June 7, 2013
Book Notes - Brian Kimberling "Snapper"
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.
Brian Kimberling's debut novel Snapper is perhaps the most entertaining book I have read all year. This novel-in-stories set in rural Indiana is filled with quirky, unforgettable characters and an abundance of humor.
The Telegraph wrote of the book:
"His writing is always engaging, sometimes beautiful and often funny, occasionally in quick succession: a lyrical description of Indiana’s 'identical silver street[s]' and 'endless stillborn suburbia' is followed with a tragic yet absurd tale about one of Nathan's boyhood friends."
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 Brian Kimberling's Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel, Snapper:
Snapper is organized as a series of stories or vignettes, and each one has its own title, often taken from a song. Some notes on those and other musical references below. There's a Led Zeppelin T-shirt in the book that plays a critical role; I had never been a fan until I wrote that scene. I did speak to Robert Plant in a crowded bar once, but I couldn't understand a word he said.
"Lola," The Kinks
Lola is the name of the leading lady in Snapper, and a line from the song is one of the book's epigraphs. One reader told me that he spent the first 30 pages thinking she was a transvestite. On reflection, this might have made a better book.
"Meet Me in the Morning," Bob Dylan
The protagonist, Nathan, has a falling out with a friend who can play "just about every song Bob Dylan ever wrote." They get chased by some cops for a minor misdemeanor and the friend gets away – "he even outran the hound dogs," according to the text, which is lifted from the song.
Of course the next line of the song is "Honey, you know I've earned your love," but Nathan later spurns his friend.
"I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide," ZZ Top
Near the middle of the book Nathan visits a desolate truck stop and muses on "all the lonely retrograde denizens and misfits of the Great American Highway." This section of the book is actually called "Nationwide, " and there is not only an overt reference to ZZ Top but a quick quip about hell raisers and beer drinkers, too. It's safe to say I couldn't have written Snapper without some help from the Right Reverend Billy Gibbons and company.
"Bang Bang," by Cher, covered by Nancy Sinatra and later by Paul Weller
There's a section called Bang Bang. I called it that because I was listening to the Weller cover incessantly at the time. Actually in the book the weapon in question fails to go off, and it isn't a banging sort of weapon anyway. But I stuck with the title because what doesn't happen is one of the most important things in the book. Nathan meets a wise and cynical woman who was essentially made just for him – I know, because I made her – and then he misreads her, as he misreads so many things. I had a reader tell me she was rather cross that I was so relentlessly hard on Nathan; somewhere I should have given him some salvation. "Bang Bang" was his chance and he blew it. I'm still mad at him.
"Apeman," The Kinks
There is a Tarzan/Jane joke in the book lifted directly from "Apeman." "I think a Tarzan like yourself should have a little Jane," says the woman in "Bang Bang." Of course Nathan isn't remotely Tarzanlike. "I'm more of a St. Francis," he says. I couldn't have written Snapper without some assistance from the Davies brothers, either. I'm astonished in retrospect that the Ohio, which appears often in the book, is never described as a "dirty old river," a la "Waterloo Sunset."
"Back in the USSR," The Beatles
At one point Nathan admires the Soviet ornithologist L.S. Stepanyan – calls him one of his personal heroes. I am not sure what possessed me. I suppose I detected a dearth of Soviet ornithologists in contemporary literary fiction. I had to get him in. The book's other epigraph comes from socialist Eugene V. Debs. The more that Nathan perceives how people depend on one another, the more disgruntled he becomes with American legal, social, and symbolic arrangements. He was born too late to be a communist, but he could have been a good one.
Various Country Songs
At one point Nathan ponders the suitability of country song titles as a form of flash fiction; a reiteration of Hemingway's six-word story test.
"Mama Tried," Merle Haggard
"My Son Calls Another Man Daddy," Hank Williams
"I Fought the Law and the Law Won," by Sonny Curtis, covered by The Clash (not really country, and over the word limit, but The Clash had to get in there somehow).
"Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To be Cowboys," written by Ed & Patsy Bruce, performed by Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings
And the country song/short story that got away – that I was unaware of until the book had already been published: "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly," performed by Loretta Lynne and Conway Twitty.
"Aim High," Paul Weller
This is a blue-eyed soul ballad I got stuck in for several weeks while writing a late chapter, and the chapter is called Aim High as a result. In the book, though, it becomes a rather bitter comment on Lola's rise from dubious origins to bourgeois respectability. Nathan feels he's a casualty of the whole process. (Lola's own opinion of this is probably best expressed somewhere by Morrissey). Obviously Paul Weller was instrumental in writing Snapper, too. When I got the book deal I treated myself to a gig of his in London. There were several thousand happy dads in attendance and a smattering of very patient women. He played Aim High, and he hit the high note live. I was very impressed.
In an early scene from the book, Nathan and a friend listen to "The Clash or The Jam or some other band nobody in a hundred mile radius but us listened to. In Southern Indiana, The U.K. invariably means the University of Kentucky." This is only a slight exaggeration. Pre-internet it was nigh impossible to obtain Paul Weller's music in southern Indiana, which had and still has, I think, some kind of record saturation for private ownership of The Eagles' Greatest Hits. That said, my hometown of Evansville, which features prominently in the book, is extremely competitive in homegrown heavy metal, and though I don't want to listen to them I feel the members of Hostile Apology deserve some sort of good band name award.
"Back on the Chain Gang," The Pretenders
Captured my mood when I had finished the book, and every day since.
Brian Kimberling and Snapper links:
excerpt from the book (at NPR Books)
Boston Globe review
Elle review
Kirkus Reviews review
Minneapolis Star Tribune review
The National review
New York Journal of Books review
New York Times review
NPR Books review
Publishers Weekly review
Telegraph review
Washington Post review
Washington Times review
CBS News interview with the author
CNN interview with the author
Corduroy Books interview with the author
Flavorwire essay by the author (on his favorite short story)
Writer's Digest 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
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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June 7, 2013
Book Notes - Marc Weingarten "Yes Is The Answer: (And Other Prog-Rock Tales)"
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.
Editors Marc Weingarten and Tyson Cornell have gathered an impressive group of writers, musicians and critics that includes Wesley Stace, Rick Moody, Joe Meno, Beth Lisick, and Nathan Larson to share essays inspired by their love of prog rock in the anthology Yes Is The Answer: (And Other Prog-Rock Tales).
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 Marc Weingarten's Book Notes music playlist for the anthology, Yes Is The Answer: (And Other Prog-Rock Tales):
This is a book about a very specific kind of musical fixation: that of the young 1970's male teenager who is attracted to men in colorful tights playing very complicated Rock music and singing abstract lyrics that the young male finds quite heavy. Prog-Rock, in other words. What was fun about editing this collection was learning how the 20 essayists came to Prog in the first place, what they loved about it, and when they hailed it a fond farewell. Because more than any other subgenre besides Bubblegum, Prog took root in the impressionable souls of young boys in the early 70's, only to wither away and die by the end of the decade. An almost exclusively British phenomenon, Punk rock crushed Prog under its boot heel, though by 1977, it was time for Prog to go, anyway.
Don't get me wrong: my partner Tyson Cornell and I still love this music, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered doing the book. But when sifting through the vast corpus, there's a lot of silliness. So herewith is a list of the good stuff:
The Nice, "America"
Seth Greenland in our book talks about having his mind blown by The Nice's Keith Emerson. Not so much Emerson's organ skills, but his way with a dagger, and his tendency to smash shit up onstage. If Emerson hadn't trained in a Conservatory, he would have a made a great Punk Rocker.
Yes, "Starship Trooper"
I love Yes. The first concert I ever attended was Yes at Madison Square Garden, when they were still using their rotating stage. Blew my mind. These guys were like my Justice League of America. Listening to it now, I still admire the beauty and ingenuity of songs like "Starship Trooper," how the disparate parts lock together so pleasingly. I will never forsake this band – never!
Soft Machine, "Slightly All The Time"
We were thrilled to have Wesley Stace write about the Canterbury scene for the book, as it is easily the most neglected corner of Prog-Rock. For me, Soft Machine was the only band to properly weld Jazz and Rock. Mostly because Soft Machine was extremely proficient and fucked-up in equal measure, in part due to Mike Ratledge's creepy distorted organ and Robert Wyatt's swinging drums. This track from their third album is the one that I always return to; it's their peak.
Utopia, "Utopia"
Todd Rundgren's Prog experiments are not what make him great: It's the first three solo albums, which are some of the best Pop records ever made. But I will always have a soft-spot for this overblown title track from his first Utopia album. Sample lyric: ‘City in my head/Utopia/Heaven in my body/Utopia' It's so naïve and silly and full of dumb hope, it's irresistible.
"Supper's Ready," Genesis
The ur-track of Prog-Rock. This is the acid test for Prog love. Either you're on the bus or you're not. (and if you read James Greer's essay, you'll discover that Guided By Voice's Robert Pollard hopped on.)
Marc Weingarten and Yes Is The Answer: (And Other Prog-Rock Tales) links:
New York Times review
Psychobabble review
WBEZ review
GalleyCat interview with the editors
WNYC Soundcheck interview with the editor and two contributors (Nathan Larson and Margaret Wappler)
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
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 | post to del.icio.us
Shorties (A New Jhumpa Lahiri Story, The Least Subtle Song Titles of All Time, and more)
The New Yorker features a new short story by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Rocks Off lists the 10 least subtle song titles of all time.
Kevin Barry has won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with his novel City of Bohane.
Post City interviews Arts and Crafts Records co-founder Jeffrey Remedios about the label's 10 year history.
Slate shares photographs of Emily Dickinson's dried flowers.
Brooklyn Vegan is streaming the new Sebadoh EP, Keep the Boy Alive (out June 25th).
Flavorwire explains what your favorite Shakespeare play says about you.
Slicing Up Eyeballs lists the best albums of 1983.
Zola Books interviews Kristopher Jansma about writing his novel The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards.
The 1972 Rolling Stone review of David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars album, released 41 years ago this week.
The Center for Fiction recommends four great books about the artist in New York.
The Guardian profiles the most recent incarnation of Black Sabbath.
WNYC's Soundcheck interviews Colum McCann about his new novel, TransAtlantic.
Win Tao Lin's new novel Taipei 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 2,400 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 | post to del.icio.us
Daily Downloads (Holly Miranda, The Builders and the Butchers, 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 Builders and the Butchers: "Dirt in the Ground" [mp3] from Western Medicine (out July 2nd)
The Digger's Lane: free and legal The Digger's Lane EP [mp3]
The Harvey Girls: free and legal (name your price) 2in1 EP [mp3]
Heat Waves: free and legal Heat Waves EP [mp3]
Jay Egan-Wright: free and legal Straps EP [mp3]
Paul Federici: free and legal Relative Importance album [mp3]
Robert Deeble: free and legal Box Set Discography album [mp3]
Royal Forest: "Everyone Knows You" [mp3] from Spillway (out July 9th)
Summer Cannibals: "Wear Me Out" [mp3] from No Makeup
Various Artists: free and legal Soliti Turns Two : Odds, Sods & Found Sounds album [mp3]
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
Holly Miranda: 2013-05-29, Brooklyn [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 | post to del.icio.us
June 6, 2013
Book Notes - Anthony Marra "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"
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.
Few writers earn multiple comparisons to Leo Tolstoy and Jonathan Safran Foer, but Anthony Marra has with his remarkable novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. Marra deftly explores lives touched by the Chechnyan conflict in one of the year's most impressive debuts.
The New York Times wrote of the book:
"Marra seems to derive his astral calm in the face of catastrophe directly from Tolstoy. Constellation might be a 21st century War and Peace, except, as the informer warns, there’s no real peace available."
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 Anthony Marra's Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena:
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is set in Chechnya, where the average playlist would likely contain a mix of traditional folk music and bad Russian techno. The former is difficult to find on this side of the world and the latter you probably wouldn't want to find, so this is less the music that characters would listen to within the novel's pages, a more a playlist of music that surrounds the novel, its writing, and its emotional world.
"Who Dat Girl" by Flo Rida
I'm a sincere, irony-free Flo Rida fan. When I'm down, he cheers me up. When I'm cheered up, he keeps me cheered. Last year I traveled to Chechnya, and on the first full day my driver picked me up early in the morning at my hotel. I was a little nervous when he moved a heavy flak vest to make room for my suitcase in the truck. But when he started the engine and "Who Dat Girl" blasted through the speakers, I knew I was in good company.
"Stayin' Alive" by The Bee Gees
One of the characters in Constellation recites the lyrics of "Stayin'Alive" as a prayer to keep her safe during the siege of her city ("Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' and we're stayin' alive"). Western cultural exports like this are often recontextualized when they reach the rest of the world. Several times in Chechnya I heard people say, "Don't worry, I'm a limo driver," when making a small mistake. The line comes from a scene in Dumb and Dumber when Jim Carrey's character races off a jetway and falls to the airport tarmac.
"One More Time" by Daft Punk
One of the characters in the novel is a young woman who spends the prewar years going to dance parties in an abandoned airplane hangar. While those scenes predate Daft Punk by a few years, I always imagined their music thundering in the background.
"A Rainy Night in Soho" by Shane MacGowan
London is one of the few non-Chechen locales to appear in the book. It's a place I've visited for a few days here and there, and whenever I'm there I find myself listening to "A Rainy Night in Soho" (the live version from Across the Broad Atlantic is much better than the studio cut). None of Shane MacGowan's love songs contain the kind of crushy infatuation we normally think of as love songs. Instead, his love songs are about the messiness of devotion, kindness, and failure. This one is his best.
"Scarface (Push it to the Limit)" by Paul Engemann
In Chechnya, I introduced myself to people as Tony Marra. Half of the time I would receive an immediate smile and the response, "Like Tony Montana?" The popularity of Scarface in Chechnya is ubiquitous, among men at least, and the fluke of having a name that sounds a little like that of Al Pacino's iconic character went a long way to helping me make friends.
"Saeglópur" by Sigur Ros
I began listening to Sigur Ros the same month I started working on Constellation and with them broke my long-standing ban on playing music while writing. While they hail from Iceland, land of my forefathers, their music is strange, whimsical, melancholic, and rapturous in a way that makes me think it could be the score to the world of Constellation.
"Kalinka" Russian folksong
There are various versions of this traditional song online, from the operatic Red Army Choir version to a vodka-slurred dance cut by Party Factory. I learned it in an elementary Russian class in college and have had it stuck in my head ever since. If you look it up, chances are that you will too.
"Let it Be" by The Beatles (Russian cover version)
This video of a Beatles cover went viral a few years back, and no matter how many times I see it, it never fails to make me happy. You really should listen to the cover yourself, but if not, imagine a Russian Pavarotti dressed in a sailor's uniform belting "Let It Be" with unrestrained joy. As this recent book review in The Guardian attests, The Beatles were for many Soviet citizens the soundtrack to their personal disillusionment with state ideology.
"Dancing Queen" by ABBA
1970s pop music runs through the novel. The Bee Gees' biggest hit is played, a character walks past a kiosk selling Air Supply cassettes, and ABBA is mentioned. According to the previously linked review of How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin, Soviet institutions promoted disco because it was music that could be sealed within the limits of a dance floor. In any event, I've always had a soft spot for "Dancing Queen."
"Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley
Toward the end of the novel there is a scene in which a father considers killing his estranged son, whose informing has destroy their village. As he contemplates this immense decision, he lies down beside his sleeping son and tries to breathe in time with him. I've always pictured this scene with the ghost of Jeff Buckley somewhere out of frame, singing, "Every breath we drew was Hallelujah."
Anthony Marra and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena links:
Cleveland Plain Dealer review
The Coffin Factory review
Denver Post review
Entertainment Weekly review
Globe and Mail review
Kirkus Reviews review
New York Times review
Publishers Weekly review
The Rumpus review
San Francisco Chronicle review
Washington Post review
Winnipeg Free Press review
The Atlantic essay by the author
CBC Radio interview with the author
National Post profile of the author
New York Times profile of the author
Omnivoracious interview with the author
PowellsBooks.Blog 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
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 | post to del.icio.us
Book Notes - Masha Hamilton "What Changes Everything"
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.
What Changes Everything is a brilliant depiction of the cost of war, and Masha Hamilton once again proves herself a master at creating nuanced characters and gripping narrative.
Library Journal wrote of the book:
"Hamilton's descriptions are vivid, especially when portraying the tension and uncertainty that families of political prisoners endure. Fans of topical fiction will appreciate this knowledgeable and nuanced view of the Afghan war."
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 Masha Hamilton's Book Notes music playlist for her novel, What Changes Everything:
So, what we already know: novels in the production stage are multi-armed, sprawling—even those that seem so contained and disciplined upon completion. They often take years to write, and the author can spend just as long trying to understand the motivation behind investing so much time in the first place. I've found that the only way to give the narrative a chance to thrill and disappoint me, and then to eventually make my peace with it, is to approach it from every possible angle. Writing in a quiet library or a silent study only goes so far, so I'll try almost anything to help in the long process. I once heard Ken Haruf say he wrote on a computer blindfolded, which worried me—what if his fingers slipped on the keyboard and page after page, hour after hour, of material waiting to be revised was unreadable? Still, I even gave that a shot, briefly. I'm more likely, however, to write in the dark on scraps of paper, or in the sand on the beach, in the corner of a bodega, while riding the subway, on a napkin in a bar, in a war zone before dawn, or at the edge of a kitchen filled with the noise of dinner. And yes, sometimes while listening to music.
I am with my fellow authors who note it is usually hard to listen to the lyrics of others when you are straining to catch those dimly moving through your own head. But I did have music in the background at points while writing What Changes Everything. I focused on the adhan, the evocative Muslim call to prayer. It contributed to the mood of the words; in fact, the first reference to the call to prayer comes in the early pages of the novel, in the viewpoint of an Afghan man named Amin:
Amin spread his rug on the ground behind the office and then parted his lips to inhale fully. A crippled sparrow stood in stingy bush-shade and watched. Smoke and exhaust threaded through Kabul's air, and the city's tensions pressed against the compound walls; nevertheless, nothing matched performing salat under an open sky, even if sometimes the closeness to Allah made him feel that much more ashamed. He raised his hands next to his ears, crossed his arms, paused and then bent at the waist; he straightened, he bowed, he lowered his forehead to the earth in a dance of sacred ritual by now burrowed deep in muscle memory. He had first prayed as a child aside his father, mimicking the traditional movements in time to words of supplication. These days his own son often stood next to him, and so at its best, prayer connected him not only to his God, but to his past, his future, his people.
Calls to prayer, heard five times a day in the Muslim world, are not interchangeable; the quality depends on the skill of the mu'adhin, or caller. Here are some of my favorites from albums:
Footsteps in the Light, 2006
By Yusef Islam, also known as Cat Stevens and before that as Steven Demetre Georgiou. Okay, so there's been some confusion of identity here, but maybe that's what makes this call to prayer so compelling, so otherworldly.
The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, 2005
By Karl Jenkins, a Welsh musician and composer whose father was a chapel organist. This remarkable album, dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis, begins with the sounds of marching feet and a piccolo imitating the flutes of a military band, almost a celebratory descent into conflict. The call to prayer is the second track.
Fire Dance, 1990, and Dance Into Eternity, 2000
By Omar Faruk Tekbilek, a Turkish musician whose style builds on Sufi music. His father used to call out the prayers during mosque services. He moved to the US and worked in a clothing factory in Rochester, NY, until he was "discovered" in 1988 by Brian Keane. This call to prayer feels filled with a sense of timelessness. It is the longest track in my selected four, lasting 5:24.
One, 2005
My all-time No. 1 favorite call to prayer, at least to date, is on this album which includes various artists. The adhan is by the Kominas, a Pakistani-American punk band formed in Lowell, Massachusetts, whose debut album was Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay. Because the call comes from the group and not one voice, it is full of echo and depth.
One more musical reference in What Changes Everything is to Bob Dylan. This paragraph is from the early pages, from the viewpoint of a Brooklyn street artist named Danil:
As he worked, he sang "Mr. Tambourine Man" softly, just loud enough to make the back of his mouth vibrate. Dylan had been Danil's quirky brother Piotr's favorite singer, and just a few weeks ago, Danil had heard that song covered by a gutter punk band whose name he couldn't remember in the Rock Star Bar under the Williamsburg Bridge…That night, the Dylan song was etched onto the night like a Sunday choir's hymn by a rope of a man with tattoos running up both arms. The singer forewent the harmonica and his voice was raspier than Dylan's but it made Danil wish he could call Piotr. And it planted in his brain lyrics perfect for a street artist hoping to be immune to the night.
Later Danil's mother, who writes letters to try to understand a devastating loss, pens one to Dylan that reads in part:
I read an old Playboy interview with you once—I don't subscribe, of course, but I received old issues from an estate sale for my bookstore, Bulgakov's Bookshelf—and in it, you were so sarcastic that I almost stopped reading, but I kept on and I'm glad I did because you said something I still remember: "Art, if there is such a thing, is in the bathrooms; everybody knows that." Even if you meant that to also be sarcastic, I think my son Danil would agree.
If by this, Dylan meant that art is not just what hangs on museum walls or winds up between covers, but is what we do every day in an effort to creatively bridge and share our experiences of what it means to be human, then I agree too.
So, for the last track:
Bringing it All Back Home, 1965
The original version of Mr. Tambourine Man, written, composed and performed by Bob Dylan, appeared on this album.
Masha Hamilton and What Changes Everything links:
Booklist review
Kirkus Reviews review
Library Journal review
Other People interview with the author
PEN America 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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Atomic Books Comics Preview - June 6, 2013
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.
John K Presents Spumco Comic Book
by John Kricfalusi
Over the years, Ren & Stimpy creator John K. has put out a handful of finely illustrated, weird, disturbing and funny comics. These days they're super hard to find and expensive when you do fine them. So instead of missing out, Yoe Books offers you a chance to check them out in this snappy, hardcover edition. It also includes a previously unpublished comic.
Lone Wolf And Cub Omnibus Volume 1
by Kazuo Koike / Goseki Kojima
Lone Wolf & Cub is one of the greatest, most influential manga series of all-time. Unfortunately, like so many manga series, there are just too many books in the series for most of us to try and read/collect them all. So Dark Horse is repackaging them into these nice multi-volume omnibus editions. Very handy! If only they'd done something about the garish Frank Miller covers too.
Solo: The Deluxe Edition
by various
Solo was a 12-issue series from 2004 where a single comics creator was given the opportunity to tell a single-issue story of a different character in the DC Universe. This is kind of an anomaly for superhero comics, where there is usually a staff of artists working on any given issue (for a variety of reasons). It includes work by Mike Allred, Darwyn Cooke, Richard Corben, Paul Pope, Howard Chaykin, Sergio Aragones, and more. So how did this project turn out? Well, just look at that Mike Allred cover. That says all you need to know.
Supermag
by Jim Rugg
Supermag is a magazine that showcases the amazingly diverse range of Rugg's illustrative talent. Artwork mixes with comics stories to create a new standard in the comics-magazine format. "Supermag" is a very accurate title for this project.
Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life
by Ulli Lust
This brick of a book as Lust's memoir of a 1984 hiking trip through Eurpoe she took when she was a 17-year-old punk. Now translated in English (it was originally in Austrian), this book offers a look at an exciting new wave of European cartoonists.
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)
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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Shorties (James Franco on American Psycho, A New Song from David Lynch and Lykke Li, and more)
James Franco reconsiders American Psycho, both the Bret Easton Ellis novel and its film adaptation, at Vice.
Stream a new song by David Lynch and Lykke Li.
Bookworm interviews poet Alice Fulton.
Frontman Matt Berninger of the National talks to the Washington Examiner about the band's new album Trouble Will Find Me.
The winners of the 2013 Lambda Literary Awards have been named.
Congratulations to largehearted Boy Book Notes participants Augusten Burroughs and Cynthia Carr.
Stereogum lists the top albums of 2013 so far.
Congratulations to AM Homes, who won the Women's Prize for Fiction with her novel May We Be Forgiven.
Read her Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for the novel.
Crossfade profiles the band Grizzly Bear.
PopMatters reconsiders the band Harvey Danger.
Flavorwire excerpts from Stephen King's new novel Joyland.
The Record examines the new wave of cover songs of dance msuic.
World Literature Today recommends five books that tackle the stigma of mental illness.
The A.V. Club suggests entry points into the music of James Brown.
Jeffrey Lewis talks to Flavorwire about illustrating Jaimee Garbeck's excellent book, Gender and Sexuality for Beginners.
Stereogum lists the best Arcade Fire songs.
Boss Fight Books will publish a series of titles on classic videogames.
Stream a new Nine Inch Nails song, "Came Back Haunted," from the band's forthcoming album Hesitation Marks, (out September 3).
Author Benjamin Percy shares his writing process with The Daily Beast.
Win Tao Lin's new novel Taipei 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 2,400 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 (Charlotte Church, Linda Draper, 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:
CFCF: "Camera" [mp3] from Music for Objects EP (out July 9th)
Charlotte Church: free and legal Two EP [mp3]
Fialta: free and legal NoiseTrade Sampler EP [mp3]
Hailer: "Anyway I Can" [mp3] from Another Way
Linda Draper: "Shadow of a Coal Mine" [mp3] from Edgewise
Metaform: "Letters to the Void" [mp3] from The Midnight Machine, Act One
Shallow Waves: free and legal Come On In EP [mp3]
Stargroves: free and legal Live Acoustic Covers EP [mp3]
Trevor Borden: free and legal Giants EP [mp3]
Various Artists: free and legal Stereocure Vol. 2 album [mp3]
Free and legal live performances at other websites:
The HEAP: 2013-05-31, Athens [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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June 5, 2013
Book Notes - Alina Simone "Note to Self"
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.
Alina Simone's Note to Self is a dark and funny debut novel, an intriguingly modern coming of age story.
The Daily Beast wrote of the book:
"Note to Self is goofy, sweet, and all the things you want in a coming-of-age story. There’s redemption in all this quotidian depravity."
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 Alina Simone's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel, Note to Self:
I figured that spending two years writing a novel about an Internet addict would turn me into a Luddite. That when I finished, I would turn in my manuscript and retire to a bomb shelter with a gramophone and a box of rare 78s. But I regret to report that my experience trolling the Internet's back alley's only made my musical tastes more, well, Internety. I don't listen to music when I write. I can't. I have a belief that listening to music is an activity in and of itself. To listen and write would require multi-tasking and I, alas, am a staunch uni-tasker.
So instead, I use music interludes to renew my energy. And since I am usually parked in front of my laptop anyway, this simply means track-padding my way through a buffet of YouTube videos. Most of the songs listed below (I'll be the first to admit) aren't necessarily “good.” It's really the music combined with the visual pyrotechnics that fill my mental gas tank and leave me pumped to revisit my sad, blinking cursor.
Madonna singing "La Isla Bonita" with live with Russia's best gypsy music band, the Kolpakov Trio
Big Bang: "Fantastic Baby"
Die Antwoord: "Fatty Boom Boom"
Buranovski Babushki: "Party for Everybody" (Live at Eurovision 2012)
Journey: "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)"
Alina Simone and Note to Self links:
the author's website
the author's Wikipedia entry
excerpt from the book
Bookforum review
The Daily Beast review
Kirkus Reviews review
Publishers Weekly review
Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay by the author for You Must Go and Win
Largehearted Boy interview with the author (with Eugene Mirman)
Largehearted Boy interview with the author (with Mark Everett)
Largehearted Boy Note Books essay by the author
Largehearted Boy Why Obama 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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Largehearted WORD Books of the Week - June 5, 2013
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 recently celebrated its sixth anniversary. 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.
New Ways To Kill Your Mother
by Colm Tóibín
Along with its awesome, eye-catching title, Tóibín's most recent nonfiction work tackles the popular theme of writers drawing influence from their family members.
The Lullaby of Polish Girls
by Dagmara Dominczyk
Dominczyk's debut novel elegantly chronicles the lives of three women, from their youth in Poland and beyond. Look no further for your first engrossing summer read!
Note to Self
by Alina Simone
Simone's essay collection, You Must Go and Win, is a staff favorite, so we're particularly excited about her first novel. Note to Self is a tale of internet addiction, experimental filmmaking, and the dubious but potentially wonderful things that happen when you venture outside your comfort zone.
Food and travel are two of the greatest things in life, and they are combined to make the perfect Spring issue. Be prepared to discover new food and new places. It may just inspire your next vacation!
WORD Brooklyn links:
WORD website
WORD Tumblr
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)
Online "Best Books of 2012" 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 (Colum McCann Interviewed About His New Novel, Stream a New Beck Song, and more)
Colum McCann talks to All Things Considered about his new novel TransAtlantic.
Facts can deceive, says McCann, whereas fiction often gets closer to the truth. "It's interesting how the truth gets perceived and how the repeated lie becomes the truth. And this is a place for a fiction writer to sort of dwell," he says. "So I sort of braid, or try to braid together what we would call history and what we would call fiction. And one seems to me to be as true as the other."
The Rumpus also interviews McCann.
Rolling Stone is streaming a new Beck song.
The Other People podcast interviews Tao Lin about his new novel, Taipei.
Anglotopia recommends British summer reading.
Drowned in Sound interviews Martin Doherty of Glaswegian electro-poppers Chvrches.
At Tin House, Parul Seghal interviews author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
PopMatters interviews singer-songwriter and author Josh Ritter.
Indie booksellers recommend books for summer reading at Morning Edition.
Drowned in Sound wraps up its interview with John Lydon of Public Image Ltd.
Flavorwire lists 30 of the most beautiful science fiction book covers.
The Believer interviews legendary comics writer Alan Moore.
Tablet explains the lure of playing concerts in Tel Aviv for rock stars.
Biographile recommends new memoirs and biographies published this month.
Pitchfork is streaming the new Sonny and the Sunsets album, Antenna to the Afterworld.
The New Republic interviews New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier.
Win Tao Lin's new novel Taipei 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 2,400 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 | post to del.icio.us
