Les Tombay
@lestombay.bsky.social
Hermeneutics of suspicious minds
Pinned
Reposted by Les Tombay
“We are now in the mature stage of a book-to-film boom that is quietly transforming how Americans read and tell stories—and not for the better.”
They Made a Movie Out of It | James Pogue
America’s higher echelon of long-form journalists can now expect to make more money from Hollywood than they do from the publications that print their stories.
thebaffler.com
December 19, 2025 at 9:55 PM
“We are now in the mature stage of a book-to-film boom that is quietly transforming how Americans read and tell stories—and not for the better.”
Reposted by Les Tombay
Without a clear curatorial thesis, the Hammer Museum’s LA artist biennial presents those who have already been vetted by other institutions. Writer Alex Paik would love to see them go a little more “off menu” next time.
Made in L.A.’s Anti-Curation Doesn’t Work
The curators’ self described “no-methodology methodology” results in a scattered exhibition that feels bland and curatorially unimaginative.
hyperallergic.com
November 29, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Without a clear curatorial thesis, the Hammer Museum’s LA artist biennial presents those who have already been vetted by other institutions. Writer Alex Paik would love to see them go a little more “off menu” next time.
Reposted by Les Tombay
A Man Ray exhibition at The Met proves, thrillingly, that anyone feeling jaded about Surrealism’s centennial in 2024 can still see the movement’s key photographer with a fresh set of eyes.
Man Ray Was So Much More Than a Photographer
From film to painting to sculpture to chess, the Surrealist was an artist-inventor, tinkering away at light and objects and having a good laugh all the while.
hyperallergic.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:42 PM
A Man Ray exhibition at The Met proves, thrillingly, that anyone feeling jaded about Surrealism’s centennial in 2024 can still see the movement’s key photographer with a fresh set of eyes.
Reposted by Les Tombay
‘Vallejo is a rhetorician, a ranter, harnessing impossibles, lashing truism and paradox together. It should come with a snarl, be less like writing and more like speech.’
Michael Hofmann on the difficulty of translating César Vallejo's poems.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Michael Hofmann on the difficulty of translating César Vallejo's poems.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Michael Hofmann · Only foam comes out: Vallejo in English
César Vallejo’s life has the brief, jagged outline of a broken mirror. He resembles a 19th-century poète maudit,...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 29, 2025 at 5:50 PM
‘Vallejo is a rhetorician, a ranter, harnessing impossibles, lashing truism and paradox together. It should come with a snarl, be less like writing and more like speech.’
Michael Hofmann on the difficulty of translating César Vallejo's poems.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Michael Hofmann on the difficulty of translating César Vallejo's poems.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
I will vote for any politician, regardless of their politics or ideology, who promises to institute year-round daylight savings. There’s no reason for someone living in Southern California to suddenly feel like they live in … Finland.
November 3, 2025 at 4:58 AM
I will vote for any politician, regardless of their politics or ideology, who promises to institute year-round daylight savings. There’s no reason for someone living in Southern California to suddenly feel like they live in … Finland.
Reposted by Les Tombay
Thurs Sept 25
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles
The Whirled (w Jack Smith) --Ken Jacobs, 1961
Senseless --Ron Rice, 1962
New York Eye and Ear Control --Michael Snow, 1964
DMT (based on Jackie Cassen’s light show) --Jud Yalkut, 1966
www.acropoliscinema.com/films/everyt...
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles
The Whirled (w Jack Smith) --Ken Jacobs, 1961
Senseless --Ron Rice, 1962
New York Eye and Ear Control --Michael Snow, 1964
DMT (based on Jackie Cassen’s light show) --Jud Yalkut, 1966
www.acropoliscinema.com/films/everyt...
Everything Is Now: A Night of 1960s NY Avant-Garde with J. Hoberman | acropolis cinema
www.acropoliscinema.com
September 19, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Thurs Sept 25
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles
The Whirled (w Jack Smith) --Ken Jacobs, 1961
Senseless --Ron Rice, 1962
New York Eye and Ear Control --Michael Snow, 1964
DMT (based on Jackie Cassen’s light show) --Jud Yalkut, 1966
www.acropoliscinema.com/films/everyt...
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles
The Whirled (w Jack Smith) --Ken Jacobs, 1961
Senseless --Ron Rice, 1962
New York Eye and Ear Control --Michael Snow, 1964
DMT (based on Jackie Cassen’s light show) --Jud Yalkut, 1966
www.acropoliscinema.com/films/everyt...
Reposted by Les Tombay
Big news!! WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT by Peter Cameron is coming to the big screen and will be starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence! 🤩 Huge congrats, Peter!
Read more here: ift.tt/STGO93v
Read more here: ift.tt/STGO93v
September 19, 2025 at 11:40 PM
Big news!! WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT by Peter Cameron is coming to the big screen and will be starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence! 🤩 Huge congrats, Peter!
Read more here: ift.tt/STGO93v
Read more here: ift.tt/STGO93v
Reposted by Les Tombay
Can One Novel Capture the Expanses of Human Thought?
The German writer Michael Lentz gives it a shot in “Schattenfroh,” stretching the limits of fiction in the process.
Dustin Illingworth for The New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/b...
The German writer Michael Lentz gives it a shot in “Schattenfroh,” stretching the limits of fiction in the process.
Dustin Illingworth for The New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/b...
September 7, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Can One Novel Capture the Expanses of Human Thought?
The German writer Michael Lentz gives it a shot in “Schattenfroh,” stretching the limits of fiction in the process.
Dustin Illingworth for The New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/b...
The German writer Michael Lentz gives it a shot in “Schattenfroh,” stretching the limits of fiction in the process.
Dustin Illingworth for The New York Times
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/b...
Reposted by Les Tombay
Jean-Luc Godard double bill in 35mm! PIERROT LE FOU (1965) & LE PETIT SOLDAT (1963) screen this Tuesday & Wednesday, September 9th & 10th, at 7:30pm & 9:50pm, respectively. Tickets: buff.ly/5uQWrJH
September 7, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Jean-Luc Godard double bill in 35mm! PIERROT LE FOU (1965) & LE PETIT SOLDAT (1963) screen this Tuesday & Wednesday, September 9th & 10th, at 7:30pm & 9:50pm, respectively. Tickets: buff.ly/5uQWrJH
Reposted by Les Tombay
Robert Mitchum in a pair of noir classics! OUT OF THE PAST (1947) & CROSSFIRE (1947) screen in 35mm next weekend, Saturday & Sunday September 13th & 14th.
September 6, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Robert Mitchum in a pair of noir classics! OUT OF THE PAST (1947) & CROSSFIRE (1947) screen in 35mm next weekend, Saturday & Sunday September 13th & 14th.
Reposted by Les Tombay
Venice Film Festival: Noah Baumbach, Yorgos Lanthimos and Werner Herzog test our belief systems with layers of nuance
Venice Film Festival: Noah Baumbach, Yorgos Lanthimos and Werner Herzog test our belief systems with layers of nuance
Several of the films that premiered at the beginning of the festival invited viewers to reflect on questions of identity.
www.lemonde.fr
August 29, 2025 at 11:13 PM
Venice Film Festival: Noah Baumbach, Yorgos Lanthimos and Werner Herzog test our belief systems with layers of nuance
Reposted by Les Tombay
August 30, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Reposted by Les Tombay
‘With a voracious appetite for adventure, he was at different times a courtier and a conquistador, a muleteer and a murderer, shuttling between the old and new worlds, and dodging countless deaths.’
Michael LaPointe on Antonio de Erauso
Michael LaPointe on Antonio de Erauso
Lust for freedom
www.the-tls.com
August 9, 2025 at 5:55 AM
‘With a voracious appetite for adventure, he was at different times a courtier and a conquistador, a muleteer and a murderer, shuttling between the old and new worlds, and dodging countless deaths.’
Michael LaPointe on Antonio de Erauso
Michael LaPointe on Antonio de Erauso
Reposted by Les Tombay
“Just as it can rapidly shift from a vast blackboard to a small postcard, Tacita Dean’s work is characterized by a vacillation between exploration and close attention.” —Sam Needleman
‘On the Brink of Erasure’ | Sam Needleman
Tacita Dean's mesmerizing, elegiac art springs from a combination of broad exploration and acute focus.
buff.ly
May 8, 2025 at 10:11 AM
“Just as it can rapidly shift from a vast blackboard to a small postcard, Tacita Dean’s work is characterized by a vacillation between exploration and close attention.” —Sam Needleman
Reposted by Les Tombay
“If the band seemed out of step with grunge, Britpop, noise rock, and the decade’s so-called alternative scene, then ‘Pavements’ is (perhaps fittingly) a little outside its own time.”
Quarantine the Past | John Semley
Pavements epitomizes the ironized 1990s aesthetic revolution and applies it to the shopworn form of the rock ’n’ roll documentary.
thebaffler.com
May 8, 2025 at 12:03 PM
“If the band seemed out of step with grunge, Britpop, noise rock, and the decade’s so-called alternative scene, then ‘Pavements’ is (perhaps fittingly) a little outside its own time.”