iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app

Barry Yourgrau
GET UPDATES FROM Barry Yourgrau
Writer & performer Barry Yourgrau is the author of Haunted Traveller. His other books of stories include Wearing Dad's Head and The Sadness of Sex , whose film version he co-wrote and starred in. He's also written (with malice and menace) for kids: Nastybook (HarperCollins).

BY further authoredkeitai shosetsu, mini-tales for serialization over Japanese cell-phone Internet.

As journalist, he's written for NY Times, Spin, Paris Review Online, The Independent (UK), Salon, Artforum, and elsewhere.

He's appeared over the years on NPR and MTV.

More at www.yourgrau.com.

Blog Entries by Barry Yourgrau

Eyewitness Istanbul May Day: Tear Gas Not Tourism

(0) Comments | Posted May 1, 2013 | 2:17 PM

The ruling-party governor of Istanbul banned May Day demonstrations today at central Taksim Square, the traditional and recently revived site of May Day gatherings. Taksim is being massively renovated. The governor claimed security concerns. Labor unions and political groups scoffed and said they'd go ahead.

The result: police lockdown of...

Read Post

Dirty Harriet

(1) Comments | Posted January 2, 2013 | 5:35 PM

I sprang for $14 and saw Zero Dark Thirty in Times Square. Just to see if the criticisms -- Glenn Greenwald's leading the way -- squared with it.

They do. Zero Dark Thirty is indeed propaganda as hopped-up quasi-doc, an exercise in embedded filmmaking. Bush, Cheney, and...

Read Post

A Remembrance In Edinburgh

(1) Comments | Posted January 9, 2012 | 11:00 AM

As my plane descended towards Scotland, I boasted to the guy next to me that the first thing I'd do in Glasgow was grab a meat pie and a pint of Tennant's 80 shilling ale. After we landed, I settled for a square-cut-sausage sandwich and a cappuccino -- life-threatening enough.

...
Read Post

Drive -- A Thriller That's One Thrilling Eyeful

(0) Comments | Posted September 15, 2011 | 1:27 PM

Nicolas Winding Refn's hard-boiled stripped-down crime thriller Drive thrums with such knockout style, I'll wager a platinum set of dual carbs on an Oscar nomination for its cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel, at the least.

The film, which opens Friday, has already garnered the...

Read Post

The Pera Palace Hotel, "Pearl of Istanbul" (PHOTOS)

(2) Comments | Posted August 22, 2011 | 10:33 AM

A pearl of Istanbul's glory days is about to mark the first anniversary of its reappearance.

The Pera Palace Hotel, born in the gilded age of the Orient Express, reopened its doors last September after a monumental feat of restoration lasting over two years at a cost of...

Read Post

The Real Legacy of El Bulli

(0) Comments | Posted July 31, 2011 | 4:49 PM

2011-07-30-MadridFusion.09023.JPG

The starship of the dining future, El Bulli, just closed its doors. So ends the restaurant phase of Mr. Wizard Ferran AdriĆ”. Phase 2.0 will be a wide-ranging research center housed in a state of the art/future recoversion of the restaurant's...

Read Post

Japan's Top Lit Translator Comes to NYC: Gangster Fables

(0) Comments | Posted December 2, 2010 | 2:59 PM

I'll have the pleasure of doing a bilingual reading on Thurs. Dec. 9 in New York with my good friend Motoyuki Shibata who is visiting from Japan.

We'll be reading at Kinokuniya Bookstore in Manhattan from my new book of stories Gangster Fables,...

Read Post

Blood Logic

(2) Comments | Posted December 1, 2010 | 1:53 PM

"Any lives they endangered, they're personally responsible for and the blood is on their hands." ~ Mike Huckabee.

The Wikileaks leaker has blood on his hands. But George Bush doesn't.

The Wikileaks leaker has blood on his hands. But Dick Cheney doesn't.

The Wikileaks leaker has blood...

Read Post

Finding Seoul Between a Hipster Bar and a Night Market

(8) Comments | Posted November 8, 2010 | 11:10 AM

*SEE PHOTOS BELOW*

In Seoul last month, my first visit, I was pleased to discover one of the coolest little bars in the whole wide world.

It's called Pub of the Blue Star. It can be found in a side alley off the northern end of Insadong-gil, the arty...

Read Post

Walking with Joy: Amsterdam

(34) Comments | Posted September 10, 2010 | 2:57 PM

I had the pleasure of a month in Amsterdam this summer (ciao to New York's hottest June-August on record). I knew Amsterdam's attractions from previous visits. But this time I realized how it's one of the world's great cities for walking (but watch out for bicycles!).

I love rambling...

Read Post

My Tale of Two World Cup Cities: Madrid vs Amsterdam

(4) Comments | Posted July 16, 2010 | 5:50 AM

I flew to Amsterdam from New York a couple of days ago, connecting through Madrid with a long layover. So happenstance offered me a paired glimpse of the two capitals from the World Cup final: red winner, orange loser.

Madrid

We had five hours in Madrid between planes. We...

Read Post

Spain of the Good Heart

(2) Comments | Posted July 12, 2010 | 10:41 AM

Spain won a final that turned almost immediately from a sporting contest to a morality play. Spain were the good guys.

Holland deserted its great legacy of Total Football and went for a disgraceful program of thuggish fouling. (Take your pick of such adjectives from a wide spectrum of

Read Post

World Cup Disappoints

(13) Comments | Posted July 1, 2010 | 9:15 AM

It ain't been a good World Cup. Some thoughts on doings in South Africa as we head to the quarterfinals:

The vuvuzelas are a nightmare. They ruin the experience and drama of a live contest. Their relentless mechanical drone produces affectless. It has a sense of purposefully drowning out the...

Read Post

World Cup of Injuries

(0) Comments | Posted June 5, 2010 | 11:42 AM

A couple months ago, I said to my friend Steve, a soccer maven of the highest order, that I thought a key factor in the World Cup would be the timely health of players. In other words, injuries. His response, looking up from his charts and tactical diagrams, as it...

Read Post

Who Abused the Child-Abusing Priests?

(6) Comments | Posted April 2, 2010 | 11:38 AM

Those who study the ways of child abuse, like the pyschologist Alice Miller, tell us that adults who abuse children were themselves usually abused as children. Abuse is a self-perpetuating noxious cycle. As you were mistreated, so will you pass that along.

So I wonder: were all...

Read Post

"Dear Sara Ms Palluns" -- A Strange Letter

(4) Comments | Posted April 1, 2010 | 12:09 PM

(This strange screed has come to my attention. I share it here. - BY)

Dear Sara Ms Palluns or Mrs Palluns,

Hi, you don't know me, but I sure know you. I have two eyes and ears and a TV--wow! That's what I gotta say. Okay, I don't have...

Read Post

Who's Really Responsible for Moscow Subway Bombings?

(1) Comments | Posted March 29, 2010 | 12:55 PM

A horrific viciousness, the Moscow subway bombings. But surely the word "suspected" or "alleged" should be applied to the "two female bombers" being trumpeted through an Associate Press story on HuffPost and elsewhere. The source for this allegation is the head of the successor organization to the KGB -- who...

Read Post

Missing from Hurt Locker Shout-Outs: Iraqis?

(3) Comments | Posted March 8, 2010 | 11:17 AM

In accepting the Best Original Screenplay for Hurt Locker last night, Mark Boal said:

"I would also like to thank and dedicate this to the troops, the 115,000 who are still in Iraq, the 120,000 in Afghanistan and the more than 30,000 wounded and 4,000 who have not...

Read Post

Talking Freeman and Damon, Mandela and Eastwood -- with John Carlin, Author of Invictus Book

(1) Comments | Posted March 6, 2010 | 12:14 PM

John Carlin is a much accomplished journalist and author who ranked as the dean of foreign correspondents (for the UK Independent) in South Africa during the last days of apartheid and the birth of the new South Africa. He was a significant witness to Mandela--and his book

Read Post

Istanbul, 2010 European Capital of Culture - Eternally, the Bosphorus

(6) Comments | Posted February 17, 2010 | 1:22 PM

Istanbul, city of fables, the bridge between West and East, is celebrating its status as a 2010 European Capital of Culture. A wealth of activities and events entice the visitor.

But I want to write now as a longtime frequenter of this city, where we have a little...

Read Post