Interview with Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)
Whom do you consider the best writers — novelists, songwriters, journalists, poets — working today?
For poetry, Ariana Reines and Elaine Kahn. They’re both risk takers. For music, I like Stephen Malkmus, and also Sibylle Baier. I really love Baier’s sweetly melancholy melodies. She wrote one record, and it’s stunningly beautiful. Hilton Als is so intuitive — he writes from the heart and the head at the same time. I’m a recent convert to Joan Didion, whom I’ve been meaning to read for years and finally got around to. She’s a woman writing in a man’s world, but her voice isn’t girlish, but it’s not a man’s either. How cool is it that Céline chose her for their new ad campaign? I want those sunglasses.