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June 9, 2006
Shorties
My short-but-sweet contribution to Coudal Partners' Field-Tested Books has been posted.
The Lovely Feathers' Richard Yanofsky talks to the Boston Globe.
``We're pretty confident that if you like the music on the album and you come out to see us, you'll have a great time," Yanofsky says. ``There's still energy on the CD. It's not like the CD is morose and the live show is ecstatic. You listen to the CD and you understand the music, you understand everything."
The Tapes 'n Tapes backlash mildly continues in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The album baldly brandishes a series of unsurprising influences (Pavement! The Pixies! Modest Mouse!), but despite or perhaps because of this, it has managed to set abuzz the overheated, overhyping blogosphere. And it's earned T 'n T the dubious distinction of being labeled this year's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Author Orson Scott Card talks to the Roanoke Times.
On politics in his fiction:
My fans can take my political views as they wish. They won't find them in my fiction, except insofar as my fiction reflects the underlying principles I use to make sense of the real world, too. My characters have political opinions, but they are rarely my political views. I follow the Polonius rule in my fiction -- if I ever find myself tempted to come up with clever, truthful sayings, I put them in the mouth of a character who comes off as an idiot. If I ever let my fiction be propaganda, then my career as a fiction writer is over.
Popmatters interviews singer-songwriter Allison Moorer.
Since you're talking about writing songs, how do you write songs?
However I can. They start all different ways for me. Sometimes it'll be a musical thing, sometimes it'll be a phrase. "Take It So Hard" was born out of a rant. That song is kind of me taking my own inventory, and saying, "Lighten up." It came out of a rant. I just started typing into my laptop one day and I thought, "I don't know what this is, but I'm going to save it." I was going back through some stuff one day and I was like, "Oh..." and I had this musical idea and I put them together and there you go. It's also one of my favorite tracks on the record.
Author Saul Bellow's papers will reside at the University of Chicago.
The film version of Michael Chabon's debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh will film in Pittsburgh. Since the book is one of my favorites, I'll probably skip the movie, but this is good news.
It will star Max Minghella, an up-and-coming actor who is the son of "The English Patient" director Anthony Minghella. He will play the lead alongside previously announced actors Peter Sarsgaard and Sienna Miller.
A star of "Art School Confidential," Max Minghella was George Clooney's teenage son in "Syriana" and the religiously rebellious brother of the champion speller in "Bee Season," also featuring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
Stylus lists the top ten post-Britpop flops.
MP3.com lists small mp3 players as alternatives to the iPod nan.
Physorg.com explains "what makes a song catchy."
There may be cognitive reasons behind a tune's appeal, he suggested. Referring to a study done at Dartmouth College last year, Duffy explained that "MRIs show that a catchy song makes the auditory part of the brain 'itch,' and the only way the itch can be scratched is by listening to the song."
"Test subjects were played snippets of familiar songs that had segments removed. Participants said their brains filled in the gaps -- in fact, they 'heard' the removed parts of the songs in their heads," Duffy continued. "This was especially true in songs that had lyrics -- as well as songs which evoked strong visual memories in participants."
About.com lists the top 10 reading lists for kids and teens.
The two-part series on soccer and music on Zoilus is worth reading, especially with the World Cup starting today.
"We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties," said Mr Jamieson, whose organisation represents the UK's record labels.
San Diego Serenade is giving away two tickets to the Mountain Goats' June 15th show.
