27 Apr 2011, Posted by in Blog, 0 Comments Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oh, Franco


by Nik De Dominic

I spent most of yesterday putting together notes to write a defense of James Franco and his work. In 2002, before his life became the huge performance piece it is now, I had a run-in with Franco at a Warhol retrospective in Los Angeles. He was there alone, on a slow day, and seemed to be earnestly enjoying the work. These larger, hip retrospectives in LA are wont to become scenes – places to be seen as opposed to places to see, and it was clear he was there for the latter. That moment and this recent appearance on the Colbert Report endeared him to me. Franco’s a smart dude, and of course, it makes sense. His parents are the Keatons for god’s sake. The mother is a poet and an editor, and his father runs a non-profit; they met at Stanford. We should be lucky he didn’t go the way of Alex P. and isn’t Rick Santorum’s right hand. If you were to strip the celebrity from him, his academic endeavors make sense. Almost.

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31 Oct 2010, Posted by in Blog, 0 Comments Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Brand New Car? BP Bought You That. Got You a Rolex? BP Bought You That.


by Nik de Dominic

I teach developmental composition in the Westbank of New Orleans, over the bridge from my home. If you were to keep on driving out there, away from New Orleans, you would be in the area on the map that looks like it’s breaking apart into the sea. If you followed any of the spill (spill always feels like the wrong word, let’s call it THE FUCKING EARTH HEMMORAGE) that occurred recently, you’re familiar with some of these areas: Plaquemines Parish, Lafitte, Barataria. I’m from California; I ride my bike most days; my father was an artist; and my mother was responsible for negotiating minority contracts for the City of Los Angeles during the 80s. It’s easy to say that if I lean, I fall over left. For me, indentifying the enemy here is easy – oil.

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25 Oct 2010, Posted by in Blog, 0 Comments Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Turkish Kitchen


by Richard Tillinghast

Perhaps to be human is to forget. Perhaps every culture survives by forgetting. In America we have forgotten so many things that we are sometimes called a people without a memory. Modern Turkey sometimes strikes me as a culture based on forgetting as many things as possible about the country’s past. Since the late eighties, the place to eat in Istanbul for serious foodies has been Ciya, in Kadikoy, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. Ciya is the creation of master chef Musa Dagdeviren, whose mission is to restore to Turkish diners a cuisine that they have forgotten.

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