Literature, deconstructing tautologies, internet tomfoolery, music, film, art, talking crap in bars, lanky men.
a suitable adversary.
Go-Betweens, Alexander O'Neal's "Hearsay," The Hold Steady, Ghostface, Dizzee Rascal, the Mountain Goats, Dylan, New Order, Liz Phair, the Beatles, Brian Eno, Rolling Stones, A Tribe Called Quest, the Hold Steady, Gang of Four, the Libertines, Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Pretenders, Bjork, Pulp, The Smiths, Kanye West, De La Soul, Donna Summer, Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, the Buzzcocks' "I Believe,"
Rules of the Game, Blue Velvet, My Own Private Idaho, Notorious, Tootsie, The Conformist, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeosie. Favorite directors: Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, Robert Altman, Luis Buñuel, Yasujiro Ozu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, David Lynch, David O. Russell, Olivier Assayas.
what?
Portrait of a Lady, Tender is the Night, Daniel Deronda, To the Lighthouse, House of Mirth, Herzog, Madame Bovary, Chekhov's "Lady With The Lap Dog," Pope, Keats, Tennyson, Eliot, Stevens, Frost, Ashbery, Merrill, Bishop, Rilke, Thomas Mann, many more - just ask. Essayists: Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, Cynthia Ozick, Daniel Mendelssohn, Anthony Lane.
I don't have heroes – I have mentors: Edmund Wilson, Pauline Kael, Robert Christgau, James Wood, Christopher Hitchens, Henry James, Gore Vidal, Cary Grant, Virginia Woolf,