News

(he admits this)

September 29, 2015

By the Book, the weekly Q&A conducted in writing for the New York Times’ Sunday Book Review, uses boilerplate questions to peek into the reading lives of writers and other prominent figures, especially actors with sideline literary careers. It lets us imagine, perhaps erotically, Jesse Eisenberg’s nightstand, and encourages interviewees […]

Bland Boy

September 11, 2015

Almost thirty years ago, Lorrie Moore came up with the “Lovesick” anagram “Sock Evil,” but still no one has recorded a complete anagrammatic reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind album. I’ve at least gotten a start, which spurred a few outstanding contributions from Dustin Long. I figured it […]

I Wanna Be Around

August 21, 2015

Last night I saw Terence Davies’s 1988 movie, Distant Voices, Still Lives, for the first time. Some of you may know the movie; if not, it’s a somewhat autobiographical collage about working-class Liverpudlians in the forties and fifties, told largely through music: from Benjamin Britten to torch ballads to British […]

Cover

August 10, 2015

I’m really excited about the beautiful and cleverly referential cover art Carolyn Swiszcz did for (my 2016 novel) Amateurs. That cover’s still in production, but here’s Carolyn’s website.

Miguel

August 10, 2015

Something like Less Than Zero crossed with Dirty Mind, Miguel’s latest album, Wildheart, is a murky exploration of decadence, ambition, alienation, and sex, quite a lot of sex, as performed in the singer and auteur’s native Los Angeles. As on 2012’s Kaleidoscope Dream, we’re offered a tasting menu of romantic […]

Roundup

July 21, 2015

The sensible thing, I know, would be to post articles as they’re printed, but I try to be faithful to the “infrequently updated” billing. So here are a few pieces of fairly recent journalism: an interview conducted over email with scholar and critic Eric Weisbard about his book “Top 40 […]

I was having trouble …

July 20, 2015

… making progress on what I ought to be working on, so I jotted down some notes on Trainwreck instead. As has been noted, the movie to some degree subverts romantic comedy formulas by giving its female protagonist qualities customarily reserved for the male love interest in a gigolo-reformation plot. […]

WPA Revue

January 14, 2015

I’m really excited to put on this show Thursday, Jan. 15 at Walker Art Center. Also I’m looking forward to being able to sleep without a pill.

Prince Article

July 5, 2014

Here’s a longer piece I wrote about Prince for Mpls.-St. Paul magazine.

All-Time Top 20 Pairs of Dylan Hicks’s Socks. How Many Have You Worn?

December 8, 2013

1. Brown-and-green argyle with orange toe stitch 2. White athletic, red paint stain near right toe 3. Brown dress, left behind by houseguest and never returned 4. White and off-white baby socks, mismatched 5. Cream dress, above the calf 6. Blue-and-white winter socks with red accents and snowflake motif 7. […]