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Tag Archives: Nick Tosches
“I like to sing to women with meat on their bones and that long green stuff in their pocketbook.” — Wynonie Harris
It’s the birthday today of the influential blues shouter Wynonie Harris. I’ll hand the microphone over to Nick Tosches, because why would I bother to try to add to it? Tosches devoted a chapter in his book Unsung Heroes of … Continue reading
“Given as much to the gutter as to the gods” — Nick Tosches
“He was born alone. He would die alone. These truths, he, like every punk, took to heart. But in him they framed another truth, another solitary, stubborn stone in the eye of nothing. There was something, a knowing, in him … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, essays, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Nick Tosches, nonfiction
8 Comments
The past is present
In England in 1788, an impeachment trial began against Warren Hastings, governor general of the notorious East India Company – accusing him of corruption, cruelty, crimes against humanity (in modern language), and of wielding the worst of the worst – … Continue reading
2021 Books Read
I lived at three addresses this year. I moved twice. In the middle of a pandemic. It’s been a year of upheaval, transition, as well as endurance. For most of this year, the majority of my stuff was in storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, Balkans, Billy Wilder, Biography, books read, Cary Grant, Croatia, Czeslaw Milosz, David McCullough, Dubravka Ugrešić, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, essays, Eve Babitz, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hitler, Howard Hawks, Ireland, Italy, Liz Phair, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, Sweden, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
1 Comment
Things that got me through 2020. In no particular order.
Elvis mask, made for me by Jill Blake who was like “I just happened to have this Elvis 68 Comeback Special fabric lying around … do you want a mask?” Do you have to ask? There were so many great … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Founding Fathers, Movies, Music, Personal, Television, Theatre
Tagged Alexander Hamilton, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Eminem, family, friends, George Orwell, H.D., Hannah Arendt, Hope, Jackass, Jean Arthur, John Garfield, John Sturges, Johnny Flynn, Lucille Ball, Marcel Proust, Martha Coolidge, Nick Tosches, poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Steve McQueen, Supernatural, Twin Peaks, women directors, X-Files
30 Comments
2020 Books Read
What a year, huh. What a dumpster-fire year. I read a lot, mostly in the mornings, and it helped create rituals for the days, which often seemed endlessly the same, interchangeable. I read a lot of long and challenging books … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, ballet, Ballets Russes, Belfast, Biography, books read, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Czeslaw Milosz, dance, Dubravka Ugrešić, Elinor Lipman, Elizabeth Bishop, Eminem, essays, Ezra Pound, fiction, H.D., Hannah Arendt, Hitler, Ireland, Jane Austen, Jean Arthur, Marcel Proust, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, poetry, Poland, politics, Rebecca West, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Ryszard Kapuściński, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Shirley Jackson, Stalin, true crime, Ukraine, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
38 Comments
Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2020, Part 2
Here’s part 1, a list of things I’ve written for other outlets. This list, then, is a hodge-podge of the things I’ve written here this year. Anyone familiar with this joint knows that I do tribute posts for people’s birthdays. … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Movies, Music, Personal, writers
Tagged A. E. Housman, Alexander Pope, Andrew Marvell, Anna Karina, Anne Spencer, Austin Clarke, Ballets Russes, baseball, Basil Bunting, dance, Eminem, England, France, Frances Farmer, friends, Harlem Renaissance, Hediyeh Tehrani, Hope, Iranian film, Irish poetry, John Donne, Melvin B. Tolson, Nick Tosches, Nijinsky, Philip Larkin, poetry, Poland, Rhode Island, Robert Frost, Romania, Scott Walker, Stanley Kubrick, women directors, year in writing
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Recommended: Biographies
For starters: My recommended Fiction books My recommended Non-Fiction books BIOGRAPHIES: American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph Ellis I’ve written a lot about Joseph Ellis’ work here. While I love David McCullough’s work so much, Ellis is … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Books, Directors, Founding Fathers, James Joyce, Theatre, writers
Tagged A. Scott Berg, Abigail Adams, Alexander Hamilton, American Sphinx, Benjamin Franklin, Biography, Bruce Springsteen, Charles Lindbergh, Charlotte Bronte, David McCullough, Dean Martin, Edie Sedgwick, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ellen Terry, Elvis Presley, Emily Bronte, George Washington, Henry Irving, His Excellency, Howard Hawks, Howard Hughes, James Dean, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Adams, John Wayne, Joseph Cornell, Joseph Ellis, Marlon Brando, Mitford sisters, Montgomery Clift, Nick Tosches, Nureyev, Orson Welles, Oscar Wilde, Patricia Bosworth, Patricia Highsmith, Richard Ellmann, Ron Chernow, Sam Cooke, Simon Callow, Tennessee Williams, Thomas Jefferson, Truman Capote, W.B. Yeats, Zelda Fitzgerald
9 Comments
Reading Tosches Reader
I’m reading The Nick Tosches Reader right now, a super dense collection of his writing – put together by Tosches himself, from book reviews in long-defunct ‘zines, to pieces he wrote for Creem and etc. Nobody. Like. Him. I can’t … Continue reading
Posted in Books, writers
Tagged Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nick Tosches
7 Comments