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An unbelievably comprehensive 600-page oral history of the Village Voice, formerly the best of all US alt-weeklies and simply the main way anyone marginally cool knew wtf was going on in town before social media. Dripping with details (e.g. after being the only paper with writers/photographers on the ground at the Stonewall riot, the Gay Liberation Front was founded in rock critic Robert Christgau's spare journalism classroom (!)); casually interleaved with jaw-dropping adversarial interview appearances (both Donald Trump and Michael Alig drop in to give their own perspective on events); and unafraid to critique/discuss the Voice's own historic homophobic, racist, and sexist blindspots, I can't think of a better crash course in What People Talked About in 1960-1995 NYC (the Voice's subsequent Craigslist-induced decline era gets comparatively short shrift).
Apr 9, 2024
Related Recs
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It's important to do your homework when entering a new line of work so I've been reading books like Monster by John Gregory Dunne, about the years-long process of writing Up Close & Personal with Joan Didion and a slew of producers, and You'll Never Make Love In This Town Againāthe title a send-up of the bestselling You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again (next on my list)āwhich I purchased on audiocassette and chronicles three high-class hookers blabbing on their celebrity clientele. The Kid Stays In The Picture is read by a very gravelly Bob Evans on audiobook: a must. Michael Ovitz's memoir was involuntarily funny because he's such a liar. I even read Disney War, a book about Michael Eisner's reign of terror at the Walt Disney Company. Now I'm on Tinderbox, which is a newly released oral history of HBO. I think it's good to be familiar with everything that can and has gone wrong in the movie and TV business so you can adjust your expectations and remain cautiously optimistic.
Mar 3, 2022
Weaves personal anecdotes into a tour of queer spaces spanning continents and decades ā from the late 1970s to now, London to Los Angeles. The role these spaces have taken in the movement for queer liberation is explored and cut in with sensorial writing about the smell of body odor ā¦and other things. Lin is great at making places that have long since shuttered their doors or become otherwise unrecognizable come alive on the page!
Feb 21, 2025
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This novel from 1992 is being reissued by New Directions in May, and it is hilarious, very sad, and constantly teetering on the brink of being genuinely offensive. But it isnāt offensive! It depicts the fraught, competitive, and co-dependent relationship between gay men and women in a way that not many writers of either group have been able to pull off. I donāt know that many writers at all have attempted to depict this relationship as a primary goal in their textsāit does come up as a consequence of other plots and themesābut thatās what this book is āabout.ā I was going to add one of my favorite lines from the book here, but out of context it does indeed seem offensive, even if I promise itās narrated from the perspective of an Emma Bovary character, so you just have to get the book and see for yourself.
Jun 6, 2024
Top Recs from @iconicindex
Finally saw this for the first time (on 35mm thxx Prince Charles Cinema) and wow. Jonathan Glazer and co-writer Jean-Claude CarriĆØre spending all of pre-production re-writing the script without informing the studioā¦ DP Harris Savides pushing the boundaries of underexposed film and getting the craziest deepest browns and purples out of Kodak stockā¦ Alexandre Desplat starting with what seems like a very polite classical score and then gradually bringing in heavy synth bassā¦ and of course Nicole Kidman throwing herself headlong into an insane role (and apparently bullying the producers for more $$$ when they finished under budget)
Nov 10, 2024
The less you read about it (or look at maps) the better. Just enter via Haight Street, turn your phone off and wander 'til you reach the ocean. If you go on a Sunday afternoon and you didn't already come across it, proceed to turn your phone back on and track back to the 6th Avenue Skate Park to check out the roller disco party š¼šš
Mar 3, 2024
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Because of the extensive tradition of pirate radio in the UK (from Radio Caroline on down), London probably has the most insane landscape of 24/7 internet radio in the world. I've tried to rank these in terms of approximate popularity ranging from NTS (as mentioned) on down to purely DIY weekend-only amateur collectives like LWSTD. If you don't know the stations in your city, just have a quick google and do some Instagram "Following" list exploration and it should be pretty easy to find more (e.g. in Amsterdam check out Echobox, Radio Tempo NĆ£o PĆ”ra, RRFM, etc...)
- NTS (Dalston) https://www.nts.live/
- Rinse FM (Hoxton) https://rinse.fm/
- Worldwide FM (Islington) https://worldwidefm.net/ (currently mostly on ice but great archive)
- Balaami (Peckham) https://www.balamii.com/
- Soho Radio https://sohoradiolondon.com/
- Reprezent Radio (Brixton) https://www.reprezentradio.org.uk/
- Netil Radio (Hackney) https://www.netilradio.com/
- Subtle Radio (Hackney) https://www.subtleradio.com/
- Voices Radio (Kings Cross) https://www.voicesradio.co.uk/
- Aaja (Deptford) https://aajamusic.com/radio/
- Do You!! Radio (Hackney) https://doyou.world/
- LWSTD https://www.lovewillsavetheday.fm/
Apr 4, 2024