The Joan Jett Interview

Joan Jett talks to me about the Runaways, Kristen Stewart, sexploitation, and the L-word, for Interview magazine. With photos by Floria Sigismondi.

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe: Worth the Wait

“In 1967, a 20-year-old college dropout and former factory worker who had recently given up her newborn daughter for adoption packed a suitcase with drawing pencils, Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations and a waitress’ uniform and moved to New York City to become an artist. She met another artist there, an ex-altar boy. They fell in love and became lifelong collaborators and muses. Before Robert Mapplethorpe died on March 9, 1989, Patti Smith promised him she would tell their story. Just Kids is, at last, her account of this intense, historic relationship. It’s worth every moment of the wait.”

Read my Miami Herald review .

Review: "You Are not a Gadget"

“All the unemployed writers, broke musicians and worried filmmakers who see their professional horizons melting into the ether of cyberspace — in addition to the lowly cephalopod, which I’ll explain later — will be cheered by Jaron Lanier’s latest curmudgeonly screed. In You Are Not a Gadget, the virtual-reality pioneer champions the role of the artist as Promethean individual in the face of the rise of mob mentality. It’s a bracing dose of economic realism and Randian philosophy for all those techno utopianists with their heads in the cloud. But Lanier also comes across as an I-was-there-first elitist reacting out of cranky grudge as much as sound reasoning.” Read the full review in The Miami Herald.

Grammys and Me

For some reason, I’m Tweeting the Grammys. If you’re interested.