Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 82
November 9, 2018
Friday Music Break: Tom Waits and the Resistance
For his latest album, Songs of Resistance 1948-2018, guitarist Marc Ribot collaborated with other musicians on a numerous of old and new protest songs. He enlisted Tom Waits to sing the old anti-fascist Italian folk ballad “Bella Ciao” (“Goodbye Beautiful”). You can hear it here, via the video directed by Jem Cohen (who also shot the classic …
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November 4, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Don’t Be Literary
When Georges Simenon was starting out as a newspaper writer and later a factory for churning out pulp fiction in Paris in the 1920s, he had higher ambitions. So he went to ask for advice from Colette, one of the reigning doyennes of French (and world) literature. Colette, whose early writings had been produced under …
November 3, 2018
Reader’s Corner: LeVar Burton Has No Time for Trump, Kanye
LeVar Burton, who taught–and continues to teach–generations of kids and adults about the importance of literacy through Reading Rainbow and now LeVar Burton Reads, had something to tell Vice about certain celebrities who proudly proclaim their ignorance of books: I got something to say about those people like Donald Trump and Kanye West who self …
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November 1, 2018
Screening Room: ‘Suspiria’
The remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name)hits theaters this weekend. My review is at Eyes Wide Open: Being a late-1970s grindhouse semi-classic from a director whose misses far outnumbered his hits, Suspiria was a far from perfect movie. That doesn’t, however, explain why it needed a second version. Still, interest was piqued — how could …
Screening Room: ‘Monrovia, Indiana’
The newest documentary from Frederick Wiseman, Monrovia, Indiana, is opening this weekend around the country. My review is at Eyes Wide Open: There is nothing like a Frederick Wiseman movie. With an allergic resistance to the messaging and urgency prevalent in today’s nonfiction filmmakers, he has amassed a singular body of work that has done more to …
October 28, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Render It Eternal
Even in fiction, when we’re writing, we are often reliving something something we already experienced. A thought, a view, a conversation, a stab of pain or shiver of beauty. Part of the reason writers do that is simple: Fuel for the engine. But sometimes we write about an experience in order to go through it …
October 26, 2018
Screening Room: ‘A Star is Born’
My essay on masculinity, the movies, Westerns, and Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star is Born ran today in Eyes Wide Open: …instead of lashing out, sometimes the men just drop out. That’s the case in A Star is Born. On the face of it, this star vehicle doesn’t have anything to do with these stories of men …
October 24, 2018
Screening Room: ‘Burning’
In the newest movie from Korean director Lee Chang-dong, a stunted writer gets tangled up in a Great Gatsby-esque love triangle with a manic dreamer of a woman and a mysteriously quiet man of means. Burning is opening this week in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International. Here’s the trailer:
October 21, 2018
Writer’s Desk: Ha Jin on Patience
According to Ha Jin, the author of Waiting and War Trash among other books, there is something to be said for taking your time: Be patient. Patience is everything. I write everyday. When I have a large amount of time, in the summer, I can write a draft of a book and then when I …
October 20, 2018
Readers’ Corner: The Little Free Library
In 2009, Todd Bol built a little wood box with shelves and a see-through door on the deck of his home in Hudson, Wisconsin. The micro-sized free lending library was a tribute to his mother, who was always welcoming neighbors inside. According to the Star-Tribune: So he built a few more boxes, selling one and giving …
