The Brooklyn Rail
Critical Perspectives on Art, Politics and Culture
November 2005
Books
Richard Ford with James McCloskey
by James McCloskeyBooks
Mr. Ford asks me to meet him for coffee early on a Saturday morning in late September in the lobby of his midtown hotel. When I arrive, I’m initially surprised by the modernity, the sleekness of the décor: mirrored tables and high straight backed chairs, and Japanese fighting fish in bowls on shelves above the couches. Mr. Ford sits towards the back of the lobby, wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt that reads “SEA GIRT” in white block letters. After a few moments of small talk, we begin discussing his experiences with teaching.
Mike Albo with Jen Zoble
by Jen ZobleBooks
Whether he’s dancing in the altogether with the glitter-soaked Dazzle Dancers or waxing agitated about the agonies and ecstasies of consumerism, Mike Albo is an author and performer who understands exposure and how it drives our fame-crazed culture. I met Mike four years ago through mutual friends – several of them his naked cohorts – and have followed his career on page and stage ever since. Over breakfast in Prospect Heights, the Park Slope-based Leonardo and I discussed his recent projects. (Da Vinci, not DiCaprio, you celeb whore…)
Culture: Wild girls
by Corrie PikulBooks
Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (Free Press, 2005)
Poetry: Elegy for a Young Poet
by Erin DurantBooks
Song To The Mountain is a collection of poems by Gustavo Brillembourg, which was published in 1995, two years following Brillembourg’s death at the age of thirty-five during a rock-climbing accident. Only seven hundred and fifty copies have been published by his family; finding one, then, requires a bit of sleuthing. In a time when many writers aim their work to the fleeting fascination of the public and critical circle, it is refreshing to come upon a body of poems perhaps not intended to appeal to new readers, but rather to deepen the understanding of a poet to those few who already know his work. In the words of David Shapiro found in the epilogue of Song To The Mountain, “We do not know the Poet, except through the stresses of his spoken word.…In the age of the inflation of writing, there is a voice here.”
