May 16, 2012
Shorties (Connecting Winnie the Pooh to The Rolling Stones, Dan Clowes on Chicago, and more)
Vanity Fair finds a surprising connection between Winnie the Pooh and the Rolling Stones.
WBEZ's Alison Cuddy interviews cartoonist Daniel Clowes.
At the New Yorker, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lists her favorite albums.
The Book Case recommends 12 super short story collections.
am New York previews this weekend's NYC Popfest.
The Book Case recommends 20 standout books for summer.
Rocks Off! lists the 12 best insult and jab songs.
Tin House interviews author Brian Evenson about his new story collection Windeye.
Many stories here share a fruitful sense of placelessness. Can you talk a little bit about how setting informs your characters?
I do like having a setting that has very firm outlines in terms of individual elements of it—the look of a room, the shape of a house, etc., without being grounded in an actual place in the real world. I think that attention to the details of a place at the expense of a larger pinpointing of place makes readers pay attention in a different way than saying “Chicago” or “New York” or “the Midwest” or “Great Jones Street” does. That’s a kind of shorthand that allows the reader to pour their sense of a place in, and to compare it to an actual place, but I think there are two dangers with that. The first is the danger that you pull the reader partly out of the fictional world, since they’ll constantly referring to their in-head encyclopedia about what that place is like. The second is that these larger identifications of place end up often standing it for attention to careful world-building, generating a space or place for the reader to inhabit while the story is going on. I guess even when I do have an actual place in mind, as I in fact did for a number of these stories, I found it more productive to focus on what would immediately be perceived by someone coming into it rather than identifying it more geographically or culturally or specifically.
The New York Times examines the band String Cheese Incident's unique stand against Ticketmaster.
The 10 essential poets every student should encounter in school.
Arne Bellstorf talks to Rolling Stone about his new graphic novel, Baby's in Black: Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and The Beatles in Hamburg.
Bellstorf achieves wonderfully intuitive likenesses of Kirchherr and the Beatles in the book, but had to work to keep iconic images of the musicians out of his mind. "I wasn't a big Beatles fan, so I always had a picture of the late Beatles in my head, but it was interesting to learn that the Beatles started out as a rock & roll cover band in Hamburg," he says. "My drawing style is usually pretty linear-clear, very reduced and simple and not naturalistic at all, but I showed my first draft to Astrid and she just laughed and said it was very cute. She liked the noses and the funny hair, how I depicted their pretty boy look."
At NPR, author Zoe Ferraris recommends Mario Puzo's novel The Fortunate Pilgrim.
Vulture interviews Garbage's Shirley manson about the band's new album.
Talk of the Nation interviews Deborah Davis about her new Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation.
Drowned in Sound interviews Volker Bertelmann of Hauschka.
There's something I find weirdly hilarious about how you create these big, profound compositions out of these banal, everyday kind of items like Tic Tac boxes. Are you a funny guy?
You tell me! Sure, I'm funny. I like irony and melancholy, a mixture of those things. I'm sort of a responsible person – I have a family, I have things to take care of, you know? – but yeah, I like to laugh and part of that seeps through into my music, I suppose. Life is a gift and you have a certain amount of time to make the best of it. You might as well have fun, huh?
The Two-Way gathers reactions to the death of author Carlos Fuentes.
Win Hilary Mantel's novels Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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May 16, 2012
Daily Downloads (Dead Can Dance, Liturgy, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Baby Dee: "Yapapipi" [mp3] from Regifted Light
search for more Baby Dee posts at Largehearted Boy
Baby Monster: "City of Lovers" [mp3] from City of Lovers EP (out June 5th)
search for more Baby Monster posts at Largehearted Boy
Broncho: "Try Me Out Some Time" [mp3] from Can't Get Past the Lips
search for more Broncho posts at Largehearted Boy
Dead Can Dance: free and legal Live Happenings - Part IV EP [mp3]
search for more Dead Can Dance posts at Largehearted Boy
The Driftwood Singers: "Come Across the Tracks" [mp3] from The Driftwood Singers (out June 12th)
The Driftwood Singers: "Tennessee Honey" [mp3] from The Driftwood Singers (out June 12th)
search for more Driftwood Singers posts at Largehearted Boy
Les Jupes: free and legal Modern Myths album [mp3]
search for more Les Jupes posts at Largehearted Boy
Light Asylum: "Dark Allies" [mp3] from Snacky Tunes Volume 2 (out June 26th)
search for more Light Asylum posts at Largehearted Boy
Lightouts: "Push (Cure cover)" [mp3]
search for more Lightouts posts at Largehearted Boy
Riverboat Gamblers: "Comedians"] [mp3] from The Wolf You Feed (out May 22nd)
search for more Riverboat Gamblers posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Liturgy: 2012-05-04, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more Liturgy posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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May 15, 2012
Book Notes - Emily St. John Mandel "The Lola Quartet"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
With The Lola Quartet, Emily Mandel has written yet another brilliant literary novel that defies categorization. This story of four members of a high school jazz quartet and their lives afterward is a skillfully told and engaging character study, and contains one of the most satisfying endings I have read in years.
Library Journal wrote of the book:
"Evocative, intriguing, and complex, this novel is as smooth as the underbelly of a deadly, furtive reptile. Mandel’s substantial fan base will rejoice; word of mouth will bring new fans on board."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In her own words, here is Emily St. John Mandel's Book Notes music playlist for her novel, The Lola Quartet:
1. Tomaso Giovani Albinon's Trumpet Concerto in D Minor Op. 9 N° 2. Adagio, performed by Judetul Gorj Chamber Orchestra & Constantin Nicolae
There's an iTunes playlist that I keep coming back to over and over again. I've been writing to it so consistently this past year or so that I sometimes catch myself thinking of it almost as a sort of landscape—this is where I go when I write—and it starts with this song, which might be the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard in my life.
My third novel is called The Lola Quartet, and it's another one of those books that I have a hard time describing to people in terms of genre—crime fiction? Literary fiction? Both?—so whenever anyone asks I've been calling it literary noir. It's about a disgraced journalist, economic collapse, Florida's exotic wildlife problem, Django Reinhardt, a third shift waitress, a high school jazz quartet, the unreliability of memory, a seventeen-year-old who steals $121,000 from a drug dealer, fedoras, a paper airplane, foreclosed real estate and gypsy jazz.
Which probably all sounds really depressing, but there's music, a lot of music, and also a tremendous amount of hope.
I listened to this trumpet concerto a lot while I was writing it. If the sustained trumpet note at 0:42 doesn't pierce you through and through the first time you hear it, incidentally, your heart's made of stronger stuff than mine.
2. Summertime – Nina Simone cover
One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Spread your wings
And take to the sky
Until that morning,
There's nothing can hurt you…
In the new book there's a saxophonist, Jack, who plays this song over and over again in the backyard of the friend's house where he lives in South Florida. In high school he was the keyboardist and saxophonist in the book's eponymous high school jazz quartet, but that was ten years ago now. His life since high school hasn't gone very well. The song calms him a little.
There's a school of thought—and I was startled to read this—that the above lyric is about death. I've long been obsessed with this song, but I'd always thought of it as a lullaby, albeit a slightly unsettling one that's probably being sung by a nursemaid to a vastly more privileged child. ("Oh, your daddy is rich / And your mama's good-looking…") But then that lyric about rising up singing, taking to the sky, and the implication that while until that morning nothing can hurt you, after that morning all bets are off. In the Nina Simone cover, this is the moment when the piano melody—which up until this point has been muted and sedate—breaks from mere rhythm and achieves grandeur, a sequences of long runs and rippling chords. There's a sense of something coming apart.
3. "Grace" – Underworld
The waitress smiles
the music's too loud
Sasha is a waitress, and my favourite of all the characters I've written. She played drums in the quartet and then went to Florida State to study English Literature, but she didn't graduate. A decade later she is anxious, a recovering gambling addict, and while she's been working at the 24-hour diner for long enough that she could probably have any shift she wanted, she prefers the graveyard shift—there's a beautiful calm about the late-night and small-morning hours following the dinner rush, and calm is the state that Sasha most longs for.
I remember a wonderful piece of graffiti that I saw in Montreal a decade ago. It was a moment in my life when things frankly weren't going especially well—I was recently heartbroken, trying to live on $8.50 an hour, and marooned in a city where I didn't speak the right language—and one particular afternoon in a grey neighborhood I saw a line of text that someone had written on a wall: All of us are broken, but some of us have hope. I wouldn't say it changed my life or anything, but it buoyed me a little at that moment.
I think of that line of text when I think of Sasha. She's arguably a somewhat damaged character, but she leads a hopeful existence and she's created a life for herself.
4. "Shade and Honey" – Sparklehorse
The stars are dying in my chest
Till I see you again
Gavin Sasaki played trumpet in the quartet, but he was never really a serious musician. He's always had a suspicion that he was born in the wrong decade. His camera's older than he is. He wears a fedora in all seasons. The careers he dreams of are lifted from the noir films and Raymond Chandler stories he's obsessed with—if he lacks the talent to be a jazzman, he decides in high school, he'll be either a newspaperman or a private investigator. A few months before he leaves Florida to enroll in the journalism program at Columbia, his girlfriend Anna leaves town unexpectedly. He longs for her for a while, but a new life awaits.
Ten years later he's a promising journalist at a New York City newspaper, until he's fired in disgrace following a series of unforgivable lapses in his work. It's early 2009, and the world has gone dark very quickly. The economic collapse has turned an era that magazine headlines once heralded as the second gilded age into something that more closely resembles the Great Depression. The last thing Gavin wants to do is return to his hometown of Sebastian, Florida, but he's in no position to refuse when he's offered a job by his sister, Eilo, a real estate broker who deals in foreclosed homes.
Part of Eilo's job is inspecting foreclosed homes, and in one of them she came across a ten-year-old girl who looks very much like Eilo and Gavin and has the same last name as Gavin's high school girlfriend Anna, who Gavin last saw a decade ago. Gavin—a former jazz musician, a reluctant broker of foreclosed properties, obsessed with film noir and private detectives and otherwise at loose ends—begins his own private investigation in an effort to track down Anna and their apparent daughter.
5. "All I Need" – Radiohead
It's a love song, but it isn't the lyrics of this song that hold my attention so much as the bassline. There's something in this song that evokes crushing tropical heat and darkness. I listened to it constantly while I was writing and revising the new novel, and I feel that the atmosphere of the song pervades the book.
Daniel, the fourth member of the quartet, went to police academy and became a detective in the town where they all grew up.
6. Lucky You – The National
You clean yourself to meet
The man who isn't me
You're putting on a shirt
A shirt I'll never see
A short time before he lost his job in New York, Gavin's fiancée left him.
7. "Bei Mir Bist du Schöen" – Swing Dance Orchestra cover (Album: Live in New York)
I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du schöen
So kiss me, and say you understand
The Lola Quartet's signature piece. "Bei mir bist du schöen" means "to me, you are beautiful."
8. "Ten.Eleven" – Luff
Floating slowly from us
I wish you'd stay…
I have absolutely no idea what she's singing about. Candidly, the above lyrics are just about all I can make out from this song. There are other lyrics that I think I can almost hear, but I can't help but notice that these almost-heard lyrics are surreal in that way that's specific to misheard lyrics. ("Crystal-bearing presence"? "Her senses a dream"?)
The bass player moonlights as a bartender in my favourite local restaurant (Moim, 7th Avenue and Garfield in Park Slope, order the pork buns if you go), but he didn't happen to have the lyrics on his iPhone when I asked. Still, though, it's a beautiful song, and something about the atmosphere of it seems in keeping with the book. What is noir if not a specific atmosphere?
9. "Free Fallin'" – Tom Petty
In a possible sign that I've listened to this song too many times, Gavin's sister Eilo actually has a freeway running through her yard.
10. "Maybe It's Just Sleeping" – Luff
I was drowning in my sleep
Woke up shaking, scared to breathe
To leave
To leave, or stay? The question comes up several times in the plot, and with it, the parallel question that arises every so often in any given life: what kind of a person do you wish to be?
I am fascinated by questions of identity, disappearance, and escape. I believe it started at eighteen when I boarded an eastbound plane and crossed a continent alone, to start a new life as a dancer in Toronto. There were so few opportunities that interested me in the place where I grew up. I was going to be a different kind of person in a different kind of life. There was a moment in your life when you made a decision, or several, that determined who you are today.
I'm equally fascinated by the idea that any action, no matter how seemingly trivial, can have profound and unexpected consequences. In her novel Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels wrote: "We can't stop the small accident, the tiny detail that conspires into fate: the extra moment you run back for something forgotten, a moment that saves you from an accident—or causes one." You make the tiny, split-second decision to run back into the house for a forgotten sweater, in other words, and your life spins in one direction instead of another.
There's a moment in the book when Eilo, Gavin's sister, makes a small decision that will have profound consequences. Part of her job as a real estate broker is to take photographs of foreclosed homes, and she visits a house whose occupants haven't yet moved out. There's a girl of ten who has Gavin's high school girlfriend's last name and looks very much like him, and so Eilo takes a picture to show her brother. Her decision to take a photograph alters the lives of every member of the jazz quartet forever.
Emily St. John Mandel and The Lola Quartet links:
Globe and Mail review
Jenn's Bookshelves review
Library Journal review
Necessary Fiction review
Peeking Between the Pages review
Publishers Weekly review
S. Krishna's Books review
SheKnows review
Shelf Awareness review
Three Guys One Book review
Book Riot interview with the author
Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay by the author for Last Night in Montreal
Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay by the author for The Singer's Gun
The Millions essays by the author
Three Guys One Book interview with the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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Try It Before You Buy It - May 15th, 2012 Music Releases
Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal mp3 downloads and full album streams from the week's music releases:
Alan Doyle: Boy on Bridge
full album stream
Alexander Tucker: Dr Dee
Alexander Tucker: "Window Sill" [mp3]
Andre Williams and The Sadies: Night and Day
full album stream
Apollo Ghosts: Landmark
Apollo Ghosts: "What Are Your Influences" [mp3]
Beach House: Bloom
full album stream
Continue reading "Try It Before You Buy It - May 15th, 2012 Music Releases"
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Shorties (Lady Chatterly's Literary Mixtape, Richard Ford, and more)
Flavorwire creates a literary mixtape for Lady Chatterly.
Goodreads interviews author Richard Ford about his new novel Canada.
We Love DC interviews Kelley Deal of the Breeders about her new band, R.Ring.
JD: What is your idea for your new project? Your new songs "Fall Out and Fire" and "Hundred Dollar Heat" have a very nice sense of melody, as well as a spare, haunting quality; what are you conjuring?
KD: Well, since we both have other bands that we can do full band ideas with, it's really important to me to do something that was just different; one of the songs we do is a cover of "Ghosts" by Shellac – we do it on acoustic guitar, which cracks me up! I love the idea of taking that song, deconstructing whatever song it is, and finding what is it that makes that song move, what is it that makes that song sing, what are the sweet spots, what are not, and understanding it – I don't know, I just find music fascinating.
The Christian Science Monitor recommends 15 summer 2012 novels.
On KCRW, The LA Review of Books also recommends summer reading.
Stream Gossip's new album, A Joyful Noise (out May 22nd), at the band's website.
Paste lists the 70 best albums from the 1970s.
All Things Considered interviews Rafe Sagarin about his new book, Learning From the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters, and Disease.
So So Gay interviews the band Tu Fawning.
So So Gay: How would you describe your music?
Tu Fawning: Our music tries to gather many influences under one roof, from dark pop music to antique field recordings, psychedelic folk to dirty dancehall. We take a certain devious delight in evading easy description, flummoxing record store categorisation and forcing music reviewers into Rorschach test free-association.
The New Yorker has launched a new books blog, The Page Turner.
All Things Considered gathers remembrances of bassist Duck Dunn.
At the Man Booker Prize website, Hilary mantel offers tips for writing historical fiction along with a recommended reading list.
Win Hilary Mantel's novels Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Cymbals Eat Guitars, An ATO Records Sampler Album, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Ben Fisher: "Dublin Blues Pt. 2" [mp3] from Roanoke
search for more Ben Fisher posts at Largehearted Boy
Le Days: free and legal (name your price) Dead People on Tape album [mp3]
search for more Le Days posts at Largehearted Boy
Letterist: "Five Alarm" [mp3] from Solace and Gold
search for more Letterist posts at Largehearted Boy
Little, Big: "Best Death Party" [mp3] from Pins and Narwahls
search for more Little, Big posts at Largehearted Boy
Solvents: "Unslaved and Unrenowned (Mexico demo)" [mp3] from The World Is Not A Vampire: Lost, Demos, Outtakes, Unheard
search for more Solvents posts at Largehearted Boy
The Static Jacks: free and legal Get a Spray Tan EP [mp3]
search for more Static Jacks posts at Largehearted Boy
Team Me: "Weathervanes and Chemicals" [mp3] from To the Treetops
search for more Team Me posts at Largehearted Boy
Various Artists: 16-track ATO Records Spring Sampler compilation [mp3]
Violens: "Totally True" [mp3] from True
search for more Violens posts at Largehearted Boy
Wood Ear: "Leave My Walls" [mp3] from Steeple Vultures EP (out June 12)
search for more Wood Ear posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Cymbals Eat Guitars: 202-04-03, New York [mp3]
search for more Cymbals Eat Guitars posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
May 14, 2012
This Week's Interesting Music Releases - May 15th, 2012
Occupy This Album is a 4-CD box set that contains 99 tracks from 99 artists in a variety of music genres. Patti Smith, Lucinda Williams, Ani DiFranco, and others contribute to this ambitious project that benefits the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Beach House's Bloom, The Green Pajamas' Summer of Lust, and Plushgun's Waste Away are also albums that I can wholly recommend.
If you can't wait for the domestic My Bloody Valentine remastered album to arrive, these UK imports from the band may suffice: EPs: 1988-1991 and Isn't Anything.
What new releases are you picking up this week? What can you recommend? Have I left anything noteworthy off the list?
This week's interesting music releases:
Alexander Tucker: Third Mouth
Andre Williams and The Sadies: Night and Day
Apollo Ghosts: Landmark
Bassnectar: Vava Voom [vinyl]
Beach House: Bloom
Best Coast: The Only Place
Billy and Dolly: Dally Bon Idyll
Carrousel: 27 rue de mi'chelle
Birthmark: Antibodies
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band: One of My Kind [dvd]
Cornershop: Urban Turban
Craft Spells: Gallery EP
The Cribs: In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull
Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven Expanded
Esperanza Spalding: Radio Music Society [vinyl]
Garbage: Not Your Kind of People
Godsmack: Live and Inspired
The Green Pajamas: Summer of Lust
Guided By Voices: Class Clown Spots a UFO
Hands: Massive Context
Hot Water Music: Exister
Japandroids: The House That Heaven Built
Josephine Foster and Victor Herrero: Perlas
Lee Bains III: There Is a Bomb in Gilead
Little, Big: Pins and Narwahls
Madonna: Hard Candy (reissue) (box set) [vinyl]
Meiko: The Bright Side
Mewithoutyou: Ten Stories
MV & EE: Space Homestead
My Bloody Valentine: EPs: 1988-1991 (remastered)
My Bloody Valentine: Isn't Anything (remastered)
Parlovr: Kook Soul
Plankton War: Spirits
Plushgun: Waste Away
Richard Hawley: Standing at the Sky's Edge
Santana: Shape Shifter
Say Anything: ...Is a Real Boy (reissue) [vinyl]
Shadows Fall: Fire from the Sky
Simian Mobile Disco: Unpatterns
Sinead O'Connor: How About I Be Me (And You be You) [vinyl]
Slugabed: Time Team
Squarepusher: Ufabulum
Tenacious D: Rize of the Fenix
Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die [vinyl]
The Tubes: Ouside Inside (reissue)
Tu Fawning: A Monument
Various Artists: Glee: The Music, Season Three - The Graduation Album
Various Artists: Occupy This Album (4-CD box set)
Violens: TRUE
White Fence: Vol. 1 and 2: Family Perfume
Willie Nelson: Heroes
also at Largehearted Boy:
other weekly CD & DVD release lists
100 online sources for free and legal music downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (music from this week's CD releases)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
This Week's Interesting DVD Releases - May 15th, 2012
Norwegian Wood, Tranh Anh Hung's adaptation of the Haruki Murakami novel of the same name, is in stores tomorrow.
The Criterion Collection releases Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich.
We Were Here is a documentary about AIDS that revisits the San Francisco of the '80s and '90s. Windfall explores the positives and negatives of wind turbines.
Inexpensive Blu-ray editions of New York Stories and The Odessa File are also available.
What new releases are you picking up or adding to your streaming queue this week?
This week's interesting DVD releases:
1900 (Three-Disc Collector's Edition)
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: Season Two
Albert Nobbs
American Masters: Margaret Mitchell - American Rebel
Being John Malkovich (Criterion Collection)
Book of Bantorra Collection 1
Cat in the Hat: Miles & Miles of Reptiles
Cat Planet Cuties (Asobi Ni Iku Yo!) - Complete Series (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Chained: Code 207
Chronicle
D Grayman - The Complete Second Season
The Devil Inside
Diana Ross:Live in Central Park
Dragonslayer
eCupid
Fantastic Adventures of Unico
Father of the Bride: 20th Anniversary Edition -Two Movie Collection (Three-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)
Flashpoint: The Fourth Season
Golf in the Kingdom
Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods - 2-Disc Special Edition
The Grey
Hazel: The Complete Third Season
Hell On Wheels - The Complete First Season
Houston Astros 50th Anniversary Collector s Edition
Junkyard Dog
Kinyarwanda
Mayday! - Seasons 3 and 4
Michael
Mortuary
My Perestroika
New York Stories [Blu-ray]
Norwegian Wood
The Odessa File [Blu-ray]
One For the Money
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
Rampart
Riverboat: The Complete Series
Scooby-Doo: 13 Spooky Tales Around the World
Something Ventured
The Universe: Season Six
The Vans Warped Tour:No Room For Rockstars
Victorious: The Complete Second Season
Wages Of Sin
The Walking Tall Trilogy
We Were Here
Windfall
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous weekly music & DVD release lists
Soundtracked (directors and composers discuss their film's soundtrack)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties (Rock Novels Worth Reading, Stream the New Mount Eerie Album, and more)
Three Guys One Book lists rock novels worth reading.
NPR is streaming the new Mount Eerie album, Clear Moon (out May 22nd).
Author Mo Willems remembers Maurice Sendak at Public Radio International.
The Boston Globe interviews singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle.
Q. The new album makes a subtle shift to some Memphis soul influences. From a creative perspective, did you feel like you needed to shake things up?
A. For me personally it was just another step in the process. When I made my first EP, I wanted to do it solo so that I could have that experience. I made my honky-tonk record with "The Good Life," so I exorcised those demons. I got a little more singer-songwriter and folky on "Midnight at the Movies" and a little more rockabilly on "Harlem River Blues." I've always considered myself a Southern music preservationist. I've made my way through the various kinds of my music my home state [Tennessee] has to offer.
The Guardian offers tips on writing flash fiction.
The London Evening Standard interviews Claire Boucher of Grimes.
Literary critic Michael Dirda answers questions from the Reddit community.
On sale for $4.99 today at Amazon MP3, tUnE-yArDs' w h o k i l l my favorite album of 2011.
The Millions examines all six novels that are finalists for this year's Nebula Award.
Drowned in Sound interviews members of The Hives about the band's forthcoming album, Lex Hives (out June 5th).
Weekend Edition interviews Peter Carey about his new novel The Chemistry of Tears.
On the use of a dual narrative:
"I was interested in the present, and I was interested in the past. And the only reason I'm ever really interested about the past is because of its effect on the present. And although part of this book is set in the 19th century, with characters living in the 19th century, we, too, are living in the consequences of the 19th century. So, it's really quite simple in this case. I mean, you have one character who's living in 2010 and one character who's living in 1858, and these are ways to know them directly, to know them from inside."
NPR is streaming Kimbra's new album, Vows (out May 22nd).
Gary Krist talks to All Things Considered about his new book City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago.
Paste lists seven songs inspired by the Beach Boys.
Riff Raf interviews singer-songwriter and author Alina Simone.
The Observer profiles singer-songwriter Regina Spektor.
Weekend Edition interviews Gideon Lewis-Kraus about his new memoir A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful.
What 50 famous writers want us to know about the writing process.
Win Hilary Mantel's novels Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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Daily Downloads (Bear in Heaven, Jaill, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Alexander Tucker: "Window Sill" [mp3] from Third Mouth (out May 15th)
search for more Alexander Tucker posts at Largehearted Boy
Bear in Heaven: "Sinful Nature" [mp3] from I Love You It's Cool
search for more Bear in Heaven posts at Largehearted Boy
Benji Cossa: "Nights on Broadway (Bee Gees cover)" [mp3]
search for more Benji Cossa posts at Largehearted Boy
Calico Beach Party: free and legal Calico Beach Party EP [mp3]
search for more Calico Beach Party posts at Largehearted Boy
Hard Drugs: "The Hardest Part" [mp3] from Party Foreverer (out June 19th)
search for more Hard Drugs posts at Largehearted Boy
Jaill: "Perfect Ten" [mp3] from Traps (out June 12th)
search for more Jaill posts at Largehearted Boy
Mike Scheidt: "In Your Light" [mp3] from Stay Awake (out June 12th)
search for more Mike Scheidt posts at Largehearted Boy
The Modern Airline: "Accelerated Evolution" [mp3] from The Modern Airline (out September 4th)
search for more Modern Airline posts at Largehearted Boy
Plankton War: "Fabric of Life" [mp3] from Spirits (out May 15th)
search for more Plankton War posts at Largehearted Boy
Points to Stars: free and legal Hepburn EP [mp3]
search for more Points to Stars posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
The Bama Lamas: Epitonic Saki session [mp3]
search for more Bama Lamas posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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May 13, 2012
LHB Weekly Wrap-Up - May 13th
A list of the past week's Largehearted Boy features:
Book Notes: (authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates to their book)
Alyson Hagy for her novel Boleto
Augusten Burroughs for his book This Is How
Jac Jemc for her novel My Only Wife
Jennifer Miller for her novel The Year of the Gadfly
Judith Kitchen for her memoir Half In Shade: Family, Photography, and Fate
Nick Arvin for his novel The Reconstructionist
T.M. Wolf for his novel Sound
Win Hilary Mantel's novels Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Weekly New Book Recommendations:
Atomic Books Comics Preview (recommended new comics and graphic novels)
Largehearted Word (recommended new books)
New Music Recommendations:
Try It Before You Buy It (full album streams and mp3s from this week's music releases)
The Week's Interesting Music Releases
New DVD recommendations:
The Week's Interesting DVD Releases
And of course, the daily music and news posts:
Daily Downloads (10 free and legal mp3 downloads every day, plus links to free live recordings online)
Shorties (news & links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
also at Largehearted Boy:
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines
Atomic Books Comics Preview
Book Notes
Book Reviews
Contests / Giveaways
Daily Downloads
Largehearted Word
Lists
music & DVD release lists
musician/author Interviews
Note Books
Soundtracked
Try It Before You Buy It
Why Obama
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Shorties (Patti Smith, John Irving, and more)
All Songs Considered is streaming a new song by Patti Smith, from her forthcoming album Banga (out June 5th).
Weekend Edition interviews John Irving about his new novel In One Person.
On the similarities between wrestling and writing
"Many of my wrestling friends find it odd that I'm a writer, just as many of my writer friends in the writing world find it odd that I was — for so many years — a wrestler and wrestling coach. But they seem very similar to me. In both cases you have to be devoted to tireless repetition and small details. For many more hours than you will be in competition, you will be with a nameless workout partner — a sparring partner, drilling the same outside single-legged dive, inside collar tie — hundreds upon thousands of times. Well, how many times as a writer do you — or should you — rewrite the same sentence, the same paragraph, the same chapter? If you're good, you never tire of that."
Read an excerpt from the book.
Flavorwire lists the 10 most genuinely disturbing songs about mothers.
The Observer shares an interactive map of 100 British National Trust walks, including a collection of literary treks.
The Independent shares a "blagger's guide" to author Daphne du Maurier.
At Paste, 20 musicians discuss their college majors.
The Guardian lists the 10 best historical novels.
Jason Ringenberg of Jason and the Scorchers talks to the Tulsa World about playing children's music under the moniker Farmer Jason.
"It's messy, it gets the bills paid ... it's extremely rewarding, and there is absolutely no pretense to any of it."
The New Inquiry interviews poet Eileen Myles.
The Geek Files points out a new comic paired with the new Mystery Jets album.
"This is a great new venue for comics," Davis added. "Blurring the media in this fashion creates a new dimension to read comic books and to immerse yourself into the music."
The New York Times examines readers' expectations in an e-book era.
Authors are now pulling the literary equivalent of a double shift, churning out short stories, novellas or even an extra full-length book each year.
They are trying to satisfy impatient readers who have become used to downloading any e-book they want at the touch of a button, and the publishers who are nudging them toward greater productivity in the belief that the more their authors’ names are out in public, the bigger stars they will become.
Win Hilary Mantel's novels Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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