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December 12, 2011
Shorties (The Stone Roses, The Food of Fiction, and more)
The Stone Roses have signed two record deals and have been rehearsing new songs for their reunion tour.
The Boston Globe explores the connection between fiction and the food depicted within its pages.
It makes literature that much more real to read about your lemon cakes and have them, too. But eating the food from your favorite books is akin to watching the movie versions of them. The main character never looks like you pictured. Will the grilled snake taste like the one of your imagination? Something that was yours alone has now been codified and made concrete. Recipes are made to be tinkered with, and you can add lemon or adjust the spicing as you wish. But the realm of pure imagination is a fragile one. It's easy and tempting to bring everything to life, in movies, video games, crowd-sourced online fan fiction, your own kitchen. Let Turkish delight be a lesson: Sometimes the unknown tastes more delicious.
The List of Online Year-End 2011 Music Lists was updated yesterday with 26 year-end music lists, including Sunset in the Rearview's best songs, Obscure Sound's best albums, and many others.
The List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists was updated yesterday with 23 year-end book lists added to the master aggregation yesterday, including the Independent's collection of "books of the year" lists, the California Literary Review's best books, and many others.
At the Observer, Geoff Dyer and Willian Skidelsky discuss whether or not literary prizes should be more selective about sponsors.
Days of Yore interviews author Deborah Eisenberg (via).
At Ploughshares, James Scott lists his favorite short stories published since 1980.
Salon explores the growing trend of literary novels being adapted for television.
The Guardian Books Podcast interviews author Jeffrey Eugenides about his novel Middlesex.
The Guardian reports that Nick Cave's latest band, Grinderman, is going on indefinite hiatus.
For their last gig, the hirsute quartet played to 12,000 people at the outdoor festival, gnashing and snarling through their headlining set. But then at the end came the news: "That's it for Grinderman," Cave growled, according to the Vine. "It's over … See you all in another 10 years when we'll be even older and uglier."
At NPR, author Stewart O'Nan recommends Christine Hodgen's novel Elegies for the Brokenhearted.
Naturally, a book of elegies is going to be sad. But within each separate remembrance, Hodgen is also brutally funny, letting her company of outcasts fight back against a world that spurns them. Her characters aren't grotesques so much as people on the edges. Hodgen's narrator isn't cuddly either. Mary's just as puzzled and angry as her subjects, holding off anyone who comes too close. Add to that the formal challenge of writing in the second person and the inherent structural problems of addressing each of the deceased separately, and there's a degree of difficulty to Elegies that might seem insurmountable. Yet for all its depth and complexity, it's an easy, captivating read that any casual reader can appreciate. With each successive character, we care that much more for Mary, and for them.
ReadWriteWeb lists its five biggest tech surprises of 2011, including Bjork's Biophilia app.
The Morning News interviews author Nicole Krauss.
Guitareste is a blog that features interviews with women guitar players.
At Frieze, Lynne Tillman reviews Diane Arbus: A Chronology, 1923–1971, a collection of the photographer's writing.
Flavorwire offers a brief history of garage rock.
Collider interviews filmmaker Stephen Daldry about his goal to adapt Michael Chabon's novel The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay into an 8-part HBO miniseries.
Among New York Magazine's reasons to love New York 2011 is "our Marlboro Man is a novelist."
NPR is streaming John Zorn's new album A Dreamer's Christmas.
Waxy examines the rise of remix culture and its possible effects on copyright law.
What happens when — and this is inevitable — a generation completely comfortable with remix culture becomes a majority of the electorate, instead of the fringe youth? What happens when they start getting elected to office?
Win one of three Threadless gift certificates in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of Online Year-End 2011 Music Lists
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
