Announcing CultureCrash

MY ardor for and fascination with the West Coast are undiminished. But recently I've put most of my blogging energies into my new project, CultureCrash: Scott Timberg on Creative Destruction. It's part of the ArtsJournal family, and I began it on the invitation of the site's founder, Doug McLennan.

On CultureCrash I'll be looking mostly at the plight of the arts, media culture in the 21st century: What are the forces arrayed against a healthy culture and a robust creative class, and what can we do to make things better? These are crucial issues that I'll get into more deeply into my book, which comes out on Yale University Press later this year.

Re. West Coast culture: As I said, my interest in these topics continues. I'll be moderating a panel at the Writing From California conference later this month: Watch this space.

And hope to see you all on CultureCrash.

The Slyness of Jeremy Denk

ONE of the coolest and most genuinely individualistic musicians I've ever met is the classical pianist Jeremy Denk, whose blog Think Denk is witty, sometimes loopy, and always provocative. He's an enthusiast of Nabokov and Proust, and a player of very deep feeling whose treatment of Ives has left some friends spellbound.

HERE is my piece on Denk, who comes to town next week for two concerts with the LA Chamber Orchestra.


The roots of Denk's blog -- which The New Yorker's Alex Ross has praised as bearing the kind of voice that could only exist on the web -- begin with him rehearsing Mozart at a church in El Paso.


"This crazy man came into the church," Denk recalls, "and started lecturing me on Mozart and the purpose of music. I wasn't entirely sure if he was going to kill me . . . or what."


I urge all music lovers to check this guy out. He's a fan of Magnetic Fields and Rufus Wainwright and a truly lively mind.

The Misread City Goes Into the Future

THIS week yours truly will be serving as guest editor for the blog io9, which is devoted to science, futurism, and science-fiction in all its forms. I'll be posting on some topics familiar to readers of The Misread City -- some news regarding author Ursula K. Le Guin, a new film based on a Philip K. Dick novel -- as well as topics largely new to me such as eco-tourism and UFO abductions. (Or perhaps those are the same thing)

I find io9 both smart and funny and hope my readers do too. In any case, look forward to seeing you there.

HERE is a link to all my work on the site.

And don't forget that my best guitarists poll is still live!