Paul Beatty, 1990

In honor of America’s first Man Booker Prize winner, I’m reposting my 1990 Village Voice feature on Paul Beatty, back when he was still a poet.

Paul Beatty, 1990

In honor of his win of the National Book Critics Circle Award and Throwback Thursday, here’s my 1990 Village Voice story on Paul Beatty. We had dinner last night and I’m happy to report he’s as modest and flat-footed as ever.Paul Beatty 1990

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 1991 — #TBT

In my own version of Throw-Back Thursday, I’m going to start posting articles from my publishing past. In 1991 I wrote a feature story for The Village Voice about the literary renaissance that was unfolding largely in Downtown venues, particularly the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I called it guerrilla poetry. This was the first in-depth article on this scene, long before New York magazine put Edwin Torres on its cover. I still consider many of the poets and novelists I wrote about — Miguel Algarin, Tracie Morris, Mike Tyler, Paul Skiff, etc. — to be some of the most talented people I’ve had the honor to meet, let alone write about.  Nuyorican Article

Kim, What’s Wrong with Lita’s Ass?

Rather salivating but typically funny and self-promotional interview with Kim Fowley in my alma mater.
 

Nine Questions For Kim Fowley, MC Of This Weekend’s Norton Records Anniversary Spectacular – New York Music – Sound of the City.

Ellen Willis Review

Ellen Willis still inspires and intimidates me. I first encountered her personally when I was a young copy editor and aspiring music critic at The Village Voice, and she was the vaunted feminist and veteran music critic in house. Researching my 1992 Voice story “The Feminine Critique,” I was amazed  by her reviews I found in old issues of The New Yorker, and very nervous when I interviewed her. Two decades later, those essays floored me all over again when I read them in the new anthology Out of the Vinyl Deeps, which I reviewed for the  New York Times Book Review.

Crazy Rhythms

In about 1984 or 85, my then-boyfriend Brian Parks played an obscure record for me, Crazy Rhythms, by the Feelies. The Feelies were in one of their fallow phases, hadn’t played in a while, so it felt like a nugget from the past, and we were insta-fans. Then the band started playing again, and we became even bigger fans. I interviewed them in my nascent music-journalism days in Providence. Brian and I broke up, I moved to New York, began working for The Village Voice, Brian moved also and joined me at the paper. That was two decades ago.

So it felt immensely circular and satisfying when Brian, one of the few people from those halcyon early-’90s Voice days who’s still there, asked me to write the music picks for the Voice‘s spring music guide. It’s the first Voice story I’ve written in more than a decade, and serendipitously, I wound up writing about the Feelies, who are also back. Plus, I got to write about my current obsession: Adele.

Hedwig Returns

I was so obsessed with Hedwig and the Angry Inch when it first came out (so to speak), I remember Carrie Brownstein or Kathleen Hanna, or maybe both of them, making fun of me. Mitchell and Trask were such a brilliant (and cantankerous) theater team. I wrote about the musical for The Village Voice. I’m amazed it’s finally making it to Broadway — and glad they’re working on it together again. “Rock ‘n’ roll is about identification across lines,” Stephen told me back then. In these days of factionalization, that’s a refreshing sentiment.