A Review of "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country: The Biography of Randy Newman" by Robert Hilburn

 

A tunesmith with a con, not a song, in his heart, Randy Newman is a quintessential American composer. And like America, what a bill of goods Newman sells us: racist rednecks and drop-the-bomb political science, feel my pain anthems and a testy Old Testament God.

He gets away with singing from the viewpoint of these twisted characters for a slew of reasons. Despite a fiercely appreciative fan base, he’s never been able to sell himself; flying outside the radar of Top 40 has freed him from attacks from the irony-impaired, except for his one hit, an infamy that was, uh, short-lived. (His best known song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” beloved heart of the Toy Story films, never got released as a single, fyi.)

But those who are in the know get to know people they might never have otherwise. His lyrics, despite the humor that mostly means we laugh ’cause we don’t know what else to do while squirming, give voice to those we’d rather not hear from, like the sweet promises of the slave trader in “Sail Away,” the N-word dropping titular Southerner in “Rednecks.” But the true dignity these characters get are from the tunes. From a family of film composers, and multiply nominated for Oscars himself, Newman invests a cinematic quality to his melodies, providing each song with a kind of back-story.

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country, Robert Hilburn’s new bio of Newman, means to make the case for Newman as one of the great artists of our time. Throughout the book he interpolates encomiums from esteemed figures, and he kicks that off with none other than Dylan himself (he’s a Nobel Prize winner, you know). Hilburn is not here to bury Newman but to praise him, setting up with his prologues a two-pronged attack—Newman as prescient, penetrating American Jeremiah, sagely realizing the root of our national original sin is racism, and Newman as brilliantly funny.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Santa Barbara’s Fresh New Catch Is Santa Playa Mariscos

 

Sometimes, all it takes is a love of tacos and a dream. That’s how Jonathan “Yona” Estrada got his start, opening Yona Redz in the 500 block of State Street five months deep into the pandemic. Now, four years later, he’s got a second restaurant — Santa Playa Mariscos — and a new location for both at 1230 State Street.

Hailing the seven blocks as a great move, Estrada claims, “In the 500 block, people would go down for fun and then stop by for food, but here, people gravitate for the food.” Currently, you can order from the classic Yona Redz menu — especially those sloppily delicious birria quesotacos with consommé — or from the new seafood-focused Santa Playa Mariscos menu offering fresh catch straight from the Santa Barbara Fish Market.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Rental House" by Weike Wang

 

You’re a mere five pages into Weike Wang’s masterful novel Rental House when she does this to you, as her married couple main characters, one a first-gen Chinese immigrant, the other a striving son of Appalachia, contest a name for their sheepdog puppy, possible considering Mantou (steamed bun):

Nate brought up the propensity of yuppie couples to name their expensive dogs after basic starch items…. There was no fruit or vegetable Keru enjoyed enough to dedicate to their dog. She would also not be giving their dog a human name like Stacy. The other possibility was Huajuan, or a fancy-shaped, swirled steam bun. Nate said the word a few times, believing that he was saying the word right, but Keru said that he was saying the word wrong, and though Nate couldn’t hear where he’d gone wrong, and she couldn’t explain it either, he agreed that Mantou was fine.

Care to read the rest then do at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on January 9, 2025.

A Review of "What Nails It" by Greil Marcus

 

Trying to write a book review about essays in which one of our preeminent social critics, Greil Marcus, explores why he writes criticism…well, I’ve already mirrored myself into infinity or oblivion. But perhaps that’s a worthy task. For Marcus’s short in pages (87) if long in contemplation What Nails It—part of the Why I Write series from Yale University Press, based on the annual Windham-Campbell Lectures—makes an immediate claim for the ineffable dropping into a writer’s noggin. He writes, “I live for those moments when something appears on the page as it of its own volition—as if I had nothing to do with what is now looking me in the face.”

Of course, what stares Marcus in the face during his writing process leads to classics like his debut (not counting—or discounting—his journalism in Rolling Stone, Creem, etc.), Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music and second book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century. Both drew musical murder boards that looped lines connecting unlikely persons and traditions, upending any sense of high and low culture; for just one example, 16th century insurrectionist and self-proclaimed King of New Jerusalem John of Leiden meet Sex Pistol punk Johhny (Lydon) Rotten.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review Books.

Etty’s To-Die-For Deli Opens at Santa Barbara’s Jewish Federation

Cyndi Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara, had a vision. “People just didn’t come into the building,” she says about the community center on lower Chapala. Unfortunately, the location lacks the gym and/or pool that’s the heart of many other Jewish community centers. So, Silverman says, she figured, “If you feed them, they will come.”

This August, the center opened Etty’s Jewish Deli & Bakery. (It’s named after Etty Yenni, a generous patron who underwrote the project.) Silverman recalls, “A lot of people told me I was crazy.” And then Etty’s executive chef Doug Weinstein chimes in, “And now they’re here twice a week. We should have a naysayer’s surcharge.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Didion & Babitz" by Lili Anolik

Perched in a cultural place between Ryan Murphy’s Bette and Joan and Craig Seligman’s Sontag & Kael: Opposites Attract Me, Lili Anolik’s Didion & Babitz pairs up exemplars of their age to examine how their age let them (and pretty much most women) down. Just as Seligman made the case for an Apollonian Susan Sontag and a Dionysian Pauline Kael, Anolik does the same for the heady, distant Joan Didion and the easily past Dionysus all the way to Bacchus Eve Babitz. This book is not a high-blown literary assessment or simply a twined biography, but cultural criticism told in an engaging, gossipy tone in which Anolik often directly addresses the reader, sets us up for her methods, previews her structure, even offers two versions of one crucial event and then shrugs and says, “You decide.” Didion & Babitz reads as if you and Anolik were cozied up in a red leather booth at Musso & Frank Grill, dishing dirt over bone-dry martinis.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on January 2, 2025.

Revamped and Rejuvenated Harbor Restaurant in Santa Barbara Aims to Elevate Even More

 

Photo: Ingrid Bostrom

Walking into the recently revamped, reconsidered, rejuvenated Harbor Restaurant, it sort of feels like you’ve entered the dining room of a Viking cruise ship. Perched on Stearns Wharf, you are as much on the water as any building can be. The wide expanse of windows offers you a full view of the marina, the slope of the Mesa, and, as the evening extends, a sunset view, given which way west points on our edge of the Pacific. Each table, now, has its share of the view in a room of wood, white walls, and booths with a charming, mid-century modern swirl of green and brown. It’s clean and niftily Nordic.

And it’s all according to the plan of the new ownership group: couples John Thyne and Olesya Thyne, and Gene Sanchez and Carolina Jimenez. “Our focus has been to bring the Harbor Restaurant back into the hands of the locals,” Sanchez says. “Talking to people, it’s been 20 years since some have come to the pier to this quote-unquote ‘tourist trap.’ We want to change that.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.