Category Archives: arts

Nicos Gun, laughing at tornadoes

Posted on October 12, 2011 by oddmanout215

From Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test: Coming up over the Blue Ridge Mountains, everybody was stoned on acid, Cassady included, and it was at that moment that he decided to make it down the steepest, awfulest windingest mountain … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, Philadelphia, pop music | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Do you know a gal, or guy, like Nicole?

Posted on October 8, 2011 by oddmanout215

I was re-reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night (1934) and ran across this masterful description of the great divide between rich and poor, in the 1920s and now: … She bought a dozen bathing suits, a rubber alligator, … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, economic collapse, fiction, globalization, The New Depression | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Fiction reading Wed. at Rutgers-Camden

Posted on October 3, 2011 by oddmanout215

7 pm Wednesday, Oct. 5 Walt Whitman Arts Center, 2nd Floor 101 Cooper St. Camden, NJ David McKenna, a.k.a. Odd Man Out, will read “Chokepoint,” from Idiot Lights, his collection of thematically related short stories set in Atlantic City and … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, Camden, fiction, NJ, Philadelphia | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘You’re way wrong… I read Erica Jong’

Posted on September 30, 2011 by oddmanout215

Whither the zipless fuck? I’ll back up… One thing you can count on these days is the bizarre ubiquity of Facebook, which is always “on” and always ready to introduce you to new friends — or, more accurately, to friends … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, fiction, humor, mainstream media, movies, Politics, The New Depression, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Adios, summer girl. Or is it ‘sun-eyed’ girl?

Posted on September 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

Summer’s gone and good riddance, I’d rather any weather than a heat wave in Philly. But I still like the idea of summer, which I associate with old memories of hitchhiking, seashore towns, and chasing girls who enjoyed being caught. … Continue reading →

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When serfs fight back, GOP cries ‘Class warfare!’

Posted on September 19, 2011 by oddmanout215

This week’s winner of the chutzpah award is libertarian con man Paul Ryan, for accusing the Democratic Party of “class warfare.” Ryan is a disciple of Ayn Rand, the Benzedrine-addled academic who wrote two door-stopper novels that celebrated “the morality … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, Congress, economic collapse, fiction, globalization, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Are e-books tomorrow, or just the end of time?

Posted on September 18, 2011 by oddmanout215

Check out this from The Economist in case you’re still wondering about the future of mass-produced paper books: To see how profoundly the book business is changing, watch the shelves. Next month IKEA will introduce a new, deeper version of … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, enviromentalism, humor, mainstream media, movies, pop music | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Mitchell’s ‘Coyote’ still lean and mean

Posted on September 4, 2011 by oddmanout215

Recently, watching the Band back Joni Mitchell on “Coyote” (the video I put up here has been blocked) in Martin Scorcese’s The Last Waltz, I wondered about the link between cocaine and the fashionably emaciated look in the 1970s. Never … Continue reading →

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It’s the end of the world…! Well, not quite

Posted on August 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

Disaster stories are crowd pleasers, partly because oblivion can seem an appealing alternative to everyday problems that have no solution. At the very least, such stories disrupt the monotony of our insulated, digitized environments and force us to imagine other … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, humor, livable cities, movies, Philadelphia | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Some ‘Rain’ to keep us sane in Philly

Posted on August 20, 2011 by oddmanout215

At last the rain god intervened to clean the stinking streets — am I paraphrasing Travis Bickle? — after the hottest July on record in Philly. And now there’s a chance this will be the city’s wettest August on record. … Continue reading →

Posted in arts, humor, livable cities, Philadelphia, pop music | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments