Description
Book SynopsisA rich banquet at the cutting edge of the arts, rooted in California’s eclectic cultural gumbo, by one of America’s most gifted critics, who died young in 2019.
"A perfect journalistic valediction from one of LA’s finest commentators."—Richard Thompson
"Timberg, who loved Los Angeles and culture journalism with an intense passion, was among the essential chroniclers of the city […] Boom Times is both a celebration of a prodigious talent and a valediction for a lost soul." —Los Angeles Times
The late Scott Timberg championed artists earnestly and relentlessly, with empathy and persistence. He was a vocal and widely admired advocate for working artists, one of the first to sound the alarm on the escalating economic challenges that have faced creative workers in the twenty-first century. The twenty-six reflections in this book form a valuable window onto many cultural shifts that have upended the country’s creative traditions and expectations. They are, by turns, surprising, wide-ranging, passionate, and fun. Timberg’s perceptive and enthusiastic profiles on the arts extend to West Coast jazz and Gustavo Dudamel’s LA Philharmonic, the fiction of Ray Bradbury and John Rechy, the early films of Spike Jonze and Christopher Nolan, the comics of Los Bros Hernandez and Adrian Tomine, and many more musicians, novelists, filmmakers, architects, and impresarios. Timberg had a knack, as Ted Gioia writes in his introduction, for “finding the best in the cultural scene on the dream coast.” This is an indispensable volume that showcases the author’s endless curiosity, as well as his passion and love for California—especially that confounding and complex metropolis Los Angeles.
Trade ReviewPraise for Boom Times for the End of the World:
"To read Scott Timberg's newly published collection of essays, Boom Times for the End of the World, is to experience both a rush of cultural stimulation and an overwhelming sense of sadness. Timberg, who loved Los Angeles and culture journalism with an intense passion, was among the essential chroniclers of the city […] Boom Times is both a celebration of a prodigious talent and a valediction for a lost soul." —Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times
"Timberg proves himself an authority on [Los Angeles] and its enthrallment to 'fantasy, boosterism, and magical thinking.' This is a fitting testament to a skilled cultural critic." —Publishers Weekly
"Boom Times’ 26 pieces spanning 16 years […] report on the characters and scenes that made Los Angeles an endless source of fascination for Scott Timberg. […] For Scott, journalism really was the literature of civic life, and what mattered most to him was the conversation between the public and the culture; that conversation was Scott’s lifeblood." —Joe Donnelly, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Scott was a polymath. He could write knowledgeably, and passionately, about a variety of topics: from literature to rock music, from popular culture to film to visual art. For another journalist, that might have been a stretch. For Scott, it was all part of the job. Just look at the pieces in Boom Times." —David Ulin, Alta Journal
"Boom Times for the End of the World is Timberg’s posthumous collection of essays and reflections from the last two decades, written with verve, curiosity, and refreshing sincerity. [...] At its most vulnerable, Timberg’s collection feels like a journal from a society’s last days, dispatches from some distant outpost right up until the signal went dead. [...] Timberg’s work in Boom Times rarely indulges the despair. His dedication to art’s role in society never wavers." —Marius Sosnowski, ZYZZYVA
"For over two decades, Scott Timberg was one of Los Angeles's most prolific journalists championing artists, musicians, writers, architects and filmmakers. [...] The twenty-six essays in this posthumous collection showcase his prescient eye, omnivorous mind and the deep longing behind his words." —Mike Sonksen, L.A. Taco
"A perfect journalistic valediction from one of LA’s finest commentators." —Richard Thompson, singer-songwriter, author of Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967–1975
"Scott knew many things; to paraphrase Isaiah Berlin, he was a fox, not a hedgehog, and this collection is the proof." —Dean Wareham, founder of Galaxie 500 and Luna, author of Black Postcards: A Memoir
"There was no one else on the West Coast quite like Scott Timberg—the most versatile and free-wheeling culture critic of his generation. Boom Times for the End of the World is the insightful, entertaining, and excruciating chronicle of America's cultural crash." —Dana Gioia, former California Poet Laureate, author of Meet Me at The Lighthouse
"In an era of edgy hot takes and glib quick-hits, there is something soul satisfying in hearing Scott's erudite voice again. A ravenous researcher, deep thinker and elegant wordsmith, Scott put his full heart into everything. Sitting next to Scott for years in the newsroom, I always looked forward to hearing his first-draft reflections of what he had just seen, heard, or walked through. He was drafting even before he sat down in his chair, connecting the dots, eager to get his thoughts down, to share it with us all. It's such a gift to finally have some of his finest observations and meditations collected between two covers." —Lynell George, author of A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky
Praise for Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class by Scott Timberg (Yale University Press, 2015):
"Timberg—himself a culture journalist who was a victim of one of the Los Angeles Times’s seemingly endless series of layoffs—makes a good case that, as Bob Dylan once put it, 'something there’s been lost.'" —Ben Yagoda, New York Times Book Review
"A quietly radical rethinking of the very nature of art in modern life." —Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"Mr. Timberg succeeds in assembling a large, coherent and troubling mosaic. He writes lucidly but with passion and a kind of bitter wit. And he is impressively well-read . … He shows himself to be a gifted synthesizer, weaving all manner of information and opinion into a fluent narrative of cultural decline." —Ben Downing, The Wall Street Journal
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Eye on Cool
Being Spike Jonze
Unwanted Thoughts
The Romantic Egotist
Indie Angst
High-Tone Talk
Hitting a Nerve
Mars in Apogee
The Cult of Glenn Gould
His Back Pages
Music on the Edge
Retooling Form and Function
Boom Times for the End of the World
Drawn to a Dark Side
Highbrow. Lowbrow. No Brow. Now What?
The Novel That Predicted Portland
Will Any Band Ever Break Up?
Can Unions Save the Creative Class?
Chasing Musical Legends in Joshua Tree National Park
How the Village Voice and Other Alt-Weeklies Lost Their Voice
Down We Go Together
Leaving Los Angeles
Searching for a Great American Rock Show
The Revenge of Monoculture
How Music Has Responded to a Decade of Economic Inequality
After a Decade, Will Gustavo Dudamel Stay at the LA Phil or Leave on a High Note?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
