Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 150

Writer’s Desk: Being Careful

Nobody, particularly writers and artists, want to be told to go slowly when pursuing their dreams. Reach for the stars and damn the consequences! That seems more in line with what a lot of us want to hear.

That’s why it’s helpful to hear somebody like Renata Adler, one of the great magazine writers of our time, sound a note of caution in this interview from The Guardian:

Her advice to writers is: cling to your day job – wherever it happens to be – for as long as you possibly can. “I’ve said i...

Writer’s Corner: Being Careful

Nobody, particularly writers and artists, want to be told to go slowly when pursuing their dreams. Reach for the stars and damn the consequences! That seems more in line with what a lot of us want to hear.

That’s why it’s helpful to hear somebody like Renata Adler, one of the great magazine writers of our time, sound a note of caution in this interview from The Guardian:

Her advice to writers is: cling to your day job – wherever it happens to be – for as long as you possibly can. “I’ve said i...

Weekend Reading: April 24, 2015

Why the head of the FBI insists on sending agents to the Holocaust Museum; why that bothers Poland. Hit jobs: Renata Adler’s 1980 takedown of Pauline Kael. New Orleans, where you can smoke inside and drink outside, no more. Chinese scientists editgenes in human embryos; “off-target” mutations result. Taco Bell fights unions off by delivering free tacos to Congressional staffers. Smartphones, couchsurfing.org, and other tools of the millennial hobo. The “ghost army” that faked out the Nazi...

Now Playing: Ryan Gosling’s ‘Lost River’

Iain De Caestecker tries to leave ‘Lost River’

Afantastical baroque about a mother and son fighting for survival in a slowly dying rust-belt town,Lost Riveris playing now in a few places.

My review is atFilm Racket:

The best way to approach Ryan Gosling’s debut as a writer/director is to imagine what might happen if David Lynch were ever to shoot a nature documentary. Or if a consortium of mumblecore filmmakers dropped acid and decided to make a horror film. Something that Terence Malick migh...

Writer’s Desk: Finding a Nook

Brooklyn’s Central Library – a sweet place to write (Library of Congress).

Finding the right space to write in is always a challenge. Some people could write in a highway median; others need dead silence. Most of us are somewhere in that Goldilocks in-between.

For all those New York-based writers (or just those coming through), here’s some ideas for great writing spaces that theTimes culled from some local playwrights:

Dan Lauria (Dinner with the Boys) — “All the rewrites on my play were done...

Reader’s Corner: Great Library Reading Rooms

The library at Paris’s La Sorbonne (Zantastik).

Even in our brave new online world, libraries are still one of the best repositories for research and reading. Yes, most things can be gotten online, but there are times when the physical proximity ofmaterials provides new insights that strictly electronic pursuits do not.

They are also simply great places to read. The good folks at Read It Forward have presented here nine of the greatest and grandest library reading rooms from around the world....

Weekend Reading: April 17, 2015

Rich teens use Instagram more often than their less affluent peers, and other notes from the adolescent Internets. Boko Haram has now captured about 2,000 women. Going forward, everybody earns at least $70,000 a year. Let your kids walk to the park, go to court. Killswitches, battlefield flash crashes, “centaurs,” and other perils of the coming robot soldiers. WatchingAliens for the first time as an 11-year-old. One of the earliest markets on Wall Street didn’t sell stocks; it brokered sl...

New in Theaters: Franco Behind Bars in ‘True Story’

Jonah Hill and James Franco get at the ‘True Story’ (Fox Searchlight)

It isn’t every day that you see Jonah Hill and James Franco in a film and neither one of them is mugging up a storm.True Story is a long-gestating true-crime pieceopening this week in which Hill plays a reporter and Franco a (maybe) murderer.

My review is atFilm Racket:

Between the cold-case podcast Serial and Robert Durst’s wink-wink tease on The Jinx, true crime stories in the did-he-or-didn’t-he vein are having what the...

Now Playing: D.C. Punk in ‘Salad Days’

Punker than you: ‘Salad Days’

If you want to get a good short snapshot of the wicked alchemy that produced the Washington, D.C. punk and hardcore scene, or just like music, or stories about scrappy kids who don’t wait for the adults to tell them what to do, thenSalad Daysis the movie for you.

It’s playing now in limited release, and should be on DVD soon so you can rewatch all the Minor Threat and Bad Brains footage to your heart’s content. My review from last year’s DOC NYC festival, is atPo...

Quote of the Day: Tax edition

I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes