cole
Perhaps Afro-Swedish artist Makode Aj Linde did us a clumsy favor in the creation of the “Hottentot Venus” cake that premiered in April 2012 at a party for the Swedish minister of culture. An online video of the cake, a grotesque golliwog caricature of an African woman designed to be cut at its genitals, sparked outrage—and even calls for the minister’s resignation. The video gives us a view of the party-goers, presumably Swedish art patrons and government officials, as they swallow the inherent repulsion the art installation raises in an effort to be “in” on the artsy joke. It seems... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (5/16/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
In Esi Edugyan’s novel Half-Blood Blues, the narrator’s inventive and free-flowing descriptions of jazz mimic the music itself. For readers unfamiliar with jazz or unimpressed by it, the explosion of color, verve, imagery and verbal idiosyncrasy in the book will in and of itself quicken the heartbeat and warm the insides. How not, with central character Hiero (Hieronymus) Falk delivering “note after shimmering note, like sunshine sliding all over the surface of a lake,” and with the great Louis Armstrong, “who could make his glissandi snap like marbles, the high Cs piercing,” joining him in an impromptu jam session? Half-Blood... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (5/9/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
This Wheel's On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of the Band by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis
“My story is recalled and written from my perspective on the drum stool, which I’ve always felt was the best seat in the house. From there you can see both the audience and the show.”-Levon Helm Levon Helm sounds like the Civil War. His voice is (or was—it’s hard to think of him in the past tense, even though it is so) evocative of a time and place not easily within reach; a South that just went through the horrors of bloodshed on its own soil, for the sin of condoning and participating in the worst crime in American history... read more
Free Comic Book Day 2012: Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up
Free Comic Book Day returns once again on Saturday May 5 2012. If you’ve never been, it’s exactly as amazing as it sounds. Every year on the first Saturday of May you can walk into almost any comic book store in the world and leave with free comics. Most major publishers produce special comics for the occasion, often featuring brand new stories or excerpts of upcoming releases. It’s a smart promotional tactic that has been successfully recreated by other imperiled retail businesses. Unlike Record Store Day, though, you don’t have to line up at six in the morning in hopes... read more
When I Was A Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
When it comes to the pleasures of reading, my tastes grow increasingly promiscuous. My favorite books of the past few years include a father’s outrageous tales of life with his four young sons (Somewhere More Holy, Tony Woodlief); an undertaker’s everyday dealings with dead bodies (The Undertaking, Thomas Lynch); a history of Google (Googled: The End Of The World As We Know It, Ken Auletta); the account of an obsessed lumberjack and an exotic spruce tree in British Columbia (The Golden Spruce, John Vaillant); Jay-Z’s autobiography (Decoded); an anthropological history of modern advertising (The Age of Persuasion, Terry O’Reilly); and... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (4/25/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books. Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City by Guy Delisle Drawn + Quarterly, 2012 Rating: 9.2 With its status as winner of the Fauve d’Or, or best comic book award, at this year’s Angouleme Comic Festival, a pretty serious honor, and its topic (the artist’s year in Israel with his wife, who works for Doctors Without Borders, and children), one could easily anticipate some major heaviness from Guy Delisle’s latest. Don’t shy away, though. Luckily, the volume itself is mostly literally weighty, addressing complex... read more
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
In dystopian novels, we often find ourselves cheering on a protagonist’s desperate escape. We want our hero to not only question the beliefs that have so deeply brainwashed his or her society, but to actively pursue some plan of subversion that becomes the catalyst for an all-out rebellion against a totalitarian regime. From enduring classics such as A Brave New World to the current flavor-of-the-week in the young adult genre (The Hunger Games, anyone?), this trope has proven its staying power. We not only want rebellion, but expect it. The urge to subvert feels even more relevant and cathartic today,... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (4/18/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
Birds of A Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman
The South has always considered itself a storytelling nation—an independent and misunderstood country of citizens who balk at belonging, cling to unity and narrate the difference. We have always known this fact: The shortest distance between two opposing forces is a good story. Every now and then, the outside world takes notice of this technique of ours, which is not one of rationalizing, but rather a conjuring of justice. Right now happens to be one of those times, it seems: Southern is trendy. Blame the economy, the president or the weather, but people seem increasingly to search for either solutions... read more
Michael Ian Black: You're Not Doing It Right
We're the holdouts. Every married couple we know has kids or is having kids or is trying to make kids. My wife and I were one of the first couples we knew to get married and we almost definitely will be the last to become parents. In his recent memoir, You're not doing it right, Michael Ian Black (actor, writer, co-founder of The State, Sierra Mist pitchman, and former VH1 pundit-in-residence) perfectly sums up how my wife and myself and many other otherwise responsible adults feel about parenthood: self-absorbed disgust and absolute pants-shitting terror. read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (4/11/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
Ball Four by Jim Bouton
“A book so deep in the American vein, so deep in fact that it is by no means a sports book.” – David Halberstam, on Ball Four As the 2012 baseball season opens, the time seems right to revisit Ball Four, a chronicle of a season that, for its author, was a time of reflection and hoped-for rebirth—as is the start of any season for athletes and fans. Back in 1969, Jim Bouton wasn’t trying to change the world; he was simply trying to keep a diary of his season. Once a promising right-hander for the Mantle-era Yankees, Bouton injured... read more
New American Haggadah by Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander
The Haggadah is a short book of prayer, narrative, homily and philosophy that Jews read aloud around the dinner table on the first evening or two of the Passover holiday. Passover occurs at the full moon of a lunar month following the spring equinox, and so is a feast of renewal, farming and light. But in religious terms, it commemorates the liberation of Israelite slaves from the land of Egypt by their God, who “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” brought them out of their dismal bondage and led them, with a pillar of cloud by day and... read more
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (4/4/12)
Each week, Paste reviews the most intriguing comic books, graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other illustrated books.... read more
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