February 10, 2012
Book Notes - Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral - "Chopsticks"
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, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others.
Chopsticks is a breathtaking YA novel, a groundbreaking exercise in visual storytelling. The book tells its tales through illustrations and photos, while the app and online components add videos and music. Both the printed and digital offerings serve up an extremely intimate peek at two young people's relationship.
The Los Angeles Times wrote of the book:
""Chopsticks" is a collaboration between author Jessica Anthony and designer Rodrigo Corral, the creative director of Farrar, Straus & Giroux who came up with the covers for bestsellers by Chuck Palahniuk, Jay-Z and others. It isn't the first novel for young adults to exploit the Web in conjunction with print storytelling, but it is elaborately inventive and compelling."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In their own words, here is Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral's Book Notes music playlist for their novel, Chopsticks:
Chopsticks is a multimedia novel which questions the truth of objects, sounds, and images. From the start, neither of us wanted to employ multimedias merely for the sake of it; instead, we wanted to use music and images that would actually do the work of textual narrative. We spent several months combing through music websites, iTunes, Youtube videos and selected pieces which, whether sonically or lyrically, helped to reveal story. We also recruited help writing and recording original arrangements from music producer Jonathan Wyman. The outcome is a book which collages a variety of visual, textual and musical narratives.
The music in Chopsticks ranges from Beethoven to The Lawrence Welk Show to The Rolling Stones to a veritable buffet of Argentinean rock music. (Also, there are a number of contemporary songs which, once contextualized in the novel, create a kind of nostalgia for the Aughts.) While there are over forty pieces of music played or referenced in Chopsticks, here are our strongest influences:
"Tiny Lustre," by Seekonk, from the album For Barbara Lee (2003)
In 2003, Jess heard the now-defunct band Seekonk (key members currently belong to a group called Plains) perform "Tiny Lustre" in a bar in Somerville, Mass., to a riveted crowd. The song is about being stung by a jellyfish, and sounds like some kind of underwater dream.
In Chopsticks, there is a repeated motif of sea-life: seahorses, jellyfish, along with a variety of underwater beasts which could exist only in our imaginations. In the App, we see Glory’s mother hanging a picture of a large octopus in her childhood bedroom, an image which triggers Glory’s obsession with these creatures, and with the ocean. She feels a conscious longing for it, but also fears it, though she does not know why. The lyrics to Tiny Lustre reveal how danger can romance us, beckon us closer:
Man-o-war down to the shore
I saw your tiny lustre
Man-o-war down to the waters
Where your millions cluster
"Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, 1st Movement," by Sergei Prokofiev
The original inspiration for the character of Gloria "Glory" Fleming came from the film The Competition (1980), to which there are several nods in Chopsticks. In the film, Amy Irving plays a young pianist who is a finalist alongside her lover (played by Richard Dreyfuss) in a fierce piano competition. The tension over who will win builds between them until the day the competition arrives, and Irving’s character sits down to perform. As soon as she begins to play, she realizes that her piano is out of tune. She is given a new piano, and at the last second, chooses to change her concerto. She performs this piece, one of the most difficult Prokofiev compositions, his third piano concerto in C major, and to the chagrin of her boyfriend, wins.
Another composition of Prokofiev’s, "Suggestion (Obsession) Diabolique," is performed by Glory at Carnegie Hall in the novel, and the piece which Richard Dreyfuss’ character performs in The Competition, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5, op. 73 in E-flat Major (otherwise known as the "Emporer" concerto), is performed by Glory at the Kennedy Center.
"Un Canto a Galicia," by Julio Iglesias, from the album Un Canto a Galicia (1972)
Using the images of Julio Iglesias’ record albums created a mini-drama for us. We originally selected Iglesias to be the musician whom Francisco’s mother listens to constantly, annoying Frank (a lover of rock music) to no end. But after the book was completed, Penguin informed us that Mr. Iglesias’ handlers would not allow us to use the images unless we were willing to spend an extravagant sum.
For a few days, there was real panic as we fretted over who might serve as a quality replacement. We flirted with Gloria Estefan, Sergio Mendes—but there was an unparalleled blend of timeliness and emotional oversaturation in the music of Julio Iglesias. Simply put, this was the music that we could imagine Frank’s mother listening to. Then our editor at Penguin, Ben Schrank, called with some amazing news. Somehow, Julio Iglesias had heard about Chopsticks, and asked to see the book. He read it, and contacted his handlers. Permission was granted.
We selected "Un Canto A Galicia" for Largehearted Boy not only because it is a song which is directly referenced in Chopsticks, but also because the lyrics are an ode to home—specifically, the home which Glory has not felt since she lost her mother in a motorcycle accident in 2000:
Un canto a Galicia
Que es mi tierra madre…
A song to Galicia
Which is my motherland.
"La Balsa," by Los Gatos, from the album La Balsa (1967)
Compiling Frank’s mix of Argentinean rock music took quite a bit of research, as there were a huge number of groups to listen to: from the Sixties with Los Shakers, Manal, Almendra and Los Beatniks, up through the Seventies with Billy Bond, Vivencia, Sui Generis, Pastoral, Soluna, Serú Girán and Vox Dei, to the Eighties with Sumo, Soda Stereo, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, and Los Twist. In the end, we came up with a list of music which hopefully pays homage to this era known as "Rock Nacional."
Los Gatos was one of the first Argentinean rock groups to sing in Spanish. Frank includes them on his mix to Glory primarily because he is a young artist who thinks it’s cool to listen to dated music and wants to impress her—but he also wants to introduce her to the rock of Argentina, and help her feel closer to his country. The lyrical sub-text adds considerable narrative weight when you know that the song is about building a raft to drift into madness.
"1234," by Feist, from the album The Reminder (2007)
At one point in the novel, Frank and Glory have fallen for each other and are sitting together a couch watching Feist perform this song on The David Letterman Show. The song is about remembering the fierce and ephemeral love we all felt as teenagers, and Glory and Frank are there, right in the moment.
"Dandelion," by The Rolling Stones, from the album Through the Past Darkly (1967)
When Frank moves in next door to Glory, he is asked by his mother (via a note in his pencil box) to mow the dandelions in the back yard. The dandelions, worn by Glory in a crown, given to her in a gift box, and surrounding her in one of Frank’s paintings become another motif in Chopsticks. By the end of the novel, the loss of Frank and Glory’s love for each other is manifested in the white heads of dying dandelions. In a poem to her, Frank echoes something Glory’s mother wrote in the family photo album when he writes:
Love is wild
And when it is cut
Returns again, stronger
Whether you want it to or not
"Back In Your Head," by Tegan and Sara, from the album The Con (2007)
A few of the musical selections in Chopsticks foreshadow the truth about Glory’s world, and the events to come. This is one. Tegan and Sara are twins, and there’s a mirroring effect to their appearance in the video which is slightly unsettling. You see them playing the piano and drums, and staring matter-of-factly at an audience full of masked people who are dressed in creepy black, white and red clothes. On the far wall in the video, you can see "1234," echoing the Feist song, which appears earlier.
"Bachelorette," Björk, from the album Homogenic (1997)
The lyrics of this song capture the reality of the relationship between Frank andGlory unlike any other in the book:
I'm a whisper in water
Secret for you to hear
You are the one who grows distant
When I beckon you near
But we felt the video was especially vital to Chopsticks. In it, Björk plays the character of a young girl who finds a book buried in the ground: "But all the pages were blank/And to my surprise/It started writing itself." The book continues writing itself, is published, and becomes wildly successful. But the story of how the book was written continues as the character must read from the book, and as variations of the book are adapted for stage and screen. The writing of the story becomes the story itself, again and again, until, like an M.C. Escher image, the meaning overlaps. Finally, nature takes over, reclaiming the story, returning it to the place where it began: underground. Thus, the video is a meta-commentary on the nature of writing and publishing—which, with its integration into a multimedia novel, is in itself a kind of meta-commentary.
"Chopsticks Waltz," by Euphemia Allen (traditional)
Our final song of course is "Chopsticks," which is played or referenced in the novel over twenty times. In 1877, a sixteen-year-old British girl named Euphemia Allen adapted the song from a Russian piece called "Tati-Tati," which begins, like "Chopsticks," in F & G. Over the past century, there have been innumerable references to the song in popular culture. It was played by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, is sampled at the end of the introduction to the cartoon The Jetsons, and was often performed by Liberace. It was referenced in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. We felt that "Chopsticks," as pervasive as it is annoying, was the right fit for a young pianist on the brink of madness.
Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral and Chopsticks links:
Book Addiction review
The Daily Campus review
Entertainment Weekly review
Kirkus Reviews review
Los Angeles Times review
PadGadget review
Touch and Go review
Vol. 1 Brooklyn review
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
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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February 10, 2012
Shorties (Composite Sketches of Literary Characters, Alan Parsons on Digital Music, and more)
The Composites is a Tumblr that uses police composite sketch software to draw literary characters.
CE Pro interviews producer and musician Alan Parsons about digital music.
Jewcy interviews Ben Marcus about his new novel, The Flame Alphabet.
In terms of style, this seems to be the least experimental of your books. This is a book with almost a classical narrative arc. How did you make this choice?
Well, I found it essential that one person tell it. As opposed to my earlier books which used different narrators, or unseen or removed omniscient narrators, here, I felt very compelled that this wasn't supposed to be told that way, that it needed to be a story of one person, and that is why it has the look and feel of a more traditional narrative. Additionally, I felt that I wanted to have a lot of momentum to move along as quickly as possible so that in a certain sense the hurdles to the believability of the idea wouldn’t settle in, because the conceit would put too much pressure and leave the reader scratching their head. So the ruse was to keep changing and moving things so that people wouldn't stop and think about.
On sale for $3.99 today at Amazon MP3: Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More album.
The Chicago Sun-Times interviews dan Chaon about his new story collection, Stay Awake.
Q. You've written two novels. How are they different from writing short stories?
A. You have to create a character who is going to have a transformational experience over a long period of time. You’re also creating a more complex and solidly grounded world in a novel, whereas stories can have more unexplored edges, and those can be particularly powerful. A short story is kind of like a photograph, but you can get the sense of something happening beyond the edges of the photo. And that can have a lot of mysterious power.
Bear McCreary talks to io9 about the physics behind science fiction film and television scores.
Queerty recommends seven queer indie bands you should be listening to.
The Outlet interviews author Emma Straub.
Shelf Awareness also profiles Straub.
Hypebot interviews cellist Zoe Keating about subcultures, social media, and staying D.I.Y.
Your musical niche is seems very specific and yet your audience is quite broad. To what do you attribute that to? Would that have been possible pre-internet?
It's been noted many times before that the internet allows niches and subcultures to flourish, and I think I'm just a part of that trend. My music appeals to certain discerning and curious people and the internet helps us find each other.
Read the title story from Krys Lee's new collection Drifting House at Granta.
?uestlove of The Roots talks to Co. Create about the current state of the music industry.
The Geeks's Guide to the Galaxy interviews author William Gibson.
Guardian readers recommend Valentine's day songs.
Maine Crime Writers interviews Elizabeth Hand about her forthcoming novel, Available Dark.
Much of Available Dark takes place in Helsinki and Iceland. How aware were you of the whole Scandinavian crime novel craze when you were writing the book and how did it influence what you were doing?
To this day, I've never read or seen any of the Stieg Larsson stories. After Generation Loss came out, readers started telling me how it reminded them of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Most people said they liked my book better because it left out the boring parts — Elmore Leonard’s 10th Rule in action! I eventually tried reading the first Larsson book but I just couldn't get into it. The movies sound like they’re better, and one of these days I'll watch them.
Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn plays a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR Music.
The Riverfront Times interviews Finn.
DC Women Kicking Ass interviews Batwoman artist Amy Reeder.
The Other Paper interviews Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg about the band's new album, Animal Joy.
Why was it important to you to make something that was more tethered and emotionally immediate?
I thought we'd gone as far as we could in this airy, spacious, washes-of-sound direction. I wanted to make something you could dance to, or at least shuffle around to, a bit more. I wanted to make a record that could appeal to your body as much as your head.
Monkey See explains why the Charles Dickens bicentennial hype matters.
Fresh Air reviews and excerpts from Tupelo Hassman's debut novel, Girlchild.
Win Sharon Van Etten's new album Tramp and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, 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)
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
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Daily Downloads (Murder By Death, Woodsman, 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:
Amy Ray: free and legal NoiseTrade Sampler album [mp3]
search for more Amy Ray posts at Largehearted Boy
Barna Howard: "Promise, I Won't Laugh" [mp3] from Barna Howard (out February 21st)
search for more Tongue posts at Largehearted Boy
The Bodies Obtained: free and legal Who Knows Who's Right album [mp3]
search for more Bodies Obtained posts at Largehearted Boy
Caveman: "Old Friend" [mp3] from CoCo Beware (out March 27th)
search for more Caveman posts at Largehearted Boy
Cygnets: "Teenager" [mp3] from Dark Days (out Match 6th)
search for more Cygnets posts at Largehearted Boy
Horse Feathers: "Drain You" [mp3]
search for more Horse Feathers posts at Largehearted Boy
Inspired & the Sleep: "What I Want and What I Need" [mp3] from the compilation I Love You & Stuff
search for more Inspired & the Sleep posts at Largehearted Boy
Lightouts: "The Cure for Shyness" [mp3] from The Cure for Shyness
search for more Lightouts posts at Largehearted Boy
Stars in Coma: "Paint My Picture on the Thick Shell" [mp3] from Midnight Puzzle (out february 27th)
search for more Stars in Coma posts at Largehearted Boy
Woodsman: "Supernal Radionics" [mp3] from Humdrum / Indoor Days EPs
search for more Woodsman posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
Murder By Death: Epitonic Saki session [mp3]
search for more Murder By Death posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD and DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
February 9, 2012
Book Notes - Josh Bazell - "Wild Thing"
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, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others.
Josh Bazell's debut Beat the Reaper was one of my favorite novels of 2009, and its sequel Wild Thingis also impressive. Fast-paced, violent, odd, and clever, this book definitely lives up to its title.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"Bazell expertly blends action, farce, and political satire, and his wide-ranging imagination bodes well for the future of the series."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In his own words, here is Josh Bazell's Book Notes music playlist for his novel, Wild Thing:
1. If you need to be revved up. Redd Kross, Phaseshifter / Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Far East Suite / Metric, Fantasies/ Dvorak, Slavonic Dances, with Alfred Scholz conducting the Slovic Philharmonic.
Phaseshifter is the musical version of every writer's third-worst nightmare: the masterpiece you can never repeat. Every writer's second-worst nightmare: no masterpiece in the first place. Every writer's worst nightmare: the day when the only people who can make money from books are piracy sites and amazon.com.
Far East Suite never gets old. I recently met Rudy Lawless, the drummer, on the subway (he was carrying a high-hat, so I asked him what the best exit was for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and we started talking -- I love New York) and he told me he knew Ellington and Strayhorn and that Far East Suite is almost all Strayhorn. So now I when I talk about it I say "by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn" instead of just "by Duke Ellington." I'm not quite ready to go full Strayhorn.
Metric has a fear of being boring that it seems to me all writers should cultivate. (Son Volt and Sleeper Agent are other bands that have it; Sleeper Agent's Celebrasion is particularly hyperactive and hook-laden in a good way.) Plus, just about everyone can benefit from a reminder that if you stumble you'll be eaten alive.
The liner notes to the Scholz Slavonic Dances, which is the best version of the symphony I've heard, quotes a contemporary review as saying it was like an injection of monkey glands into the drawing rooms of Europe. Subsequent research has shown that injecting monkey glands into drawing rooms affects only the smell of the drawing rooms, but I agree with the sentiment.
2. If you need be revved down. Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Session / Emmylou Harris, Wrecking Ball / Ben Lee, Breathing Tornadoes.
How many times have I listened to The Trinity Sessions? On how many formats, yo. If you somehow don't have this album, you'd best fix that.
Althought Emmylou Harris is one of the worst people on Earth to get caught trying to sing like, this album is indispensible.
Ben Lee is just good.
3. If you need to feel like you're losing your mind. Jimi Hendrix, Winterland (Reissue).
You know how every ten years you decide that the record reviews in Rolling Stone magazine can't possibly be as bad as you remember, so you buy something on their recommendation? For me this time around it was Winterland (Reissue). Rolling Stone says "The four-CD box Winterland is culled from six Jimi Hendrix Experience shows at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, recorded over three days in October 1968," and gives it five stars. Done: I love Hendrix.
What would have been nice, or at least professional, for the reviewer to have mentioned is that while the four discs do have significant differences, they're all variations of the same set list. That's right: in 36 tracks, "Hey Joe," "Foxy Lady," and "Lover Man" show up three times each, and "Purple Haze" and "Red House" show up four times each. (Not all of the tracks were recorded at Winterland, either, but I don't give a shit about that.) If you listen to all four discs on some kind of shuffle mode, songs you think you're familiar with will suddenly go in directions in you weren't expecting or else just end, making you feel insane. What's worse, Hendrix's playing on all four discs is so perfect, and the things he says between songs and in the accompanying interview so charming, that you won't be able to stop listening to the fucking thing.
4. If you need to be reminded of Europe. Various.
I recently moved back to the U.S. after a couple of years of living and working in Spain, so I find myself listening to lot of music I listened to there. Some of it is by bands I'd never heard of before, like Mesh (try Fragmente), or Sono ("All Those City Lights"), but a lot of it is bands that just don't get played as often or as deeply in the U.S., like the Cure (The Cure), Nick Cave (Let Love In), Jens Lekmann (Oh You're So Silent, Jens) or Pulp (Different Class).
Your results may vary.
5. If you need to listen to some Rolling Stones. Which sometimes you do.
My favorite 22 Rolling Stones songs, test marketed on various dogs and then presented chronologically:
From Out of Our Heads: "Play With Fire."
From Let it Bleed: "Gimme Shelter."
From Black and Blue: "Hot Stuff" and "Fool to Cry."
From Some Girls: "Miss You," "Just My Imagination," "Some Girls," "Before They Make Me Run," "Beast of Burden," "Shattered."
From Emotional Rescue: "Dance (Pt 1)," "Send it to Me," "Down in the Hole," "Indian Girl," "Emotional Rescue," "She's So Cold," and "All About You."
From Tattoo You: "Worried About You," "Tops," "Heaven," "No Use in Crying," "Waiting on a Friend."
6. If you need to seem deeper than you are. Alan Hovhaness, Music of Alan Hovhaness, conducted by Rudolph Werthen.
I only listen to this album when I'm trying to impress someone with how esoteric my taste in music is. But every time I do I remember how much I like it.
Josh Bazell and Wild Thing links:
the author's website
excerpt from the book
Kirkus Reviews review
Publishers Weekly review
Rhapsody in Books review
Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay by the author for Beat the Reaper
Lit Reactor interview with the author
Mulholland Books interview with the author
National Post guest posts by the author
The Nook Blog guest post by the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
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
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Shorties (Top Emo Songs of All Time, Valentine's Gifts for Comics Fans, and more)
On the Download lists the top 100 emo songs of all time.
Hero Complex shares a Valentine's gift guide for comics fans.
The Telegraph interviews Carrie Brownstein of Wild Flag and Portlandia.
The Guardian's children's books blog offers a love in literature quiz.
Louisville.com interviews Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers about storytelling in song.
The Hooded Utilitarian interviews cartoonist Marguerite Dabaie about her graphic memoir, The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories.
Nerve lists the 50 greatest love songs of all time.
Bookworm interviews author Wayne Koestenbaum.
Rolling Stone is streaming the first new Luscious Jackson song in over a decade.
The Story Prize has listed its 2011 outstanding and notable short story collections.
Stream Wilco's Austin City Limits performance.
The Telegraph profiles the self-published crime writer who has sold 250,000 e-books in the past six months.
At the Ardent Music Blog, Michael J. Epstein shares a playlist of bands named after books or short stories.
The Howling Fantods lists six David Foster Wallace-related books due in 2012. (via)
The Guardian interviews Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields.
You said your new single Andrew in Drag is autobiographical – in what way?
I write a lot of songs about unrequited love because I'm very, very familiar with unrequited love, both as a lyrical theme and coincidentally in my own life – which is a good thing because it provides lots of material.
20 Essential Novels for Jewish Studies Students
On sale for $3.99 at Amazon MP3: Crooked Fingers' latest album, Breaks in the Armor.
Deceptive Cadence finds commonality among the songwriting of Henry Purcell, Leonard Cohen, and Nick Drake.
Fresh Air interviews poet Donald hall.
Win Sharon Van Etten's new album Tramp and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, 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)
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
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Ceremony, Gardens & Villa, 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:
Baby Eagle & the Proud Mothers: "Brave Women" [mp3] from Bone Soldiers (out March 6th)
search for more Baby Eagle posts at Largehearted Boy
Ceremony: "Hysteria" [mp3] from Zoo (out March 6th)
search for more Ceremony posts at Largehearted Boy
Gardens & Villa: "Orange Blossom" [mp3] from Gardens & Villa
search for more Gardens & Villa posts at Largehearted Boy
Inca Gold: "Atom" [mp3] from Inca Gold III
search for more Inca Gold posts at Largehearted Boy
Jonathan Segel: "(Ever and) Always" [mp3] from All Attractions (out March 6th)
search for more Jonathan Segel posts at Largehearted Boy
Lux: "The Window" [mp3] from We Are Not the Same
search for more Lux posts at Largehearted Boy
The Quiet Americans: "Selia" [mp3] from Medicine EP
search for more Quiet Americans posts at Largehearted Boy
Sean Bones: "Here Now" [mp3]
search for more Sean Bones posts at Largehearted Boy
The Sexy Accident: free and legal You're Not Alone EP [mp3]
search for more Sexy Accident posts at Largehearted Boy
Teeth & Tongue: "Unfamiliar Skirts" [mp3]
search for more Teeth & Tongue posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
Blouse: 2012-01-31, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more Blouse posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD and DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
February 8, 2012
Book Notes - Katie Ward - "Girl Reading"
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, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others.
Katie Ward's Girl Reading is an ambitious and cleverly executed debut novel, the stories of seven portraits of women reading through the ages woven into a cohesive narrative.
The Guardian wrote of the novel:
"This debut should appeal to a wide but discerning readership. Not for Katie Ward the coming-of-age first novel starring a barely disguised over-sensitive heroine airing her resentments: Girl Reading reads as though its author is five books down. She has plunged straight into a series of difficult challenges, her handling of time and place accomplished with authority, skill and knowledge. If the basic idea is simple, reminiscent of the classic writing class exercise in which students are made to produce a tale inspired by an art postcard, the result is a complex showcase for Ward’s talents."
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 Katie Ward's Book Notes music playlist for her novel, Girl Reading:
Girl Reading is a novel in 7 chapters, each chapter with a contained story set in a different historical period. It starts in medieval Italy and it develops through to the present day, and beyond. And each chapter is about a work of art, a painting or a photograph of a woman reading a book.
Chapter 1: 'Suite No.4 in D Minor, HWV 437, Sarabande' by GF Handel
This orchestral interpretation of a piece for harpsichord sets the mood beautifully for the first chapter of Girl Reading. In the medieval city state of Siena, the cathedral commissions a new altarpiece depicting the Virgin Mary. The chosen painter is the bad tempered maestro Simone Martini, and the reluctant sitter is Laura, a foundling child with problems of her own.
Handel compositions are synonymous with grandeur and this chapter is as much about institutional posturing as anything else; and yet Handel was also involved with London's Foundling Hospital and would have felt deep compassion for Laura's dilemma.
Chapter 2: 'Beggin' by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
The groove and lyric in 'Beggin' speaks of male sexual frustration dressed up as romantic feeling. A key character in Chapter 2 of Girl Reading is the Dutch painter, Elinga. He's a contemporary of Rembrandt, and harbours sexual desires for his maidservant – who does not reciprocate. The lyric of the song goes: 'Put your loving hand out, Baby'; in the book she 'hurries away, knocking past his open, insulting hand.'
Chapter 3: 'Angel' by Aretha Franklin
This record isn't only about a broken heart, but also the support and friendship between two women. 'Come by when you can, I've got something that I want to say' is a plea for help. 'Gotta find me an angel' is the repeated wish.
The premise of Chapter 3 is a countess coping with grief, and how an artist, Angelica Kauffman, helps her to overcome it by finishing the portrait of her dead lover.
The 'angel' here could mean several things: the protective spirit of the deceased; the potential for new love to be found within this lifetime; and the friends who come to our aid in times of distress – in this case, a paintress who was nicknamed 'Miss Angel' by Joshua Reynolds.
Chapter 4: 'My Vision' by Jakatta & Seal
'Tonight magical things are going to happen' says a mysterious voice on this record. Is this a promise of genuine magic, or just crowd-pleasing theatrical bunkum?
The middle chapter of Girl Reading is set in Victorian times. Being Victorian must have been terribly confusing, as cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs were inexorably mixed with illusion, parlour tricks and hoaxes. 'Real' and 'artificial' were indistinguishable to most people.
The chapter concerns twin sisters: one twin is a photographer; the other is a spiritualist medium. Both professions would have seemed impossible and marvellous to Victorian eyes, and both professions are about the inexplicable creation of images out of darkness. As Seal sings so persuasively, 'Can you see my vision...?'
Chapter 5: 'Sunday Girl' by Blondie
Chapter 5 takes place during the Great War and is mainly told from the point of view of 15-year-old Gwen. She's well-meaning, awkward and hopelessly in love with Laurence, a post-Impressionist painter and conscientious objector. That Laurence is ten years older than Gwen is surely a barrier she can overcome? The real difficulty is the appearance of a sensuous and glamorous rival.
The song goes: 'Hey, I saw your guy with a different girl, looks like he's in another world, run and hide Sunday Girl'; the book goes: 'Running off to cry in private seems like the appropriate gesture ... so Gwen does.'
Chapter 6: 'Halo' by Beyoncé
This is the chapter of Girl Reading set in the present day. Like Beyoncé, the lead character, Jeannine Okoro, is intelligent, independent, beautiful and ambitious. Unlike Beyoncé however, Jeannine feels isolated and displaced. It begins to dawn on her that she might be in the wrong job, the wrong relationship, that she might never fulfil her potential. How much of this is a result of lingering prejudice in the modern world? And how much of it is down to her own bad judgement?
Jeannine would know the song 'Halo', and hearing it would be a bitter-sweet experience: she'd believe absolutely that walls can come 'tumbling down' but feel cynical about the idea that being with a man can help her to achieve her goals.
Chapter 7: 'Hidden Place' by Björk
The last chapter of Girl Reading is set in the year 2060, and the extraordinary musical landscapes created by Björk on her album Vespertine suit it very well.
In this future, we live our lives with one foot in the physical world and one foot in the virtual world called Mesh. All original paintings and sculpture are hidden away from the public, who now have to make do with digital reproductions. Nearly all books are electronic too. In an age ruled by immersive technology, Sincerity Yabuki has invented something called the Sibil, and her research is coveted by governments around the world.
The lyrics of 'Hidden Place' are about the yearning for physical contact: 'Now I have been slightly shy, and I can smell a pinch of hope / To almost have allowed one's fingers to stroke / The fingers I was given to touch with, but careful, careful / There lies my passion.' Sincerity's existence, though visually miraculous, is almost devoid of the sensation of touch. She lives apart from her partner and daughter, maintaining these relationships via her avatar.
In addition, the backing vocals on 'Hidden Place' have an unearthly siren-like beauty, as though they are calling you into the unknown ... likewise, Sincerity is magnetically drawn towards the Sibil and ever further away from home.
For the reader of the novel, the 6 previous chapters have been pointing to this moment.
Katie Ward and Girl Reading links:
Book Snob review
Booklist review
Cosmopolitan review
The Daily Beast review
Guardian review
Harriet Devine's Blog review
Kirkus Reviews review
Lloyd Shepherd review
Punkadiddle review
Secluded Charm review
East Anglian Daily Times profile of the author
IP1 interview with the author
Writers Read guest post by the author
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
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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Atomic Books Comics Preview - February 8th, 2012
In the weekly Atomic Books Comics Preview, Benn Ray highlights notable new comics and graphic novels.
Benn Ray is the owner of Atomic Books, an independent bookstore in Baltimore. The Mobtown Shank is his blog, and his comic Said What? is syndicated weekly in the Baltimore Sun's B-Paper.
Atomic Books has been named one of Bizarre Magazine's 51 geekiest places on the planet, as well as one of Flavorwire's 10 greatest comic and graphic novel stores in America.
Every Man Is My Enemy
by Skinner
This book collects the mural and installation art work of Sacramento artist Skinner. The result is a gorgeous heavy metal, Dungeons & Dragons, psychedelic acid trip.
Galactic Breakdown #4
by Keenan Marshall Keller
The newest installment in the stunning, weirdo underground comic. It reads like a psychedelic '80s video game designed by Gary Panter with a killer punk rock soundtrack.
The Life and Death of Fritz the Cat
by R. Crumb
For the first time in hardcover, the epic saga of one of Robert Crumb's most famous characters - so famous, in fact, that Crumb had to kill him.
We Can't Get Up
by Dina Kelberman
This colorful mini by Dina Kelberman is sort of the comics equivalent of a collection of outtakes and b-sides. Except with Dina, her b-sides are better than most people's a-sides. It includes stories she's done for a couple anthologies I've edited, an overheard conversation for a weekly comic strip I do, and some other excellent work. It's a great introduction to the charm that is Dina Kelberman.
Young Romance: The Best of Simon & Kirby's 1940s-50s Romance Comics
by Jack Kirby / Joe Simon / Michel Gagne (editor)
Before they became famous for all those superheroes, these two legends of comics helped define the hugely popular, at the time, romance comic genre. This book brings together some of the best work in an overlooked and under-appreciated genre.
Questions, concerns, comments or gripes – e-mail benn@atomicbooks.com. If there’s a comic I should know about, send it my way at Atomic, c/o Atomic Books 3620 Falls Rd., Baltimore, MD 21211.
Atomic Books & Benn Ray links:
Atomic Books website
Atomic Books on Twitter
Atomic Books on Facebook
Benn Ray's blog (The Mobtown Shank)
Benn Ray's comic, Said What?
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Atomic Books Comics Preview lists (weekly new comics & graphic novel highlights)
the list of online "best books of 2011" lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
Largehearted Word (weekly new book highlights)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
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Largehearted WORD Books of the Week - February 8th, 2012
In the Largehearted Word series, the staff of Brooklyn's WORD bookstore highlights several new books released this week.
WORD is an independent neighborhood bookstore in Greenpoint, the northernmost neighborhood of Brooklyn, that will celebrate its fifth anniversary in March 2012. Our primary goal is to be whatever our community needs us to be, which currently means carrying a lot of paperback fiction (especially classics), cookbooks, board books, and absurdly cute cards and stationery. In addition, we're fiends for a good event, from the classic author reading and Q&A to potlucks and a basketball league (and anything set in a bar). We're a small operation, just 1000 square feet and four people, but we read too much, so it all works out. If a weekly dose of WORD here isn't enough for you, follow us on Twitter: @wordbrooklyn.
WORD also hosts the monthly Largehearted Lit reading series, featuring authors who participated in this blog's Book Notes series and musical guests.
Vaclav and Lena
by Haley Tanner
One of Jenn's favorite debut novels of 2011, now in paperback.
A Widow's Story
by Joyce Carol Oates
One of Stephanie's favorite memoirs of 2011, now in paperback.
History of a Pleasure Seeker
by Richard Mason
A brand new novel from the acclaimed author of The Drowning People, sure to bring out your inner hedonist.
The Monster Returns
by Peter McCarty
What to do when a monster comes back? Throw him a surprise party, naturally.
WORD Brooklyn links:
WORD website
WORD blog
WORD on Twitter
WORD's Facebook page
WORD's Flickr photos
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Largehearted Word Books of the Week (weekly new book highlights)
List of online "best of 2011" book lists
52 Books, 52 Weeks (my yearly reading project)
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics & graphic novel highlights)
Book Notes (authors create music playlists for their book)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
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Shorties (Philip Glass, Stephen Fry, and more)
Sound of the City interviews Philip Glass about growing up in segregated Baltimore and black music's influence on his compositions.
The Bat Segundo Show interviews author and comedian Stephen Fry.
The A.V. Club interviews Sharon Van Etten about her new album, Tramp.
AVC: You’re known for being an autobiographical songwriter; that was certainly true of your first album. Do you feel like that’s continued on this record? Are you still drawing from your own life, or are you moving away from that?
SVE: I’m slowly moving away from it. There are still songs that are about things I went through, but there are more songs that my friends have gone through, and I’m learning how to separate myself a little more, because I feel like the better I am at separating myself and writing in a way where it’s more general, I feel like more people will be able to relate to the songs. But whether the song is about me or not, the content will probably always be surrounding the idea of love, because it’s I think the most universal thing to write about. I don’t know. I joke about my next record being an album of book reviews. I’m not sure.
PopMatters lists the 10 greatest Shakespeare adaptations of all time.
The A.V. Club lists eight rules for covering Bob Dylan.
Component Parts interviews author Adam Wilson about music and his debut novel Flatscreen.
Willamette Week offers a primer to the music of Dr. Dog.
For fans of: My Morning Jacket's more psychedelic side, Langhorne Slim's more rockin’ side, Fleet Foxes' less artsy side, the Kinks' less British side.
Chatelaine interviews author Erin Morgenstern about her novel The Night Circus.
The Santa Barbara Independent interviews White Denim frontman James Petralli about touring with Wilco.
The Book Bench interviews Michael Chabon about his new short story in the New Yorker, "Citizen Conn."
The Mountain Goats cover Leonard Cohen's "The Smokey Life."
Philip Coggan talks to Morning Edition about his new book, Paper Promises: Debt, Money and the New World Order.
On sale for $3.99 today at Amazon MP3: Johnny Cash's 16 Biggest Hits album.
Fresh Air interviews William Broad about his new book, The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards.
Drowned in Sound and the Chicago Reader interview Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn about his solo album, Clear Heart Full Eyes.
Katherine Boo talks to Morning Edition about her new book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.
Win Sharon Van Etten's new album Tramp and a $100 Threadless gift certificate in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.
Amazon MP3
Follow me on Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, 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)
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
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
Daily Downloads (Marketa Irglova, Rosie Thomas, and more)
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet.
NoiseTrade has quickly become one of my go to destinations for free and legal music from a variety of genres, here are 10 recently added releases.
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:
Brandi Carlile: free and legal Noisetrade Sampler album [mp3]
search for more Brandi Carlile posts at Largehearted Boy
Cameron McGill: free and legal Cameron McGill Noisetrade Sampler album [mp3]
search for more Cameron McGill posts at Largehearted Boy
Leland Sundries: free and legal The Apothecary EP [mp3]
search for more Leland Sundries posts at Largehearted Boy
Madi Diaz: free and legal Far From The Things That We Know album [mp3]
search for more Madi Diaz posts at Largehearted Boy
Marketa Irglova: free and legal Live from San Francisco album [mp3]
search for more Marketa Irglova posts at Largehearted Boy
Owl City: free and legal Noisetrade Sampler album [mp3]
search for more Owl City posts at Largehearted Boy
Paper Route: free and legal Absence album [mp3]
search for more Paper Route posts at Largehearted Boy
Rosie Thomas: free and legal These Friends of Mine album [mp3]
search for more Rosie Thomas posts at Largehearted Boy
Seryn: free and legal This Is Where We Are album [mp3]
search for more Seryn posts at Largehearted Boy
William Fitzsimmons: free and legal Noisetrade Sampler album [mp3]
search for more William Fitzsimmons posts at Largehearted Boy
Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:
Larkin Grimm: 2012-02-02, Brooklyn [mp3]
search for more Larkin Grimm posts at Largehearted Boy
also at Largehearted Boy:
other daily free and legal mp3 downloads
100 Online Sources for Free and Legal Music Downloads
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD and DVD release lists
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
February 7, 2012
Book Notes - Dan Chaon - "Stay Awake"
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, David Peace, Myla Goldberg, and many others.
Dan Chaon has proven himself once again a master of the short story with his haunting second collection Stay Awake.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
"The best of his stories arouse a feeling of deep foreboding. Then, with the reader's realization of what’s about to emerge from the shadows, comes a shock of recognition. This is the great guilty pleasure of good horror fiction: the sickening moment when the monstrosity at the heart of the story's darkness suggests itself to the eager imagination, while still withholding its true shape. "Stay Awake" is a superbly disquieting demonstration of that uneasy power."
Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.
In his own words, here is Dan Chaon's Book Notes music playlist for his short story collection, Stay Awake:
The title of my new book of stories, Stay Awake comes from a lullaby from the musical Disney film Mary Poppins. In 1988, not long after I finished college, Hal Willner put out a compilation of covers of Disney songs on A&M Records called Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films. The album contained an incredibly sinister and spooky a cappella version of "Stay Awake" sung by Suzanne Vega, which stuck with me for years and years. Even as a young man, I knew that I wanted to write a story about the feeling that the song had evoked in me.
I thought I was writing stories that were more or less "realistic"—they were about ordinary people and situations, but I also knew that there was something behind the curtain of straightforward realism. It wasn't supernatural exactly. But it was something-- something not natural, watching.
Flash forward 25 years! I was writing the novels You Remind Me of Me and Await Your Reply, and in-between I was occasionally writing stories. I had the idea that I wanted to write a collection of ghost stories. I was thinking about the amazing collections of ghost stories by writers like Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Bowen, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, M.R. James, E. Nesbit, etc. I was also greatly drawn to Joyce Carol Oates' wonderful book Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque.
I knew that I wanted to create a collection that paid tribute to the idea of the "ghost story" while at the same time I wanted to adapt that form to my own purposes, so that not all the stories are necessarily exactly "supernatural." I was very influenced by my friend, the novelist Peter Straub, who once described The Red Badge of Courage as "a ghost story in which the ghost doesn't appear." That idea fired my imagination as I was working on these stories.
"The Bees" appears on Belly's sadly overlooked second album, King, which came out in 2000. The song was the inspiration for the first story in my collection, which is also called "The Bees." I started writing the story with this song on repeat, and fragments of lyrics began to crystallize into scenes and characters: "My blessed son, you have a lot to learn," sings lead singer Tanya Donnelly, and "the bees behind my eyes sing beware," and "I steal a piece of your diary/I don't think that looks like me." From these fragments, and from the melancholy and sinister music, I began to form a picture of a guilty father who had wronged his son in horrible ways, but was in denial about it. I don't actually know what the song is really about—but my story has a powerfully parasitic relationship to it. I felt like I was literally drawing on the life force of that song when I was writing the piece.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, "Bobby Malone Moves Home"
I feel a real affinity with Owen Ashworth, the singer-songwriter who has gone by the name "Casiotone for the Painfully Alone" and, more recently, "Advance Base." He creates vivid characters and situations in a short space, and I think of songs like "Natural Light" and "Toby Take a Bow" as kind of like musical versions of Raymond Carver short stories. Of all of his songs, "Bobby Malone Moves Home" is my favorite. I love the way Owen's morose, ragged voice moves across the jaunty keyboard line, and the way that series of chords becomes increasingly creepy and relentless. I love poor Bobby Malone himself, who is as vivid in my mind as if he had been the main character in a novel. The frightening sense of ennui and entrapment this song gets at is something I was trying to find in my story "Patrick Lane, Flabbergasted" –which is about a similar sort of guy, who finds himself "back home" and stuck there. The situation that we jokingly refer to as "failure to launch" is, to me, actually really scary--kind of psychological ghost story; a maze that slowly ensorcels its victims, from which they can never escape.
Occasionally I'll read the Amazon and Good Reads reviews of my books. A number of people mention that my stuff can be depressing, and I feel a little guilty about it. I don't want to be the downer guy. At the same time, I actually really like sad stories and sad songs and sad movies. The problem of loss is interesting to me, and I appreciate art that helps me think about it.
The video for Modest Mouse's song "Little Motel" is among the most memorable music videos I've ever seen. I think it's smart and wise in the way it explores grief; that clever backtracking narrative line that slowly unfolds and reveals the dream and denial of the young mother, the beautiful use of lonely, late-night urban space, the way ordinary places, like a motel or a diner or gas station can take on a kind of uncanny, haunted quality. And though it's very, very sad, and it makes me cry practically every time I see it, it's a kind of sadness that makes me feel less alone, and so I'm thankful for that. High five, Isaac Brock!
Red House Painters, "Have You Forgotten"
There are some artists that follow you through your life. The singer Mark Kozelek is one of those for me: he's recorded as "Red House Painters," as himself, and as "Sun Kil Moon" and "Desertshore." I frequently listen to Mark Kozelek while I am writing, and his songs speak to me of the healing and hypnotic magical power of sad music. If someone asked me to sit down and write a story, I would first of all make a playlist that included some Mark Kozelek songs, and that would help me get into the zone. It's like having fairy dust sprinkled on me. I love his voice and his music so much that I ended up naming one of the main characters in my novel Await Your Reply after him.
I was sort of hoping that he would notice this and be super excited and then write to me. But he didn't.
Idaho is another of my favorite bands, and like Red House Painters they create a certain kind of drone that is appealing to me. Very often, what I am looking for in music is a kind of hypnotic state, a soundscape that opens up into a dream world, and "Skyscrape" does that to me. It starts with a kind of sleepwalking march, the feeling of moving through a fog toward an uncertain point, which I think is exactly the state that writers find themselves in as they sit down. When Jeff Martin's voice comes in at :26, the fog begins to clear. "You know the harder you try… to be… respected…" he whispers, in his deep, somnolent voice, like a fortune teller in a trance. "It's not difficult to see…why you are…not happy…"
I was listening to this song and out of the fog emerged a drunken lawyer, disheveled, still dressed in a suit but soaking wet, stumbling down a dark, rainy Portland street long after midnight. Not respected. Not happy. Lost. I began to follow him, and that was how I wrote the story called "Take This Brother, May It Serve You Well," which is one of my favorite pieces in Stay Awake.
D.Veloped, "The Childish Games"
I love mashups. I was a DJ through most of my college years, back in the late 1980's days of Chicago "hotmixes" and house music, and I'm very taken with the work of young artists like D.Veloped, Girl Talk, DJ Earworm, and others who take samples and combine them into collage art that re-envisions the original artists and transforms their work into something fresh and new.
The idea of collage is very important to me in my own work. I tend to work with fragments at first—images, characters, details--and sort them and arrange them a little like I would a mix, as I try to find a narrative line. I want the various scenes and moments of a story to combine in the way that a mashup does, not necessarily logical but inevitable. And I want the elements of light and dark to clash in ways that are ultimately pleasing—the way that D.Veloped uses the sample of Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya,"—which, played over a minor key line, uncovers an unnoticed ache in ODB's drunk jackass bravado voice, a yearning that gives us a weirdly melancholy, backward-glance insight into his tragically short life. Or so I'd like to think.
In any case, I find myself "sampling" the work of writers that I love when I'm writing my own stories, trying to remix phrases and moods from stories in the hopes of tapping into something new or discovering some element of my story that I hadn't thought of. Favorite sample beats include Carver, Cheever, Bradbury, Munro, Method Man.
If I were forced to choose my favorite album of the last ten years, it would be Page France's Hello, Dear Wind. The album is an emotional tour-de-force, a song cycle of repeated themes and images that are interwoven and yet stand alone as powerfully beautiful individual singles. I was definitely influenced by the method of this album in the use of recurring tropes, and by the complex web of imagery. It truly feels like an album—each song speaks to the other and they gain depth when listened to as a whole.
This is what I wanted to achieve with the stories in Stay Awake. The stories were written over a period of ten years, and when I sat down to put them together I noticed that that there were a number of images and moments that appeared almost identically in several of the stories. At first, my instinct was to rewrite or edit the stories so that there wasn't any repetition. Then, thinking about it, and remembering the effect of Page France's album, I decided that I really liked the kind of weird "déjà vu" quality that this created.
I hope that some people will like this effect, though it's also a bit worrying. Recently, one of my friends pointed out the echoes he noted in the stories with a concerned look. "Dude, did you notice that you had the same thing in both stories?"
Oh, facepalm, facepalm.
Here's Tom Waits, an artist who, over the years, has probably meant more to me than any other. The stories that Tom Waits tells in his songs are written in English, but ultimately they start to become their own language—"Waitish?" –which is full of a kind of rich, complicated mood that reaches beyond the edges of the "words" or the "music" and becomes a newly invented world that you enter and exist in, a world with its own rules and logic; even its own colors. My ambition is to write stories that are sort of the fictional equivalent of his songs, but that's just wishful thinking. Tom Waits is sui generis. A god-like entity.
This song, "Green Grass," is sung from the perspective of a ghost, and so it seemed particularly appropriate.
PS: My son is friends with a kid who knew Tom Waits' kids, and once my son's friend was at Tom Waits' house and Tom Waits came in and served all the children pizza bagels.
That makes me happy to know. Say: "Hey, kids, who wants some pizza bagels?" in a Tom Waits voice, and it will make you happy too.
OK, I realize that this song has already been on the soundtrack for Where the Wild Things Are, but if I got to have everything I wanted, this song would come at the end of the movie to Stay Awake, just as the Suzanne Vega song would be at the opening credits.
I love the way that this song moves—from dirge to anthem to odd little jig and then to a kind of meditative coda. It's such a strange piece, and it seems like it shouldn't really hold together as a song at all. But it does, and that makes me hopeful.
Dan Chaon and Stay Awake links:
the author's Tumblr
excerpt from the book
Cleveland Plain Dealer review
Goodreads interview with the author
The Millions review
New York Times review
NPR review
Publishers Weekly review
Time Out New York review
Wall Street Journal review
Connecticut Post profile of the author
Fictionaut interview with the author
Interview Magazine interview with the author
Wall Street Journal essay by the author (on writing fiction)
also at Largehearted Boy:
other Book Notes playlists (authors create music playlists for their book)
List of Online "Best Books of 2011" Lists
List of 2011 Year-End Online Music Lists
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
Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)
