I was very sad to hear of the death of the mighty Kim Shattuck, the creative force behind the Muffs–the band never achieved the commercial success of some of their pop-punk peers in the early 1990s, but they made some excellent albums and Shattuck had one of the all-time great rock screams, right up there […]
posted 7 October 2019 in Links, News, Outside. no comments yet
Hello neighbors! I’m very excited to share Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever with you. I am forced, however, to wait until the end of the month; it goes on sale on October 29th, exactly four weeks from today. (Click here for information on places where you can buy it […]
posted 1 October 2019 in Buy My Stuff, News. no comments yet
(New to the countdown? Catch up here.) Adam Curry hypes the “Big Bang ’89” party coming up later that night on MTV: “This is the only place to be on New Year’s Eve,” he says. Which was empirically not true, but it is the place where I ended up on the last day of 1988, […]
posted 19 September 2019 in 1988. 2 comments
I spoke last night as the guest of the Charlotte Writers’ Club about my career as a nonfiction writer (and the strange places it’s taken me sometimes), and fielded some excellent questions about the craft of the job. (It was a lively crew of people–if you’re an aspiring writer in Charlotte, you should check it […]
posted 18 September 2019 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot more public speaking. I actually have years of experience when it comes to speaking in public–everything from readings at bookstores to broadcasts on the Today show–but these days I’m letting people know I’m available, particularly if you’re interested in a funny-yet-trenchant speech on awakening creativity via the philosophy of […]
posted 10 September 2019 in Uncategorized. no comments yet
The mix CD is a dying art, if not dead. (Not quite as buried as the classic 90-minute cassette tape mix, I suppose.) I was surprised to discover that it had been over a decade since I compiled Short Sharp Shocks, a collection of 42 songs on a single disc, all of them under two […]
posted 4 September 2019 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet
It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, because we are getting ever closer to the publication of my next book, Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever. The good people at Dey St. slightly revised the cover, which means I have an excellent excuse to share the updated version with you. […]
posted 19 August 2019 in Buy My Stuff. no comments yet
Fifty years ago today was the beginning of “an antiquarian exhibition: 3 days of peace & music”–better known to you and me as the Woodstock festival. I wasn’t there, but I feel like I’ve been soaking in it my whole life anyway. I had the privilege of contributing to a special New York Times section […]
posted 15 August 2019 in Articles. no comments yet
Do you live in Charlotte, North Carolina? If you don’t live in Charlotte, can you get to Charlotte? Because on Tuesday, August 13th (that’s tomorrow night as I write this), I will be speaking at Final Draught, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation’s quarterly series of fundraisers featuring “local thought leaders, beer, and books.” (I believe […]
posted 12 August 2019 in News, Uncategorized. no comments yet
Catching up on a couple of recent articles in The New York Times (in the subcategory of articles that are written by me): I wrote about the Universal Music Group giving a facelift to a huge chunk of their music-video catalog, upgrading both the audio and the visual. I got on the phone with Billy […]
posted 5 August 2019 in Articles. no comments yet
