The Electric Typewriter

As chosen by Meghan Daum

5 timeless essays selected by LA Times columnist, essayist and author of 3 excellent books, Meghan Daum:

The End of Gay Culture, by Andrew Sullivan, The New Republic, 2005 - Does assimilation mean the death of disitinctive gay culture?

The Devil in Long Island, by Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Times Magazine, 1993 - Between NYC and the upscale weekend retreats of the hamptons lies an island full of dark secrets.

And a few you’ll need to break out your credit card to read:

The Junket by Mike Albo, an Amazon Kindle single, 2011 - “A gimlet-eyed account of the back-biting media scene, a glimpse into the inner workings of the fashion crowd, and a candid portrait of what it takes to survive as a writer in today’s chattering and watchful New York City.”

I Shit My Pants in the South of France, by Jonathan Ames - This one pretty much does what it says on the tin.

My Heroin Christmas, by Terry Castle - An author explores her addiction to honesty in literature over a Christmas spent absorbed in the autobiography of jazz legend Art Pepper.

by Meghan Daum

The boy in the piano-key scarf definitely has music as his bag. He may not yet have the actual tote bag, but the hat, the Billy Joel, the tacit euphoria brought on by a sexual awakening that, for him, centers entirely around band, is all he needs to be delivered into the unmistakable realm that is Music Is My Bagdom.

by Meghan Daum

One morning I logged on to my America Online account to find a message under the heading “is this the real meghan daum?” It came from someone with the screen name PFSlider. The body of the message consisted of five sentences, entirely in lowercase letters, of perfectly turned flattery…

by Meghan Daum

It was the summer of 1987, and I was in the process of learning how to drive a stick shift. My father is a composer and he allowed me to drive him to Manhattan in our Plymouth Horizon in order to drop off some lead sheets to a music copyist he worked with. The music copyist lived on West End Avenue and 104th Street, in a modest four-room apartment in a 1920s-era building. The moment the rickety elevator lurched onto the sixth floor and the copyist opened the door, life for me was never the same.