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Recent Posts
- On Maggie Gylenhaal’s “The Bride”: Bonnie & Clyde in Stitches
- On George Saunders’ New Novel “Vigil”: Jumping the Shark Across the Heavens
- On HBO’s New Series “DTF St. Louis”: Charm & Glory of the Mundane
- On “Dr. Strangelove” 62 Years Later: General Jack Ripper in Charge Now
- On Tom Waits in “Father Mother Sister Brother”: Grifter Like Me
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Author Archives: williamjcobb
Christo's Next Art Project, "Over the River," Gets Approved, and Will Be in My Backyard
So there’s good news for art lovers of the world: Installation-art guru Christo has finally got approval for his project titled “Over the River,” which will be located about twenty short miles north of my Colorado home, on the Arkansas … Continue reading
Posted in Art, The West
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The Goy Crisis
So the other day I was discussing (perhaps ‘talking at’ would be a more accurate description) the Boy Crisis issue with my class of (rather sleepy, uncommunicative) undergraduate students in an Intro to Creative Writing class, and it was something … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Film
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On Paul Gilding's "The Great Disruption," With a Nod to Eugene Linden's "The Future in Plain Sight"
So I’m a sucker for ‘big vision’ books about the future and the myriad problems we face with climate change and resource depletion, and right now I’m reading Paul Gilding’s The Great Disruption. It manages to be at once peppy … Continue reading
Posted in books, Climate Change, The West
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A Great Divide: Attitudes About Climate Change Remarkably Different Around the U.S., With Sharp Divide Along East/West
So one thing I’ve noticed the last few years in my peripatetic life of inhabiting both the Eastern and the Western U.S. is a noticeable division in attitudes about Climate Change. In a nutshell, it seems as though the West … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, The West
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On the Illegal Immigration Debate, Tim Egan's Savvy Op-Ed, and How It Appears in Novels
So Tim Egan has a blistering attack on the scapegoating of Latinos in the latest Republican presidential debates, and the whole issue of illegal immigration and migrant workers, here: I grew up in a predominantly Latino area of South Texas … Continue reading
Posted in books, Politics, The West
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In Praise of "Boardwalk Empire," Season 2, & Bad Horror Movies on Netflix, Like "The Awakening"
So I’m home sick today, and one of the few pleasures for a working stiff on these sick days is catching up on mindless TV. It beats trying to figure out why in the world so many people are transfixed … Continue reading
Posted in Bad TV, Good TV
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On Prophecies in "The Bird Saviors": Dust Storms in Texas
So my forthcoming novel, The Bird Saviors—due out in (what’s left of) bookstores in May/June—opens with a dust storm in southern Colorado, and when I began writing it some five years ago, I imagined it set in a fuzzy ‘near … Continue reading
Posted in books, Climate Change, Politics, The West
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Seven Billion Humans & Jared Diamond's "Collapse"
So various news organizations are reporting that our planet is now home to this mythical number of seven billion humans, mythical in that we don’t know that for sure, but it’s a good guess, and all its implications. I still … Continue reading
Posted in books, Climate Change
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Warren Brussee's "The Second Great Depression" & Herman Cain's Nutty Economics
So one of the truisms that is sometimes voiced about our current Great Recession is that “Nobody saw it coming.” Which is nonsense, a myth propagated by dimwit media types who would like to believe this fiction, or who actually … Continue reading
Posted in books, Politics
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Pete Dexter in the New York Times!
So it’s a good day when you stumble upon a book review of a Jim Harrison novel written by none other than one of our best living novelists, Pete Dexter, here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/the-great-leader-by-jim-harrison-book-review.html?ref=books&pagewanted=all My favorite paragraph, about fiction: “Put together, these … Continue reading
Posted in books, The West, writing
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