Carl Wilson is the Toronto-based author of Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, named the best music book of the decade by Paste magazine; Nick Hornby wrote in The Believer, “I may well have to insist that you read this book.” It is being reissued in new, expanded form in 2013.
Carl Wilson
He played a critical role in exploding the taboos of postwar American culture while influencing generations of artists. But the centenary of his birth—coming days after the overdose of Philip Seymour Hoffman—demands a fuller consideration of the Burroughs myth.
If only the ever-regenerating time-traveller were around to give us some perspective on current events—from the new nuclear agreement with Iran to our failures to grapple with climate change. (Also: Rob Ford is possibly a ravenous space worm.)
A new column viewing current events through culture: This week, Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Tim Hecker’s music listen in on the U.S-Germany and Canada-Brazil snooping scandals.
Jonathan Lethem on Politics as Culture
A conversation about politics as culture with Dissident Gardens author Jonathan Lethem.
There are greater singers than Leonard Cohen, and as a new biography by Sylvie Simmons details, few cultural icons who can rival him for caddish behaviour. Still, after a career spanning fifty years, the appeal of both his art and persona endures. How does Cohen get away with it?