James Frey's Blog, page 2
August 15, 2025
“Frictionless Solipsistic Efficiency”. Cool.
By Emil Steiner
BETTMANN ARCHIVEIn 1897, painter Frederic Remington wired New York Journal publisher William Randolph Hearst from Cuba with bad news. There was nothing to see, no war to illustrate. Hearst’s infamous reply: “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” The apocryphal anecdote endures as a cautionary tale of media’s power to shape reality to its owners’ interests.
Broadly speaking, historians agree that the sensationalist reporting of Spanish atrocities in Cuba and the mysterious sinking of the USS Maine, which typified the Yellow Journalism era, contributed to the U.S. decision to enter the Spanish-American War in 1898. Hearst and other publishers, like Joseph Pulitzer, saw circulation spikes from their vivid, lurid, and constant coverage, facilitated by new technologies that brought battlefield color to readers at telegraphic speed. Narrative precedes truth. Sensation succeeds substance.
August 14, 2025
Modern Bleakness
Awe, Wonder and the Power of Enchantment
By Josh Appel
In the age of modernity, we find ourselves confronting a familiar affliction: bleakness. Our lives are marked by disillusionment. We doom-scroll, our eyes glazed over, while once useful dopamine receptors quietly shoot their last remaining endorphins. The YouTube rabbit hole is not so much an experience in enjoyment as much as it is a reflex of our current era. We watch videos of others cosplaying luxurious livelihoods all while sitting in a darkened room hoping for something more. And then what few icons we may look to as heroes the world often tells us are evil. To put it simply: in the era of algorithms and digital experiences we have become bored and uninspired.
The modern age has long been diagnosed as disenchanted. Max Weber famously spoke of the “disenchantment of the world” by which rationalization and secularization erode the magical and sacred dimensions of life. Jürgen Habermas extended this analysis, noting how modernity marginalizes religion from public reason, confining it to the private sphere thus stripping us of a shared moral tradition and language. Ernest Gellner added that industrial society, by its very logic, tends to suppress myth and tradition in favor of utilitarian norms. All three observed a flattening of experience — a world explained but no longer felt. However, C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and a religious apologist, noted that disenchantment also led to modern cynicism.
August 13, 2025
The Coolest Night In The Hamptons
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for East Hampton LibraryOn Saturday, August 9, the East Hampton Library will present its 21st Annual Authors Night fundraiser. One of the most popular and celebrity-studded events of the Hamptons’ summer calendar, Authors Night features 100 authors across all genres. The “Premier Literary Event of the Hamptons” has grown over its history to become one of the most successful celebrations of books and authors in America, and one of the largest library-author events of its kind in the country.
Participation authors include Lili Anolik, Elyce Arons, Sean Avery, Barry Avrich, Hilaria Baldwin, Kelly Bishop, Christie Brinkley, Bobbi Brown, Daria Burke, Alafair Burke, Nathaniel Butler, Blue Carreon, Robert A. Caro, Tom Clavin, Griffin Dunne, Maureen Dowd, James Frey, Paul Goldberger, Michael M. Grynbaum, Alex Guarnaschelli, Alice Harris, Helen A. Harrison, Madeleine Henry, A.M. Homes, Molly Jong-Fast, Lola Kirke, Nicola Kraus, Setha Low, Thomas Maier, Mary Ellen Matthews, Rue Matthiessen, Susan Morrison, David Netto, Annabel Monaghan, Zibby Owens, Owen Pataki, Chris Pavone, Dr. Nicholas Perricone, Jane L. Rosen, Jill Santopolo, Jessica Seinfeld, Peter Som, Christina Tosi, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Glyn Vincent, Cynthia Weiner, Chris Whipple, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Tia Williams, Julian Zelizer, and many more.
August 12, 2025
Mr. Prince & The Esquires
Under oath, with big money on the line, the appropriation pioneer puts in a gallant performance.
[image error]An image from Richard Prince’s Deposition (2025).I know that I am going to lose many of you right here at the start, but I have to insist that you watch the nearly 7-hour video deposition of Richard Prince that the artist recently exhibited in Rome.
It is an unexpectedly captivating endurance piece—frustrating, illuminating, baffling, and sometimes pretty funny. The Pictures Generation pioneer, who just turned 75, is one of our sharpest artists, but he is also prolific and uneven. Deposition (2025) is Prince at his best. I savored it in hour-long chunks over a week, and it reminded me of his rare abilities, while in some small way refreshing my faith in art.
Let’s set the scene….
August 11, 2025
Dial-up Dead
The longtime service took root on Apple computers 40 years ago. Here’s the story.
By Roman Loyola
You young whippersnappers out there, pull up a chair and let me tell you about a more innocent time. Way before you could connect to the internet out of thin air, you had to use what was called a dial-up connection. A box called a modem was connected to your computer, and it used a phone line to call a service provider that would give you access to a bulletin-board service (BBS; think of a BBS as an early form of Reddit). It took a few years before the BBS gave way to the web.
There were several dial-up service providers, but there was one that ruled them all: America Online, which became widely known as AOL. However, the days of AOL as a dial-up service provider are now over. According to an AOL support document, the company (it’s now part of Yahoo, which is owned by Apollo Global Management) has determined that the dial-up service will end on September 30.
August 9, 2025
More Robber Barons?
Is Florida’s Brightline a remedy for our ailing rail system?
Americans like to believe we have the best of everything. But there’s one exception where people are willing to admit we fall short: high-speed rail. Americans travel to Europe or Japan or China, enjoy their high-speed rail experience, and wonder why we don’t have that here.
Amtrak’s Acela line in the Northeastern United States technically has sections that reach high-speed service levels but is far below the global standard. An Amtrak-led consortium says that it would cost $117 billion to upgrade the line to a true high-speed service. This is a cost level that’s far out of line with global norms, but sadly consistent with the extraordinary costs we’ve come to expect from American rail projects. The New York Times once called the Second Avenue Subway extension in New York the most expensive mile of subway track on earth for example. American rail projects cost multiples of what other countries spend; the Times, for example, notes that the East Side Access rail project in New York was seven times the global average construction cost.
August 8, 2025
C’est toujours aussi bon
by Hugh Schofield
France’s multi-billion euro mineral water companies are under the spotlight because of climate change and growing concerns about the industry’s environmental impact.
At issue is whether some world-famous brands, notably the iconic Perrier label, can even continue calling themselves “natural mineral water”.
A decision in the Perrier case is due in the coming months. It follows revelations in the French media about illicit filtration systems that have been widely used in the industry, apparently because of worries about water contamination, after years of drought linked to climate change.
August 7, 2025
Skynet Coming
Humans face three existential threats, from super-intelligence, nuclear weapons and the climate crisis, says blockbuster director as he announces new Hiroshima project
The director James Cameron has warned that the use of artificial intelligence in a global arms race could lead to the kind of dystopia fictionalised in his Terminator franchise.
Speaking to Rolling Stone to promote the publication of Ghosts of Hiroshima, an account of the first atomic bombing by bestselling author Charles Pellegrino which Cameron intends to adapt for the big screen, the film-maker behind three of the four highest-grossing films of all time (Titanic and the first two Avatar films), said that although he relies on AI professionally, he remains concerned about what might happen if it was leveraged with nihilistic intent.
“I do think there’s still a danger of a Terminator-style apocalypse where you put AI together with weapons systems, even up to the level of nuclear weapon systems, nuclear defence counterstrike, all that stuff,” Cameron said. “Because the theatre of operations is so rapid, the decision windows are so fast, it would take a super-intelligence to be able to process it, and maybe we’ll be smart and keep a human in the loop.
July 18, 2025
Beyond “The Bird”
by Jill Johnson
THE APPROACH TO JAMES FREY’S HOUSE FEELS LIKE A DRIVE THROUGH THE PAGES OF HIS LATEST BOOK
The landscape unfolds with rambling farmhouses and faux French chateaus—each boasting a dozen bathrooms and perimeters marked by quaint fieldstone walls that quiet the opulence. It’s particularly picturesque in the bloom of spring, as perfect as New Bethlehem, the fictional town where Frey’s book, Next to Heaven, is set.
It’s no secret that the setting is modeled on New Canaan; the town’s history, outlined in detail by Frey, and its shops, landmarks and parks mirror our own. But are the characters ours, too? That’s the question that left some residents sleepless in their Frette linens as they anticipated the book’s release in June. And now that the juicy novel is out, reading lights are burning bright across the “Next Station to Heaven.”
In his newest release, Frey draws from the salacious novels of Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele—surprising inspirations for an author who says he pursued writing because of men like Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and Kurt Vonnegut. But Frey is not what one might expect from a man quick to give the world the middle finger.
Frey’s neighborhood is dotted with the occasional modern home, placing us squarely in The Ice Storm country. New Canaan was also the setting for Ang Lee’s 1997 film based on Rick Moody’s eponymous novel about a key party that wreaks havoc on its characters’ lives and community. Next to Heaven features its own spouse-swapping shindig. It’s the kind of thing that can make a small town edgy. Was it based on an actual swingers party? My mission would be to find out.
July 17, 2025
Pickle Golf
There’s a sport gaining ground in the United States that has numerous similarities to an already-popular sport here, but with slightly different gear and played with larger balls. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Yeah, we know about pickleball already,” well, it’s not pickleball. The sport is park golf, developed in Japan in the 1980s and beginning to make its presence felt globally.
One park golf course recently opened in the New York metropolitan area — specifically, at Great Gorge Golf Club in Vernon, New Jersey. The club in question has a long history (including an early connection to the Playboy Club) and currently touts the presence of a Tom Fazio-designed course on the premises. As NJ.com’s Rob Jennings reports, though, that’s no longer the only game in town.
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