Matthew Barmack

“They wanted the world to always have countries devoid of progress to take them back in time this way.”
― Annie Ernaux, The Years

“Even the 70s lime-green polyester world of the Hunter S. Thompson book is gone. It’s more like a sprawling city constructed by set designers of an 80s hair metal video, like the Hard Rock was a disease that has now spread and multiplied over the entire town.”
― Joel Gion, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time with The Brian Jonestown Massacre

“Eighth Street on St. Mark’s Place has a flush feel with breezy trees and neighborhood stoops with networks of fire escapes above beautifully natural hip people of every stripe striding the streets. It feels like Sesame Street got an expensive new outdoor set upgrade filmed in widescreen Technicolor.”
― Joel Gion, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time with The Brian Jonestown Massacre

“So it was that in the middle of middle age, Julian found himself greeting each dawn with pessimism, and each evening reaping the dubious reward of having proved himself correct. Each day he felt less and less valued, more and more irrelevant, a progression that looked inexorable.”
― Chris Pavone, The Doorman: A Novel