Los Angeles Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/los-angeles/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:23:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Los Angeles Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/los-angeles/ 32 32 Smiling Donors, Bored Recipients: Free Food In America https://www.publicbooks.org/smiling-donors-bored-recipients-free-food-in-america/ Thu, 22 Nov 2018 16:00:49 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=24663 People lining up for free food are often tired, bored, and shabbily dressed ...

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]]> The Bingewatch: #Resist https://www.publicbooks.org/the-bingewatch-resist/ Tue, 04 Apr 2017 15:00:08 +0000 http://www.publicbooks.org/?p=11684 After November’s election, I only wanted to watch normporn. Craving fallible yet manicured characters whose gaffes—provoked by pain mired in class privilege—always culminated in tear-jerking ...

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]]> Making Labor Visible: An Interview with Ramiro Gomez https://www.publicbooks.org/making-labor-visiblean-interview-with-ramiro-gomez/ Thu, 01 Sep 2016 05:00:00 +0000 http://www.publicbooks.org/making-labor-visiblean-interview-with-ramiro-gomez/ The work of Ramiro Gomez draws attention to the domestic workers and day laborers upon whose ministrations luxury lifestyles depend …

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]]> The Bingewatch: “Love” Angeles https://www.publicbooks.org/the-bingewatch-love-angeles/ Thu, 02 Jun 2016 05:00:00 +0000 http://www.publicbooks.org/the-bingewatch-love-angeles/ Despite today’s abundance of “quality television” programming, TV has yet to fully shed its reputation as a degraded medium. Why else would the binge have taken hold as a (if not the) prime metaphor for contemporary television viewing? Where the representative of televisual excess was previously the couch potato, a human-turned-tuber upon cathode-ray immersion, today’s TV-watching […]

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]]> When Art Disrupts Life https://www.publicbooks.org/when-art-disrupts-life/ Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.publicbooks.org/when-art-disrupts-life/ Since its debut at last year’s Sundance festival, the raucous, gorgeous new feature Tangerine has received plenty of well-deserved praise. It has been called, alternately, a “triumph,” “remarkable,” a “small wonder,” and a “minor miracle.” And yet beneath many of those accolades seems to run a thin current of condescension, a reluctance to take the film completely seriously. The […]

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]]> The Stranger’s Voice https://www.publicbooks.org/the-strangers-voice/ Sat, 01 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.publicbooks.org/the-strangers-voice/ The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s riveting debut novel, is a chronicle of war wrapped in a spy thriller and tucked inside a confession. It is also a political satire, a send-up of Hollywood, and a scathing critique of mid-20th-century Orientalism. Nguyen juggles genres like so many flying AK-47s, and to dazzling, often hilarious effect. At […]

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]]> Living Just Enough: New Novels of the City https://www.publicbooks.org/living-just-enough-new-novels-of-the-city/ Wed, 15 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.publicbooks.org/living-just-enough-new-novels-of-the-city/ If you tell a story of the city, rather than merely stage a story there, you lay claim to it, but not always as a fan, a lover, or a life-long insider. Rather, you insist your characters take on the city as a foil or familiar—something powerful with its own memory and will. Recent novels by […]

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