the hypnotist collector

Here’s a review I wrote of Mona Simpson’s new novel, My Hollywood, for The Comment Factory.

Living in New York, passing delis that sold Cel-Ray soda (a.k.a. “Jewish champagne”) and knishes and bumping, literally, into fur hatted Hasids in the subway, I felt self-conscious of being Jewish.  Having moved back to California, where every Jew is more than reformed, I’m conscious in a different way.  So, what is Jewish?  Lenny Bruce [...]

“A 481.  Awareness of the manifold possibilities open to me in the future; new hope…” And also a Penfield mood organ. Or maybe just some of this crazy water: Masaru Emoto’s water crystal experiments consist of exposing water in glasses to different words, picture or music, and then freezing and examining the aesthetics of the [...]

Here’s an excerpt from Joan Didion’s essay “In the Islands”, from her collection The White Album, a great summer read, as is most of her collected nonfiction,  in that several pieces are short enough to read at the beach and the breadth of content allows for the itinerant mind of summertime.  ¡Disfruta!

Here’s a review I wrote of Toy Story 3 in 3D for The Comment Factory.

The following letter was sent to the editor Pascal Covici by John Steinbeck, along with a box containing the manuscript of East of Eden: Dear Pat, You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, “Why don’t you make something for me?” I asked you what you wanted, [...]

Those nights lit by the moon and the moon’s nimbus, the bones of the wrecked pier rose crooked in air and the sea wore a tarnished coat of silver. The black pines waited.  The cold air smelled of fishheads rotting under the pier at low tide. The moon kept shedding its silver clothes over the [...]

What are the criteria for gaping? Samson wondered.  Extremes: tremendous beauty or prizewinning ugliness; deformities; violent or noisy behavior.  All rash, obvious reasons to gawk.  But the great candidates for stares seemed more subtle, those that quietly, diplomatically challenged the authority of the norm. –Man Walks into a Room, Nicole Krauss

Jonathan Safran Foer’s new piece in The New Yorker’s fiction issue feels like lyrics.  “I’m not forty-five or eighty-three, not being hoisted onto the shoulders of anybody wading into the sea.  I’m not learning chess, and you’re not losing your virginity.”  Like “Turn, Turn, Turn,” which lyrics were taken from another book (Ecclesiastes).  And what [...]

“The straight and the winding way are one and now that you are here what do the years count since last we two met together?  Men’s memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.” “I been everwhere,” he said.  “This is just one more place.” “Did you [...]