Posts Tagged with "media"

Documentary: John and Yoko’s Year of Peace

Documentary: John and Yoko’s Year of Peace

I can’t figure out how to embed it, but you can watch the documentary here. I’ve always felt that John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s activities for peace were a bit cringeworthy—a misapplication of solution to problem, as if human aggression were the product of people being merely petulant, or distracted or forgetful. While I’m not [...]

Continue reading...

The Great War, Sir Mike, and Me

The Great War, Sir Mike, and Me

In the fall of 1990, I had no interest in World War I; then as now, I studied history for the story of it, and there didn’t seem to be any narrative in that conflict. No personalities, no resolution, just four years of static, blood-drenched dress rehearsal for the much more satisfying sequel played out [...]

Continue reading...

The JFK Assassination in two photographs

The JFK Assassination in two photographs

The assassinations of the 60s have been on my mind of late, thanks to these Beatle mysteries I’m writing (anybody interested in finding out when they’re coming out should email mikesnewbooks[at]gmail[dot]com). One of the most persistent canards about the JFK assassination is that it’s incredibly difficult to understand, and that one must do a ton [...]

Continue reading...

Mark Bazer column: Stolen iPhone

Mark Bazer column: Stolen iPhone

My friend Mark Bazer has just written a very funny column, which I’ve pasted below. Enjoy. Stolen iPhone? There’s an App for That By Mark Bazer Tribune Media Services An Open Letter to the Gentleman Who Stole My Wife’s iPhone out of Her Hands on the CTA: Congratulations on your new iPhone! I just know [...]

Continue reading...

Who thinks the JFK assassination still matters?

The CIA, that’s who. Today’s New York Times details Agency stonewalling over 295 documents relating to George Joannides, an agent working with anti-Castro Cubans out of JM/WAVE, their Miami station. Groups under Joannides’ direction “publicly clashed with” Lee Harvey Oswald. These clashes were some of the most significant ways that Oswald’s personal politics–in other words, [...]

Continue reading...

A few thoughts on John Hughes

Last night at 11:45, my wife was in the bathroom, washing bits of Burbank off her face. I was in the bedroom twenty feet away, petting my cat, looking at the moon outside our window. Kate and I were doing the married thing, getting our stories straight after a long day. I’d just come back [...]

Continue reading...

Talk: JFK and the Unspeakable

This is a talk by Jim Douglass, a peace activist and the author of the book “JFK and the Unspeakable.” Perhaps I will get a copy for my birthday. From everything I have read about “Unspeakable,” I think it gets closest to explaining why I’ve always been fascinated with the JFK assassination (from the age [...]

Continue reading...

In Heaven Everything Is Fine

I’ve blogged about Peter Ivers before, the musician and provocateur who cut a legendary figure at late-60s Harvard, and was a confidant of Doug Kenney. I’d run across Peter in my reading every so often, and always suspected that there was an interesting story there. Now I know for sure thanks to a new bio, [...]

Continue reading...

How to fix Playboy–and magazines in general

I happened across this excellent article from Salon, written upon the ascension of James Kaminsky to the editorship of Playboy in 2002. It’s right on the money, as far as–what the best magazines used to be; –why that worked for them, artistically AND financially;–why they changed to what they are now;–and why that destroys them, [...]

Continue reading...

Unpacking my feelings about David Foster Wallace

The New Statesman has an interesting article about David Foster Wallace in light of his suicide. For various reasons, lately I’ve become more interested in Wallace, even though I have read only a smattering of his work. I am too impatient to enjoy his longer-form writing, as virtuosic as it clearly is. I acknowledge its [...]

Continue reading...
UA-12995603