Great interview. A bit too conservative for my tastes, and he is obviously very much into money and moneyed people, which is another major turnoff to me, but besides that, I found this interview very much worth listening to. Very smart guy and talks about a lot of things of relevance to this blog.
Ray Sawhill worked as an arts and culture reporter for Newsweek. He has also written for Salon.com and blogs at Uncouth Reflections as Paleo Retiree. He splits his time between New York and Santa Barbara.
Topics include:
How Robert and Ray both have personal connections to Santa Barbara and how the city is almost too idyllic.
Crime fiction novelist Ross Macdonald whose work captures Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara as a place with strict zoning laws that was modeled after Andalusia in Spain.
The contrast between life in Santa Barbara and New York City.
How New York City has changed in Ray’s time there in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
How cuisine is the one area that has seen increased innovation in New York.
Ray’s cameo in the film Exposed set in New York in 1983 staring Nastassja Kinski.
How films such as Exposed and Taxi Driver are documentaries for New York in that era.
The new peculiarly-shaped skyscrapers going up in New York today.
“See through buildings” where wealthy foreigners are buying up real estate in New York and leaving them empty.
How Ray is drawn to architecture because it is art you can experience and changes the world in a way that regular art doesn’t.
How most of the general public has little input and interest in architecture.
How places without zoning laws tend to lack any aesthetic value.
How the main rule in urbanism is not to do anything that harms the city.
Art Deco and how it succeeds in bringing tradition into one.
Architectural Revivalism which seeks to recreate older forms of architecture
Robert Stark’s Artwork.
Ray’s work at Newsweek as a reporters covering art, culture, literature, film, and theater.
How Ray’s most significant interviews were with writers Philip Roth and John Updike, filmmakers Francis Coppola and Robert Altman and architect Christopher Alexander.
How conservatives tend to avoid culture and leave that domain to the Left.
English Philosopher Roger Scruton as a model for a cultured conservative.
Front Porch Anarchist Bill Kauffman.
New Urbanism.
The The Retro Cocktail and Locavore movements.
James Howard Kunstler.
Ray’s involvement with Environmentalism and Bioregional Anarchism.
How the environmental movement abandoned the overpopulation issue due to political correctness and mass immigration.
The Alternative Right.
How the real political divide is between globalism and decentralization
Cultural trends and how Ray views himself as a cultural radar.
The trend towards a focus on muscles for young men and men are more self-conscious about their bodies.
The value of pleasure and leisure.
Erotica and the debate about what’s art and what’s pornography.
Controversial nude photographer Jock Sturges, who Ray interviewed.
How society is a taking contradictory paths towards lewdness and prudishness.
Students Still Sweat, They Just Don’t Shower.
How having taste and style has become equated with homosexuality.
Young women moving to New York City because of Sex and the City.
Sex Scenes which is a raunchy, satirical audio entertainment that Ray created with his wife playwright Polly Frost. Check it out.
