book reviews
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Reflections On Richard McGuire’s “Here”
“I had this motto that I was going to make the big things small and the small things big.” – Richard McGuire (quoted in The New Yorker, November 17, 2014). Richard McGuire’s Here is a graphic novel that presents a poetic mediation on place and time. The book focuses on a single room in a Continue reading
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Notes On Paul Morley’s “Words and Music”
“Music is merely a form of guesswork about consciousness.” “Music is careful attention paid to ongoing experience.” – Paul Morley, Words and Music (16, 134). It was with much delight that a few weeks after finishing Bob Stanley’s Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I read Paul Morley’s exhaustive, masterfully strange, and revelatory history of popular music, Words Continue reading
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Notes On Bob Stanley’s “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!”
Imagine you’re a bird flying high above a vast landscape. Now imagine that the landscape–forest, mountains, rivers, roaming animals, small towns–is the history of popular music stretched out below you. You’re not flying alone. Next to you is another bird named Bob. Bob knows this territory well, pointing out the important sights below and explaining Continue reading
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Notes On Tiger C. Roholt’s “Groove: a phenomenology of rhythmic nuance”
Tiger C. Roholt’s Groove: a phenomenology of rhythmic nuance is a splendid, rigorous, and brief (140 pp) book that makes a compelling case for something many musicians already know something about: groove. Groove is the feel of a rhythm–that quality of musical time that can make it seem as though the music is pushing ahead Continue reading
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On Peter Mendelsund’s “What We See When We Read”
Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read: A Phenomenology With Illustrations is a remarkable study of perception in the experience of reading. Just his book’s title suggests, Mendelsund explores what exactly it is that we “see” in our minds eye when we read. It’s an interesting question or set of questions really–What do we Continue reading
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Notes On Ed Catmull’s “Creativity, Inc.”
“The uncreated is a vast, empty space” – Ed Catmull Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. is a memoir that explores and analyzes the history and creative life of Pixar, the American computer animation company. Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar, its current president, and an accomplished computer scientist, untangles the complex business of how to Continue reading
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Notes On Elizabeth Margulis’s “On Repeat: How Music Plays The Mind”
I began reading this book like a runner hitting a downhill, rushing forward with exhilaration and abandon, carried along by the gravitational pull of my interest in its subject. My initial read-through was quick, and I’ll certainly be returning to its pages, walking back up the uphills to take in the details. To say the Continue reading
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Two Reviews Of Books On Electronic Music Making And Remixology
My reviews of DJ Culture in the Mix (Bloomsbury 2013) and Remixology (Reaktion Books 2014) are available here and here. Continue reading
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Notes On Richard Powers’ “Orfeo”
“The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body.” -Richard Powers Richard Powers’ recent Orfeo is a troubling yet inspiring study of the power of music to shape a person’s life for both good and bad. The novel is the story of Richard Els, an elderly composer. Though Continue reading
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