May 20, 2013
Book Notes - Ru Freeman "On Sal Mal Lane"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Ru Freeman's On Sal Mal Lane vividly covers the years leading up to the civil war in Sri Lanka through the inhabitants of one diverse neighborhood, and deftly blends beauty with sorrow to produce an unforgettable book.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"Freeman's gift for verisimilitude is manifest with searing clarity . . . And in fictionalizing Sri Lankan history, Freeman accomplishes what reportage alone cannot: she blends the journalist's loyalty to fact with impassioned imagination."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In her own words, here is Ru Freeman's Book Notes music playlist for her novel, On Sal Mal Lane:
I wrote the entire first draft of On Sal Mal Lane, which had come into its name by then, after being Good People for awhile and then A Bend in the Road, at Yaddo. It was my first residency, and the only other time I'd spent away from home and among creative people had been at Bread Loaf which meant I was among people who may have played the occasional guitar or fiddle, but were primarily writers. At Yaddo I met composers, painters, documentary film-makers, and critics, as well as writers. Each evening we would gather at the ornate dining table, drink each other's wine, and talk about our work. The composers I met introduced me to some of the musical pieces that made it into this book, a classical education that reminded me of my own piano lessons as a child, as well as how I had cultivated a passable singing voice, or perhaps a certain confidence that my passable singing voice was still worth listening to. Much of the music in the book came from the interplay between these two forces: memory and education and these are a few of the compositions or songs that made their way into the novel itself.
Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor Op. 27, No. 2
Popularly known as "The Moonlight Sonata," this piece was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1801 and was dedicated to his pupil, Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. I never learned how to play more than the first few pages, by my oldest brother, Arjuna, who was - and is - a gifted musician, would play the entire sonata, start to finish. I envied his facility with the instrument, though I was far too lazy to ever achieve that kind of skill and, frankly, lacked the talent to make it worth my while to even try. This sonata was one that my mother, like Mrs. Herath in the book, asked my brother to play on the first night of the riots in 1983, when our Tamil neighbors were sheltering in our home. It is interesting that Beethoven had instructed that the piece be played Quasi una fantasia, which means, "like a fantasty." That evening, those days, and this music being played... we were all yearning for that fantasy, the one where all was well, where music mattered, where music could soothe and erase such terrible pain.
Beethoven's Bagatelle in A Minor, Op. 59
Another popular composition by Beethoven, and known most recognizably as 'Für Elise,' I gave this piece to Devi, the youngest daughter, who plays an abridged version of it while her brother listens. This was also a piece of music I listened to a lot while growing up, though this time it was played by my other older brother, Malinda. He, like me, had no abiding interest in the piano, and in addition he had the weakest fingers of us all. Still, he chose music as his single elective for the G.C.E. O/L Examination, which meant he had to learn one piece of music by heart. Our piano teacher chose this one for him and our whole family had to listen to him practice it repeatedly, ad nauseum, the ta-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-laa...ta-la-la-laaa...ta-la-la-laaa ringing in our heads. He had the notes down, but he never managed to acquire the feeling beneath it and I realize now that I still hear his rendition of it when I think of this piece. It reminds me of the way an instrument can begin to feel monotonous when there is no passion behind the playing, and it reminds me of the quiet earnestness of this particular brother, a quality that found its way into Nihil.
Chopin's Ocean Wave Etude, Op. 25 No. 10
This is a piece that captured the difficulty of what I was trying to do with this novel (to intimate everything that preceded and outlasted the tragedy that occurs, to give the immense sorrow of what happens down this lane its due place, and also keep sight of the lightness and innocence of children), while also reflecting the singular relationship between Nihil and Devi, between a brother who is trying to take care of a sister, and a sister just out of reach of his concerns. This particular etude is the longest of Chopin's etudes, and is one of the most difficult to play, middle notes being held while octaves are being played around those notes, and the pace quickening and deepening intermittently. It was a perfect representation of all the impossibles that were hurtling toward the characters in the book, in smaller or greater measure.
"The Maple Leaf Forever"
This was an anthem (the unofficial Canadian one, composed by Alexaner Muir), that I learned as a child, along with "The Star Spangled Banner," (all the verses, oh yes), "My Country ‘Tis of Thee," and "God Save the Queen," among others. We Sri Lankans have a real passion for the stirring ecstasy of patriotic fervor and, it seemed, at least in my house and as far as my mother was concerned, a disregard for the larger realities that may have yielded some of these war-celebrating lyrics. I had a particular affection for the notion of "the thistle, shamrock, rose" entwining "the maple leaf forever," perhaps because of the way it invoked a tapestry to me, some pretty, colorful embroidered fabric that was beautiful. In the book, Suren, the oldest Herath boy, the musician in the family sings the opening lines to the Bolling girls, his response to their question about whether his parents fought. I think this came to me because in my own volatile family, we did have this strange caesurae in the midst of my parents' battles with each other, that were punctuated with singing.
"Flow Gently Sweet Afton"
This was originally a lyrical poem written by Robert Burns, which was later set to mysic by Jonathan E. Spilman. The poem describes the river Afton, which flows north from Alwhat Hill in the Carsphairn and Scaur Hills, in Ayrshire, Scotland. For reasons best known to the Irish nuns who once set the music curriculum at the Holy Family Convent that my grandmother, mother, and lastly I attended, "Flow Gently Sweet Afton," was a necessary part of my education and I learned to sing of a girl named Mary who was sleeping by these waters that I did not know of, in a country I had not visited, with great sentiment. It is a very lovely melody, actually, and my mother would sing it as a lullabye, something I also learned to do. I gave this song to Rose, a somewhat scruffy, ragamuffin of a girl in the book, who only learns to articulate her consonants and vowels perfectly when she is taught this song.
"Forever Young," by Alphaville
Oh my. Everything came to Sri Lanka a lot later than it does now - yes, I grew up in a time of no gmail and Macbooks - and this one I heard first on the top-forty run down on the radio at a friend's house. I loved the lyrics and would sing it anytime I could as a sort of personal anthem, the angst-filled bemoaning of the violence around me (very real), that I did not quite understand and did not want to understand either. All I ever wanted to do then was to wear blue jeans and sweatshirts, because that's what American girls wore, I'd heard, and sing songs like these as I strutted down the narrow streets of my neighborhood, or went to get bread from the bakery. I had a red and grey striped t-shirt that had a tiny picture of Snoopy over where my heart would be, and I remember very vividly that everytime I put on that shirt, this song would come to mind. I know, utterly hilarious now, but back then this song encompassed everything: desire, imagination, predicament, anti-establishment/parent outcry, wild independence, everything. It still does. And it seemed only right that the children of Sal Mal Lane, in the throes of their rebellion against their parents, and their celebration of their friendship with each other, ought to be allowed to sing this particular song during their forbidden variety-show.
"Kalu Kella," by Indrani Perera
This is a popular Sri Lankan song, and one my mother sang to me as a child. I was not considered a pretty girl, being very dark-skinned in a country that liked girls to be what we call "fair" (i.e. light-skinned), and boys to be dark. This song, written for a dark-skinned girl is all about how beautiful she is; her radiance lights up the room and soothes the hearts of those who behold her; her demeanor and acts are compassionate and wrapped in good cheer; and in all these ways she is better and more beautiful than those other fair-skinned/white girls. Maybe it was because I had this song sung to me so often that I went from considering myself positively hideous to considering myself far more beautiful than I actually am, when the truth is somewhere in between! It also so happened that when I was home for my wedding to a Caucasian American, a band suddenly struck up at our dining table at the hotel we were at, and with broad smiles they began to sing this particular song which they didn't know he already knew because I had sung it to him. In the book the song is requested by Devi, who behaves some of the time as I did as a little girl, and whose dark-skin and boyish looks are noted with some disparagement by one of the neighbors.
"Where the Streets Have No Name," U2
I first heard of U2 when my oldest brother began to play "Mothers of the Disappeared," on his guitar. We didn't have a radio at this time, but someone had procured a cassette-player with head-phones and I would turn up the volume on The Joshua Tree, and lie on the cool cement floor of my bedroom, to counter so many kinds of heat: the physical, from the searing afternoons, the conflicts between my parents, my sense that I was losing my brothers who were grown up enough to leave the house for extended periods of time, and the violence building and raging outside our homes both the escalation of the battle with the LTTE and the government crackdown on the left-wing uprising from the South which lead to so many disappearances and brutal murders of many young people. Those first raging lines, "I want to run/ I want to hide/ I want to tear down the walls/ that hold me inside/ I want to reach out/ and touch the flame/ where the streets have no name," they were everything I was feeling. Everything I had right there, I wanted to leave behind, I wanted to go where my brothers and their friends went, fight alongside them, chant slogans, bring down the government. This, even though the one I wanted to "go there with," was my first love. So there was this love/politics romance in this song for me. In the book it is Suren who wants to add this particular song to the repertoire, but it is a song that spoke to what was beginning to happen down Sal Mal Lane among and around all the children who were both falling in love and beginning to understand fear and hatred.
Ru Freeman and On Sal Mal Lane links:
the author's website
excerpt from the book
Boston Globe review
ForeWord Reviews review
Minneapolis Star Tribune review
Oprah.com review
Publishers Weekly review
Bookslut interview with the author
The Diane Rehm Show interview with the author
The Nervous Breakdown self-interview with the author
Publishers Weekly review
also at Largehearted Boy:
Book Notes (2012 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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May 20, 2013
This Week's Interesting Music Releases - May 21, 2013
Two of the year's most anticipated albums are released tomorrow, The National's Trouble Will Find Me and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories
The Baptist Generals' Jackleg Devotional to the Heart, Beaches' She Beats, and Scout Niblett's It's Up to Emma are also highly recommended.
Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues has been reissued (again) on vinyl.
What new releases are you picking up this week? What can you recommend? Have I left anything noteworthy off the list?
This week's interesting music releases:
Attic Lights: Super De Luxe
The Baptist Generals: Jackleg Devotional to the Heart
Beaches: She Beats
Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
Dirty Beaches: Drifters / Love Is the Devil
Emma Louise: vs Head vs Heart
The Front Bottoms: Talon of the Hawk
G and D: The Lighthouse
Jesse Ruins: A Film
Linda Draper: Edgewise
Love and Rockets: 5 Album Box Set
Majical Cloudz: Impersonator
Man or Astroman?: Defcon 5...4...3...2...1
Morningbell: Boa Noite
The National: Trouble Will Find Me
Public Enemy: 25th Anniversary Vinyl Collection (9-LP box set)
Saturday Looks Good to Me: One Kiss Ends It All
Scout Niblett: It's Up to Emma
Shannon and the Clams: Dreams in the Rat House
Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues (reissue) [vinyl]
Thirty Seconds to Mars: LOVE LUST FAITH + DREAMS
Various Artists: Putumayo Presents Women of Brazil
Wooden Indian Burial Ground: Wooden Indian Burial Ground
also at Largehearted Boy:
other weekly music & DVD release lists
100 online sources for free and legal music downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (music from this week's releases)
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This Week's Interesting DVD Releases - May 21, 2013
True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season and Laverne & Shirley: The Sixth Season are the television highlights among this week's new DVD releases.
The Criterion Collection releases an expanded edition of Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool
Mel Brooks: Make A Noise profiles the director and actor. Gregory Crewdson - Brief Encounters examines the legendary photographer's artistic process. The Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane charts the history of the British rock band.
What new releases are you picking up or adding to your streaming queue this week?
This week's interesting DVD releases:
180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School
The ABCs of Death
The Aquabats! Super Show! Season One
Atomic Age
Beautiful Creatures
Best of Warner Bros Cartoon Collection - Hanna Barbera
Blood of the Vine: Season 1
Blood of the Vine: Season 2
Cool Air
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
Dark Dealer
Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You
Donovan's Echo
Gregory Crewdson - Brief Encounters
Jim Jefferies: Fully Functional
Last Kind Words
The Last Stand
Laverne & Shirley: The Sixth Season
Medium Cool (Criterion Collection)
Mel Brooks: Make A Noise
Mold!
Neighboring Sounds
Nightfall
Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn
Open Road
Parker
Perception: The Complete First Season
Picture Day
Queen Victoria's Children
The Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane
Saving Hope: The Complete First Season
Side Effects
Spaghetti Westerns Unchained
Stand Up Guys
Struck by Lightning
Teen Wolf: Season Two
This Girl Is Badass
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (BluRay/DVD Combo)
True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season
The Visitor
Yossi
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous weekly music & DVD release lists
Soundtracked (directors and composers discuss their film's soundtrack)
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Shorties (A Short Story on a Stamp, Nina Hagen on Kabarett, and more)
Ireland's newest stamp features an entire short story.
The Quietus interviews singer-songwriter Nina Hagen.
If you had to explain Kabarett to someone who knew nothing about it, how would you begin?
Nina Hagen: I would educate them about the Berliner Ensemble, the Bertolt Brecht Theatre in East Berlin, where I grew up and started witnessing the theatre plays from age 12 onwards, until I left East Germany in 1976. All Brecht's theatre pieces are cabaret style, done in the old tradition of political cabaret filled with historic and political material, songs, scenes... so I grew up studying Kabarett.
The TLS Blog profiles Iggy Pop.
VICE shares a new short story by Ed Park.
The Believer interviews singer-songwriter David Grubbs.
Vol. 1 Brooklyn interviews author Joshua Cohen.
Do you have any longform fiction in the works?
Guilty, yes. That’s the title. "Guilty, yes." It’s the book Nabokov would’ve written had he liked Joyce. …
NPR is streaming the new Mount Kimbie album, Cold Spring Fault Less Youth.
HTMLGIANT shares a conceptual literature reading list.
Stereogum lists Sebadoh albums from worst to best.
The CBC profiles New York bookstore owner Sarah McNally of McNally Jackson Books.
NPR is streaming the new Laura Marling album, Once I Was an Eagle.
The Los Angeles Review of Books podcast interviews Nathaniel Rich about his new novel Odds Against Tomorrow.
May's Music Alliance Pact features 36 songs curated by 36 music bloggers in 36 countries.
All Things Considered interviews the publisher of The New York Review of Books about the surprising European success of John Williams' 1965 novel Stoner.
The A.V Club explores the ethical questions raised when musicians crowdfund albums and tours.
The Verge explains how Google beat Apple to a streaming music service.
Win Michael Moss's new book Salt Sugar Fat and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's contest at Largehearted Boy.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
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)
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
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Daughn Gibson, Shannon Hayden, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
The Anatomy of Frank: "Bill Murray" [mp3] from Pangaea (out July 16th)
Daughn Gibson: "The Sound of Law" [mp3] from Me Moan (out July 16th)
Fuyuko's Fables: "Pure Imagination (cover from the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory soundtrack)" [mp3]
The Goodly Beggars: free and legal Chew the Pages EP [mp3]
Kevin Long: free and legal Small Town Talk album [mp3]
Lisa Redford: free and legal Dreaming in Crowds EP [mp3]
Paperhaus: "Helicopters" [mp3] from Lo Hi Lo (out May 28th)
Washa: free and legal Roots EP [mp3]
We Are Temporary: free and legal Satellites EP [mp3]
WhoaBear: "Rock 'Em Up" [mp3] from WhoaBear (out June 11th)
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Shannon Hayden: Epitonic Saki session [mp3]
search for more free and legal music downloads at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
covers collections
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
May 19, 2013
Largehearted Boy Weekly Wrap-Up - May 19th, 2013
A list of the past week's Largehearted Boy features:
Book Notes: (authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates to their book)
Ben Greenman for his novel The Slippage
Cecil Castellucci for her children's book Odd Duck
Norah Labiner for her novel Let the Dark Blosson Flower
Norman Lock for his short story collection Love Among the Particles
Various Authors for the anthology The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage
Virginia Pye for her novel River of Dust
Win Michael Moss's book Salt Sugar Fat, and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's contest at Largehearted Boy.
Weekly New Book Recommendations:
Atomic Books Comics Preview (recommended new comics and graphic novels)
Largehearted Word (recommended new books)
New Music Recommendations:
Try It Before You Buy It (full album streams and mp3s from this week's music releases)
The Week's Interesting Music Releases
New DVD recommendations:
The Week's Interesting DVD Releases
And of course, the daily music and news posts:
Daily Downloads (10 free and legal mp3 downloads every day, plus links to free live recordings online)
Shorties (news & links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
also at Largehearted Boy:
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Antiheroines
Atomic Books Comics Preview
Book Notes
Contests / Giveaways
Daily Downloads
Largehearted Word
Lists
music & DVD release lists
musician/author Interviews
Note Books
Soundtracked
Try It Before You Buy It
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Shorties (Daft Punk Profiled and Glowingly Reviewed, Khaled Hosseini on Writing, and more)
The Observer profiles Daft Punk.
Of course, Daft Punk would argue that any impression of them as people is irrelevant. "The robots are part of the fiction and it's not really interesting to see what's behind it," argues Thomas. "When you look at C-3PO and Darth Vader and then look at the actors behind them you can't really make the connection. It kills the magic. I feel the robots are the same." Guy-Man grunts in agreement. "They're more interesting than us for sure."
The Los Angeles Times reviews the band's new album Random Access Memories.
If technology is a steamroller that plows through the musical arts, morphing and shifting the soundtrack of the present while burying perfectly executed tones and approaches with deaf equanimity, then Daft Punk suggests on "Random Access Memories" that the "next level" is an illusion. That they combat this technological Tower of Babel by scouring the surroundings for mechanical wreckage is not only a valid response but aesthetically essential.
Weekend Edition interviews Khaled Hosseini about his new novel, And the Mountains Echoed.
"I don't feel any pressure to be ... 'successful' in economic or commercial or number of books sold and so on. The real angst comes from the very real possibility that one day I will sit, and I will have nothing more to say. Because I enjoy so much the process of writing — losing myself in another person's life, kind of going off to these imaginary places and looking up from the computer and eight hours have passed and I have no idea where they went. And writing things that, to me, feel intimate and real and genuine. I don't take that for granted. So the pressure that I feel inside is, what if that ends someday and I've said everything I have to say? And I think a lot of writers have that, and that's something very real every time I sit at the computer. That's a presence in the room with me."
Read an excerpt from the book.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer lists essential Rolling Stones albums.
Josh Ritter talks to the Lancaster Online about his latest album, Beast in Its Tracks.
Amanda Knox talks to All Things Considered about her new memoir, Waiting to Be Heard.
Hypebot explores how the Grateful Dead and Phish started their direct-to-fan sales.
The Guardian has news about a forthcoming documentary on the life of J.D. Salinger.
Called simply Salinger, the film is the brainchild of Shane Salerno, who has spent nine years writing, producing and directing the project, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money. The move is a major shift in career for Salerno, best known as a writer of mainstream blockbusters such as Alien vs Predator: Requiem and Armageddon.
My Bloody Valentine drummer Colm O Ciosig shares a streaming playlist at Psychedelic Psyblings.
Win Michael Moss's new book Salt Sugar Fat and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's contest at Largehearted Boy.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
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)
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
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (20 Neutral Milk Hotel Covers and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Every Sunday, Largehearted Boy shares a collection of cover songs.
Today's songs were all originally performed by Neutral Milk Hotel.
Check out the entire list of cover song posts at Largehearted Boy.
Decemberists: "The King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Frog Holler: "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Glen Phillips: "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Glen Phillips: "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 2 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Jason Isbell: "Holland, 1945 (Neutral MIlk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Jason Webley: "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Mike Doughty: "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Mountain Goats: "Two-Headed Boy, Part 1 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "Communist Daughter (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "The Fool (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "Ghost (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "Holland, 1945 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover) [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "King of Carrot Flowers, Parts 2 and 3 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "Oh Comely (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "Two-Headed Boy (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Neutral Uke Hotel: "Two-Headed Boy, Part 2 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Sad Baby Wolf: "Everything Is (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Sharp Teeth: "Holland, 1945 (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)" [mp3]
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Daniel Knox: Epitonic Saki session [mp3]
search for more free and legal music downloads at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
covers collections
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
May 18, 2013
Contest - Win Michael Moss's Book Salt Sugar Fat and a $100 Threadless Gift Certificate
This weekend, Brooklyn's Prospect Park hosts its second annual GoogaMooga food festival, and I am interviewing Michael Moss there tomorrow about his fascinating book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.
For a chance at winning this book and a $100 Threadless gift certificate, share your favorite guilty pleasure food in a comment. Cheese is easily my foodstuff kryptonite, in any and all forms.
One winner, chosen randomly from the commenters, will receive the following prizes:
Michael Moss's book Salt Sugar Fat
A $100 Threadless gift certificate to buy book-related t-shirts like Storytellers, The Best Channels Since 1465, Fahrenheit 451, Brainy Rainbow, or Word!, and music-related t-shirts like Death Note, Funkalicious, Music Snob, or anything else that catches your fancy.
If you have already have this book or it doesn't interest you, I am happy to substitute a second $100 Threadless gift certificate.
The winner will be chosen randomly at midnight ET Friday evening (May 24th).
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous and ongoing contests at Largehearted Boy
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Atomic Books Comics Preview (highlights of the week's new comics)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Daily Downloads (daily free and legal music downloads)
Largehearted Word (highlights of the week's book releases)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily links from the worlds of music, literature, and pop culture)
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties (The New Daft Punk Album, The Top 25 Horror Novels for Young Adults, and more)
Spotify is now streaming the new Daft Punk album, Random Access Memories (out May 21st).
The Guardian reviews the album.
Urban Titan lists the top 25 horror novels for young adults.
At the New Yorker, authors weigh in on the importance of likeability of characters in fiction.
Two writers debate whether the Smiths were the best or worst band in the past 30 years at the Telegraph.
Flavorwire lists 10 of the greatest Cold war spy novels.
Rolling Stone asks, "What is the best summer song?"
Hilary Mantel shares her reading habits with the New York Times.
Yo la Tengo frontman Ira Kaplan talks to the Denver Post about the band's approach to recording.
Author Elliott Holt lists her six favorite books about expatriates at NPR Books.
Indie band ANAMANAGUCHI fielded questions from the Reddit community.
Zola Books interviews James Renner about his novel The Man from Primrose Lane.
Norman Lock discusses his favorite short story at Flavorwire.
Katie Shelly talks to The Salt about her forthcoming illustrated cookbook, Picture Cook: See. Make. Eat..
The Thermals visit The Current studio for an interview and live performance.
Weekend Edition interviews Colin Broderick about his new memoir, That's That.
"When I started writing That's That, I thought it was just a story about my childhood. And two years in, I realized — and I thought it was only going to take me two years — but two years in I realized it's not just my story that I'm telling. And I think the book itself, it's about personal narrative, it's the story of a family, it's the story of a son and a mother, but it's also a story of Northern Ireland."
Read an excerpt from the book.
Morning Edition profiles singer-songwriter Sam Amidon.
Shape-note singing is a communal form of music that began in New England 200 years ago, mostly from townsfolk without any musical training. It's music that surrounded folk singer during his childhood in Vermont.
Five English scholars weigh in on the latest film adaptation of The Great Gatsby at The Millions.
Amazon MP3 offers 100 albums on sale for $5 each.
Amazon MP3 offers over 1,400 albums on sale for $3.99.
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)
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
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Daily Downloads (Robyn Hitchcock, Sharon Van Etten, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
The Antlers: 2009-01-22, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
The Antlers: "Harvest Moon (Neil Young cover)" [mp3]
Caitlin Rose: 2013-03-01, Manchester [mp3,ogg,flac]
Caitlin Rose: "Dallas" [mp3]
The Deep Dark Woods: 2013-04-17, Hamburg [mp3,ogg,flac]
The Deep Dark Woods: "Rosa Lee McFall" [mp3]
Futurebirds: 2013-05-13, Columbia [mp3,ogg,flac]
Futurebirds: "Virginia Slims" [mp3]
Low: 2013-05-09, Amsterdam [mp3,ogg,flac]
Low: "Dragonfly" [mp3]
Meat Puppets: 2007-10-17, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
Meat Puppets: "Look at the Rain" [mp3]
Mekons: 1985-06-08 [mp3,ogg,flac]
Mekons: "This Sporting Life" [mp3]
Robyn Hitchcock: 2013-04-25, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
Robyn Hitchcock: "She Said She Said (Beatles cover)" [mp3]
Sharon Van Etten: 2008-06-06, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
Sharon Van Etten: "I Fold" [mp3]
The Soundtrack of Our Lives: 2012-12-15, Gothenburg [mp3,ogg,flac]
The Soundtrack of Our Lives: "Throw It to the Universe" [mp3]
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Literature: Key Studio session [mp3]
search for more free and legal music downloads at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
covers collections
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, books, and pop culture news and links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtrack)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
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May 17, 2013
Book Notes - Virginia Pye "River of Dust"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
Set in China of the early 1900s, Virginia Pye's River of Dust is a haunting and vivid debut novel filled with fascinating, flawed characters.
Robert Olen Butler wrote of the book:
"Virginia Pye's River of Dust is a remarkable novel in the ways that delight me the most: It has a compelling narrative voice, a dynamic story and a deep resonance into the universal human condition, all of which is inextricably bound together. This is a major work by a splendid writer."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In her own words, here is Virginia Pye's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel, River of Dust:
I wrote much of my novel River of Dust in a twenty-three day surge. I did all the usual things when not at my desk—ate, talked to friends, walked the dog, fed the kids—but with only part of my brain. My mind was off in China in 1910, the setting for the book. I had worked on a previous novel about the same characters, but hadn’t been able to sell it, and in the end decided to take two small parts from the beginning and the end and created River of Dust. The main characters had been with me so long, they were like a song you can’t get out of your head, and this allowed me to complete the new book in a burst of creativity.
I don't listen to music when I write, but music does work its way into the novel—slyly and through memory, like so much else in the story. On the playlist I offer, there are no Chinese tunes, no music from the nineteen-teens. Instead, the songs here are metaphors for the feelings, actions, and mood of the novel. The setting of River of Dust is a faraway place in the distant past. I hope it will stick to the reader like the dust swirling on the wind from the Gobi Desert that figures so largely in its pages.
The novel’s four main characters are the American missionaries I call The Reverend; Grace, his wife; Ahcho, the "house boy;" and Mai Lin, Grace’s maid and mid-wife. Drought and famine sweep over the land and desperate, violent actions occur. In the opening scene, Mongolian bandits kidnap The Reverend and Grace's young son. The wind picks up, loss fills the air, and the most fragile of the characters—Grace—reaches deep within herself to find the strength to survive. Another baby is born, innocents die, a beheading occurs and elephants fly--or not. All this spins out on the desert plains with the hallucinatory purple mountains in the distance and opium within easy reach.
The music I hear in my mind as I transport myself to that distant time and place are often songs of longing. Some still contain joy, while others reflect the desperation of a starving and lost people. Here’s how I break it down as the story unfolds:
River of Dust is set in Shansi Province, China and while that’s quite a distance from Salinas, California, the song that comes to mind is "Me and Bobby McGee" as sung by Janis Joplin. The upright Reverend and his wife have their son torn from their arms by the Mongolian bandits and nothing captures loss better than her line, sung in that throaty plangent voice: "I let him slip away…."
When the Reverend goes out in search of his son across the rough terrain, he encounters more trouble, in fact, double trouble, but he is a man of remarkable luck. Little Feat’s "Trouble" captures God’s "good-humored grace" which saves our hero from not one, but two disasters.
As Ahcho, the converted Christian, tries to find a rational solution to their dire situation, Hem’s "Burying Song" plays. In this reflective section, the reader has a chance to catch their breath and wonder whose version of the story is trustworthy.
When Grace accompanies the Reverend to chapel, she tries to keep her straying husband’s attention. Grace could sing a line from Joplin’s "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)": "I waited so long for someone so fine." The music rises in a frenzy as the Reverend’s sermon stirs both the church and his anxious wife.
Later, in a sorrowful haze, Grace watches her children return to her—their ghosts floating in with the hordes of Chinese peasants. It’s all quite pleasant, until she realizes she’s still alone. In "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song," Fleet Foxes sing, "I don’t know what I have done. I am turning myself to a demon." The song softly fades in the same way that Grace quietly folds in on herself.
As Grace and Mai Lin break free of the mission compound and stroll into the marketplace, Joni Mitchell’s "All I Want" came to mind. "I am on a lonely road and I am traveling/ Looking for the key to set me free." Grace feels freer than she has in some time. "I want to feel strong, I want to belong…" But of course, the moment of escape can’t last.
Meanwhile, the Reverend is out on the tundra at a Mongolian circus. This scene reminds me of a song by a young fiddle duo from New Orleans, Jubal’s Kin. In their tune, "Raleigh and Spencer," they wail about a town where the liquor has gone dry and all is lost. The ballad ends with the mournful promise that the singer has no choice but to lie down and die.
Grace waits by the window for her husband to return and Sufjan Stevens’s "For the Widows in Paradise" captures her longing. "If there's anything to say/ If there's anything to do/ I there's any other way/ I'd do anything for you." Grace would do anything for the Reverend, including risk her life.
Later, The Reverend, Grace, Ahcho and Mai Lin travel through the desert on donkey back. As they enter the misty foothills at dusk, Grace feels great love for her husband. Dylan’s "Girl From the North Country" is a perfect melding of setting, romantic love and longing, especially when Dylan sings it with Johnny Cash.
Back at the mission compound, Mai Lin watches over everything. She is a wise woman of strong opinions who does not suffer fools gladly. Like the old woman in Bonnie Raitt’s rendition of "Angel from Montgomery," Mai Lin has seen it all.
As Grace grows weaker physically, her spirit gains strength. The repeating syllables of Regina Spektor’s "Eet" mirrors Grace’s confused thoughts: "It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song./ You can't believe it; you were always singing along./ It was so easy and the words so sweet./You can't remember; you try to move your feet." Grace has forgotten a great deal, but something vital nonetheless grows inside her. Fleet Foxes’ song "Your Protector" starts slowly, the way Grace walks slowly on camel back into the desert, but then gains urgency. She knows now that she "runs with the devil."
Among other things, River of Dust is about religion and a loss of faith, but I’ve saved any overt Christian songs for late in the story when Ahcho finally speaks his mind. He holds fast to his beliefs and loves his Jesus; Neutral Milk Hotel in "King Carrot Flowers, Part Two," may or may not, but they sure wail about him just the same.
Into the desert Grace rides, her body filled with longing, determination and loss. No one sings pain like Patti Smith, especially in "Walking Blind." In a flashback to the Reverend’s night of terror and frenzy in a bleak hamlet, I hear the echoes of Neil Young’s "Four Dead in Ohio." This song remains a war cry through the years, reverberating as a warning all the way to this day. There are consequences to violence that cannot be escaped, even with time. The end of River of Dust finally rises up and Eric Clapton’s sweet voice singing "Tears in Heaven" are the best accompaniment I can imagine.
Virginia Pye and River of Dust links:
the author's website
excerpt from the book
video trailer for the book
River City Reading review
Style Weekly review
CarolineLeavittville interview with the author
Elizabeth Huergo interview with the author
Huffington Post interview with the author
James River Writers interview with the authors
The Quivering Pen interview with the author
Richmond Magazine interview with the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
Book Notes (2012 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
52 Books, 52 Weeks (weekly book reviews)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Daily Downloads (free and legal daily mp3 downloads)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from the week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
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