Mark Coleman
@markcoleman.bsky.social
writer, reader, diehard New Yorker, chief cook and bottle-washer
Cookie Mueller, who died today in 1989, was a singular talent. Her autobiographical short stories still ring funny and true. She packed a lot of living into her tragically foreshortened life.
markcoleman57.medium.com/book-review-...
markcoleman57.medium.com/book-review-...
Book Review: Paging Dr. Mueller
Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black: Collected Stories by Cookie Mueller
markcoleman57.medium.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Cookie Mueller, who died today in 1989, was a singular talent. Her autobiographical short stories still ring funny and true. She packed a lot of living into her tragically foreshortened life.
markcoleman57.medium.com/book-review-...
markcoleman57.medium.com/book-review-...
writing an essay about Nobel Prize winning author Patrick Modiano; each of the half-dozen novels I’ve read is haunted by a fraught period in young adulthood I call The Silver Summer
November 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM
writing an essay about Nobel Prize winning author Patrick Modiano; each of the half-dozen novels I’ve read is haunted by a fraught period in young adulthood I call The Silver Summer
“a dish of what they called ‘river prawns’ which I would call signal crayfish (invasive little bastards)…tasted of boiled spiders.” we need this kind of clear-eyed and iron-stomached criticism in the US
www.thetimes.com/life-style/f...
www.thetimes.com/life-style/f...
Maido review — The world’s best restaurant? It was dismal
Why do critics keep celebrating and rewarding places like Maido in Lima? I hated it
www.thetimes.com
October 29, 2025 at 8:42 PM
“a dish of what they called ‘river prawns’ which I would call signal crayfish (invasive little bastards)…tasted of boiled spiders.” we need this kind of clear-eyed and iron-stomached criticism in the US
www.thetimes.com/life-style/f...
www.thetimes.com/life-style/f...
photo by Tom Duncan: 48 Ninth Avenue in 1973. The 14th Street corner looks just as desolate as it did when I lived there 1981-85. The ground-floor diner where I bought coffee every morning was a Luncheonette and the building hadn’t yet been painted white. Otherwise exactly the same. Eerie.
October 28, 2025 at 12:19 AM
photo by Tom Duncan: 48 Ninth Avenue in 1973. The 14th Street corner looks just as desolate as it did when I lived there 1981-85. The ground-floor diner where I bought coffee every morning was a Luncheonette and the building hadn’t yet been painted white. Otherwise exactly the same. Eerie.
One of my Rolling Stone articles that never went online was a 1997 piece about rising R&B singers; I remember D’Angelo’s interview as a highlight, wish I could go back and look for clues about his subsequent career. RIP
October 15, 2025 at 2:47 AM
One of my Rolling Stone articles that never went online was a 1997 piece about rising R&B singers; I remember D’Angelo’s interview as a highlight, wish I could go back and look for clues about his subsequent career. RIP
Just when I thought Greil Marcus has lost his touch he comes up with this
October 10, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Just when I thought Greil Marcus has lost his touch he comes up with this
Mick Jagger’s theme song for Slow Horses is the best Rolling Stones related music since “Start Me Up” in 1981
October 10, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Mick Jagger’s theme song for Slow Horses is the best Rolling Stones related music since “Start Me Up” in 1981
“What was once the promise that food could be a source of knowledge, culture, and joy now feels more like the pressure that every meal must be the best one, that the risk of trying something unvetted — once the whole point — is too great.”
www.eater.com/food-culture...
www.eater.com/food-culture...
Nobody Wants to Be a Foodie
How “foodie” went from badge of honor to cringey term to pejorative smear and all the way back again.
www.eater.com
October 8, 2025 at 7:15 PM
“What was once the promise that food could be a source of knowledge, culture, and joy now feels more like the pressure that every meal must be the best one, that the risk of trying something unvetted — once the whole point — is too great.”
www.eater.com/food-culture...
www.eater.com/food-culture...
“More than any single institution, the Claremont faction has generated a philosophy for Trump’s second administration, and its ongoing attempt to radically redefine America.”
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...
Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk and the Claremonsters
Meet the philosophical cabal remaking America
www.newstatesman.com
October 4, 2025 at 6:11 PM
“More than any single institution, the Claremont faction has generated a philosophy for Trump’s second administration, and its ongoing attempt to radically redefine America.”
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...
www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...
Disturbing. This young man is profoundly troubled - lost. Not sure why his book was published let alone reviewed at length in the NYT.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/b...
Bob Dylan Might Be His Dad. But the Star of His Book Is His Mom.
www.nytimes.com
October 4, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Disturbing. This young man is profoundly troubled - lost. Not sure why his book was published let alone reviewed at length in the NYT.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/b...
Would you read a book of loosely linked essays and stories about NYC during the early 1980s? Let me know markcoleman57.medium.com/my-im-modest...
My (Im)Modest Book Proposal
STEP LIVELY (and watch the closing doors): Onboarding NYC 1980–85
markcoleman57.medium.com
September 19, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Would you read a book of loosely linked essays and stories about NYC during the early 1980s? Let me know markcoleman57.medium.com/my-im-modest...
Living in the USA is so dark right now I wish Gary Indiana was still around to write one of his “untrue crime novels” about what we’re all going through
markcoleman57.medium.com/against-nost...
markcoleman57.medium.com/against-nost...
AGAINST NOSTALGIA: Gary Indiana’s Unsentimental Journey
Author Gary Indiana in 1989, photo by Robert Mapplethorpe
markcoleman57.medium.com
September 15, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Living in the USA is so dark right now I wish Gary Indiana was still around to write one of his “untrue crime novels” about what we’re all going through
markcoleman57.medium.com/against-nost...
markcoleman57.medium.com/against-nost...
When I went to elementary school in the 1960s we had civil defense drills every month but nuclear war seems less threatening than active shooters, I can’t imagine being a kid today
August 28, 2025 at 12:11 AM
When I went to elementary school in the 1960s we had civil defense drills every month but nuclear war seems less threatening than active shooters, I can’t imagine being a kid today
what gets lost in this mostly spot-on essay is the gap between crankiness and nuanced criticism. Like so much public discourse these days reviews don’t have to be a binary: positive or negative
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge
Music writers were once known for being much crankier than the average listener. What happened?
www.newyorker.com
August 26, 2025 at 1:08 AM
what gets lost in this mostly spot-on essay is the gap between crankiness and nuanced criticism. Like so much public discourse these days reviews don’t have to be a binary: positive or negative
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Lurker is an astonishing movie, totally original take on the sick twisted bond between celebrities and their retinues
August 24, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Lurker is an astonishing movie, totally original take on the sick twisted bond between celebrities and their retinues
No mention of Sonic Youth's "Catholic Block" but otherwise an original look at the Church of Rome's cultural influence during the 1980s. alternate title: The *Other* Religious Right
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Among the Blasphemers | Gerald Howard
For at least a year, the mail room in Penguin’s New York headquarters utilized a bomb-sniffing dog—named, for some unknown reason, Yalta—to screen packages. On one especially unnerving Saturday the fe...
www.nplusonemag.com
August 13, 2025 at 7:52 PM
No mention of Sonic Youth's "Catholic Block" but otherwise an original look at the Church of Rome's cultural influence during the 1980s. alternate title: The *Other* Religious Right
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
Proud to announce The Prospector is part of this week’s Memoir Monday roundup. Check out editor Sari Botton’s Memoirland Substack. It’s a treasure chest of personal essays.The Prospector was my first friend and mentor in NYC; he mastered the lost art of urban scavenging.
medium.com/@markcoleman...
medium.com/@markcoleman...
The Prospector
Jeff was a garbage broker, a speculator in recyclables, a trash tout. He picked investments out of the flotsam and jetsam left in the…
medium.com
August 11, 2025 at 7:12 PM
Proud to announce The Prospector is part of this week’s Memoir Monday roundup. Check out editor Sari Botton’s Memoirland Substack. It’s a treasure chest of personal essays.The Prospector was my first friend and mentor in NYC; he mastered the lost art of urban scavenging.
medium.com/@markcoleman...
medium.com/@markcoleman...
HB Andy Warhol who would’ve turned 97 today. Celebrate accordingly but don’t get too excited markcoleman57.medium.com/andy-me-livi...
Andy & Me: Living Vicariously Through The Andy Warhol Diaries
Andy and I stood near each other at a Manhattan night club several times during the Eighties. And how many thousands of people can say…
markcoleman57.medium.com
August 6, 2025 at 9:58 PM
HB Andy Warhol who would’ve turned 97 today. Celebrate accordingly but don’t get too excited markcoleman57.medium.com/andy-me-livi...
“His main gig and true calling, his métier, was scavenging. Jeff was a garbage broker, a speculator in recyclables, a trash tout. He picked investments out of the staggering array of flotsam and jetsam left to rot in the city streets.”
markcoleman57.medium.com/the-prospect...
markcoleman57.medium.com/the-prospect...
The Prospector
Jeff was a garbage broker, a speculator in recyclables, a trash tout. He picked investments out of the flotsam and jetsam left in the…
markcoleman57.medium.com
July 31, 2025 at 8:31 PM
“His main gig and true calling, his métier, was scavenging. Jeff was a garbage broker, a speculator in recyclables, a trash tout. He picked investments out of the staggering array of flotsam and jetsam left to rot in the city streets.”
markcoleman57.medium.com/the-prospect...
markcoleman57.medium.com/the-prospect...
I was never a metalhead but this review of the Ozzy/Randy Rhoads Tribute album was always one of my favorites. “You can’t kill rock & roll”
web.archive.org/web/20060828...
web.archive.org/web/20060828...
Rolling Stone : Ozzy Osbourne: Tribute : Music Reviews
This is a definitive heavy-metal album, a live double set from the geek godfather of the genre. Yet it's also, well, quite touching. Tribute really is a tribute;...
web.archive.org
July 24, 2025 at 9:35 PM
I was never a metalhead but this review of the Ozzy/Randy Rhoads Tribute album was always one of my favorites. “You can’t kill rock & roll”
web.archive.org/web/20060828...
web.archive.org/web/20060828...
“Madness loves the flat, pure telling, which the sane cannot abide. This was the power Plath had discovered – towering, revolving, in brass feathers and fire. It was not that she really flew. It was that she had gone underground but did not stay there.”
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Patricia Lockwood · Arrayed in Shining Scales: Solving Sylvia Plath
I was under no illusion that The Collected Prose would solve the mystery, or lay to rest the lie, of how Plath was...
www.lrb.co.uk
July 5, 2025 at 3:02 PM
“Madness loves the flat, pure telling, which the sane cannot abide. This was the power Plath had discovered – towering, revolving, in brass feathers and fire. It was not that she really flew. It was that she had gone underground but did not stay there.”
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
“I think we are all well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us…”
- Joan Didion
- Joan Didion
June 25, 2025 at 8:10 PM
“I think we are all well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us…”
- Joan Didion
- Joan Didion
Honored to be included in this week’s Memoir Monday, curated by savvy editor Sari Botton. Link to essay about my big teenage misadventure in replies. Thanks!
June 23, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Honored to be included in this week’s Memoir Monday, curated by savvy editor Sari Botton. Link to essay about my big teenage misadventure in replies. Thanks!
aka why I’ve always avoided high school reunions
medium.com/@markcoleman...
medium.com/@markcoleman...
Bicentennial Bust: How I (Barely) Survived Catholic High School
Front entrance to St Xavier High School Cincinnati, Ohio, sometime in the 20th Century
medium.com
June 22, 2025 at 8:08 PM
aka why I’ve always avoided high school reunions
medium.com/@markcoleman...
medium.com/@markcoleman...
“We have children, some of us, in order to be fully ourselves, then we discover a mystery beyond all that, of how hard it is to be responsible for somebody else.”
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Andrew O’Hagan · Air-Conditioned Unease: Joan Didion on the Couch
We can feel imprisoned by other people’s versions of who we are, especially if their urge is to blame. On one hand,...
www.lrb.co.uk
June 16, 2025 at 10:22 PM
“We have children, some of us, in order to be fully ourselves, then we discover a mystery beyond all that, of how hard it is to be responsible for somebody else.”
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...