This list is a birthday gift to me and, I hope, of use to you, too.
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Problem With 'Fan Service' in Television
At PopMatters, Anita Felicelli discusses why TV shows get ruined when they’re written and produced with their fans in mind rather than for their own sake as pieces of creative work: We know that television writers read fan responses on Twitter, that some of them read blogs and speculation. They know what fans want because […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Something Great is Ending’: On ‘Parks & Recreation’
“Parks & Recreation” may have begun as a The Office spinoff, but it ended its seventh season on its own delightful, lauded terms. At Uproxx, Ashley Burns and Chloe Schildhause compiled a spoiler-free oral history of “Parks & Recreation,” the biggest little show that could. This one’s for you, Pawnee.
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction
My Unsentimental Education
“I wanted him to understand my life—that I’d been caught in the local pattern and found the safest way forward, but if I’d lived somewhere else I’d be someone else and still could.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How the Hand Painted Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip Came to Be
Collectors Weekly: Who started the music industry’s billboard trend?
Landau: As far as I can tell, it was the Doors in 1967 for their debut album. I talked with Jac Holzman—the head of Elektra Records who signed the Doors—while writing my book. In 1967, he had just come out here from the East Coast and opened an office on La Cienega Boulevard, not far from Sunset Boulevard, and it occurred to him that billboards were being used for everything except promoting records and music. A lot of radio stations where popular disc jockeys worked were farther east on Sunset, and he knew they drove on the Strip, and that the entertainment industry in general was based there.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Violet
Violet was born at 25 weeks and five days—more than three months ahead of her due date. This is a story about becoming parents in the face of uncertainty.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Story of Vicente, Who Murdered His Mother, His Father, and His Sister
What’s one more crime in the murder capital of the world?
Posted inNonfiction
When Mary Martin Was the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up
In the 1950s, a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ starring Mary Martin became a sensation, attracting the fourth biggest audience of all time for a scripted TV show when a live production was broadcast on NBC.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Patty Hearst Went From Kidnapping Victim to Armed Guerrilla
On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley, CA apartment by members of an urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Two months after she was abducted Hearst— the granddaughter of the real life “Citizen Kane,” publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst—had joined the SLA, adopted the the name “Tania” as her […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Gillian Welch on How April 14th Came to Be ‘Ruination Day’
April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some—especially singer Gillian Welch—it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious. April 14 marks the anniversary of three awful, fabled events: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865; the Titanic striking an iceberg in 1912 (it sunk in the wee hours of the 15th); and the Black Sunday dust storm of […]
