Notebook on Cities and Culture

Colin Marshall talks to C. Max Magee, founding editor of literary web magazine The Millions. With Jeff Martin, he’s co-edited The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, a collection of essays from such luminaries as Ander Monson, Reif Larsen, Michael Paul Mason, Jonathan Lethem, and David Gates about the next iteration of their medium, what the reading audience of today best engages with, and the relationship between the ever-evolving industrial capacity of text distribution and the artistic forms to which it gives rise.

Colin Marshall talks to Gabriel Josipovici, author of many novels and critical essays involved with the aesthetics and techniques of modernism. In his latest book, What Ever Happened to Modernism?, he traces modernism’s roots further back in history than perhaps any other scholar of modernism has done before. It’s all in the service of the titular question, which expresses a deep concern of anyone who enjoys modernist works today: how and why has the Western world so largely ignored the excitement and potential of modernist art, that is, art conscious of its own limits and responsibilities?

Colin Marshall talks to Jonathan Rosenbaum, former Chicago Reader film critic, advocate of international cinema, and author of books on Orson Welles, Abbas Kiarostami, and Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. In his latest, Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia: Film Culture in Transition, he examines the way serious engagement with film has changed over the decades, what new experiences it has brought to enthusiasts and critics, and what possibilities it has opened for cinematic artists.

Colin Marshall talks to critic Scott Esposito, blogger at Conversational Reading, editor of The Quarterly Conversation, and marketing coordinator at the Center for the Art of Translation. A lover and promoter of today’s most interesting fiction, Esposito writes about fiction at the intersection of the experimental and the international. This conversation took place at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ 2011 conference in Washington, D.C.

Colin Marshall talks to cultural journalist Saul Austerlitz, author of Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes and, most recently, Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy, which examines the careers of beloved U.S. comedy icons like Woody Allen and the Marx Brothers as well as more cultishly comedic figures like Albert Brooks as well as filmmakers not normally associated directly with comedy, like Robert Altman and the Coen brothers.

Colin Marshall talks to Luke Fischbeck, founder of Los Angeles experimental music group, art-creation unit, and engine of community Lucky Dragons at the 2011 Art Los Angeles Contemporary international art fair in Santa Monica. Alongside collaborator Sarah Rara, Fischbeck performs with conventional instruments, unconventional instruments, video, improvisation, incompatible technologies, and audience collaboration. The Wire calls their music "a celebration of ancient shared memory and introspective spirituality." Lucky Dragons perform at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum on Thursday, February 3 at 7:00 p.m.

Colin Marshall talks to David Edmonds, co-host with Nigel Warburton of the popular philosophy podcast Philosophy Bites. Edmonds and Warburton have also collaborated on a new book, Philosophy Bites: 25 Philosophers on 25 Intriguing Subjects. The text features conversations from the podcast, including Peter Singer on animal rights, Alain de Botton on architecture, Adrian Moore on infinity, and Barry Smith on wine.

Colin Marshall talks to Darcy Paquet, film critic and author of New Korean Cinema: Breaking the Waves. Since 1999, Paquet has maintained the web site Koreanfilm.org as the premiere destination for Anglophone lovers of Korean cinema, which has experienced an unprecedented explosion of creativity and artistry since the beginning of the decade. In his book and on his site, Paquet discusses such vital Korean filmmakers as Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Memories of Murder), Hong Sang-soo (Woman is the Future of Man, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors), Kim Ki-duk (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring, 3-Iron), and Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Joint Security Area).

Colin Marshall talks to book critic and former Los Angeles Times book editor David L. Ulin. He’s also the editor of several anthologies of Los Angeles writing and the author of The Myth of Solid Ground. His latest book The Lost Art of Reading examines changes in his own and others’ style of engagement with books in the age of fragmented attention, always-flowing information sources, and countless outlets for on-demand media.

Colin Marshall talks to design philosopher, bookmaker, and man of aesthetics Leonard Koren. In addition to publishing WET: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing in the 1970s and providing consultancy on certain aesthetic matters, he’s created books like Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, How to Rake Leaves, and Undesigning the Bath. He takes on the very meaning of the term “aesthetics” in his latest title, Which “Aesthetics” Do You Mean?: Ten Definitions.