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September 25, 2009
Shorties (Miles Davis, David Byrne, and more)
Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection, a 70-CD box set containing 52 Miles Davis albums recorded from 1949-1985 (along with a bonus DVD) will be released on November 24th.
David Byrne talks to New York Magazine about his new book, Bicycle Diaries.
Byrne has lent his name and talents to the pro-bicycling movement, speaking at forums and designing a series of whimsical bike racks (one was shaped like a high-heeled shoe, another like a dog) that are installed around town. He can’t help but sound evangelical on the subject of biking. “I believe that the exhilaration, freedom, and convenience I experience as I ride around will be discovered by more and more people,” he writes in Bicycle Diaries. “The secret will be out, and the streets of New York will be even more the place for social interaction and interplay than they are already famous for. As others have mentioned, the economic collapse of 2008 might be a godsend. A window has opened, and people might be willing to rethink the balance of quality of life.”
The Wall Street Journal examines the debate over posthumous publishing of authors, with new books due soon by David Foster Wallace, Carl Jung, Vladimir Nabokov, and others.
The A.V. Club interviews Craig Wedren of Shudder to Think about the band's reunion.
Tom Ewing talks to the Times Online about his blog Popular, which discusses every No. 1 song on the British music charts since 1952.
The Boston Herald profiles indie rock poster artists.
In the 2000s, the art form has exploded on the scene in a fit of amateur and professional creativity. In an age where anyone can get into graphic design using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator on a home computer, the culture of rock poster art has mushroomed.
The Korea Times reviews Haruki Murakami's new novel, 1Q84.
The Wall Street Journal finds fault with the rhetoric of Banned Books Week.
The problem of loose language aside, we can still ask whether books are banned in this country. The obvious answer is no, if banned means something like "made dangerous or difficult for the average person to obtain." Many books that have drawn critics' attention have been best sellers (the Harry Potter books and Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy), classics ("The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "To Kill a Mockingbird"), or the work of acclaimed authors (Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood). If a book isn't available at one library or bookstore, it's certainly available at another. Not even the most committed civil libertarian demands that every book be immediately available everywhere on request—though in the age of Amazon that's nearly the case.
Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile visits The Current studios for an interview and live performance,
The third issue of the literary magazine Wag's Revue is online, and includes an interview with George Saunders and new fiction by Daniel Wallace.
The Minneapolis City Pages interviews Built to Spill's Doug Martsch.
At the San Francisco Chronicle, author Joe Quirk offers tips to unpublished writers.
The National Post interviews Nick Cave.
Jim James of My Morning Jacket and Monsters of Folk discusses his favorite books at The Week.
Win three Steve Keene paintings in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
tags: music books popculture indie
