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November 11, 2012
Shorties (Brian Eno on Composing, Philip Pullman on Fairy Tales, and more)
Brian Eno talks to the Independent about his new album, Lux.
"When people think of a composer – Beethoven, say, or Mozart – they understand that every note is specific, and carefully detailed. My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won't necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.
Philip Pullman talks to Weekend Edition about his new book Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm.
On fairy tales as oral stories
"Oral stories are not a text in the way that a great poem like Paradise Lost is a text. It exists as words on paper ... But an oral story is something told, and these stories in Grimm are a sort of snapshot of something in movement. They're freezing something that was in motion. So I thought I was entitled to ... alter them again and tell them as I would ... if I'd heard the story and wanted to pass it on to somebody else."
24 lists were added yesterday to the list of online "best of 2012" book lists including several from Goodreads, BookPage's top cookbooks, and Huffington Post editors' best books.
Giga Om recommends Mac apps to help you publish your book.
The Boston Globe profiles singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright.
Katherine Marsh talks to Weekend Edition about her new young adult novel Jepp Who Defied the Stars.
Stereogum lists Depeche Mode's 10 best songs.
David Rain talks to Weekend Edition about his new novel The Heat of the Sun, which imagines the lives of the characters of Madame Butterfly years later.
The Guardian lists the new rules of the dancefloor.
Flavorwire gathers the literary world's responses to Philip Roth's retirement from writing.
The Observer interviews artist and musician Yoko Ono.
You have a biennial peace award: this time round there were five recipients – including Christopher Hitchens, Pussy Riot and Lady Gaga. Surely they are provocateurs, rather than peaceniks?
Activism has never been given accolades, and this award is doing that. I'm promoting people's energy in changing the world. I respect Lady Gaga a lot. She visited me at the Dakota building and she played the Imagine piano.
Hilary Boyd, whose debut novel Thursdays in the Park deals with a romance between so-somethings, talks to the Observer about the rise of "gran-lit."
Hilary Boyd believes she has stumbled on a new readership. "Old people falling in love and having passionate relationships is not a story that's had much exposure before, but I'm in no doubt that the market's out there." That "grey market" of baby boomers hitting retirement, which has contributed to UK cinema successes such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is behind a new trend in book sales. Thanks to digital technology, tales from the passionate park bench are finding a new audience among the Kindle generation.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3
Amazon MP3 offers over 400 jazz albums on sale for $1.78.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
The list of online "best of 2012" book lists
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics & graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (the week's best new books)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
