When Joshua Wolf Shenk's book Powers Of Two: Finding The Essence Of Innovation In Creative Pairs was published in 2014, Michael Gerber, Devin McKinney and I each wrote a post about it. Since Shenk's book has come up in recent comments, I thought I'd bring those posts back to the forefront. You can read take 1 here, take 2 here, and take 3 here. Add your own take in the comments!
Magical Mystery Tour pie chart, 1967 This blog seemed to go through a phase where every second post was about how awesome Ram was/is. Go back and check the stream; it was amazing. Went on for months. And I support that, not just because Ram is awesome, but because this ol' world of ours is big enough to have one place where Ram-love flows freely, without fear. In that same spirit of being just bleeeaaagggrhhh…without in any way demeaning the White Album!—I present the following. This evening while trying to avoid doing my wife's Bialetti pot, I read this Slate review of [...]
Greil Marcus "When I became record reviews editor, I made it clear to him after a few months — nobody had done the job before me — that the record review section was an independent republic within the country of Rolling Stone. That meant that nobody else could tell me what to review or what a writer could say. They could argue with me, but ultimately it was my decision. And that worked well. There was one incident where Paul McCartney makes his first solo record and people thought it was wonderful: this rough, homemade one-man-band album. It was accompanied by [...]
We're all water Pal o' Dullblog Shirley Wicevich was lucky enough to catch an advance screening of Martin Scorsese's new George Harrison documentary, "Living In The Material World." Here are her thoughts. HD: Where'd you see the movie, Shirley? SW: At the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day Weekend; I've volunteered there for 6 years. First Ken Burns came out, and gave the prelude to what the audience was about to experience. Then he introduced the film's co-producers, George's widow Olivia and David Tedeschi. That night was the first time that Olivia watched the documentary at a public viewing. HD: [...]
The Beatles’ Second Album by Dave Marsh 186 pp. Rodale Books, 2007 DEVIN McKINNEY • I’ve been reading Dave Marsh for many years, starting with his dozens of thumbnail critiques in the first two editions of The Rolling Stone Record Guide and his artist essays in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll; on through the reviews and journalism collected in Fortunate Son; uncollected pieces in old issues of Rolling Stone; and the massive compendium The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles of All Time (one of my favorite music books, mainly because it anthologizes so many [...]