Blog
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“Is This Home?” Selected by Brittany Howard
In the Winter 2020-21 issue of Oxford American magazine, the great musician, Brittany Howard (check out her 2019 album Jaime which sounds like something only Lauryn Hill, Prince or D’Angelo would or could do), has chosen my 2007 piece on Thelonious Monk’s 1970 return to his birthplace of North Carolina, “Is this Home?,” as one…
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Feeling Nowhere
Last week the first result from my 15 months of research on the LA band Jane’s Addiction and late 1980s and early 1990’s culture at large was published by Affidavit. This piece mostly concerns why I’m drawn to this subject. It could be an Introduction or Chapter 1 of a book. We’ll see. I’m happy…
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Interview on WFIU: Indiana Public Media
Last week WFIU Public Radio: Indiana Public Media broadcast a one-hour interview with me in their Profiles series. I talked about some things I haven’t talked about much publicly before – my background in eastern North Carolina, my studies in Economics and the idea of value, parenting, and my new project on the LA band,…
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2019 Guggenheim Fellowship
Word arrived this month that I won a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship for my project on the rock band Jane’s Addiction’s original years 1985-1991 in LA and beyond. I’m surprised and elated and grateful. I’ve applied for that fellowship a half dozen times over twenty years. I guess seventh time is charm. Here is the Guggenheim’s…
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What Wasn’t There: Gene Smith’s Sink in New Light
A remarkable new essay about, in part, Gene Smith’s Sink was published this week by Affidavit magazine. In “What Wasn’t There” London-based writer Emily LaBarge considers Sink alongside writers I revere including novelists Nathalie Léger, Lydia Davis, and Fleur Jaeggy. In particular, Léger’s Suite for Barbara Loden is one of my favorite books of recent years. I’ve read it three…
