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October 22, 2006
Shorties
Members of Tennessee indie band Glossary talk to the Tennessean about being "post-collegiate rockers."
Maybe the toughest part of trudging through starving artistry into your 30s is that you tend to make art — like Glossary's — that beams the slightly more mature sensibilities of the 30-something. And reaching the audience that relates to that, Kneiser figures, can be tricky.
''Music has abandoned (them) a little bit, to be post-college, to be late-20s/early 30s,'' he says. ''Even most of the bigger indie-rock bands appeal to a younger audience, and obviously pop music altogether has abandoned that age. But there's millions of people that age out there who want good music. It's just, how do you get to those people?''
The Baltimore Sun reviews Neil Gaiman's short fiction collection, Fragile Things.
Some might call it fantasy, others horror, still others sci-fi or speculative fiction - he writes in each genre, equally well. In his latest collections of stories, poems and novellas, Fragile Things, his first book since the best-selling Anansi Boys, Gaiman combines all these bits and pieces for a compelling and dreamy, if not always successful, whole.
The New York Post chronicles Pitchfork's refusal to work with Microsoft to promote the company's new music player, Zune.
"They asked us about generating new content with them or creating a new section on our site specifically for Zune visitors, but it wasn't something we were interested in pursuing," Pitchfork Editor-in-Chief Ryan Schreiber told The Post.
Author Jay Mcinerney talks to the Observer about his sideline as a wine writer.
'It's as if someone were paying you to date beautiful models and actresses,' he says of this sideline. His second collection of wine writing, A Hedonist in the Cellar, will be published in the UK this week.
Listology lists "1001 books you must read before you die."
The Times Online's music critic lists his top ten Clash songs.
The Daily Scotsman compares advances for leading literary fiction authors with those of ghostwriters.
Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai is thought to have been paid an advance of £20,000 by Penguin for The Inheritance Of Loss, being trounced in the earning stakes.
Hunter Davies, the co-author of Gazza, My Story, has already earned £80,000 for his work on Wayne Rooney's autobiography, the first instalment in a five-book deal to be completed in the next 12 years.
In the Observer, Adam Mars-Jones reviews the new Stephen King novel, Lisey's Story.
Lisey's Story is short on tension and poorly paced. There's a lot of preparation to be got through before the supernatural element arrives and by then the time-scheme has become very awkward.
The Washington Post examines the "messy age for music."
Thanks to competing file formats and business models, the digital music world can be a little confusing -- and it's about to get more so.
The New York Times reviews Marisa Acocella's graphic memoir, Cancer Vixen.
Some readers may find Marchetto’s self-proclaimed “fabulista life” hard to relate to. But perhaps she can be forgiven a little gloating because she has also shared, in visually invigorating and fairly unflinching detail, everything about her experience with cancer — from her excruciating neulasta shots to her chemo-induced night sweats. Perhaps it’s human nature to remind yourself and others of what’s enviable in your life after you’ve revealed what’s painful and difficult about it.
The San Jose Mercury News profiles the iPod on its fifth birthday.
Singer-songwriter Isobel Campbell talks to the Times Online about her new album, Milkwhite Sheets (out November 7th).
“It’s really a patchwork quilt of a record, a little cottage industry thing,” she says. “I wasn’t even sure I would release it, but then I realised it was my one opportunity to release an indulgent hobby record. I doubt I’ll ever get the chance again, so here it is.”
The Hudson Reporter profiles Hoboken's most famous music club, Maxwell's.
Yet Maxwell's is more than just a live music venue. Both Abramson and Post have strived to keep the character of the place, while adapting to changes in town. According to Abramson, part of that is allure is the consistent staff.
"People come here and they know that they will be treated well," said Abramson. On any given night, locals come in for dinner in the cozy front room along with people from out of town who stop in to see a band in the back room.
In the Observer, Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall discusses her current reading.
Then there's my big pile of books to work through. The latest Richard Dawkins (I did my first film, Rosebud, some time back with his wife, Lalla Ward) and The Secret Woman: A Life of Peggy Ashcroft are on the pile. I also have my guilty pleasure - I was given as an opening-night present Rupert Everett's diaries. In fact, my appetite - reading appetite, that is - is all over the place at the moment, a bit of David Sedaris, a bit of Malcolm Gladwell. I love hanging out in bookshops, get myself on one of those couches with a coffee ...
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