Roundup

Of course, when it comes to Barnum, I'd be remiss if I didn't point you to the extraordinary resources available from the CUNY Social History Project, including their site "The Lost Museum."

Also in the realm of virtual NY, I've been meaning to say something about the Virtual LES articles that popped up in the paper a while back. You can visit the virtual LES at vles.com. I have more I want to say about that -- including some gossip about the site's treatment of rock and roll venues -- but that will have to wait for another time.

On the general subject of the LES -- cleaned up, virtual, or otherwise -- I've been keen on getting Richard Price's new novel, Lush Life, set in the neighborhood in the 90s.  Friends have recommended that I listen to his interview on NPR's Fresh Air. I haven't yet, but you can beat me to it by clicking here.


(Price, incidentally, will be speaking at the Tenement Museum on Tuesday, April 15, at 6:30 pm.)

One reason they've been on me about Price is that I've been obsessing, over on The Great Whatsit, about nostalgic and antinostalgic strains in New York writing. I haven't had the time or space to work out everything I'm thinking on the topic, but for initial noodling around -- with fugitive comments on Edith Wharton, Michael Chabon, Adam Gopnik, Theodore Dreiser and others -- you can begin here.

[update, later that night: if Lush Life is half as entertaining as Sam Anderson's review of it in New York  magazine, I think I'll dig it. Sam, by the way, among other things is an advanced PhD student in our department; he just won the NBCC's Balakian Award for his reviewing. Go, Sam!]