Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 113

Writer’s Desk: Look Around, Write That

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Nina Simone, c. 1982 (photo by Roland Godefroy)

Nina Simone famously said this:

An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times … We will shape and mold this country, or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore… How can you be an artist andnot reflect the times?

There are writers whose hackles will bristle at the mere suggestion that they have a “duty” of any kind. That idea has been abused, of course.Somewould make writers produce only government-glorifying propagan...

Weekend Reading: January 6, 2017

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“The church militant” – yet another way to make religion awful. Most anticipated books of the year, so far. Carrie Fisher, galactic princess with the heart and soul of a writer. Turns out that Nixon was even worse than we already knew. Maybe there’s (some, tiny, infinitesimal) hope: the GOP just might keep shooting itself in the foot, what with corruption, free spending, and whatnot. Rogue Onemapped out with clips from previous films; why bother creating? South Korea has one governm...

Writer’s Desk: Time to Get Started

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So, yes, the new year has just begun. We all probably need a little break because, let’s be honest, the last one didn’t acquit itself too well, now did it?

But, that doesn’t mean your book / essay / short story / gardening column for the community newsletter is going to write itself.

So, finish off the rest of that bottle of prosecco you opened last night before the fireworks and Don Lemon’s piercing, but never quite finished. Then, get to it!

As P.D. James said:

Don’t just plan to write – w...

Screening Room: ‘Paterson’

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One of the most surprising and rewarding movie treats of 2016 is Jim Jarmusch’s quirky yet heartfeltPaterson, about a poetry-writing bus driver in New Jersey. It reminds you not just how great Jarmusch can be but renews your faith in a particular brand of American independent filmmaking.

Paterson is playing nowin limited release. My review is atFilm Journal International:

Proudly reinforcing the at-times under-siege notion that there is great, grasping life yet in American filmmaking, Jim Ja...

Reading for 2017

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The best books of the year. King Arthur to Dave Eggers, here’s some upcoming book-to-film adaptations. Seven things to freak out about in 2017. Theranos to Brexit and the Fight for $15; the biggest business stories of the year. Indivisible: Former Congressional staffers share the best ways to resist in the new year. The films of 2016 didn’t see Trump coming, either. Steven Pinker: No matter how miserable 2016 was, in many ways, the future is still looking bright. “The newly weaponized””alt-...

Screening Room: ‘I, Daniel Blake’

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In Ken Loach’s searing new drama, an out-of-work carpenter fights to keep his humanity and a shred of dignity after being thrown into the Kafkaesque world of the UK’s social services bureaucracy.

I, Daniel Blake is playing now in limited release and is worth seeking out. My review is atPopMatters:

In many ways, I, Daniel Blake is as shamelessly manipulative as the most reductive romantic comedy or melodrama. Daniel might be the single most decent and loveable human being to grace a movie scr...

Department of Holiday Entertainment

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What to do?

Well, maybe watchFanny and Alexander.

Make yourself a good mug of spiked wassail, perhaps.

Celebrate Festivus with Rand Paul’s list of grievances.

Or, just take a snow day, everybody, you deserve it:

Writer’s Desk: Type, Just Type

[image error]For the last bit of writing advice in the year 2016, when many of us are thinking of nearly anything else than getting back to the keyboard, here’s something simple.

Famous editor Robert Gottlieb—who nurtured books by authors ranging from Robert Caro to John Le Carre and Toni Morrison—finally got around to writing his own book this year. It took some doing:

In moments of despair, when he felt incapable of setting down words, Mr. Gottlieb took his own advice, which he has doled out to countles...

Screening Room: ‘Silence’

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A spiritual epic of the kind he hasn’t tried since Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese’s Silence is playing now in limited release and should be expanding nationwide soon. My review is atPopMatters:

…with his long-gestating adaptation of Shūsaku Endō‘s 1966 novel Silence, Scorsese returns to a scenario where souls are lost and seeking answers. Set in 17th-century Japan, a world distant from his usual contemporary American settings, the movie presents characters who willingly undertake...

Weekend Reading: December 23, 2016

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During the 2016 election, major news networks devoted three times more coverage to Clinton’s email scandals than to all other policy issues combined. The new president will have his own Praetorian guard, it appears. Related, clues from Roman history on how republics die. Is the shocking GOP coup in North Carolina just a harbinger of more attacks on democracy? Audre Lorde, Rebecca Solnit, James Baldwin, et al: A readinglist to guide you through the next four years. Wanted: White people to...