Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 78
March 10, 2019
Writer’s Desk: It’s Work, Not Inspiration
According to Black Leopard, Red Wolf author and Macalester College professor Marlon James, the only way he can get anything put down on paper is seeing it as work: When I sit down with my laptop, I go to work. To me, writing is work: that’s part of my process, that it’s a job. I’m …
March 5, 2019
Screening Room: ‘Captain Marvel’
The latest Marvel comic movie, Captain Marvel, opens this weekend pretty much everywhere. My review ran at Slant: As another of the character-introducing MCU stories existing mostly to feed new superheroes into the Avengers series, Captain Marvel looks like something of a trial run. You know the drill: If the film lands with audiences, then you can count …
March 3, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Make Mistakes, Don’t Be Afraid
The author Tony Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic, the forthcoming Spying on the South) has ranged all over the world before settling back in America (sort of) to write books. Because most writers are rightly in awe of foreign correspondents (yes, it is a romantic occupation), it’s generally worth listening to what they have to say …
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March 2, 2019
Reader’s Corner: ‘The Collected Schizophrenias’
My review of Esme Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias ran in last Sunday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune: When giving a talk or at a doctor’s appointment, Esmé Weijun Wang often shoehorns “I went to Yale” into the conversation. This isn’t bragging. It’s protection. Ivy League status, she writes, “is shorthand for I have schizoaffective disorder, but I’m not worthless”…
March 1, 2019
Screening Room: ‘Transit’
An adaptation by Christian Petzold (Barbara) of Anna Seghars’ novel about refugees fleeing the Nazis somewhat roughly and surreally adapted to modern times, the romantic, disturbing drama Transit opens this week in limited release. My review is at PopMatters: It’s a sign of the times, maybe, that when one of the characters says at the start …
February 28, 2019
TV Room: ‘Leaving Neverland’
The two-part, four-hour documentary Leaving Neverland premieres this weekend on HBO. My review ran at Slant: The only joy to be found in Leaving Neverland comes early, when director Dan Reed introduces Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck as children, before they met Michael Jackson, when the pop star was more dream than nightmare to them…
February 24, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Listen to Advice
When Roxane Gay set out to write a novel, at first she got tired up in logistical questions: … Is it really true that every chapter should be self-contained and readable as its own thing? Do you have to write from beginning to end or is it acceptable to jump around the story and pull …
February 17, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Give Yourself a Chance
According to a talk Colson Whitehead gave in Amsterdam in 2018, as a young boy he thought that writing would be a pretty cool gig because “you didn’t have to wear clothes or talk to people and could spend all day making stuff up.” While that remains true, especially the not always having to talk …
February 10, 2019
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Worry About Being Original
All writers want to stand out. How do you make a name otherwise? But it’s also easy to tie yourself up in knots worrying about it. Poet Derek Walcott, who was never anything but original, dismissed such worries in his essay “The Muse of History“: We know that the great poets have no wish to …
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February 6, 2019
Reader’s Corner: ‘Black Leopard, Red Wolf’
The latest novel from Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings), is the start of a planned fantasy trilogy set in a world of African-inspired mythology. My review of Black Leopard, Red Wolf is at PopMatters: Unless they’re killing or trying to avoid being killed, nobody in the otherworldly Africa of Black Leopard, Red Wolf knows how to stop …
