"Welles’s interrogation of Kafka’s subtext wouldn’t mean much if the director hadn’t found a cinematic language equal to the novelist’s distinctive effects: the tonal vertigo that seems to excavate the underside of ordinary existence..." criterion.com/current/posts/…

A word on F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday; I'm obsessed with his doomed relationship with Hollywood; a few words about it, along with a confession of my ambivalent feelings toward The Great Gatsby and its cinematic connections: newyorker.com/culture/richar… newyorker.com/culture/richar…

For The New Yorker, I wrote about nationalism (in politics and publishing), Eastern Europe, and Coetzee's new novel: a love story that speaks in tongues. newyorker.com/magazine/2023/…

As a young boy, Martin Scorsese says “watching films came out of a necessity from the illness of asthma. And it came out of a loneliness, which I still have.” gq.mn/uYOx3KP

Terrific, blistering piece from @billlueders on Robin Vos, "the most prominent Republican in state government and, as countless episodes attest, kind of a jerk." His style is "peevish, petulant, reflexively retributive" and "governance by temper tantrum." plus.thebulwark.com/p/wisconsins-t…

A New Yorker Interview: Merve Emre talks with Lydia Davis. newyorker.com/culture/the-ne…

For @NotebookMUBI, I went long on the films of Nicole Holofcener, the '90s indie dramedy, and the importance of mid-range movies: mubi.com/en/notebook/po…

I profiled Mr Fitzcarraldo. Best enjoyed in Hackney with a well thumbed Sartre under your arm thetimes.co.uk/article/07d269…

When Oprah’s Book Club tackles Fosse’s Septology

This week Nonesuch Records celebrates its 60th anniversary. So I'm sharing my 60 favorite Nonesuch albums (in a 3-part article). Here are some (thread below).

Here is a little thing I wrote about DFW's use of email that I guess I had never put on my website before so I posted it today: mattbucher.com/2024/02/18/the…

The Communication Arts community has lost one of it truly stellar figures. David Bordwell, the Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has left behind an enduring legacy in the art of cinema. ow.ly/JLqq50QK7UW

Michael Hofmann's translation of Kafka's hilarious little story Poseidon, via Melissa's Personal Anthology today theparisreview.org/blog/2017/04/1…

RIP John Barth (1930-2024)

“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

My short story, “Mending Ruth,” which won the 2024 Wisconsin People & Ideas Fiction Contest, has taken “Honorable Mention” for the Zona Gale Award for Short Fiction. artlitlab.org/events/wiscons…