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October 12, 2011
Shorties (Kimya Dawson, Jeffrey Eugenides, and more)
Singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson lists her favorite things at Pedestrian.tv.
3. My yet to be named band with Aesop Rock - "I don't feel like I am from outer space anymore. I have finally found a friend/collaborator who seems to be from the same planet as me."
Fresh Air interviews Jeffrey Eugenides about his new novel, The Marriage Plot.
"I envy writers who came from a world where social constrictions were still normative and they could still write marriage plots," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I couldn't, being an American born in 1960. ... I didn't think it was possible to write a Jane Austen novel now, and in fact, it isn't. But I did want to traffic in the same ideas."
The Washington Post reviews the book.
The L Magazine interviews Wild Flag's Mary Timony about Cleopatra, feminism, and guitar lessons.
The Guardian lists 10 of the best books set in Edinburgh.
Susannah Hoffs of the Bangles talks about her music with the A.V. Club.
Moviefone lists the best uses of Nine Inch Nails songs in trailers.
The New York Review of Books published for the first time a talk given by Saul Bellow"A Jewish Writer in America."
Pop & Hiss reviews the new Ryan Adams album, Ashes & Fire.
Beyond Ryan Adams' well-documented personal life — his marriage to Mandy Moore; his battle with the hearing disorder Meniere's disease — lies the fleshy heart and soul of a brilliant singer and songwriter. His fragile lyrics and his voice, sounding strong and clear, better than it has in years, twist into a perfect union on "Ashes & Fire."
Grantland reviews Haruki Murakami's new novel 1Q84.
Murakami's best novels explore the tensions between dreams and reality. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World divided the conscious and subconscious mind into parallel story lines. Kafka on the Shore proposed that dreams could affect one’s behavior as much as any decision in the waking world. If 1Q84 is Murakami's magnum opus, it achieves that by collapsing many of the author’s earlier ideas into an ambitiously imagined universe where reality is both internal and external, dictated by free will yet deterministic at the same time.
PopMatters profiles the band Blitzen Trapper.
That album, American Goldwing, is Blitzen Trapper’s fourth album with Sub Pop and represents yet another creative benchmark for the band. The songs reveal a songwriter who has matured at a break-neck pace in crafting songs that are poignant, personal, and profoundly rocking. American Goldwing showcases a band that has tightened their arrangements and brought their songs into a sharper and more determined focus, with a precision reminiscent of the best of The Band, while lyrically Eaton has found a way to convincingly meander along with the listener towards a point of profound discovery.
Publishers Weekly interviews Art Spiegelman about the future of publishing and his new book, MetaMaus.
The Jewish Daily Forward reviews the book.
CMU interviews Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys about his solo career.
Sleeping with a Kitchen Knife Under the Mattress lists the most terrifying books of all time.
Billboard presents a map of streets named after famous musicians.
The Browser interviews Orson Scott Card about science fiction, and he names his five favorite scifi books.
NPR has Oneida's seven-hour All Tomorrow's Parties performance available to stream and download.
Talk of the Nation interviews Siddhartha Deb about his new book The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India.
The Drums visit The Current studio for an interview and live performance.
At NPR, Dawn Tripp shares her love for David Malouf's novel, Ransom.
In this slim, lovely blade of a novel, it is hard to escape the sense that Malouf is asking us to do the same: to recognize that we can see ourselves in one another, and to remember that what we have, all we truly have, is our life in its present moment, now.
Stream a new Kate Bush song, "Wild Man," from her forthcoming 50 Words for Snow album (out November 21st).
Win Wye Oak's album Civilian (or a $25 Amazon gift certificate) along with a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
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also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
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
