Category: reviews

• Check, Please / Behind the music (and wine) in food, reviews, san francisco · Aug 5, 00:19

  I always meant to write about my close encounter with public television fame — the only kind that’s worth pursuing, if you ask me — but somehow I got waylaid by summertime, its various parties and good ol times. But I’ve got a sec, so I should just spill it before the good times take [...]

• Essential information / Mixing drinks, tying knots, arguing in reviews, tip · May 8, 15:58

  I like to tell myself that I don’t read stuff like this, but Esquire’s got a pretty excellent list of “75 skills every man should master”.
  33. Hit a jump shot in pool. It’s not something you use a lot, but when you hit a jump shot, it marks you as a player and [...]

• Research / East Baltimore police narratives in ixd, lit, reviews, urban · May 4, 17:53

  Last week I picked up a book called

• I live inside your television in food, reviews, san francisco · Apr 11, 21:18

  You may recognize me from somewhere, somewhere like YOUR TIVO.

  Pretty much the only thing the director told me: “Don’t look at the camera.” Dang.
  More on my explosion onto the local public television restaurant-reviewing stage sometime soon; until then you can check out my episode of the Check Please Bay Area here.

• Foto / Modernity in Central Europe in inside art, reviews, visual · Sep 5, 19:20

  When I was in Washington DC last month, I saw an incredible show at the National Gallery called Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945. As you may have guessed by the title, the show is photography-oriented, but it’s more than that: It’s a story about photography craft, and the way that European photographers bent, broke [...]

• Stupid BCS / Viva Boise State! in law & order, reviews · Jan 5, 17:45

  Question: What do you call it when the richest segment gets to determine all the rules, and they do so in a way that prevents members of the less rich from accessing the advantages available to the rich? A sham? A travesty? Un-American? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the BCS.
  After Monday’s barn-burning overtime takedown [...]

• Art / Olafur Eliasson in the New Yorker in inside art, reviews, visual · Nov 14, 22:20

  Two winters ago, I traveled to London for work. It was cold as hell, as a witch’s tit, as the blood that runs in Dwyane Wade’s veins during the fourth quarter. The sky was deep gray, hard, heavy and forbidding, and it felt as if it wasn’t more than 10 or 12 feet above [...]

• Books / Game of Shadows in baseball, lit, reviews · Apr 3, 19:40

  I was just watching ESPN’s Opening Day coverage of the Braves-Dodgers game, and the conversation between commentator Erik Karros (wasn’t he Rookie of the Year like 5 years ago?) and Rick Sutcliffe turned to steroids. Karros couldn’t contain himself. He blustered and rambled for a while, criticizing those who demanded an investigation, and basically rehashed [...]

• Movies / More Oscar crap in cinema, reviews · Mar 7, 15:38

  Of course Crash won Best Picture. Why wouldn’t Academy members — I’m assuming they’re mostly white and Angeleno — rally around a film that momentarily relieved them of guilt they feel for living in such a racially segregated city? (I have to admit that I love Ludacris’s rant about the racial implications of riding city [...]

• Art / Richard Misrach slays 49 Geary in inside art, reviews, san francisco, visual · Mar 5, 03:01

  First Thursdays at 49 Geary can be overwhelming, people-wise, and underwhelming, art-wise, and this month was different only in that the overwhelmingness was crammed into one place: the Fraenkel Gallery. Packed with people, it also displayed a face-melting collection of Richard Misrach photos.

  When I first saw Misrach’s photos, I thought immediately of Sebastiao Salgado. Both [...]

• Art / Oakland is special in other ways in inside art, reviews, san francisco, visual · Mar 5, 02:43

  Last night we checked out the Oakland Art Murmur. Actually, we didn’t even know that such a thing existed, and drove over the Bridge intending to see Jason Munn’s opening at Bloom Screen Printing. So it was a pleasant surprise to see that little stretch of Telegraph goin off when we got there. Jason’s stuff [...]

• Kansas / The best state quarter so far in reviews, visual · Nov 7, 22:50

  It just happens to be from my home state. Nice work, Kansans.

• Music / Konono #1 lights it up in music, reviews, san francisco · Nov 7, 22:48

  Last night, Konono #1 played the Palace of Fine Arts. Before the show, I was a little worried that their scruffy, off-kilter sound may get washed-out by the fancy sound-system of the PoFA, and that they may end up sounding like lame-ass Ashkenaz-style “world music.”
  But from the first moment, they totally ruled, and their signature [...]

• Burgers in SF in mobile, reviews, san francisco · Sep 27, 00:38

  After a chill afternoon at China Beach, we checked out some burgers at Bill’s Place, which made me think about all of the good burgers to be found in San Francisco:

  Bill’s Place (pictured) grinds its own, and names its burger platters after local celebrities. Extra credit for the chandeliers and non-mayo cole slaw. [...]

• Termites eat New Orleans in lit, reviews · Sep 1, 15:16

  After Hurricane Katrina, the recent Harper’s magazine feature about the uncontrollable, unfathomed termite infestation of the French Quarter seems downright eerie. Equal parts information and meditation, Duncan Murrell’s “The Swarm” is an effective, moving blend of first-hand reporting on blizzard-like termite swarms, spooky interviews with insect experts, and genuine Southern gothic moments:
  Where the Formosans [...]

• Nurse! Get me Rolling Stone on the phone! in lit, reviews, tip · Jun 21, 12:17

  Has there been a more thankless task in modern literary history than editing Hunter S. Thompson? According to former Rolling Stone editor Robert Love, the magazine actually assigned junior editors the task of babysitting Thompson as he approached his deadline. (Okay, there are worse junior editing tasks than that; I’ve done them). In a recent [...]

• Movies / Sans Solo: The real problem with the new Star Wars trilogy in reviews, tip · Jun 13, 12:15

  I’ve never met anyone who enjoyed an installment of the second Star Wars trilogy — Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Commonly cited aspects of its unpopularity (in no particular order): terrible dialogue, insufferable “love” scenes, new characters that would be merely uninteresting if they weren’t offensive, and over-dependence on [...]

• Reflections on my Pynchon obsession in lit, reviews, the ancient past · Jun 2, 17:18

  Bookforum recently published a tribute to Thomas Pynchon called “Pynchon from A to V,” written by critic and Pynchon maniac Gerald Howard. Most Pynchon fans discover that their love dare not speak its name because when it does, it instantly labels one as a literary snob and smartypants. Like experience in armed combat, love of [...]