If you’re trying to analyze F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age novel The Great Gatsby and you’re not thinking about Dante’s Inferno, you’re missing an obvious connection.
The connection is easy to spot and hard to dispute, though it rarely comes up in discussion of the book. I haven’t heard … Read the rest
Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck has died. Recordings of his snappy number Take Five have been flying around the Internet in the past two days, but I like this video even better. Brubeck is playing a small concert in Moscow, and obliges when asked to improvise on a Russian theme. … Read the rest
I’m psyched to be included in an impressive series of interviews about the Beat Generation conducted by Michael Limnios at Blues @ Greece, a Greek web publication devoted to underground music and culture.
I particularly like the question Michael asked me about Beat writers and poker (which shows that … Read the rest
While we’re watching counterculture moments on television from the 1960s,here’s something else I just stumbled across: the joyful jazz composer, performer and beatnik David Amram on the kid’s show Wonderama. He demonstrates his favorite instruments, and naturally leads a jam session with the kids, who are way into it.… Read the rest
The new movie called On The Road begins in an outdoor Manhattan parking lot. Sweaty rushed Dean Moriarty is seen in close-up, screeching big blocky cars into tight spots as customers grimace in disapproval. Dean’s new friend Sal Paradise stands by, watching with admiration. Like Dean Moriarty himself, Jack Kerouac’s … Read the rest
“Is reading social?” The question has been going around the litsphere, though many who have answered have reached for a middle ground between the disconcerting idea of social (and Internet-connected) literature and the more traditional notion of reading as an intensely private and solitary activity. I don’t see much … Read the rest
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post titled In Gatsby’s Tracks: Locating the Valley of Ashes in a 1924 Photo, detailing my search for some exact locales described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. Using the novel’s text and a zoomable historical map … Read the rest
Surprise! I have wished my entire literate life to see the 1949 film version of The Great Gatsby, which starred Alan Ladd as Jay Gatsby and Betty Field as Daisy Buchanan. This was the second attempt to film F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, and like the 1926 version starring Warner … Read the rest
I learned about drinking whiskey, specifically bourbon whiskey, from Raymond Chandler. Actually, I recently read in his letters that Chandler was more of a gin man. So I really learned about drinking whiskey from Chandler’s alter ego, Philip Marlowe.
Actually, “drinking” is not the best description of how Marlowe imbibed … Read the rest
