Wednesday January 16 2008
Walked the long walk with dogs and mom was at breakast club so I had to wait a bit, so I read the piece in the New Yorker about Scientology. It was so objective, it really didn’t make it seem nefarious at all. It basically talked about how the Scientologists are great renovators of old Hollywood buildings, and how they improve the community, and how the celebrity is just another segment of the population that needs help, and they want to help them. I really don’t see any problem with it. They didn’t really get into the controversy about it very much. I wonder if the Scientologists agreed to be interviewed if they could have final approval of the piece. Also read Sasha Frere-Jones piece about Kate Nash. I feel like he sometimes is more fascinated by pop oddities and celebrity nonsense than really great lasting art. Sort of a cultural barometer in a way, which is valuable to a certain degree, but I wonder what it would be like if he turned his considerable skill to writing about great bands, like the Silver Seas for instance, or a comparative piece on Bob Marley and Elvis Presley. E.L. Doctorow story in the New Yorker as well. He can put a sentence together, that’s for sure. It’s like the English language is a different machine in his hands. Dad said he could tell I had been in the studio, that my energy was different. I was more outspoken, opinionated.