Contrary to what you may have learned in school, civilizations are not remembered for their architecture or their ceramics or their journalism, for that matter. Instead, cultures will always be remembered for their ability to host a top-notch party, a party that can be seen from space. Such is the mission of Mindshare. Billed as an evening of “enlightened debauchery,” Mindshare is the closest thing to a landing pad I have seen in 600 years. By landing pad I mean runway, and by runway I mean something similar to the Nazca Lines pointing the way into the Incan Citadel of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu has long been regarded as a wonder of the world because of its technological significance, the artifacts found there, and the mystery surrounding the culture who all but vanished from this site without a trace. Archeologists are quick to chalk it up to a smallpox outbreak that wiped out the entire population—a logical conclusion, but far from the truth. How would I know? Because I was there. Read the whole story »
J: Well, thanks, Matthew for coming and taking an interview. So where did you learn to write. These are sort of the standard questions. Where did you learn to write?
M: Well, I started wanting to write in high school. I read Fitzgerald when I was 15. I was a pretty early reader and like a passionate reader when I was a little kid. But then when I was 14, 15, I read The Great – not Gatsby. I read This Side of Paradise. And that was the book that made me want to be a writer. Not a very good book, but a kind of intermittently great book. And then, you know, from reading a lot, I guess. I mean, that’s it. I started writing young. I wrote a couple of books that still live and will always live in my desk drawer. It took a tremendous amount of failure, just sustained effort. And I think ultimately, that’s the only way anybody ever learns to write is from reading and from repeated lame attempts. And my own could get pretty lame.
If you weren’t pounding the crowded Abbot Kinney pavement this June 5th in the gorgeous dusk of a Venice First Friday, you certainly missed a wildly growing phenomenon in the Westside’s art hub.
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The Forth team just wants to reach out and say a great big THANK YOU to all of our supporters. We have a newly redesigned website so we can start bringing you even more dynamic art and literature tidbits from Los Angeles! Check out the new features. We’ve got all our magazine issues up online for you to browse. And, you can now comment on all the different pieces of work!
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“Everything in Los Angeles is too large, too loud and usually banal in concept…The plastic asshole of the world.” — William Faulkner
Fuck William Faulkner.
The bastard was a drunk and a pessimist. But although we may easily dismiss the words of a dusty skeleton, it is hard to deny the fact that much of the world agrees with this asinine statement. LA’s reputation is worse than the homely cheerleader in high-school who gave it away to anyone that looked at her. Everyone loves to sleep with her, but no one will ever publicly admit that she’s a great lay. Living in the long shadow of its know-it-all older sibling, NY, LA has always been the underdog, the black-sheep of American cities. I blame jealousy and marketing for this skewed perspective.
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Marco Mannone
