Lou Reed Disowns What Metal Machine Music Hath Wrought
from MediaBistro.com
Lou Reed Trashes MP3 Format
Lou Reed is lashing out at new modes of audio technology, saying that “people have got to demand a higher standard” than current MP3 music files, according to a recent Billboard story.
Reed had delivered a keynote speech at the South By Southwest Music Festival + Conference in Austin, Texas. But when interviewed later by producer Hal Willner, Reed trashed the current state of audio and other digital technologies, saying that “it’s like the technology is taking us backwards. It’s making it easier to make things worse.
“Here’s our song reduced to a pin drop—what, what, what?!” Reed explained, sort of. “It’s like if no one knows any better or doesn’t care, it’s gonna stay on a really, really low level and people who like good sound are gonna be thought of as some kind of strange zoo animal.”
All joking aside, he’s right, of course; MP3 files sound blurry and indistinct at lower bit rates. Even at higher bit rates—such as the better sounding, 256 Kbps files sold in Amazon’s MP3 store—you can still tell the difference when listening on your cell phone or MP3 player if you have good enough earbuds.
But at the same time, a lot of people miss the point of MP3s—we see the format as the successor to the cassette, which was extremely portable and convenient, but not as good sounding as full-blown LPs, and later, CDs. How else could you carry 2,000 songs (that’s roughly 200 CDs, if you think about it) on an 8GB microSD card the size of a dime?
More Bad Art Thieves
Scotland Yard seizes £10m old masters
Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Wednesday March 26, 2008
The Guardian
A pair of old masters by Francesco Guardi worth £10m have been seized by Scotland Yard after they were allegedly exported from Italy illegally.
The paintings – The Departure of the Bucintoro to San Nicolo on the Lido, and The Return of the Bucintoro to the Palazzo Ducale – depict scenes from the old Venetian tradition in which the doge would go out on a bucintoro galley to symbolically marry Venice to the sea. They date from around 1780.
A source at the Italian public prosecutor’s office in Rome confirmed that the pictures had been seized in Britain at the request of the Italian authorities.
The paintings were owned by Mario Crespi, whose family owned the Corriere della Sera newspaper. After his death in 1962 the works remained with his family, but were sold three years ago to a dealer.
Italian art export laws are strict, and important paintings can only leave the country with a special licence. The glut of artworks within Italy, meanwhile, means paintings of this kind fetch far less on the domestic market than abroad. It is understood that when an export licence for the Guardis was given in Milan, it was without their provenance being made clear.
The works were passed on to a UK dealer, who apparently sold them on to the US. However, the works were seized before they left the country.
Don’t Mess With Little Willie (though the whole thing looks staged to this viewer)
from Defamer.com
While the coastal aesthete in us is particularly fond of the night-vision effect and slow-motion instant replay, the old-school redneck we’ve suppressed over the years can relate to Nelson-San’s pure, unchecked animus. This would never fly at the Troubador.
How The Hip Kids Are Enjoying Sex These Days
Quotation of the Day from Shelf-Awareness
The Book as ‘An Art Object That We Should Defend’
“Literature is inseparable today from the books that carry their stories. If we want to save literature we have to save the rectangular objects that carry and spread their words. We have to respect the book for what it is: an art object that we should defend, defend against censors, narrow-minded educators and, most of all, the dangers of war.
Fiction has described wars better than any history book because a novelist, a true novelist, is not a warrior. Literature and war carry opposite genes.”
—Mai Ghoussoub, from “Texterminators,” published in this month’s issue of Words Without Borders.
The Man Who Defined White Suburban Partying
from the Los Angeles Times
John Hughes’ imprint remains
He’s still revered in Hollywood, but whatever happened to the king of the teens?
JOHN HUGHES hasn’t set foot in Hollywood for years, but his influence has never been more potent. The king of 1980s comedy, Hughes now qualifies as something of a Howard Hughes-style recluse — he doesn’t have an agent, doesn’t give interviews and lives far away, somewhere in Chicago’s sprawling North Shore suburbs where most of his films were set.
But he has an entire generation of fans in the industry who grew up infatuated with his films, especially a string of soulful mid-1980s teen comedies that helped capture the eternal drama of modern teenage existence. They include “Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “The Breakfast Club,” which no less an authority than Courtney Love once called “the defining moment of the alternative generation.” Any number of successful actors and filmmakers, from Judd Apatow and Kevin Smith to Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller and Wes Anderson, are fans, having soaked up Hughes’ keen observational humor, love of mischief and shrewd dissection of social hierarchies.
“John Hughes wrote some of the great outsider characters of all time,” says Apatow, the writer-director-producer whose new film, “Drillbit Taylor,” is loosely based on an old Hughes story idea. “It’s pretty ridiculous to hear people talk about the movies we’ve been doing, with outrageous humor and sweetness all combined, as if they were an original idea. I mean, it was all there first in John Hughes’ films. Whether it’s ‘Freaks and Geeks’ or ‘Superbad,’ the whole idea of having outsiders as the lead characters, that all started with Hughes.”
White People Make Out Like Bandits Again Ho Hum…
from the New York Observer
‘Stuff White People Like’ Book Sold to Random House For At Least $350,000
You know that funny Web site Stuff White People Like, the one with the jokes? The Canadian guy who runs it just sold a book to Random House for an advance that publishing insiders said had reached at least $350,000 when it was at auction last week. Unclear how high it ended up climbing, but frankly, $350,000 is already a staggering sum for a paperback inspired by a faddish blog that launched just over two months ago.
The book, sold by William Morris literary agent Erin Malone, will be edited by Random House editor Jill Schwartzman, but according to a source familiar with the situation, Kurt Andersen—who serves at Random as editor at large—has taken an active interest in it and will play a role in its development. UPDATE: Barbara Fillon, the publicist from Random House who is working on the book, called this morning to say that the dollar amount we have is wrong. She would not specify whether the real number is higher or lower.
According to the announcement that just went out from Random House, the book will use some material that has already appeared on the Web site (which has accumulated almost 15 million hits since its launch in late January), though two-thirds of it will be new. The press release promises a book that “will present a provocative, wickedly funny ‘study’ of upper-middle-class white people, satirically exposing a culture that prides itself on individuality and diversity, yet manages to express these beliefs in exactly the same way.” Topics to be covered: “Whole Foods, Wes Anderson, Starbucks, graduate school, kitchen gadgets, Barack Obama, Apple products, the movie Juno, expensive sandwiches, and vintage t-shirts, to name a few.”
“White People” is only the latest Web phenomenon to result in a major book deal. Earlier this month, the person behind http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com signed a contract with Gotham Books, and before that, so did the person who runs LOLcat emporium I Can Haz Cheeseburger. As it happens, Gotham was also the publisher on The Truth About Chuck Norris, “an illustrated book of 400 farcical ‘facts’ about movie star Chuck Norris… based on the popular internet meme.”
According to the deal wire at industry site Publisher’s Marketplace, Patrick Mulligan, an associate editor at Gotham, is overseeing all three of those books, and one wonders how eagerly, if at all, he pursued the “White People” contract. We have been leaving messages for Mr. Mulligan since we heard about the auction last week, but have so far not gotten a call back.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON’S TOM WAITS’ COVERS ALBUM PREVIEWED!
clipped from uncut.co.uk
As a rule, we’re as suspicious of actors making records as we are of, well, rock stars appearing in movies. But Scarlett Johansson’s previous, if brief, forays into music have at least demonstrated both flashes of talent and an unnerring grasp of cool. There’s an abiding memory of her in a pink wig singing karaoke to The Pretenders’ “Brass In Pocket” in Lost In Translation, or seen in fuzzy Youtube clips providing backing vocals for “Just Like Honey” at the Jesus & Mary Chain’s comeback show at last year’s Coachella festival. She also recorded the Geshwin standard “Summertime” for a US compilation and even starred in a Bob Dylan video, “When The Deal Goes Down…”, to support his Modern Times album.
Now she’s recorded her debut, an album of Tom Waits’ covers (and one self-penned track), produced by TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek and featuring guest spots by Yeah Yeah Yeah’s guitarist Nick Zinner and, on two songs, David Bowie, with whom she co-starred in Christopher Nolan’s movie, The Prestige. Although the songs here run as far back as 1976, most of them actually come from the later part of Waits’ career; only one song pre-dating 1983’s Swordfishtrombones.
Here, then, is our track by track preview at what you can expect…
2008 HUGO AWARDS NOMINEES
2008 HUGO AWARDS NOMINEES
http://www.denvention.org/hugos
Best Novel
(382 ballots cast)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins; Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog 10/06-1-2/07)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace)
For After the Burgundy Room and Before the Ski Room
From AP via NY Daily News
Used to be the best rejuvenatory fast-food meal in Hollywood was Popeye’s Red Beans and Rice on the corner of Hollywood & Vine. It may still be, tho now you’ll have to valet park and order a bottle of spritzer with your beans.
Popeyes chicken founder dies
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday, March 24th 2008, 4:00 AM
Al Copeland, who became rich selling spicy fried chicken and notorious for his flamboyant lifestyle, died Sunday at a clinic near Munich, Germany. He was 64.
The founder of the Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken chain grew up in New Orleans. Copeland sold his car at age 18 for enough money to open his own one-man doughnut shop. He went on to spend 10 modestly successful years in the doughnut business.
The opening of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in New Orleans in 1966, however, caught Copeland’s eye. Inspired by KFC’s success, Copeland in 1971 used his doughnut profits to open a restaurant, Chicken on the Run. (“So fast you get your chicken before you get your change.”) After six months, Copeland chose a spicier Louisiana Cajun-style recipe and reopened the restaurant, eventually calling it Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken after Gene Hackman‘s character in the film “French Connection.”
Copeland frequently made headlines away from his business empire. His hobbies included racing 50-foot powerboats, touring New Orleans in Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis, and outfitting his Lake Pontchartrain home with lavish Christmas decorations, including half-a-million lights and a 3-story-tall snowman.
Popeye’s Red Beans and Rice
Dr. Marten Uptight
snipped from The Daily Swarm
Exclusive: Dr. Martens to Saatchi: You’re Fired!
TDS EDITORS
***Update: The final word(s) on ‘Heavensgate’***
The Daily Swarm has learned that Airwair Ltd., the creators of Dr. Martens famous footwear, has fired its advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi London, in the midst of an ongoing uproar over a poster campaign featuring the images of deceased musicians wearing their shoes in heaven. David Suddens, CEO of Dr. Martens’ parent company AirWair Ltd., told The Daily Swarm in a phone interview that the posters were never intended to see the light of day. “We said no. It was creative that was put to us, but we didn’t like it. It doesn’t represent the company at all.”
Saatchi later released a statement standing by the ads. Kate Stanners, executive creative director, Saatchi & Saatchi said, “We believe the ads are edgy but not offensive. There has been blog commentary both for and against the ads, but it is our belief that they are respectful of both the musicians and the Dr. Martens brand.”
The firestorm began on May 14, when The Daily Swarm published the posters that feature punk icons Kurt Cobain, Joe Strummer, Joey Ramone, and Sid Vicious. The rockers images were retouched by noted French commercial artist Christophe Huet who placed them in heaven with steel-toed boots.
Lemmy Kilmister Turned Into Molded Plastic
LocoApe releases the Lemmy Kilmister action figure – $19.99 or $100.00 for an autographed version. Motorhead rules.
The very first officially licensed Lemmy figure ever made!
- Stands 7 inches tall with base.
- Sculpted to accuracy, this figure captures Lemmy in all his Motorhead glory.
- Includes: Highly detailed and accurate figure, Rickenbacker Figural Bass Guitar, Bass Guitar Strap, Microphone & Stand, Figural Base, Motorhead Logo Plate & War Pig Themed Backdrop.
- The officially licensed Rickenbacker guitar replica features real strings and Rickenbacker trademarks. (Guitar does not play music.)
- Officially licensed product.
Rewriting The Rewriting Of James Agee
book review in the Los Angeles Times
‘A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author’s Text’ edited by Michael A. Lofaro
Did James Agee’s editor know what he was doing? Apparently not, as a new version of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is given a makeover.
By Nina Revoy
A Death in the Family:
A Restoration of the Author’s Text
James Agee, edited by Michael A. Lofaro
University of Tennessee Press: 582 pp., $49.95
AT the time of his death of a heart attack at 45, James Agee had published relatively little of his own creative work. Known more for his insightful movie reviews and film adaptations, Agee had produced a novella, a volume of poetry and “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” a study of Alabama sharecroppers. He left behind the manuscript of a novel he’d been working on for more than a decade, which editor David McDowell published as “A Death in the Family.”
Appearing in 1957 — two years after Agee died — “A Death in the Family” received great acclaim and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
A lyrical, perfectly calibrated and deeply moving account of a man’s death and its effects on his family, it still stands — more than 50 years after its publication — as one of the most beautiful of American novels.
Now, editor Michael A. Lofaro has incorporated recently recovered material and rearranged existing chapters in “A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author’s Text.” Much of this material became available to scholars in 2002, after a change in the directorship of the James Agee Trust. Motivated by McDowell’s claim in the original introduction that Agee’s novel was “presented . . . exactly as he wrote it,” Lofaro sets out to correct the “degradation” of Agee’s original manuscript from McDowell’s “editorial decisions, inaccuracy, and deception.” He includes more than 10 additional chapters, replaces substitute versions of three additional chapters and reinserts scenes that appeared as flashbacks in McDowell’s version into the beginning of the story. Lofaro also removes the famous prologue “Knoxville: Summer, 1915” — a previously published set piece that McDowell acknowledges he added to the manuscript — and replaces it with a new introduction, a nightmare sequence. The result is a longer and drastically different book.
Reconstructing Agee’s novel is a questionable undertaking, not least because the existing novel is a masterpiece.
The Year Of The Brawling Lepus
A Short Happy Easter Film from dadeca50
Bret Easton Ellis, two decades beyond ‘Zero’
from the LA Times
Bret Easton Ellis, two decades beyond ‘Zero’
The onetime enfant terrible, now 44, still has no patience for critics, but some of his colleagues say Ellis’ writing may one day get the respect it deserves.
In his 1985 breakout novel, Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis, then all of 21 years old, created young, jaded Angelenos who just didn’t care about anything: They recounted cocaine 
scores and semi-anonymous sex in the same tone with which they lamented their fading suntans. That ennui became Ellis’ literary signature, and as he began to grow up in public, he became known as a photogenic and glamorous figure who liked booze and excess.
More than two decades later and almost four years after returning home to L.A., the city in which he grew up as the offspring of affluent Goldwater Republicans, Ellis himself claims to be in a phase in which he just doesn’t care about anything — a middle-aged wrinkle on the old Ellis ennui. “The only thing I care about,” he requested when setting up a dinner interview, “is valet parking and a full bar.”
Ellis in person is witty if often deadpan, good company, discussing the literary novel and popular music with enthusiasm and authority. His classic good looks have become almost conventional as he’s aged. He’s more down-to-earth, and more intellectual, than his party-boy image would suggest.
He can be uncomfortable as well: Sitting down at a tighter-than-expected Campanile one recent Wednesday night, wearing a black jacket over a casual shirt left mostly unbuttoned, he was unnerved by a slightly raucous, beret-wearing family at a nearby table, until his first drink arrived and he found himself in a spirited defense of Elvis Costello’s “Imperial Bedroom.” As he leaned into the argument — the album, which he called “sonically, an absolute ’80s masterpiece,” will lend its name to a new sequel to “Less Than Zero” — it was easy to see that he’s more engaged with things than he lets on.
But while he spoke with enthusiasm about “The Wire” and Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections” — “the novel of my generation” — he’s truly uninterested in talking about his own career, his own place in the literary firmament. “I don’t care anymore,” he said. “I never really did care.”
That’s probably a good thing too: In most of the important conversations about contemporary American literature, Ellis doesn’t show up. Academia doesn’t take him seriously: He’s not taught or written about critically like his generational peers Franzen, Michael Chabon, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem, Chang-Rae Lee or Lorrie Moore.
His work is often savaged by critics: His last book, the 2005 quasi-autobiographical novel “Lunar Park,” was deemed “the worst novel I’ve ever read” by Steve Almond in the Boston Globe. And almost a quarter-century into his career, he’s never won, or been within shouting distance, of a major literary award. Back in the ’80s, he was even dissed by his idol Elvis Costello.
[ click to read rest of article at the LA Times ]
“Nothing exists, save empty space and you; and you are but a thought.”
Be Afraid of Quantum Mechanics… Be very, very afraid.
Legendary Cuban mambo king dies
from THE ASSOCIATED PRESS via NY Daily News
MIAMI – Grammy-winning mambo pioneer Israel (Cachao) Lopez died Saturday at 89.
Known simply as Cachao, the Cuban-born bassist and composer fell ill in the past week and died surrounded by family members at Coral Gables Hospital.
Cachao left his Communist homeland and came to the U.S. in the early 1960s. He continued to perform into his late 80s, including a performance after the death of trombonist Generoso Jimenez in September.
Cuban-American actor Andy Garcia, who made a 1993 documentary about Cachao’s career, credited him with being a major influence in Cuban musical history and said his passing marked the end of an era.
“Cachao is our musical father. He is revered by all who have come in contact with him and his music,” Garcia said in a statement on Saturday. “Maestro … you have been my teacher, and you took me in like a son. So I will continue to rejoice with your music and carry our traditions wherever I go, in your honor.”
Cachao was born in Havana in 1918 to a family of musicians. A classically trained bassist, he began performing with the Havana symphony orchestra as a teenager, working under the baton of visiting guest conductors, such as Herbert von Karajan, Igor Stravinsky and Heitor Villa-Lobos, during his nearly 30-year career with the orchestra.
He and his late brother, multi-instrumentalist Orestes Lopez, created the mambo in the late 1930s. The mambo emerged from their improvisational work with the danzon, an elegant musical style that lends itself to slow dancing.
Easter: A movable feast
editorial from the Washington Post
THIS HOLIDAY is what is known in religious tradition as a “movable feast” because it is not, like Christmas and some other annual observances, celebrated on the same day every year but rather moves from one Sunday to another within a narrow range of weeks in early springtime. It has also been movable in another, more important sense, as it has made a long and sometimes difficult journey through the popular consciousness of much of the world over nearly 2,000 years. Easter has been a time of renewal and hope for millions, but for others — victims of age-old religious persecution — it has at times been a dark and frightening occasion. It is a day that can arouse intense emotions, and one that has been misused and misunderstood by many, even as it has provided comfort and solace to many more.
The root event of Easter, the Passion story, is strong stuff. Roman punishment, like Roman warfare, was extraordinarily cruel — deterrence on a macabre scale. The feelings aroused by that story of betrayal, brutality and death have led, almost from the first days of the church — when some Jews differed bitterly with other Jews over the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth — to frightening outbursts of religious violence, as if the Easter message of resurrection and hope was all but forgotten, nothing was forgiven and the theme of the day was revenge.
But that’s not what Easter is about. The Easter story speaks to everyone about the universal fear of death. It is about resurrection and new life, the consciousness that we, or something of us, will endure. To believing Christians, the resurrection is literal. For others, it may be the hope that they will live on in their families, their friends and their society, and in the things they have done. Easter today, in America and elsewhere, has become a day of life and affirmation. It can be as deeply significant as a sunrise service and as lighthearted as an egg roll or an Easter parade. It has moved well along on the path to toleration and understanding, although, as always with such things, there are many miles to go.
Writing ‘eases stress of cancer’
from the BBC
Encouraging cancer patients to write down their deepest fears about the disease may improve their quality of life, according to a US study.
Nancy Morgan, a “writing clinician”, approached patients waiting in a clinic at a cancer centre in Washington DC.
Half those who took part said the exercise changed the way they thought about the illness, according to the journal The Oncologist.
Younger people, and those recently diagnosed, were most likely to benefit.
“Thoughts and feelings, or the cognitive processing and emotions related to cancer, are key writing elements associated with health benefits”, said Nancy Morgan, of the Lombardi Center.
Ms Morgan developed her role as part of the Arts and Humanities Program at the Lombardi Center.
Her “expressive writing” exercise, lasting just 20 minutes, posed questions to leukaemia or lymphoma patients about how the cancer had changed them and how they felt about those changes.
When those taking part were contacted again a few weeks later, 49% said that the writing had changed their thoughts about their illness, while 38% said their feelings towards their situation had changed.
While there was no evidence of direct impact of the session on their illness, where the patients had reported greater changes in their mindset during the writing, this could be linked to more positive reports of quality of life given to their doctors during follow-up appointments.
Ms Morgan said: “Thoughts and feelings, or the cognitive processing and emotions related to cancer, are key writing elements associated with health benefits, according to previous studies.
“Writing only about the facts has shown no benefit.”
Dr Bruce Cheson, the head of haematology at Lombardi, said: “I’m pleased to see that so many of our patients were interested in this kind of therapy.
“Our study supports the benefit of an expressive writing program and the ability to integrate such a program into a busy clinic.”
Ku Klux Klan in Concert
Steel Pulse performing “Ku Klux Klan” in one of the hippest concert films ever, Urgh! A Music War
New York Times Fiction Bestsellers March 30, 2008
from the New York Times
Hardcover Fiction
| This Week |
Last Week |
Weeks On List |
|
| 1 | CHANGE OF HEART, by Jodi Picoult. (Atria, $26.95.) A prisoner on death row begins performing miracles. | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | THE APPEAL, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $27.95.) Political and legal intrigue ensue when a Mississippi court decides against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste. | 2 | 7 |
| 3 | REMEMBER ME?, by Sophie Kinsella. (Dial, $25.) A woman wakes up in a London hospital after an auto accident with no memory of the previous life-changing three years. | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 7TH HEAVEN, by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) In San Francisco, Detective Lindsay Boxer and the Women’s Murder Club hunt for an arsonist. | 4 | 6 |
| 5 | KILLER HEAT, by Linda Fairstein. (Doubleday, $26.) One August, Alexandra Cooper, a Manhattan assistant district attorney, tracks a serial killer. | 1 | |
| 6 | A PRISONER OF BIRTH, by Jeffrey Archer. (St. Martin’s, $27.95.) A poor Londoner, framed for murder by four Cambridge friends, escapes from prison and exacts revenge. | 7 | 2 |
| 7 | LUSH LIFE, by Richard Price. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) An aspiring writer becomes a suspect in a friend’s murder on the Lower East Side. | 6 | 2 |
| 8 | CHRIST THE LORD: THE ROAD TO CANA, by Anne Rice. (Knopf, $25.95.) In the second book of Rice’s life of Christ, Jesus embraces his prophetic destiny. | 9 | 2 |
| 9 | STRANGERS IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. (Putnam, $25.95.) Lt. Eve Dallas investigates a businessman’s scandalous death; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously. | 8 | 4 |
| 10 | * A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead, $25.95.) A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war. | 11 | 43 |
| 11 | HONOR THYSELF, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte, $27.) A 50-year-old actress injured in a terrorist attack in Paris must rebuild her life. | 5 | 3 |
| 12 | WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett. (Dutton, $35.) Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth.” | 15 | 23 |
| 13 | THE OUTLAW DEMON WAILS, by Kim Harrison. (Eos, $24.95.) A witch who is also a bounty hunter must enter the demonic realm; the sixth book in the Hollows series. | 10 | 3 |
| 14 | DUMA KEY, by Stephen King. (Scribner, $28.) A Florida contractor begins to create paintings with mysterious power. | 13 | 8 |
| 15 | LADY KILLER, by Lisa Scottoline. (Harper, $25.95.) When her high-school rival disappears, possibly as a result of foul play, a Philadelphia lawyer must confront her past. | 12 | 4 |
| 16 | ANOTHER THING TO FALL, by Laura Lippman. (Morrow, $24.95.) A Baltimore private investigator becomes the bodyguard of a difficult star on the set of a TV series. | 1 | |
| Also Selling | |||
| 17 | BETRAYAL, by John Lescroart (Dutton) | ||
| 18 | PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking) | ||
| 19 | THE FIRST PATIENT, by Michael Palmer (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 20 | DEEP DISH, by Mary Kay Andrews (Harper) | ||
| 21 | THE KILLING GROUND, by Jack Higgins (Putnam) | ||
| 22 | DEAD TIME, by Stephen White (Dutton) | ||
| 23 | THE SENATOR’S WIFE, by Sue Miller (Knopf) | ||
| 24 | THE ANCIENT, by R. A. Salvatore (Tor) | ||
| 25 | STRANGER IN PARADISE, by Robert B. Parker (Putnam) | ||
| 26 | CARROT CAKE MURDER, by Joanne Fluke (Kensington) | ||
| 27 | FIREFLY LANE, by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 28 | BLIND FALL, by Christopher Rice (Scribner) | ||
| 29 | CHARM!, by Kendall Hart (Hyperion) | ||
| 30 | FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, by Peter Robinson (Morrow) | ||
| 31 | PLUM LUCKY, by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin’s) | ||
| 32 | A STRANGER’S GAME, by Joan Johnston (Pocket) | ||
| 33 | THE GHOST WAR, by Alex Berenson (Putnam) | ||
| 34 | THE SILVER SWAN, by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt) | ||
| 35 | SUCCULENT: CHOCOLATE FLAVA II, edited by Zane (Atria) | ||
“The Origin of the World” – Good manners barely let us describe it.
from the Washington Post and Wikipedia
Moving Beyond Beauty
Gustave Courbet’s Work Retains the Power to Shock
By Blake Gopnik
Washington Post Staff Writer
Of all the jaw-dropping paintings in “Gustave Courbet,” the landmark survey of the great French artist now at the Metropolitan Museum, the jaw drops farthest for one that was painted in 1866, for a Turkish diplomat in Paris. It is called “The Origin of the World.” Even now, 142 years later, it’s too shocking to be reproduced in these pages or on our Web site.
Good manners barely let us describe it.
The painting shows the open crotch of a naked woman, painted in such extreme close-up that her legs, arms and head, as well as most of her torso, are cut off by the edges of the canvas.
As you round a corner at the Met and come up to it for the first time, Courbet’s “Origin” still feels extreme. So just imagine what it meant in 1866.
“L’Origine du monde”, par Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) en 1866.
“There is a word for the people capable of this kind of filth,” wrote one contemporary Frenchman, ” . . . but I shall not pronounce it for the reader.” Another described the painting as “a little monstrosity.”
Except for their contempt, these writers got this picture right: It was meant to shock, by rewriting every notion of what fine art could be. It took old-fashioned ideas of beauty and aesthetics right out of the equation.
Courbet is often described as the genius at the source of all of modern art. That makes perfect sense, especially if you jump right from him to the most radical work of the past 40 years. He’s the ancestor of Richard Serra throwing molten lead into the corner of a room, of Bruce Nauman screaming nonsense phrases into a video camera or of the feminist Cosey Fanni Tutti presenting porn shots of herself as art.
Party Smart (And With A Heart)
Before Green Day Stole The San Jose Scene, There Was Skankin’ Pickle
A Million Penguins, v2.0
snipped from news.com
We Tell Stories is a new alternate-reality game that tasks players with finding their way through six story lines based on classic Penguin novels and a seventh story that ties them all together.
The alternate-reality game genre has a new friend, and a new format, thanks to Penguin Books, the famous British publishing house.
On Tuesday, Penguin and startup Six to Start launched their new ARG, We Tell Stories, a new-style game that its creators say is a hybrid of traditional story-telling, Web 2.0-style mashups, interactive games and classic novels.
We Tell Stories is actually a seven-part adventure, said Jeremy Ettinghausen, the digital publisher for Penguin. It will begin with six weekly installments, each of which is based on a classic novel–and written by a different Penguin author–and which tasks participants with finding their way through the story using tools developed for the game.
After the six installments, We Tell Stories will continue with a seventh weekly piece that will be a game tying the six stories together.
[ click to view full article at news.com ]
20 Ways To Maintain An Edge
1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label it ‘In’.
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ‘ For Smuggling Diamonds’.
7. Finish All Your sentences with ‘In Accordance With The Prophecy’.
8. Don’t use any punctuation.
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is ‘To Go’.
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
13. Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don’t Rhyme?
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party Because You’re Not In the Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ‘I Won! I Won!’
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling ‘Run For Your Lives! They’re Loose!’
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, ‘Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.’
Baryshnikov Behind the Camera
snipped from MediaBistro.com
Surely one of the best parts of Sex and the City was dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov‘s graceful turn as one Aleksandr Petrovsky, a brooding global art star whose living space had us convinced that he was an architect in disguise. Meanwhile, Baryshnikov hasn’t stopped multi-tasking. Tuesday saw the opening of an exhibition of his photographs of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at 401 Projects, the cozy New York gallery owned by photographer Mark Seliger.
Baryshnikov has been taking pictures–landscapes, portraits, travel shots–for 20 years, but this is the first time that he’s turned his camera on the world of dance, something he knows a little something about. “I made a point of rejecting obvious opportunities to photograph dance, thinking the results were boring and unnecessary,” he says. An epiphany came as he paged through old books of dance photography, particularly Alexey Brodovitch‘s 1945 Ballet and Paul Himmel‘s 1954 Ballet in Action. “I discovered that abandoning the crystalline image in favor of blurred edges approximates the excitement of dance in performance.”
Newly inspired, he swapped his 35mm for a digital camera and set out to photograph social dancing in the Dominican Republic and then moved on to shoot the work of Cunningham, “as an homage to one of the greatest choreographers of our time.”
International Thriller Writers 2008 Award Finalists
click to visit the International Thriller Writers website
Finalists for the 2008 Thriller Awards!
Drum roll please!
After much arduous and painstaking labor by our three panels of esteemed judges–overseen and orchestrated by this year’s Award Chair, the talented Vicki Hinze–the nominees for this year’s “Thriller” awards have been selected. Out of a field of over five hundred books, the list has been winnowed down to five titles in each of the following categories: Best Novel, Best First Novel, and Best Paperback Original.
The winners will be announced this summer at Thrillerfest 2008 at the Grand Hyatt in New York City during a gala banquet on Saturday, July 12th.
But why keep you in the dark any longer? Without further ado, here is the list of nominees in each category:
BEST NOVEL 2008
No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (Bantam)
The Watchman by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster)
The Ghost by Robert Harris (Simon & Schuster)
The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz (Viking)
Trouble by Jesse Kellerman (Putnam)
BEST FIRST NOVEL 2008
Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell (Dutton)
Big City, Bad Blood by Sean Chercover (William Morrow)
From the Depths by Gerry Doyle (McBook Press)
Volk’s Game by Brent Ghelfi (Henry Holt and Co.)
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL 2008
The Last Nightingale by Anthony Flacco (Ballantine)
A Thousand Bones by P.J. Parrish (Pocket)
The Midnight Road by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)
The Queen of Bedlam by Robert McCammon (Pocket)
Shattered by Jay Bonansinga (Pinnacle)
White People Blog Under Fire
from the Houston Chronicle
Race-related blog causing controversy
Caucasian site is flooded with hits
By CORILYN SHROPSHIRE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Asian women, fancy coffee, farmers markets, dinner parties and gay friends — these are just a sampling of life’s pleasures — if you’re white.
Excuse me?
That’s according to Christian Landers, the (white) wit behind the Web sensation Stuff White People Like blog, an irreverent daily missive on the passions of posh urbanites of the Caucasian persuasion.
It’s the latest in a string of racially charged blogs (first came theassimilatednegro.com, then angryasian.com) that act as a virtual shrink’s sofa for those tackling the tricky topics of race and class.
Readers, hundreds every day, flood the site’s comment section with alternating fury and delight.
To date, there have been 14 million hits, reflecting the nation’s current obsession with race and gender, too. For confirmation, check out the comments and speeches by presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton just this past week.
Dean Rader, a pop culture critic who authors weeklyrader.blogspot.com, says readers flock to Stuff White People Like because it’s hip and hot and the place to be seen and heard online. “It’s just as much about class and coolness and yuppiness and consumption (as race).”
And yes, if the some of the posts push far beyond the boundaries of good taste, readers seem to find liberation in an environment unfettered by political correctness.
Take #11 on the list: “Asian Girls: 95% of white males have at one point in their lives experienced yellow fever. … White men love Asian women so much that they will go to extremes such as stating that Sandra Oh is sexy, teaching English in Asia, playing in a co-ed volleyball league … ”
Ouch.
That post has received more than 1,550 responses.
Other posts — try No. 36, “Breakfast Places” and No. 63, “Expensive Sandwiches” — may seem a bit more benign, but the post and ensuing conversations carry just as much bite.
“To a white person, there is no better way to spend a Saturday morning than to get up late, around 9:30 and pile into your Audi or Volvo and drive to one of these little places and eat breakfast with friends,” Landers writes. “Oftentimes these breakfasts last for an hour or more (hence the long lines and wait times). Some white people take it to the next level and bring their dogs, newspapers or even a laptop.”
The latest spinoff of Landers’ blog — Stuff Asian People Like.
She’d Be Cuter If She Had More Meat On Those Bones
clipped from KUTV Utah
Utah Blonde Named As PETA’s ‘Sexiest Vegetarian’ of 2008
SALT LAKE CITY – Her decision to cut meat out of her daily diet turned out to be a winning move.
A 21-year-old Salt Lake City woman on Monday was named by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as 2008’s “sexiest vegetarian” — beating out a field of hundreds.
Shona Barnthouse was named the winner after beating out 15 other finalists. As a reward, she and a friend will travel to Maui, Hawaii for a week-long vacation.
A dancer and model, Shona only recently became a vegetarian but has found it to be a life-changing decision. She has noticed a boost in daily energy and muscle tone, she says. An animal-lover for as long as she can remember, Shona says she always helps a creature in need and refuses to wear leather.
“Shona is a big winner in anybody’s book,” said PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich. “Her smart move to go vegetarian has improved her health and helped stop animal suffering.
“Being sexy is just one more perk,” he added.