Inverting Alice in Wonderland

WHEN world-class ski champion and hollywood film producer frank beddor approached me about his book project a couple years back, i wasnt sure what to think. the fact that, he told me, he had taken lewis carroll's "alice" stories and turned them into a rather violent YA novel, as well as a graphic novel and video game, made me wonder if this was just a case of corporate-style "synergy" gone mad.

but beddor's first book, "the looking glass wars," was powerful and smart, and entirely un-cynical, as was its sequel. here is my story on beddor, and here's what i wrote at the time:

'What's most impressive about them is that the novels seems to be recounting a universe fully imagined ahead of time. Beddor admires what he calls "the epic world creators" such as J.R.R. Tolkien, "Dune's" Frank Herbert and Philip Pullman of "His Dark Materials." Beddor's books seem tailor-made for kids who've completed the "Harry Potter" series and are looking up, a bit dazed from the experience, eager for somewhere else to go.'

i'm writing about beddor today because the third book in the trilogy has just come out, and my old colleague geoff boucher of hero complex, speaks to him, here, about the project. and dont forget: a tim burton "alice" film comes out in march.

Monster of Folk: Bert Jansch

I'M not sure i can think of another musician who's been powerfully influential on both johnny marr of the smiths and zeppelin-era jimmy page. bert jansch, the british folk guitarist born on this day in 1943, has not only put his stamp on heavy metal and early indie rock -- not to mention his own generation of folk rockers -- he's a hero to freak-folk types like devendra banhart.

jansch was born in glasgow, scotland and came of age with the british folk-rock movement of the 60s: he helped found the band pentangle, like fairport convention dedicated to digging into the origins of british and celtic music and myth. his solo stuff is wonderful, if uneven, veering between acoustic and electric: it's best heard on the 2-cd compilation "the dazzling stranger." i love the way he bends the hell out of his notes and drones and tolls.

here is an old video clip of the solo acoustic "black waterslide," which zeppelin basically stole.

my favorite jansch, oddly, is his '06 record, "the black swan." not only are the songs strong from first to last, it includes delicious contributions from banhart and beth orton. mostly, this is a dark record that i play incessantly in the winter, alongside john fahey and bach's cello suites. "the black swan" was graham coxon of blur's record of the year in '06.

here are two songs from that record, with, alas, no video. the second, "when the sun comes up," has beth orton on lead vocals.

Jansch cancelled a US tour this summer because of illness, posting this on his website:

"Bert is very sorry to be missing the tour, and apologises to all the fans who were hoping to see him. He is looking forward to rescheduling as soon as possible.”

here we are looking forward to the return of this monster of folk. we'll toast a small glass of single-male scotch to you this evening.

The Torments of Stephen Elliott

SAN francisco writer stephen elliott is the baudelaire of the mission district.

after reading his new book, "the adderall diaries" -- which begins with a possible murder and winds its way to a certain one -- i wasnt sure what kind of guy i'd be meeting for my interview at alcove cafe in los feliz. this is a man with numerous drug episodes, childhood years in rough group homes, a heroin OD after a year of stripping, and a career of what i will call "unconventional" sexuality.

but the writer ended up being well-adjusted, an engaging conversationalist, and, like his very fine memoir, without an ounce of either self-pity or self-indulgence.

here is my LATimes story on elliott.

i'll just say one more word about the book, which is subtitled "a memoir of moods, masochism and murder": i dont tend to read books about addiction, psychological flameouts, kinky sex, etc -- i outgrew my interest in the demimonde (as well as alliteration) in my 20s. but elliott's memoir is so crafted, so precisely distilled, so damned well written, it comes up with a blend of apollo and dionysus of the sort i have very rarely seen.

i also urge everyone to check out the blog he runs with a gang of other literati, the rumpus. today elliott has a new post about liz phair.

Photo Credit: Lydia Lunch

Sigmund Freud vs. Britney Spears

WHEN i heard that a biographer had gone into therapy impersonating britney spears (that's the way it was teed up to me), i thought, this guy must be very cynical, or have really bad taste in music. or maybe both.

but the young biographer i met at a cafe in venice beach was an engaging, earnest lad from a small town in yorkshire who had made unorthodox use of a therapist to gain insight into the mind of the pop princess who had denied him the more traditional kind of access. (and steve dennis, who makes his living as a ghostwriter, ends up being a fan of singer songwriters like bon iver and david gray.)

does this method work? that's the question i put to a small panel of experts. dennis himself points out that meryl streep never met julia child, but was still able to render her with sympathy in "julie and julia."

here is my story from the LATimes. my favorite moment is when dennis called his british publisher, explaining his idea of therapy-by-proxy, and got a strange silence on the line. then: "you really have been in L.A. too long. forget the herbalist and soy lattes -- this is a step too far."

Photo by Max Halberstadt

Comics From India

THIS is the kind of high/low, east/west, pop/myth collision i love: a new exhibit at the LACMA called "heroes and villains: the battle for good in india's comics." though the title evokes the beach boys, the show is more about devi, vishnu and other hindu gods and the way they return, through the magic of pop culture, in indian comic books.

here is my story from this sunday's LATimes. i spoke to the show's lead curator, julie romain (who used to assist the LACMA's brilliant and notorious paul holdengraber with his memorable series) and the indian scholar debashish banerji.

both of them framed the context against india's disaspora, globalism and tranformation by western pop. i'll return for a more considered look at this show, which includes a tour through the museum's subsantial south/southeast asian art collection.

Photo Credit: LACMA

The Clean vs. New Zealand Pop

A HIPSTER friend, back in the 80s, turned me on to the new zealand sound -- the clean, the chills, the verlaines -- bands that made what was coming out of the US a the time sound pedestrian indeed. this stuff was pastoral, punk, lo-fi, hooky, and weirdly random all at once. i hadnt heard guitars tuned that way since the third velvet underground record.

the clean is back with a new record, "mister pop," on merge: it sounds nothing like their heyday, but takes them to a new and fascinating place. it's probably my favorite release since their original output from the late 70s/early 80s. (the first song, "loog," with its dreamlike drone and female vocals, is especially enchanting.) here is a video, "in the dreamlife you need a rubber soul," from the new LP.

a few years ago i spoke to the clean's robert scott, who is also in the bats -- here is my piece, which tries to give an overview of the whole scene on the flying nun label.

Photo credit: Merge Records

Salman Rushdie vs. Los Angeles

WHEN i agreed to hang out with novelist salman rushdie in and around hollywood for a few hours, i would not have been surprised to find myself embroiled in a discussion about george harrison's facility for the sitar, or to be shown the very drugstore where an acid-tripping aldous huxley encountered "the doors of perception." but i did not expect to get into a hilarious story about "starsky and hutch."

that's part of what i like about reading rushdie as well -- you never quite know where his work is going to swerve, but most of the time his excursions reinforce rather than undercut his literary personality. here is that piece, by the way, which is about the most fun i've had on a literary story. and i am very glad neither of us got shot, which looked for a minute like it was about to happen.

a few days ago i visited a new exhibit at the los angeles county museum of art dedicated to comics from india -- more on that in a future post. but the show made me think of rushdie and his wild mixing of ancient and pop-contemporary, especially in books like "midnight's children" (a book i read in a kind of fever it was so good) and his last novel "the enchantress of florence."

these days, i hear from his publicist, rushdie is completing a new novel and the script to a "midnight's children" film. since his books -- as he discusses in our interview -- were so profoundly effected by movies, especially bollywood and "the wizard of oz" -- this project could appealingly close the circle.