David Daniel
There was, after all, something Faustian in the prospect of an elixir that promised to reveal glimpses of the divine while simultaneously burning pits of fire in the seeker’s brain.
Read More
“This book let me find out for myself why I’ve been obsessed with Dylan since my teens, and I presented what I learned in a way that I hoped others would at least see that I’m not crazy.”
Read More
California beach culture didn’t spring full blown from the ocean riding a longboard, but the closest you will come to a founding figure is the legendary native Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku.
Read More
The notion that columnists like Breslin were “deadline artists” is apt. Their task was to come up with a story idea, track it down, then give it a narrative spark, all ahead of a ticking clock as the drop-deadline for the next edition loomed.
Read More
Because they were masters of performance, metamorphosis, and movement — of “containing multitudes” — Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan are the closest peers to Whitman America has yet produced.
Read More
Over the years, Lee Gutkind has been one of the most persistent and impassioned voices making the case for the value of creative nonfiction.
Read More
In “On the Road,” Jack Kerouac voiced a longing to be “other.” He achieves this transfiguration in “Pic.”
Read More
Jack Kerouac’s best work is often driven by a hunger for spiritual nourishment: the soul food his protagonists occasionally find in friendships, in jazz, in oceanic moments of oneness.
Read More
“For a writer the important thing is to write. The second important thing is the resonance of a reaction, a response. Without an audience, you’re basically locked in your cavern.”
Read More
All of the characters in Back to the Dirt are, in a sense, survivalists, people clinging onto what’s long gone, stockpiling karma for an apocalypse that is already upon them.
Read More