WRITE-UPS

The Forward: When Even A Boy Einstein Doesn’t Have ‘All The Answers’

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Michael Kupperman grew up in Connecticut, hidden away in suburbia along with a family secret; Kupperman’s professor father, Joel Kupperman, had been a child star, one of the most popular and recognized child stars of his generation.

As the “genius” boy Einstein of the largely rigged show “Quiz Kids,” Joel Kupperman had been cast as exemplar to a less objectionable popularization of the Jewish people. …

The New York Times: 'Francis Bacon in Your Blood: A Memoir'

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Reviewing 'Francis Bacon in Your Blood: A Memoir,' by Michael Peppiatt 

When Michael Peppiatt, at 21, met Francis Bacon, the 53-year-old artist was already all artifice, well spoken when well rehearsed, his bistro doctrines applauded by clinking glasses. Peppiatt, having taken over a student arts journal at Cambridge, had shown up in London’s Soho. …

The Brooklyn Rail: 'The Solitary Twin' by Harry Mathews

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During the years I was pursuing my graduate degree in creative writing at Columbia University, Harry Mathews was a beloved mentor, and in the years since, as I’ve been faculty at The New School graduate writing program, he has been not only a mentor, but a colleague and a friend.

Times Literary Supplement: ‘Georgia’ a novel by Dawn Trip

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Well, for those of you who subscribe to the Times Literary Supplement, I have a review of Dawn Tripp's novel, Georgia in this week's issue:

Wilully, Americans tell the story of Georgia O’Keeffe: the story of the southwestern female artist and pioneer. The story is wrong in three ways: once for the remnants of the arguments it contains, mounted by art critics in the 1920s, that O’Keeffe embodied the art of a woman, more sensual ...

The Rumpus: "Who Is Ana Mendieta?"

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In Who is Ana Mendieta?, the Feminist Press seeks popular opinion through the graphic novel. The newly released title launches a series, Blind Spot, that will invoke (in the words of the press release) “the spirit of revolutions past.” The cleverness of the vehicle is twofold: the use of broadly appealing comic and true crime elements; the direct appeal to a youthful audience seeking alternatives in the limited category of graphic books. …

The Believer: Peter Neumeyer, Edward Gorey in Floating Worlds

We are perhaps as well situated as we’ve ever been to solve the curiously tempting and elusive riddle of Edward Gorey. His illustrative style and design sensibility—a precious iteration of befuddlement and Gothicism—presage twenty-first-century trends in the comic arts, East and West. …

Brooklyn Rail: Alexandra Chasin's Brief

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We look at art in context, but what about people? 

Of course, during a trial, we hear about the childhood, the hours alone, and the alcoholic step-parent, etc. And maybe that mediates our decision-making in the sentencing phase. Or maybe not. Regardless, we don’t look at history; we don't say—we were invading such-and-such a country at that moment, or we were dropping bombs on so-many innocent civilians that morning so talking about the theft of, let's say, a television, is beyond absurd. …

The Rumpus and Critical Mass: Jonathan Lethem’s "The Ecstasy of Influence"

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Each day leading up to the March 8 announcement of the 2011 NBCC award winners, Critical Mass is highlighting our thirty finalists. In a first, the NBCC is partnering with other websites to promote our finalists as well in the categories of Criticism and Poetry. Our Criticism finalists will appear on The Rumpus, our Poetry finalists will appear March 7 at O, the Oprah Magazine website. …

Art in America: MetaMaus

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Pantheon's MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic is a kind of "making of" Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical comic memoir, Maus. The 300-page full-color hardback and companion DVD abound with source materials—interviews with the author, photographs, letters, art—presented in parallel with a conversation between editor Hillary Chute and Spiegelman. …

The Daily Beast: To Be Young Was Very Heaven

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"Punk, Springsteen, Patti Smith, and the legends that made New York music."

Looked at Will Hermes' Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever (Faber & Faber, 2011) for the Daily Beast:









A kid washes in from Jersey. He's weird-looking, with a not very urbane, sentimental aesthetic; he's backed by a neighborhood bar band. …

Brooklyn Rail: Davis Schneiderman

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A short piece this month’s Brooklyn Rail on Davis Schneiderman’s Blank (Jaded Ibis, 2011):

Xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxx Blank, xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxx, xxx xx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx. Davis Schneiderman xx xxxxx xxxxxx, xxxx xxxxxxx performances xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx mime xx xxxxxxx xx xx and xxxxxxxxx. …

31 Books in 31 Days: "The Best of It," Kay Ryan

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Each day leading up to the March 10 announcement of the 2010 NBCC award winners, Critical Mass highlights one of the thirty-one finalists (to read other entries in the series, click here). Today, NBCC board member John Reed discusses poetry finalist Kay Ryan's The Best of It: New and Selected Poems

Popmatters and Bomb Magazine: "Drawings from the Gulag"

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/136608-drawing-on-flesh-danzig-baldaevs-drawings-from-the-gulag/

Looked at Danzig Baldaev’s Drawings from the Gulag for Popmatters:

Also, wrote a diff piece, same book, for Bomb Magazine:

This didn’t happen because I’m a cad, by the way.  I originally wrote a piece for a magazine which decided not to run it (based on a not-very-good review of the book in the London Telegraph).  …