tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65691958083701741462024-02-07T00:08:24.111-05:00LitagogoA Guide to Free Literary PodcastsHolloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-77533517135512122842013-10-15T10:38:00.000-04:002015-01-17T14:07:50.212-05:00Best Alice Munro Interview Re-Podcasted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3UJl2kA1I8RsUMAlnw1qGUQeWuC2JvnQmwteEDt2rfWp7d3yI7tu4cC3XoPZE-te8pkib1MwKHnFYi4kSEk8ZRcZM8Hiv3HMWsgebVpEVZYqcPn6KpMO7VxNiW7x-RhXRAX1CttG6s2u/s1600/Rosatradescant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Rose for Alice Munro" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3UJl2kA1I8RsUMAlnw1qGUQeWuC2JvnQmwteEDt2rfWp7d3yI7tu4cC3XoPZE-te8pkib1MwKHnFYi4kSEk8ZRcZM8Hiv3HMWsgebVpEVZYqcPn6KpMO7VxNiW7x-RhXRAX1CttG6s2u/s320/Rosatradescant.jpg" height="213" title="Rosa Tradescant" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm beyond delighted that Eleanor Wachtel is re-podcasting her classic 2004 interview with Alice Munro to celebrate Munro's 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. If I were you I'd download it immediately, before it expires (see download link below).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Munro and Wachtel talk in Munro's local lunch spot and it's</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> one of my favorite author audio interviews ever.</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Their conversation fizzes with humor and intelligence, and covers almost everything a Munro fan would want to know, as I wrote in </span><a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2009/12/alice-munros-generous-intimacy.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">an earlier pos</span>t</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">The interview lasts about an hour. It encompasses the arc of Munro's life and career, her opinions on adultery and hardship in fiction, her childhood in rural Ontario and how a scholarship launched her into the wider world, her frustration with the heroines of Tolstoy, her intimation of the sex in Austen, the unconscious theme of the stories in </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781400077915" style="color: #2d8930; text-decoration: none;">Runaway</a></i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">, the differing nature of her relationships with her mother and father, and her exploratory composition method."</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You can listen to it online here at </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/episode/2013/10/13/alice-munro-encore/" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;" target="_blank">CBC's Writers & Company webpage</a><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, or:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You can <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/alice-munro-podcast/id250082529?i=169124420&mt=2" target="_blank">download the conversation with Wachtel and Munro</a> for longterm keeping from the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/writers-company-from-cbc-radio/id250082529?mt=2" target="_blank">Writer's & Company iTunes podcast listing</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">N.B. This particular Writers and Company podcast will probably go offline sometime in the next six months. <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/alice-munro-podcast/id250082529?i=169124420&mt=2" target="_blank">Download NOW</a> if you want to listen again later!</span></div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-56325220302257455042013-06-23T13:03:00.001-04:002013-06-23T13:03:14.269-04:00Best Podcast Apps for Radio-Style and Library-Style Listening<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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After months of using <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-casts/id414834813?mt=8" target="_blank">Shifty Jelly's Pocket Casts app</a> for the iPhone (<a href="http://ogo.com/2013/01/tidbits-article-gives-me-hope-for.html" target="_blank">see earlier post)</a> I find it's best for managing podcasts "radio-style" that you want to follow regularly. I couldn't find a way to download a particular episode for a podcast without simultaneously subscribing to that podcast's feed. Nor is Pocket Casts great for searching a podcast's archives. In spite of my intention to only use one podcast app, I found wasn't able to abandon the iPhone's native Podcasts app because it's superior for one-off downloads/listens and for saving podcasts I want to keep "forever."<br />
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So this is how I now use the two podcast apps:<br />
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<u><span style="color: #0b5394;">Litagogo's Best Uses of Shifty Jelly's Pocket Casts App</span></u><br />
<u><br /></u>I use the Pocket Casts app as a podcast radio. I set up its subscriptions so that whenever I open up the app, I can quickly find a podcast episode that suits my activity, whether it's cooking or gardening or walking. To whit:<br />
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For subscribing to my frequent-listening podcasts such as <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/writers-company-from-cbc-radio/id250082529?mt=2" target="_blank">Eleanor Wachtel's Writers & Company from CBC Radio</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/podcast/" target="_blank">The New Yorker Fiction Podcast</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/openbook" target="_blank">BBC's Books and Authors podcast</a>, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/selected-shorts/id253191824?mt=2" target="_blank">PRI's Selected Shorts</a>, and <a href="http://otherpeoplepod.com/" target="_blank">Brad Listi's Other People</a> podcast.<br />
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For subscribing to newsy/culture podcasts I like to dip into, such as <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/" target="_blank">WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show podcast</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fr" target="_blank">BBC Radio's Front Row Weekly</a> podcast.<br />
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For streaming the above when I have free WiFi.<br />
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For manually downloading episodes from any of the podcasts above when I know I have a long drive ahead.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">What I love most about the Pocket Casts app:</span><br />
The individual podcast subscription summary pages, with a header at the top that tells you how many Recent, Unplayed, Downloaded, and Unfinished episodes you have for that podcast, and underneath the header, a reverse-chronological list of recent episodes.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">What I love second-most about the Pocket Casts app:</span><br />
The "Show Notes" that pop-up from the main podcast menu and that also are found by swiping left from within an episode. Also in general, the listening controls, particularly the rewind 10 seconds overlay.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">What I like least about the Pocket Casts app:</span><br />
Internal search for particular episodes is apparently non-existent. Or at least invisible to moi. For that you need good old Google, and then once you have a date you have to skim back, which is fast, but apparently only possible on podcasts to which you've subscribed--not good for one-off listens, so for that I still use the iPhone's free Podcasts app (more below).<br />
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<u><span style="color: #0b5394;">Litagogo's Best Uses of Apple's iPhone Podcasts App</span></u><br />
<u><br /></u>As suggested by its use of a "Library" label to display personalized content, I use the native iPhone Podcasts app more as a podcast library more than a podcast radio. To what:<br />
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For using the Store search function to sample or trial-run podcasts I may or may not want to subscribe to regularly on the Pocket Casts app. Sampling podcasts on the iPhone's Podcast app avoids overloading my Pocket Cast app's [New] Episodes feed, which quickly dragontails itself now that I have five or six subscriptions. I don't want samples clogging up my radio feed of reliables above.<br />
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For listening to a single episode of a podcast for research or passing-fancy interest, whether I've identified it from someone's recommendation or from a keyword search. The internal search on the iPhone Podcasts app is decent, and I assume just a portal into iTunes. For detailed searches or more macro searches you must resort to the Google, and then armed with podcast/episode info dip back into the Podcasts app.<br />
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For storing podcasts I want to keep and also sync across platforms. There are certain author interviews or craft talky-talk podcasts or short story readings that I can listen to several times--these I keep in two places: on a playlist on my iPod called "Perpetuities" and by downloading them into the iPhone podcast app. I highly recommend downloading your most beloved podcast episodes because sometimes they become unavailable. If you tire of them you can delete them later.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">What I love most about the native iPhone Podcast app:</span><br />
Sampling and archive functionality.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">What I like least about the </span><span style="color: #38761d;">native iPhone Podcast</span><span style="color: #38761d;"> app:</span><br />
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Lack of detailed episode descriptions up front on lists and also within the episodes.</div>
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Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-7907074722812763222013-01-22T11:20:00.000-05:002013-06-23T12:57:36.388-04:00TidBITS Article Gives Me Hope (for iPhone Podcast Phunctionality)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>A Podcast App Worth $1.99</b><br />
I used to listen to podcasts exclusively on my old Nano iPod, but since I acquired an iPhone (rationalized by an emergency overseas trip last spring) my trusty little iPod has been niched down to running soundtracks only.<br />
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One advantage of an iPhone for listening to podcasts is that if you're standing in one place, i.e. kneading dough, you can use the iPhone's speakers and shed the earbuds--my old iPod couldn't do that. An iPad or a laptop could be used the same way, but they take up a lot more counter space and it's harder to find a spot for them that is safe from flour clouds or water spill. I also liked that I only had to remember one device to have podcasts available to me at all times.<br />
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The only headache with using my iPhone for all my podcast listening was playlist management. I would sync my hand-picked podcast playlists (which iTunes lumps with "Music" playlists) from my laptop to the iPhone's orange Music app, or I would download podcasts from within the iPhone using the purple iTunes app (I still get confused between "Music" and "iTunes," which is why I've used chromatic identifiers here), but both methods were tedious, and gummed up storage space.<br />
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I thought the iPhone would achieve its podcast listening potential when Apple released their Apple Podcasts app in June of 2012, but then I used it: terrible search, draconically truncated titling, and non-intuitive subscription management. Half the time I can't find things I know I've downloaded. I have trouble finding things I want to delete. Most frustrating of all, I can't make playlists of podcast episodes according to my handpicked categories--i.e. "Favorite Short Stories," "Craft Lectures," "Perpetuities," or "Vermont Road Trip," something I had managed fairly simply by using iTunes on my laptop and then syncing the playlists to the iPod (N.B.: iTunes will store your playlist as "Music" whether it contains podcasts or songs, or a combo).<br />
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Now, thanks to a <a href="http://tidbits.com/e/13475" target="_blank">TidBITS article titled "Five Alternatives to Apple's Podcast App"</a> that my favorite clipper forwarded to me, I have hope for far less frustrating iPhone podcast listening in the future. TidBITS contributor Josh Centers, who seems to share my dissatisfaction with the native Apple Podcast app, and who has a has a far more techy understanding of data management than I do, has gone to the trouble of testing five third-party podcast management apps for the iPhone. After reading his article, I'm planning to try out <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-casts/id414834813?mt=8" target="_blank">Shifty Jelly's Pocket Casts app</a> (<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.shiftyjelly.pocketcasts" target="_blank">Android version also available</a>), stat.</div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-89646949168572511982012-12-22T12:40:00.003-05:002012-12-22T12:41:29.745-05:00Podcasts for Wrapping<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUWqSQZalwErb4OOdP-lKsIZlj0hYZzqxXAsBzPIrSeBkcPFvtyrPkneINUEuTrOPZh0q_aWgB8NiqXKZnzBophtj-B9y4h3b95stNW1AqHr5QgI9okcRiuvcogHeQWhA5JG87nty_6bx/s1600/SnowyPhoneBox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUWqSQZalwErb4OOdP-lKsIZlj0hYZzqxXAsBzPIrSeBkcPFvtyrPkneINUEuTrOPZh0q_aWgB8NiqXKZnzBophtj-B9y4h3b95stNW1AqHr5QgI9okcRiuvcogHeQWhA5JG87nty_6bx/s200/SnowyPhoneBox.jpg" width="133" /></a>The holiday season <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/short-stories-podcast" target="_blank">Guardian Short Stories podcast</a> is back, just in time for all you last-minute wrappers! Also great for long walks away from the yulemosh.<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Jingle Bell and Ho Ho Ho Free</span><br />
Some people like to wrap to Christmas music, but I prefer to squish and tape my corners to short story podcasts, which I listen to on headphones to filter out all the paper carnage. Last year the <i>Guardian</i> Books site podcasted an excellent 12-day series of favorite short stories read by contemporary authors (read the <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2011/03/listen-to-12-classic-stories-for.html" target="_blank">Litagogo overview here</a>, and my review of <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2011/03/angela-carters-kitchen-child.html" target="_blank">the excellent reading of Angela Carter's "The Kitchen Child" by Helen Simpson here</a>). The format is roughly similar to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction" target="_blank">The New Yorker: Fiction podcast</a> (a Litagogo fave) in that the reading is followed by a discussion, in this case with Lisa Allardice, the editor of the <i>Guardian</i>'s Saturday Review section. The main difference between the <i>Guardian</i> and <i>The New Yorker </i>podcasts is an absence of set-up--the <i>Guardian</i> readers plunge into the stories without preamble or explanation. Also, <i>The New Yorker</i> spreads their story readings across a year, podcasting one per month, whereas the <i>Guardian</i> podcasts one story every day for 12 consecutive days. (Hmmm, The 12 Podcasts of... Never mind.)<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Starting at Z</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDjhXmW7Qqyw6ZUXtES5WghLD0eLkJjlcMshBSZcgYTY6wNob9fhHZEbyebyhlJJfENbAD_OImbaOvxPhADdBOwh4MbQWszeYTzzANwzx_e9UeFB9-47vxAOboqjt2nCSWMk17lPmUWK5/s1600/XmasWrapping.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="gift books zadie smith" border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDjhXmW7Qqyw6ZUXtES5WghLD0eLkJjlcMshBSZcgYTY6wNob9fhHZEbyebyhlJJfENbAD_OImbaOvxPhADdBOwh4MbQWszeYTzzANwzx_e9UeFB9-47vxAOboqjt2nCSWMk17lPmUWK5/s200/XmasWrapping.jpg" title="" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Gift of Books</td></tr>
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As readers of this blog and <a href="http://www.hollowaymccandless.com/book-reviews-and-articles/moreofmyenthusiasmforzadiesmithsnw-1" target="_blank">my reviews</a> will already know, I'm a big fan of Zadie Smith (go read<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jan/10/joy/" target="_blank"> Smith's wonderful essay on joy vs. pleasure</a> on<i> The New York Review of Books</i> site right now--it might slip behind a paywall!), so I'm pleased that this year's <i>Guardian</i> short story series starts with her. Last year the discussions afterward between Allardice and the author/readers felt a bit truncated. That seems to have improved this year, based on the satisfying discussion that follows <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2012/dec/21/zadie-smith-giuseppe-pontiggia-buti" target="_blank">Smith's reading of "Umberto Buti" by Guiseppe Pontiggia</a>, a story she recently translated for <i>McSweeney's </i>(both story and author are new to me).<br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Subscribe for Keepers</span><br />
I noticed that some of last year's 12 story podcasts are no longer available for downloading from the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/guardian-short-stories-podcast/id406643235?mt=2" target="_blank">Guardian Short Stories iTunes feed</a>. If you think you might want to have any of these recordings stored on your hard disk or iPod or iPhone, you should subscribe and download. You can always delete the ones you don't want to keep. Lucky for you, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/helen-simpson-reads-kitchen/id406643235?i=89923505&mt=2" target="_blank">the Helen Simpson reading of Angela Carter's "The Kitchen Child" is still available to download from iTunes</a>. Merry listening, indeed.<br />
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Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-67981161065653098232012-11-27T12:42:00.000-05:002012-11-28T08:46:02.267-05:00Kevin Powers on The Yellow Birds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjARXa_ZOTFcEKlhNsRAk1-co8_1I_xsIUHvb3Ka5Fsjnb1t_RCwxba-nqajCD6jiJf-GXEN6T-zJh5djHk5LSSHkptyGdgoYU701GJFycUw7QhsRZxgUqqegkbXK8kFu4WZl3XXW2Eu-O/s1600/HyacinthYellowBackground.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt=""and the dust covered everything in Al Tafar, so that even the blooming hyacinth flowers became a kind of rumor."--The Yellow Birds " border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjARXa_ZOTFcEKlhNsRAk1-co8_1I_xsIUHvb3Ka5Fsjnb1t_RCwxba-nqajCD6jiJf-GXEN6T-zJh5djHk5LSSHkptyGdgoYU701GJFycUw7QhsRZxgUqqegkbXK8kFu4WZl3XXW2Eu-O/s320/HyacinthYellowBackground.jpg" title="Grape Hyacinth" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;">"and the dust covered everything in Al Tafar, so that even the blooming hyacinth flowers became a kind of rumor."--<i>The Yellow Birds</i></span></div>
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Kevin Powers, author of a novel about young soldiers who serve in fictional "Tal Afar," Iraq, served in real-life Al Tafar, Iraq (the anagram is so close it feels like a typo) when Powers was only slightly older than 21-year-old Private John Bartle, the first-person narrator of his sinuous and stark war novel, <i>The Yellow Birds</i>. Powers and Bartle are both from Virginia, and although the fictional Bartle does not share the MFA in poetry that Powers earned after his military service, his soldierly descriptions of everything from hyacinths to explosions contain the rhythms and sensory details of poetry.<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wamu-fm-wamu-diane-rehm-show/id160993127" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-09-25/kevin-powers-yellow-birds" target="_blank">Powers speaks directly about the similarities between himself and the narrator of <i>The Yellow Birds</i> in an interview with Tom Gjelton,</a> who was standing in for Diane Rehm during her vacation from <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wamu-fm-wamu-diane-rehm-show/id160993127" target="_blank">The Diane Rehm Show (iTunes link to most recent episodes)</a> in September 2012.<br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">The Autobiographical Itch</span><br />
Whenever a novelist's background clings closely to that of his or her fist-person narrator the question of autobiography is inevitable. In my experience this fiction vs. autobiography curiosity peaks right after I finish the book, which is what happened when I finished listening to the audiobook of <i>The Yellow Birds</i> (my review will appear soon in Shelf Awareness--I will add a link when goes live).<br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Podcast Provender</span><br />
I often look for a podcast to give me answers to questions I have about a book or an author's intentions, and I am often satisfied by podcasts. Writers tend to be garrulous in audio interviews, and there are plenty of good interviewers out there asking questions readers might like to ask. One of the advantages of getting your author background information from a podcast is that you get hear the bonus verbal cues--hesitations, tone shifts, silences, or lack thereof--that can help you decide for yourself if the writer is telling the truth about the fiction.<br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Complimentary Snoopiness</span><br />
I know authors get terribly tired of this snoopiness, but the better the story, the more avid the desire to know if it's real. Readers can't help it. If it turns out that there is actually a good deal of invention and inspiration, and that the biographical details are more scenic and empathetic than true-life-replicating, that only adds to my esteem for the fiction.<br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Veteran Experience</span><br />
If you're read or listened to the audiobook of <i>The Yellow Birds </i>(and I recommend that you do, if you have any curiosity at all about what modern combat and the subsequent return home is like for our soldiers), you will find <a href="http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-09-25/kevin-powers-yellow-birds" target="_blank">this interview with Kevin Powers by Tom Gjelton on The Diane Rehm Show </a>well worth a listen. The author reads several well-chosen excerpts aloud (though I'm still partial to Holter Graham's audiobook performance). Powers' discussion with Gjelton will inform you about how much the author created from his experience, and listener call-ins bring in more voices of non-fictional veterans who served in various conflicts. The 50-minute interview is spoiler-free, so don't be afraid to listen to it if you haven't read the book yet (though it will be more interesting if you have).<br />
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<span style="color: #073763;">Sterling Disappointment</span><br />
My only disappointment with this podcast was that Powers did not budge a millimeter on the real-life inspiration for Sergeant Sterling, to my mind the most singular, enigmatic, and charismatic character in <i>The Yellow Birds</i>. Sterling's hot-metal dialogue and his brutal-love leadership of his unit give <i>The Yellow Birds</i> a necessary intensity. When Gjelton inquires, "Was there someone like Sergeant Sterling in your own experience?"(<span style="color: #073763;">Minute 11</span>), Powers replies, "I mean--not directly; none of the characters correspond to people I actually knew," and veers into a discussion of mining elements of himself (cf. Flaubert: <i>"Madame Bovary, c'est moi"</i>), the disavowal comes a little too fast and sounds a little too slick. Perhaps the soldier-poet-novelist knows when a diversionary answer is the most strategic, and in this debriefing he got away with one, or maybe he made Sterling up out of nothing but dust and shards of his own experience; either way I'm glad he exists in novelistic form.</div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-32807300641180952752012-11-10T12:45:00.000-05:002012-11-10T16:04:47.944-05:00Rod Stewart: Singer, Writer, Art Lover<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handbags and gladrags and morning sun when it's in your face, etc.</td></tr>
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Perhaps it's spandexing the bounds of "literary" to include a review of a podcast in which Rod Stewart promotes his autobiography (entitled, deliciously, <i>Rod:</i><br />
<a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780307987303?aff=hollowaymcc"><img onerror="this.src = 'http://www.indiebound.org/files/book_not_found.jpg';" src="http://images.booksense.com/images/books/303/987/FC9780307987303.JPG" style="border: 1px solid #000;" /><br />Shop Indie Bookstores</a>)<br />
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but I was lyrically disillusioned by "Maggie May" as a kid (I can still picture the room in my dad's Upper West Side apartment where I first heard it over the radio) and I was popmusically imprinted by Stewart's cover of Cat Stevens' "The First Cut Is The Deepest" as a teenager. When I chanced across <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nbrjh" target="_blank">Stewart's 13-minute conversation with Kirsty Lang on the BBC's Front Row podcast</a> I was snookered all over again by the raspy organ and Rod's laid-back candor.<br />
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Here are a few of the choice items from the interview, but if you have time, listen to Rod tell them as only Rod can (see links below for online listening & iTunes downloading*):<br />
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1) Although his lyrics take some factual liberties, there was a real "Maggie May" and a somewhat momentous event for young Rod at a jazz festival in Beaulieu, England. [You'll notice Beaulieu is pronounced "beeuwlee" by Rod à la British convention. Irrelevant fun fact: Beaulieu, located in the lovely New Forest, was an important RAF base in WWII.]<br />
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2) "Maggie May" was an underestimated B-side (let's pause for a moment of 45 rpm nostalgia), and owes its début to a curious Cleveland DJ.<br />
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3) Young Rod was "discovered" at train station, playing harmonica and dressed in rags, by Long John Baldry.<br />
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4) Rod collects art, particularly Pre-Raphaelite paintings (because they often portray mermaid-torsoed, long-haired damsels??) and has hung many examples across his four domiciles. <a href="http://www.architecturaldigest.com/decor/2007-05/rodstewart_slideshow_052007#slide=8" target="_blank">Check out the one on his wall in Beverly Hills</a>. Wow.<br />
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I'll leave you to discover the remaining lightly scandalous (no airplane stories) Rod bits on your own.<br />
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Fear not, intellectual types: Litagogo will resume its regularly-scheduled pretentious literary posting next week.<br />
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*Online link to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nbrjh" target="_blank">Rod's interview with Kirsty Lang on the BBC's Front Row programme</a>.<br />
iTunes link to <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/frontrow-rod-stewart-lost/id134045372?i=122693971&mt=2" target="_blank">Rod Stewart on the BBC's Front Row Daily podcast </a>of 10/18/12.</div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-85793206813915676262012-10-30T06:19:00.001-04:002012-10-30T08:35:08.247-04:00Storm Distraction Podcasts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Storm in the Mountains," about 1870, by Albert Bierstadt<br />
Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/storm-in-the-mountains-33126" target="_blank">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston</a> </td></tr>
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Storm warnings, impending storms, and hovering storms make me edgy and distracted. I'm always waiting for a widowmaker to fall off one of the 100-year-old oaks on our street, or for the power to go out. Right now in the Boston area we're on the edge of the blandly-dubbed Hurricane "Sandy," and although we're getting off light compared to New York and New Jersey, I find it hard to focus with the wind gusting up to 63 mph and the interior doors ghosting back and forth.<br />
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Podcasts are good for storms, because you can go around doing storm prep while listening, and once the storm is upon you a podcast can take your mind off those wavering branches, or in the case of my niece in Brooklyn, a swaying 4th floor apartment.<br />
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Here's a sampling of old podcast favorites that should get you through a storm (click on titles to go to podcast links):<br />
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<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-theroux-reads-jorge-luis/id256945396?i=19779940&mt=2" target="_blank">The New Yorker: Fiction Podcast: Paul Theroux Reads Jorge Luis Borges</a><br />
Paul Theroux reads "The Gospel According to Mark," Jorge Luis Borges' allegorical story about a well-intentioned young medical student trapped in the Pampas by wet weather. They don't structure stories like this any more. A robust 20 minutes.<br />
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<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2008/jan/25/books39" target="_blank">The Guardian Book Podcasts: Andrew O'Hagan: Burns Night Special</a><br />
Robert Burns expert Andrew O'Hagan hails from the Scottish bard's windswept Ayrshire. In this half-hour podcast he reads three of Burns' works in the accent they deserve. Wrap yourself in your plaidie and listen to the storm-perfect "O Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast"(poem <a href="http://www.robertburns.org/works/557.shtml" target="_blank">text link</a>).<br />
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<a href="http://www.edrants.com/segundo/cynthia-ozick-ii-bss-368/" target="_blank">The Bat Segundo Show: Cynthia Ozick II (#368)</a><br />
Ed Champion conducts a wonderful discussion of writing craft with master writer Cynthia Ozick. Uncompromising and stimulating, it's a conversation to take your mind off almost any meteorological threat. Approximately one hour.<br />
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<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/helen-simpson-reads-kitchen/id406643235?i=89923505&mt=2" target="_blank">Guardian Short Stories Podcast: Helen Simpson Reads "The Kitchen Child" by Angela Carter</a><br />
A great story read extremely well. Conveys much concupiscent culinary coziness. About half an hour.<br />
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<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wbc-edna-obrien/id263658343?i=22601010&mt=2" target="_blank">BBC World Service's World Book Club: Edna O'Brien</a><br />
Edna O'Brien reminisces about boarding school, her formation as a writer, the censoriousness of 1950s Ireland and answers questions (including one from Anne Enright!). She also reads from "The Country Girls."<br />
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Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-14692822620994593752012-10-01T18:36:00.000-04:002012-10-01T18:36:26.166-04:00Hear Junot Diaz Quip Fast and Read an Early Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Junot Diaz, newly named a MacArthur Fellow for 2012, is a great podcast subject. This <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2009/01/junot-diaz-distilled-in-13-minutes.html" target="_blank">"Diaz Distilled in 13 Minutes" Litagogo post from 2009</a> has links to two great vintage Junot Diaz podcasts:<br />
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•a 2007 "Meet the Writers" Barnes & Noble podcast in which Diaz displays his wit and explains his geometric approach to story structure in under 13 minutes, and<br />
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•a 2007 "New Yorker: Fiction" podcast in which Diaz reads his classic early story, "How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)."<br />
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Listening links at the <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2009/01/junot-diaz-distilled-in-13-minutes.html" target="_blank">2009 Litagogo </a>post.<br />
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Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-87246781202902553772012-09-11T11:48:00.001-04:002012-09-11T23:29:14.436-04:00Zadie Smith Talks About NW in London<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I wrote it [NW] almost entirely in a library in Manhattan."--Zadie Smith</td></tr>
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In terms of language and dialogue Zadie Smith's <i>NW</i> is one of the most alive novels I've read this year. As I wrote in <a href="http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1810#m17187">my review of NW for Shelf Awareness</a>, "One does not read NW so much as eavesdrop on it."<br />
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NW is brainy and philosophical and also entirely accessible--no fancy words, just life transcribed through an intelligence that notices all the intersections among class, race, turf and ambition for a collection of modern Brits who grew up in the North West (NW) postal district of London. There is heart also, particularly in the middle Felix section, which travels all the way south to Soho (W1) and arcs like a mini-<i>Ulysses</i> between the Leah and Natalie/Keisha sections.<br />
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Because Smith's style in <i>NW</i> is idiosyncratically Woolfian you have to pay attention to who's speaking or thinking, but it's not that difficult. A moderate tolerance for non-standard typography and chapter length is also helpful, but that's all you need to be immersed in <i>NW</i>'s multi-charactered world.<br />
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I've been listening to Zadie Smith podcasts both new and old to find something to recommend as an accompaniment to <i>NW</i>. One thing I discovered is that Smith is far more comfortable talking to fellow writers than to journalists. She is also staggeringly polite to journalists who ask ham-fisted questions about race and novels.<br />
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Never mind, all you need to scratch your itch for live Smith is to listen to her in conversation with <a href="http://nikeshshukla.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Nikesh Shukla</a> on his <a href="http://thesubaltern.podomatic.com/entry/2012-09-04T01_42_01-07_00" target="_blank">"Subaltern" podcast from September 2012.</a> (Here's the iTunes <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-23-zadie-smith/id498496491?i=120264838" target="_blank">link to Zadie Smith on the Subaltern podcast</a>.) The podcast is only 30 minutes long but it's incredibly satisfying, quick without being "lite," relaxed yet jammed with interesting stuff. Smith reveals how she arrived at the relative spareness of <i>NW</i> after attempting to write a 120-page version (!), muses on mature existentialism, riffs amusingly on the difference between being edited by magazine and newspaper editors in the UK ("random") vs. the U.S. ("relentless"), admires the multiplicity of James Baldwin's perspective, rues the challenge of writing realism in the digital age (Tao Lin), chats about the experience of doing a<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/t-magazine/the-house-that-hova-built.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank"> profile of Jay-Z for <i>The New York Times</i></a>, and hints at what she might write next.<br />
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P.S. For the completist, <a href="http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/smith_englander_1_1_11/" target="_blank">Guernica Magazine has posted a video of Smith in conversation with Nathan Englander </a>in 2010 at a fundraiser for the Dadaab Young Women's Scholarship Initiative, in which Smith's comments on writing and identity seem to point to <i>NW. </i></div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-84697215529423965222012-05-08T20:07:00.001-04:002012-05-09T10:12:33.569-04:00Maurice Sendak, King of All Wild Things: A Retrospective Rumpus of Links<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"And when he came to the place where the wild things are..."</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">UPDATE</span>: Fresh Air has released a 45-minute memorial compilation of Terry Gross's interviews with Maurice Sendak from 1986-2011. It's fascinating to hear how his voice grows pleasantly gruff with age. (The compilation includes material described in the September 2011 podcast listed below.)</div>
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Online link for "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/05/08/152248901/fresh-air-remembers-author-maurice-sendak" target="_blank">Fresh Air Remembers Maurice Sendak</a>".</div>
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<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fresh-air-remembers-author/id214089682?i=114897550">iTunes link for Fresh Air's Maurice Sendak memorial compilation</a>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">"I am in love with the world"</span></div>
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The great thing about Maurice Sendak, apart from his immortal opus and his gleeful bicuspids, is that he never became pompous or preening or patronizing. His late interviews are seminars in how to live impishly and passionately up until the last minute, and though I was sad to learn of Sendak's death on May 7, 2012, when I re-listened to his September 2011 Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, I was consoled by Sendak's satisfaction with his own life ("I'm happy," "It is a blessing to get old. It is a blessing to find the time to do the things, to take the time to read the books, to listen to the music,") and his bracing acceptance of death ("Oh God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.")</div>
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Sendak's last Fresh Air interview is perhaps not the interview to start with, because it is lachrymose with Sendak's grief over the deaths of people he's loved, so I would save it for last. Here is a suggested order of listening for my top Sendak audio and visual interviews (not all are available on podcast):</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">TateShots on Sendak's Illustrious Inspirations (December 2011)</span></div>
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In this 5-minute video interview from the UK's Tate museum Sendak talks about the inspirations for his art, including William Blake, Philip Otto Runge and other German Romantic painters. It shows Sendak's bookshelves and framed prints and his dog, Herman (named after Melville).</div>
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Online page for the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshots-maurice-sendak" target="_blank">TateShots interview with Maurice Sendak</a>.</div>
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Downloadable <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tateshots-maurice-sendak/id217577183?i=112715043" target="_blank">iTunes link for the TateShots</a> interview with Maurice Sendak.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">Bill Moyers Uncovers the Genesis of <i>Where The Wild Things Are</i> (2004)</span></div>
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This 17-minute video interview with Bill Moyers on PBS's "Now" program is one of the best on the familial inspirations and drawing-limitation origins of Sendak's <i>Where the Wild Things Are</i>, plus his attitudes about children's literature (which Moyers suggests is "like fighting guerrilla warfare"), Sendak's collaboration with über-editor Ursula Nordstrom, and the childhood fears instilled by the Lindbergh baby abduction.</div>
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Online link for <a href="http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/sendak.html" target="_blank">Maurice Sendak discussing his work with Bill Moyers</a>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">Marker-Sniffing à Deux on the The Colbert Report (2011)</span></div>
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Most everyone I know has already seen these. A pair of delightfully acerbic, giddy and impish video interviews, conducted at Sendak's home in Connecticut, replete with middle school shenanigans. The universe is lucky Colbert filmed these when he did.</div>
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Online page for <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406796/january-24-2012/grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt--1" target="_blank">"Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Part 1"</a> (7 1/2 minutes)</div>
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Online page for <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406902/january-25-2012/grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt--2" target="_blank">"Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Part 2"</a> (7 minutes)</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">Sendak's Last Fresh Air Appearance (September 2011)</span></div>
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Ostensibly scheduled to promote the release of Sendak's <i>Bumble-ardy</i>, this 18-minute interview with Terry Gross quickly deepens into a discussion of life, lost friends and lovers, the beauty of the world, Sendak's philosophical attitude toward death. It concludes with his heartfelt benediction for Gross: "Live your life, live your life, live your life."</div>
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Online link to <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140435330/this-pig-wants-to-party-maurice-sendaks-latest" target="_blank">Maurice Sendak's last appearance on Fresh Air</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/npr-09-20-2011-fresh-air/id214089682?i=111480138" target="_blank">iTunes link to Maurice Sendak's last appearance on Fresh Air</a> (starts roughly 21 minutes in).</div>
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<br /></div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-67276455925891324012012-05-01T18:10:00.000-04:002012-05-01T18:10:01.381-04:00Toni Morrison on Beloved (c. 2009)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"So he raced from dogwood to blossoming peach."</td></tr>
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In 2009 <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qbnhs" target="_blank">Toni Morrison visited the BBC's World Book Club</a> to discuss her Pulitzer-Prizewinning masterpiece <i>Beloved</i> with host Harriet Gilbert and an international group of fans. The <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wbc-toni-morrison-repeat/id263658343?i=112863084" target="_blank">BBC has re-podcasted the recording of Morrison's appearance</a> in honor of the 25th anniversary of <i>Beloved</i>'s publication. The Book Club members' questions are fine, but the author is sublime, despite having arrived at London's South Bank Arts Center after a red-eye transatlantic flight. Morrison is genial, generous and gracious with her interlocutors, one of whom is only nine years old.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">The Origins of Beloved</span><br />
Morrison talks about the nonfiction incident that germinated the unforgettable and signifying act of <i>Beloved</i>, as well as the limited usefulness of anger as muse and her narrative design for the novel. To put the difficulty of writing into perspective Morrison tells the story of her grandmother leaving Alabama for the North with six children and 30 dollars and no set plan for what to do when she arrived. Morrison also reads three passages from <i>Beloved</i>, including the devastating section in which Sethe addresses the girl whom she takes to be her daughter (at Minute 35)--a gorgeous piece of audio.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">Links</span><br />
The podcast lasts just over 50 minutes, and can be listened to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qbnhs" target="_blank">online at the BBC's World Book Club archive</a>, and also <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wbc-toni-morrison-repeat/id263658343?i=112863084" target="_blank">downloaded from the BBC's World Book Club iTunes feed here</a> (this link may expire).<br />
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<br /></div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-63353836441577426782012-03-09T15:45:00.000-05:002012-03-29T11:49:43.823-04:00Cheryl Strayed Talks Wild, Sugar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<i>What had I gotten myself into?</i>"</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">UPDATE</span>: There's a great new podcasted interview of Cheryl Strayed by Diane Rehm for her WAMU Show. Topics include a lotta <i>Wild </i>and a dash of Sugar. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Links: a perishable <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cheryl-strayed-wild-from-lost/id160993127?i=112326538" target="_blank">iTunes podcast of Cheryl Strayed on the Diane Rehm Show</a> or clickable audio <a href="http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-03-28/cheryl-strayed-wild-lost-found-pacific-crest-trail" target="_blank">on the WAMU site</a> (the WAMU site audio should be available longer than the podcast.)</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">You can also get strong hit of Strayed openness along with some writing advice in this <a href="http://www.thedaysofyore.com/cheryl-strayed/" target="_blank">Days of Yore print interview of Cheryl Strayed</a> by H. Henderson and Kassi Underwood (not a podcast).</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-size: small;">Pre-<i>Wild</i> Publication Interview</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This interview with <a href="http://otherpeoplepod.com/archives/578" target="_blank">Cheryl Strayed on Brad Listi's Other People Podcast</a> from February 2012 is a great teaser for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><a href="http://knopf.knopfdoubleday.com/2012/03/05/watch-the-trailer-for-wild-by-cheryl-strayed/" target="_blank">Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail</a>, </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Strayed's forthcoming memoir about her bereft 1,100-mile hike with only a backpack nicknamed "Monster" to keep her company. The podcast (<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-46-cheryl-strayed/id472152554?i=110777463" target="_blank">iTunes link</a>) will expose you to enough about <i>Wild</i> to help you decide whether or not you want to read it, but it will not spoil it for you. (If you want to see a preview in print, here's <a href="http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/into-the-woods-cheryl-strayed/#1" target="_blank">an excerpt of <i>Wild</i> via <i>Vogue</i></a>--talk about footwear disconnect.) In the podcast Strayed and Listi also talk a bit about <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/02/the-exchange-cheryl-strayed-aka-dear-sugar.html" target="_blank">Strayed's previously anonymous role</a> as the truth-talkin'-mama behind the <a href="http://therumpus.net/sections/dear-sugar/" target="_blank">"Dear Sugar" advice column for The Rumpus</a>, and how after Strayed <a href="http://litseen.com/?p=7820" target="_blank">came out as "Sugar" on Valentine's Day</a> she received 6,000 emails. Yowza. Whether she's sharing her grieving process or dishing out free life advice, Strayed manages to make openness embracing and sympathy unsimpery.</span></span><br />
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</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-91578365196756531692012-03-03T11:48:00.000-05:002012-12-05T09:45:03.740-05:00Stephanie Vaughn's Niagara Stories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Every so often that dead dog dreams me up again."</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Of Crocuses and Boxies</span><br />
The first time I listened to a Stephanie Vaughn short story was the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/15/080915on_audio_wolff" target="_blank">New Yorker: Fiction's podcast of Tobias Wolff reading Vaughn's "Dog Heaven"</a> back in 2008. That story opens with the line quoted in the caption above, and I thought about it this week when the crocuses came up early, because I'm not sure if Wes, my son's hibernating three-toed box turtle, will have survived this winter's fickle thaws followed by hard frosts. Crocuses are a harbinger of both spring and pet death for me. Last year Scout, Wes's erstwhile love object and rescue partner, was caught out above ground too early during a far more temperature-consistent winter. Scout had only one back leg, and too much of her literary namesake's curiosity without enough of her sense, and I console myself to think that Scout had at least one decade of "Turtle Heaven" springs replete with wood lice feastings before her old raccoon-imposed or dog-imposed (we'll never know) amputation made it too hard for her to burrow back down once the ground refroze.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">"Dog Heaven" Is Not Unbearably Sad</span><br />
Vaughn's army base daughter character reminds me a lot of the literary (not chelonian) Scout, and any parent looking for worthwhile girl heroines should consider downloading this podcast of Wolff reading "Dog Heaven" and playing it on their car sound system the next time they have their teen captive for a 40-minute drive. It's about middle schoolers, but it's a grownup story, and although its agency of loss is rooted in either bad luck or carelessness or human viciousness, the moments in the story that fuse as "Dog Heaven" assuage its sturdy acknowledgement of sadness and separation. The joyfulness and rampant affection demonstrated by the dog-character Duke sustains the narrator and the reader without being cutesy-poochy, plus Duke's barkalogue as read by Wolff is the best human evocation of dog-language-thought I've ever heard. Vaughn's physical descriptions of Duke aren't too shaggy, either: "the red glory of his fur flying," "the dog swims his heavy fur into the black Niagara River" and a combination of e- and r-rich adjectives applied to Duke's eyebrows that will touch you when you hear it and slay you with its orthographic poetry when you see it printed on the page. (T<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1989/01/09/1989_01_09_026_TNY_CARDS_000351285" target="_blank">he text version of "Dog Heaven"</a> is only accessible to subscribers on <i>The New Yorker</i> site, but there's a link to the publisher of Vaughn's re-issued short story collection at the end of this post).)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Short Story Mastery</span><br />
Vaughn does everything well, not just strong girl heroines and three-dimensional canines. Her story structure and foreshadowing is genius-level yet transparent (Chekhov's pistol blah-blah-blah). She sketches the routines and settings of army brat life in her Fort Niagara indelibly. Middle school life is depicted in all its weirdness and asperity. Far better than most contemporary authors, Vaughn uses fresh-yet-frictionless language to conjure the emotions in a person, a dog, and even an entire classroom (<i>N.B.</i> the "Fact Monday" scene in "Dog Heaven"). Her flexing of narrative time and her use of echoing imagery is so fluid and subtle that you only notice it after the fact (Wolff and New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman cover this in their discussion after the story). Vaughn also redeems lyric description into a necessity (<i>N.B. </i>the ice storm landscape). I could <i>nota bene</i> the heck out of this story, so please just go ahead and listen to it.<br />
Online link to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/15/080915on_audio_wolff" target="_blank">New Yorker: Fiction podcast of "Dog Heaven"</a><br />
iTunes link to <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tobias-wolff-reads-stephanie/id256945396?i=37940945" target="_blank">New Yorke: Fiction podcast of "Dog Heaven"</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">No Dogs in "Able Baker Charlie Dog"</span><br />
I feel as if all of the above slights <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/12/19/111219on_audio_obreht" target="_blank">"Able Baker Charlie Dog,"</a> the other Vaughn Niagara army kid story available on <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction/?currentPage=all" target="_blank">the New Yorker: Fiction podcast</a>, this one published earlier in the magazine but recorded much more recently by Téa Obreht. It's good in many of the same ways as "Dog Heaven," and it goes some way toward satisfying the inevitable craving for more of Stephanie Vaughn's writing, but I'd recommend listening to the masterful "Dog Heaven" first to avoid diluting its power by semi-similarity.<br />
Online link to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/12/19/111219on_audio_obreht" target="_blank">New Yorker: Fiction podcast of "Able Baker Charlie Dog"</a><br />
iTunes link to <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tea-obreht-reads-stephanie/id256945396?i=108643857" target="_blank">New Yorker: Fiction podcast of "Able Baker Charlie Dog"</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Sweet Talk</i> is Back in Print!</span><br />
I'm very happy to report that the formerly-out-of print <i>Sweet Talk</i>, the short story collection that contains Vaughn's Niagara stories plus some decidedly non-middle-school material, has been republished by Other Press, <a href="http://www.otherpress.com/books/book?ean=9781590515167" target="_blank">in a delightfully affordable paperback edition</a>, as well as in e-book form. Apparently Vaughn fanship on Goodreads inspired the reissue--hooray for reader-driven publishing! Finally, here's a very nice online <a href="http://therumpus.net/2012/02/the-sunday-rumpus-interview-stephanie-vaughn/" target="_blank">interview of Stephanie Vaughn by Patrick Somerville for The Rumpus</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scout in the Mist</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">FTC Disclaimer:</span> Podcasts are free, my <i>New Yorker</i> subscription (for print access) is a perennial Valentine paid for by my own ex-army dad, and I gain nothing but Vaughnevangelistic joy if you decide to buy a copy of <i>Sweet Talk</i>.</div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-77819267340391564872012-02-01T13:59:00.003-05:002012-02-01T14:00:21.294-05:00Podpistil: Rex Pickett Post-Sideways<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Podpistils are short pips to podcasts I've listened to lately.</td></tr>
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<a href="http://otherpeoplepod.com/archives/407" target="_blank">Rex Pickett on Brad Listi's Other People Podcast</a> from January 2012 (iTunes link <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast//id472152554?i=109231484" target="_blank">here</a>). Pickett tells Listi the Cinderella story that began after Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor made his autobiographical novel <i><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780312342517" target="_blank">Sideways</a></i> into a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375063/" target="_blank">bourgie-darling, pinot-pimping movie</a> and explains why his sequel to <i>Sideways</i> (titled <i><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780615392189" target="_blank">Vertical</a></i>, natch) is self-pubbed and as yet un-filmed. A highly cautionary 75 minutes of un-spun dish on rejection, debt, agents, serendipity, dollars, rights, location boom, spit bucket celebrity and failure-to-cash-in.</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-81605047727196382002012-01-26T10:59:00.000-05:002012-12-09T20:25:21.231-05:00Jeanette Winterson On Fiction and Fact<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #073763;">"I learned really early on that if you can read yourself as a fiction,<br /> as well as a fact, then you really can expand the self."</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">UPDATE:</span> If you prefer to hear Winterson in conversation*, you can listen to a podcast of the cozy interview she did for <i>Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</i> with Eleanor Wachtel for CBC's Writers & Co. The hour-long interview includes a compassionate discussion of Mrs. Winterson (who committed the literary sin of recasting the ending of <i>Jane Eyre</i> when she read it to little Jeanette) as well as the story of how Accrington's Henrietta Alger talked her way into Oxford. At <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Minute 46</span>, Wachtel elicits Winterson's two-track writing process for the memoir, and then the conversation opens into high-stakes emotional territory (this section previews the memoir's darkest and most miraculous scene). Links: The online listening page for the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/episode/2012/02/05/jeanette-winterson-interview/" target="_blank">Writers & Co. Winterson interview is here</a>. The link to download the podcast of the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/writers-co.-05-02-2012-jeanette/id250082529?i=110251447" target="_blank">Writers & Co Winterson interview from iTunes is here</a> (the iTunes link may expire).<br />
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*Even if you prefer conversation, please sample the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jeanette-winterson-2010-event/id391458115?i=87005764" target="_blank">2010 Edinburgh International Book Festival podcast</a> reviewed below to hear Winterson read a classic excerpt from <i>Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit</i> (just past <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Minute 11</span>).<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Tent Talk</span><br />
Jeanette Winterson's memoir <i><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780802120106" target="_blank">Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</a></i> will be published in the U.S. in March 2012. Its split halves comprise a hindsight analysis of the writer's childhood under the dominion of a larger-than-life Pentecostal evangelical mother and an as-it-was-lived account of her midlife search for her biological mother. (Winterson skips over 25 years of her somewhat salacious salad days with the tease, "Maybe later...".) I can't reveal any more about <i>Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</i> before my review appears in <a href="http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1665#m15002" target="_blank">Shelf Awareness Pro [now available!]</a>, but I can tell you that if you want a stealth preview that combines highlights from Winterson's autobiographical novel <i><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780802135162" target="_blank">Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit</a></i> with nonfiction material from her life, you can listen to this <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jeanette-winterson-2010-event/id391458115?i=87005764" target="_blank">lively hour-long podcast of Winterson working a tent full of literary pilgrims at the 2010 Edinburgh International Book Festival</a>. Winterson's oratorical training as a half-pint proselytizer is in full evidence, as is her philosophical sense of humor.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Heathen Next Door</span><br />
Winterson begins her talk with the opening pages of <i>Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit</i> ("My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle"), followed by an account of the real-life Mrs. Winterson's habit of keeping a revolver in the duster drawer (just one example of how Winterson's childhood truth is more frightening than her childhood fiction). Just past <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 11</span> Winterson swoops from conversational chumminess about the state of the memoir into declaiming, "<b>The Heathen were a daily household preoccupation.</b>" Winterson's abrupt transition and her penetrating projection are enough to make even the most secular soul sense a Presence. Maybe the suddenness was created by podcast post-editing, but I doubt it, and regardless, it's a thrilling piece of audio brought on by voice and enhanced by Winterson's Lancashire accent. The Heathen on Sunday excerpt is hilarious and wonderfully specific in its details, and I won't spoil it for you if you've never read <i>Oranges</i>, except to defy you not to laugh out loud when Winterson reads, "While my mother was covering up the television, Mrs White was slithering up and down the skirting board," or not to cringe-laugh at the spotty backyard crescendo. (Any writer looking for craft tips would do well to study Winterson's use of verbs and short segments of dialogue.)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">"The trouble with a book"</span><br />
There are many similarities between the personal anecdotes Winterson tells in this <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jeanette-winterson-2010-event/id391458115?i=87005764" target="_blank">Edinburgh International Book Festival podcast </a>and what she wrote in <i>Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</i> (Having read the memoir after hearing the podcast, I can reassure you that there's plenty in the book that doesn't get mentioned in the podcast, particularly the second half about her search for the truth about her birth mother.) Some of the nonfiction highlights from the talk: Winterson's early relationship with Bible and the text ("<b>I was fed with words and shod with them</b>"--<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 23</span>); Mrs. Winterson's treatment of non-mystery novels as the forbidden fruit and young Jeanette's paperback concealment method (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 25</span>); teenage Winterson's T.S. Eliot epiphany on the steps of the Accrington Public Library (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #6aa84f;">Minute 30</span>); and the real-life conversation that generated the title quotation, <i>Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</i> (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 34</span>). What's not in any book, or in any other podcast I've ever listened to: a vocal imitation of a geysering varicose vein (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 39</span>).<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Maternal Questions</span><br />
During the Q & A portion of the talk an audience member asks Winterson what she would say to Mrs. Winterson (now deceased) if she were sitting in a chair "right there" (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 47</span>). Jeanette Winterson makes a little joke, and then answers seriously: "I'd say, 'Why aren't you proud of me?'" She quickly backfills the hush of poignance that follows by adding, "Sad, isn't it? But, I might also say, 'Everything is forgiven.'" It's not just festival tent talk--Winterson's portrayal of her adoptive mother in <i><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780802120106" target="_blank">Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</a></i> is shockingly forgiving, and something to be proud of.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Disclosure</span>: I bought my own copy of <i>Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit</i> in London many pears ago, but I received a free advance proof of <i>Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?</i> to review from Grove Press via Shelf Awareness.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Podcast Series Note</span>: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/edinburgh-international-book/id391458115" target="_blank">The Edinburgh International Book Festival podcast</a> is worth sampling, and offers an eclectic selection of writers. I commend them for not retiring their content as some other podcasts do. It's all up on iTunes for downloading portability, and it's all free.<br />
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Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-89505514359267890102011-10-18T10:28:00.002-04:002012-01-07T10:12:38.340-05:00Julian Barnes' Recursive Sense of Endings and Beginnings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature."--<i>The Sense of an Ending</i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">UPDATE:</span> Shortly after Julian Barnes (finally) <a href="http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/stories/1554" target="_blank">won The 2011 Man Booker Prize</a> in October, Eleanor Wachtel nabbed <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/episode/2011/11/20/julian-barnes-interview/" target="_blank">a rare in-depth interview with Barnes for her CBC Writers & Co.</a> show. Their hour of relaxed literary chat includes revelations from Barnes on the ideas behind <i>The Sense of an Ending</i> and also some discussion of his previous books, particularly his nonfiction meditation on mortality, <i>Nothing to be Frightened Of</i>. The podcast is a great listen, though a little spoilery if you haven't read <i>A Sense of an Ending</i> yet. (If the main <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/episode/2011/11/20/julian-barnes-interview/" target="_blank">Writers & Co. page link to the Barnes podcast</a> doesn't work, try going directly to <a href="http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/writersandco_20111120_86575.mp3" target="_blank">the .mp3 link here</a>.)<br />
<br />
In <i>The Sense of an Ending </i>Julian Barnes establishes and disputes a man's reckoning of his own life in under 200 pages. The external layer of the novel consists of the ruminations of Tony Webster, a middle-aged English everyman, as he recalls his past 40 years with a comfortable blend of nostalgia and regret. Webster's memories are mildly piquant, and Barnes' prose boosts their vividness just enough to sustain the reader's interest, interrupted every twenty pages or so by a tick-tock musing on the nature of time and memory. Never mind, we are just ruminating along with Tony and his milquetoast confessions and revelations about friends and lovers from long ago. Very near the promised ending, a present-day discovery amplifies the tick-tock and forces Webster to re-assess the whole shebang in real time, and everything the reader has been told begins to wobble and demand re-interpretation. As I wrote in <a href="http://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=35#m753">my review of <i>The Sense of An Ending</i> for Shelf Awareness</a>, it's "a sneaky little hand grenade of a novel"--once the pin falls out, one is compelled to go back to the beginning of <i>The Sense of An Ending</i> to see how it was built, and to determine whose complacency has been exploded--ours or the narrator's?<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">A Novel in a Sextet</span><br />
Barnes might have as easily titled his novel <i>The Stealth of a Beginning.</i> The opening page, which on first read appears harmlessly lyrical--a poetic sextet of liquid images--on second read reveals that it contains the entire DNA of the novel, yet even this knowledge will not give the ending away, because the ending is as much an interpretation as a refutation. The major of accomplishment of this slender novel is that it uses the actual elements of its own scenes to indict the glibness of anecdote<i>.</i><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Listen to Barnes Read the Beginning of His Ending</span><br />
<a href="http://manbookerprizepodcasts.co.uk/">The Man Booker Prize Podcast Series</a> has a recording of <a href="http://manbookerprizepodcasts.co.uk/2011/09/20/20110920.aspx">Barnes reading the beginning of <i>The Sense of an Ending</i></a>. It begins at <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Minute 4:40</span>, after an introduction by Tom Sutcliffe of BBC Radio 4 and an endorsement by Gaby Wood, one of the Man Booker Prize judges. The excerpt read by Barnes is an unadorned, highly resonant piece of audio. If you listen to it after you read the book, it will give you chills as you pick up even more clues to the novel's denouement, but you can also listen to it before you read the book without fear of spoilage. (Readings by all the 2011 shortlist nominees are also available for download from the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/man-booker-prize-podcasts/id450122321">Man Booker Prize Podcast iTunes page.</a>)<br />
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<br /></div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-35082625179262872252011-09-29T15:32:00.002-04:002012-05-02T14:39:07.220-04:00How to Interview Anne Enright Live<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The snow will melt, the houses will sell"--<i>The Forgotten Waltz</i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">UPDATE (5/2/2012)</span>: John Mullan recently hosted Anne Enright at the Guardian Book Club for an adulterous assignation with <i>The Forgotten Waltz</i>, breaking with the GBC podcast's tradition of discussing an author's most famous book (i.e. they cheated on <i>The Gathering,</i> Enright's Booker Prize-winner). Enright is frank, fresh, witty and sharp, and she makes an amusing observation about American blogger behavior.<br />
A diverting 23-minute podcast that goes by faster than a lunchtime quickie.<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Links: </span><br />
Online link for the April 2012 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2012/apr/06/anne-enright-guardian-book-club-podcast" target="_blank">Guardian Book Club with Anne Enright</a><br />
Downloadable <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anne-enright-meets-guardian/id168200814?i=112790693" target="_blank">iTunes link for the Guardian Book Club with Anne Enright</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">"A Bit of a Strap"</span><br />
My overconsumption of podcasts with favorite authors has taught me that some writers, unless challenged or stimulated by an interviewer, will answer questions with set phrases. These phrases can be charming, as when Anne Enright says that some readers describe Gina Moynihan, the heroine of <i>The Forgotten Waltz</i>, as being "<a href="http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/10/messages/8.html">no better than she should be</a>, a bit of a strap," but if you listen to more than one interview, you start to crave a little more spontaneity in the mix.<br />
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Jian Ghomeshi, the host of <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256943801">CBC's "Q" podcast</a>, interviewed Enright last June, and his earnest and energetic questioning on what she was trying to say about adultery in <i>The Forgotten Waltz</i> yields a 22-minute conversation that is lively and colloquial, with a particularly good stretch on the power of imagination in fiction, and the difference between emotional infidelity and physical infidelity. After Ghomeshi pushes the point, Enright says, "Anything is possible in anyone's head at any time." The interview evolves into an discussion of morality and biological and romantic love that feels more like a human exchange between Ghomeshi and Enright than a rote book promo, and it's delightful to have the opportunity to eavesdrop on it.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Anne Enright Audio Links:</span><br />
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Portable iTunes link to the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/q-the-podcast-2011-06-07-ann/id256943801?i=94684245">Q podcast with the Jian Ghomeshi-Anne Enright interview</a> (Enright segment begins at minute 19:30, after a segment on circumcision, natch).<br />
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Link to the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2011/06/07/anne-enright-q.html">CBC's "Q" web page with the Anne Enright interview</a>.<br />
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My <a href="http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1565#m13415">short review of <i>The Forgotten Waltz</i></a> for Shelf Awareness.<br />
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My favorite podcast from <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87941683">Anne Enright's promotional tour for <i>The Gathering</i></a>, her Booker Prize winner, recorded at DC's Politics and Prose Bookstore in 2008 and podcast by NPR Book Tour. Includes readings from <i>The Gathering</i> and above-average audience questioners, including a former schoolmate.<br />
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Litagogo post on <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2011/02/enright-reinvigorates-swimmer.html">Anne Enright reading John Cheever's "The Swimmer" for the New Yorker: Fiction</a> podcast.<br />
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Link to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2010/dec/07/anne-enright-raymond-carver-fat">Anne Enright reading Raymond Carver's "Fat"</a> for the Guardian's short stories podcast.<br />
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<br /></div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-53638364712936201642011-06-02T15:22:00.002-04:002012-11-02T12:31:47.857-04:00Andre Dubus III: Talk of the Townie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Experienced fighters don't do any foreplay"--Dubus III</span></td></tr>
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Radio Open Source host Christopher Lydon sets up his knockout punch barely two minutes into this <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/andre-dubus-iii-how-the-fighter-became-the-writer/">podcasted interview with Andre Dubus III</a>. Lydon asks Dubus to read the final pages of <i><a href="http://andredubus.com/townie.html">Townie: A Memoir</a>--</i>the scene of his father's burial. In his softened Merrimack River Valley accent Dubus mixes scraps of "The Lord's Prayer" with townie epithets, imagining a present-day joyride of vengeance while nearly elegizing the tormentors and battle scenes of his youth, a narrative weaving that succeeds in "accelerating after the boys he'd been, hoping he'll find them, hoping he won't." Apparently Dubus, most famous for his novel <i>House of Sand and Fog</i>, has both found and captured those boys in <i>Townie</i>, the memoir he finally wrote after he tried for 25 years and three drafts to base a novel on the same subject.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Merrimack Metamorphosis</span><br />
Dubus knows how to tell a story without pummeling it, and Lydon is smart enough to let him truncate his own anecdotes. In half an hour's conversation they highlight Dubus's transformation from bullied mill town kid, to buff adolescent pugilist, to mature writer-father-teacher without killing the listener's appetite to read <i>Townie</i> in print. The podcast won't spoil the book for you, but it will add the bonus of storing Dubus's real voice in your head. At <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Minute 19</span> he reads aloud the section where he transforms his fighting energy into writing energy, and dramatizes both the surprise and the insight he gains from that transformation. Dubus, who teaches writing at UMass Lowell, also tosses off craft advice from the greats, including a micro-lecture at <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Minute 35 </span>that builds a formula for fiction from the advice of the poet William Stafford (curiosity+willingness to fail+concrete, sensuous detail+"lean, mean language"=stories about characters in trouble).<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Selective Inheritance</span><br />
Dubus is startlingly forgiving of his late father, famous short-story writer Andre Dubus, who was a minor presence in four children's impoverished childhood after he left the family for a student. He also cites his father as his favorite writer, and rather than mourn the fathering he missed out on, Dubus says he appreciates his opportunity to be a different kind of father to his own kids. For an interview with Dubus about <i>Townie</i> that focuses more tightly on the Dubus family dynamics, listen to this <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/episode/2011/04/03/andre-dubus-iii/">Andre Dubus interview with Eleanor Wachtel on CBC's Writers & Company</a> podcast, which includes an eerie moment when Wachtel plays back audio from 20 years earlier of Andre Dubus the elder talking about the toe-bloodying 11-mile father-son run that also features in <i>Townie</i> (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Minute 28</span>).<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Lights Out</span><br />
The Radio Open Source interview ends with Dubus and Lydon talking about the importance of weighting your back foot before you throw a punch. Cute, but effective: you have to credit a guy who knows his street fighting and his Flaubert.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Podcast Links:</span><br />
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Radio Open Source podcast: <a href="http://www.radioopensource.org/andre-dubus-iii-how-the-fighter-became-the-writer/">Andre Dubus III interview with Christopher Lydon </a>(35 minutes), recorded 3/1/2011<br />
<br />
Writers & Company podcast: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/episode/2011/04/03/andre-dubus-iii/">Andre Dubus III interview with Eleanor Wachtel</a> (53 minutes), broadcast date 3/4/2011 </div>
Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-79438507753466236232011-04-26T15:51:00.002-04:002011-08-16T10:11:21.035-04:00Robin Black's Fascinating (Older) Women<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Late June, the garden was still more beautiful than demanding."<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">No Fading Away</span></div><div>Robin Black's short story collection <i><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/rc/2011/04/25/karen-russell-author-of-swamplandia-interviews-robin-black">If I Loved You I Would Tell You This</a></i> is full of women the French would describe, with pseudo-gallant euphemism, as being "d'un certain âge," but one of the wonderful things about Black's writing is her characters' unconcern with ageist euphemism--they are forging on and fully entwined with life. Black lavishes vivid prose and rich context on each of her stories, which makes them extremely satisfying, even if you're a reader who usually prefers novels. Because it's almost Mother's Day, I'd like to tell you that this book, just out in paperback, would make an excellent gift for a mother of any age.</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Listen to Black</span></div><div>When I listened to <a href="http://www.edrants.com/segundo/robin-black-bss-333/">Robin Black's interview with Ed Champion for his Bat Segundo Show</a> podcast, posted in April 2010, shortly after <i>If I Loved You I Would Tell You This </i>came out in hardback, I was not surprised to hear her say:</div><div><br />
</div><div>"I think that the most interesting people I meet are older women.... The way that older women are looked at in society, which is to say <i>barely at all</i>, and the degree to which women do become increasingly invisible as they outlive societal notions of what's sexy, and why one might look at a woman--there's a wonderful discrepancy between what people think they're looking at when they look at older women, and what's actually going in that woman's life and in her consciousness. Any time you have characters who are leading essentially undercover lives, you have tremendous fictional potential." (Minutes 29-31)</div><div><br />
</div><div>This is one of the pleasures of the collection--Black reveals the inner thoughts and corporeal reality of fascinating (older) female characters as they experience both loss and joy with intelligence, perspective, and wit. Black's work shows that life as an older woman is not the wan diminishment or the goofy-granny gavotte that popular American culture often projects. Nor does her collection, though female-centric and full of powerful emotion, contain a speck of that acidic quality--stridency--that is sometimes used to dismiss a strong female point of view. And there are also men: one of my favorite stories in the collection, <a href="http://www.hungermtn.org/a-country-where-you-once-lived/">"In A Country Where You Once Lived,"</a> is told from a male point of view, and the men in the lives of the female-narrated stories are as human as the women.</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Close-Reading Bat</span></div><div>Like many of Ed Champion's interviews, <a href="http://www.edrants.com/segundo/robin-black-bss-333/">the Robin Black episode of the The Bat Segundo Show</a> contains a lot of discussion about the writing process based on a careful reading of the text, and Black is both open and articulate about her methods. She talks about "ruminating" at the keyboard, the separation of fiction and autobiography (memoir) in her work, and says, "When you write stories, what you're really exposing are your obsessions, and it's much more like showing somebody your dreams. What you make up I think is infinitely more personal that what you choose to recount from your own life." (Minute 7) The latter half of the 53-minute episode gets more craft-oriented, with interesting exchanges between Champion and Black about: sentiment and sentimentality, the use of gesture and facial description, the defamiliarization of sex, the impact of names on narrative distance, and even Black's strategy to avoid the overused trinity effect: she lists things in twos and fours, not threes.</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Black on Black</span></div><div>Here's the link to the post Black mentions at Minute 17 about "<a href="http://thestoryprize.blogspot.com/2010/04/going-long-robin-black-on-her.html">Going Long" for The Story Prize blog</a>. Black also regularly posts excellent essays on writing at <a href="http://BeyondTheMargins.com/">BeyondTheMargins.com</a> (<i>viz</i> this <a href="http://beyondthemargins.com/2011/04/to-begin/">one on beginnings</a>).</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">FTC Disclosure</span>: I received a free galley for the hardback publication of <i>If I Loved You I Would Tell You This</i> when I reviewed it for The Book Studio in April 2010 (the review no longer available online). <a href="http://www.edrants.com/segundo/">The Bat Segundo Show</a> podcasts are free, but donations are welcome.</div></div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-22127541134303663682011-04-15T18:11:00.006-04:002011-11-01T09:29:59.615-04:00Tina Fey Reads From Her Bossypants<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Bossypants</i>: Self-Scribed Ode of a Grecian Daughter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So far I've found two podcasted interviews from Tina Fey's promotion of her meteoric memoir, <i><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316056861">Bossypants</a></i>. One is gal-pally and sort of skimmy; the other is more focused on the comedy industry. Both are worth listening to if you're a die-hard fan, but if you're short on time, I recommend the first half of the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/13/135247195/tina-fey-reveals-all-and-then-some-in-bossypants">NPR: Fresh Air Tina Fey interview</a> with Terry Gross, followed by the whole spanikopita of Fey's appearance on <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/apr/14/tina-fey-and-her-bossypants/">WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show</a> (<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tina-fey-and-her-bossypants/id74254710?i=93108609">permanent iTunes link here)</a>.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">"She Need Not Lie With Drummer"</span><br />
One of the best bits of the 45-minute <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/13/135247195/tina-fey-reveals-all-and-then-some-in-bossypants">"NPR: Fresh Air" interview</a> (perishable <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tina-fey-reveals-all-and-then/id214089682?i=93075351">iTunes link here</a>) comes right at the beginning, when Fey reads the <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=135247195">entire text of "The Mother's Prayer for Its Daughter"</a> [<-this links to transcript]. The mock-serious poem is just what you'd expect from Fey: a gnarly and zeitgeisty momjacking of William Butler Yeats' <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/3838">"A Prayer for My Daughter"</a> which should do more for young female empowerment than a tweendom of earnest lectures or a drawerful of <a href="http://www.wwymd.com/shop/">abstinence panties</a> (said messagewear is probably less effective than "mom jeans" and not a joke; discovery credit to <a href="http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/04/14/new-line-of-tween-panties-promotes-abstinence/">Ms.Magazine blog</a>]. Shortly after the poem Gross also plays the audio from the "30 Rock" episode in which Liz Lemon debates career vs. hot young motherhood with a "sexy-baby" mentee. The rest of the interview is a panoramic cruise through Fey's experiences in comedy writing and performing.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Super Fey</span><br />
For a more zoomed-in account of Fey's career, listen to her 4/14/2011 appearance on <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/apr/14/tina-fey-and-her-bossypants/">WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show here</a> (<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tina-fey-and-her-bossypants/id74254710?i=93108609">iTunes link</a>). Lopate gets a lot of good stories out of Fey about the behind-the-scenes world of "Saturday Night Live," sexism in the comedy industry, and the confluence of Lorne Michaels' doorman and Robert De Niro in the Sarah Palin casting (at Minute 20 Lopate plays the audio for the Palin character's sanctity of teenage/gay marriage joke). Fey and Lopate talk a lot about "30 Rock" at the end, and Lopate plays the audio of Liz Lemon's projectile-sharing toward Oprah on an airplane. Lopate wraps it up with <i>Bossypants</i>, and asks Fey how she adapted her comedy writing voice to memoir. Fey says, "you have to be as honest as you can and to remember to still have jokes." Excellent choice.</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-1233834470573824222011-03-24T13:13:00.000-04:002011-03-24T13:13:53.072-04:00Angela Carter's "The Kitchen Child"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBNuOtCFW4IMwBV_aNTTMzmXRFPkjXB7K0haVQjU-Th8LauMttQ4ILsdb8sHRDBg1vlm-95chw0HFxYuJTFV4ROYFrs4S32a_9KY7VryCom1y10FwRq5gu3FERjk7RTXWGy7lqMHD13ck/s1600/kitchenweights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBNuOtCFW4IMwBV_aNTTMzmXRFPkjXB7K0haVQjU-Th8LauMttQ4ILsdb8sHRDBg1vlm-95chw0HFxYuJTFV4ROYFrs4S32a_9KY7VryCom1y10FwRq5gu3FERjk7RTXWGy7lqMHD13ck/s320/kitchenweights.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b45f06;">"That was when too much cayenne went in."</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Although I've already <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2011/03/listen-to-12-classic-stories-for.html">posted about the Guardian Books short stories podcast</a>, I wanted to single out one episode from the dozen: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2010/dec/07/helen-simpson-angela-carter">Helen Simpson's recording of Angela Carter's "The Kitchen Child."</a> This fully-equipped story of belowstairs life provides a nutritional supplement to the frothier kitchen bustling currently being purveyed by the TV drama "Downton Abbey" (a sweet and savory indulgence to which I have succumbed, but it does not stick to the ribs like the Carter). Simpson's androgynous voice animates the young man of the title wonderfully and I can't imagine a more satisfying homage. Her reading, devoid of second-hand authorial attitude, is in full service to Carter's ample prose and she keeps the story's use of repetition fresh. The first time I listened my skin stood up. Simpson also plays the humor in the story just right (the housekeeper's wish for a "spanking" new chef who would "gateau <i>Saint-Honoré</i> her on her birthday" is deliciously but directly delivered). Carter's work is sometimes over-pantried by the three f's--feminist, fairytale, and fabulist--but in "The Kitchen Child" there is only the magic of rich human cravings and transporting sensory detail. <i>Bon appétit</i>.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Listening Links</span>: At the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2010/dec/07/helen-simpson-angela-carter">Guardian Books page for "The Kitchen Child"</a> (click the big white triangle/arrow to play the audio on your computer), and also listenable/downloadable <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/helen-simpson-reads-the-kitchen/id406643235?i=89923505">on iTunes </a>. (24 minutes)<br />
<br />
</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-63668133295787856232011-03-23T18:54:00.001-04:002011-03-23T19:02:28.001-04:00Listen to 12 Classic Stories for Nuffink<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUWqSQZalwErb4OOdP-lKsIZlj0hYZzqxXAsBzPIrSeBkcPFvtyrPkneINUEuTrOPZh0q_aWgB8NiqXKZnzBophtj-B9y4h3b95stNW1AqHr5QgI9okcRiuvcogHeQWhA5JG87nty_6bx/s1600/SnowyPhoneBox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbUWqSQZalwErb4OOdP-lKsIZlj0hYZzqxXAsBzPIrSeBkcPFvtyrPkneINUEuTrOPZh0q_aWgB8NiqXKZnzBophtj-B9y4h3b95stNW1AqHr5QgI9okcRiuvcogHeQWhA5JG87nty_6bx/s320/SnowyPhoneBox.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crystalline Short Stories from the UK</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Mumblefree</span><br />
After listening to this December 2010 <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/short-stories-podcast">Guardian Books podcast of 12 contemporary authors reading their favorite short stories</a>, I've come to the conclusion that the schools of the United Kingdom and Ireland must teach elocution as well as they teach Oscar-acceptance speechwriting, because the authors' enunciation and pacing is kilometers beyond your average mumbler. Nor are these writers afraid to "do" different voices for different characters, which isn't to everyone's taste, but I liked it. Whatever the formation of these writer/audio performers, they each do justice to their favorite story, regardless of contrasts in accent or gender, and I recommend almost all of them.*<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Lots of Story, Little Talk</span><br />
The format of the Guardian short stories podcast is similar to that longstanding paragon, the<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/podcasts/fiction"> New Yorker: Fiction podcast</a>, though the authors in the Guardian series are not limited to choosing stories that have appeared in <i>The Guardian</i>. The post-story discussions between the readers and Guardian contributor Lisa Allardice last only a few minutes, and I wished they had been longer (for the authors' written impressions, see this <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/11/short-stories">roundup page on the stories in Guardian Books</a>). The total running time of the episodes ranges from a brisk 11 minutes (Anne Enright reading and discussing Raymond Carver's "Fat") to 43 ruminative minutes (Rose Tremain reading and discussing Yiyun Li's "Extra"). That gives you some idea of the diversity of the chosen favorites; a couple of the stories were delightfully unknown to me.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">How to Listen</span><br />
The <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/short-stories-podcast">Guardian short stories podcast home page</a> has the complete list of audio (be sure to click on the tiny "Next" at the bottom of the list to advance to the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/short-stories-podcast?page=2">second page of episodes</a>). You can also download the whole lot from the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/guardian-short-stories-podcast/id406643235">iTunes Guardian short stories page</a> for transferring to your iPod, but you should check out the online pages anyway, just to see the fetching thumbnail photos of authors and readers.<br />
<br />
*Not to be coy about the one that didn't do it for me: Anton Chekhov's "The Beauties," the short story which Philip Pullman reads, struck me as more stalkerish than aesthetic, but maybe I'm guilty of applying a 21st century sensibility to a 19th century story.</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-81830760097131272192011-03-10T09:08:00.001-05:002012-02-04T11:44:23.976-05:00Free Podcasts Are Great For These ings...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Bulb Planting</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Carwashing</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Chairlift Riding</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Contact Lens Cleaning</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Convalescing</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Deadheading</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Decluttering</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Dog Brushing</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Dogwalking</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Dusting</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Exercising</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Fertilizing</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Firewood Gathering</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Fishing</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Flying</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Folding</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Hiking</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Knitting</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mass Mailing</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Meditating</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Moonlighting</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mopping</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Mowing</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Not Sleeping</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Nursing</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Painting</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Potato Peeling</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Pruning</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Queuing</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Raking</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Recycling</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Restringing</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Road Tripping</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Sailing</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Sanding</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Scrapbooking</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Sewing</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Snow Shoveling</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Spackling</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Spectating</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Spring Cleaning</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Stargazing</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Stationary Bicycling</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Sunbathing</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Vacuuming</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Walking</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Weeding</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Window Washing</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">Xmas Tree De-trimming</span></span></div>
</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-76009169682371835812011-03-08T13:40:00.001-05:002011-03-08T13:41:52.105-05:00Karen Russell Reads From Swamplandia!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8vrGhKyvzO3wTcTPLUdDIdih1Q4tepTli4gEJedo1V5fY3o-gxcevPXgDtBfTaEfITt2720OwLqvWiNTzcnRYbmBEnUw-beJMRiA6vTFqZvksOuAp0OJLjQbbJ52aLyULebR0D-dWlcy/s1600/firebelly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ8vrGhKyvzO3wTcTPLUdDIdih1Q4tepTli4gEJedo1V5fY3o-gxcevPXgDtBfTaEfITt2720OwLqvWiNTzcnRYbmBEnUw-beJMRiA6vTFqZvksOuAp0OJLjQbbJ52aLyULebR0D-dWlcy/s400/firebelly.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our alligator understudy: the mighty firebellied "toad."</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Gator Pit at Night</span><br />
The excerpt from <i>Swamplandia</i>! that Karen Russell reads aloud in <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133590900/wrestling-gators-and-language-in-swamplandia">this NPR "Listen to the Story" podcast</a> delivers a mini panorama of humid Floridian hucksterism in less than 7 minutes. It begins:<br />
<br />
"Like black silk, the water bunched and wrinkled."<br />
<br />
I had to think about that sentence for few seconds, and then it became indelible--the only way to think of creatures (even mothers) swimming under water at night.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Toothy Text</span><br />
You don't get sentences like that every day. There's plenty more texture and dense atmosphere in <i>Swamplandia!</i>, and unless you're a dehumidified minimalist, you'll enjoy the lavish scope of Russell's prose. The same NPR.org page that plays the audio includes the text of <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133590900/wrestling-gators-and-language-in-swamplandia">a slightly longer chunk of <i>Swamplandia!'s</i> first chapter</a>.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">It Came From Miami</span><br />
For a behind-the-scenes sense of where all this <i>Swamplandia!</i> imagination and language comes from, listen to <a href="http://www.edrants.com/the-bat-segundo-show-karen-russell/">Russell's interview with Ed Champion on "The Bat Segundo Show" podcast</a>. This podcast begins with the best musical intro I've heard this year: a swiveling, snout-on snippet of the "Wally Gator" cartoon theme music. On a more serious note, Champion is, as ever, scrupulously prepared, and in just over half an hour he and Russell gnash over <i>Swamplandia!'s </i>short-story origin, as well as its allegorical nuances, plot structure, and punctuational exuberance<i>. </i>Right near the end (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Minutes 33-36</span>), Russell credits her editor, Jordan Pavlin of Knopf, for helping her to calibrate the narrative hesitancy between reality and fantasy in <i>Swamplandia!</i>, and for helping to "echolocate" how a particular character come across to the reader--what an interesting way to describe the editor's role. (iTunes links: <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bat-segundo-show/id118222026">"The Bat Segundo Show" podcast</a>, and the specific <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/karen-rusell-bss-379/id118222026?i=91029624">episode link for the Karen Russell interview</a>.)</div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569195808370174146.post-66661555056853938032011-02-28T13:26:00.002-05:002011-03-03T11:06:54.430-05:00Enright Reinvigorates "The Swimmer"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmixXdnz3-Wkcgk3iI2-O3anotdt7KrLw5dHTD1nBzROytCfK4uuvkoguRZBg7n22birk20uN08R9Yl7v647Xd8PL6bvlZFf1y2EHkybHprvl91DRwOlARSWQK2-J9fWzc9qPyDA0zizqa/s1600/backgrid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmixXdnz3-Wkcgk3iI2-O3anotdt7KrLw5dHTD1nBzROytCfK4uuvkoguRZBg7n22birk20uN08R9Yl7v647Xd8PL6bvlZFf1y2EHkybHprvl91DRwOlARSWQK2-J9fWzc9qPyDA0zizqa/s320/backgrid.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The only maps or charts he had to go by were remembered or imaginary"</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">The Overexposed Swimmer</span></div><div>Overexposure can drain the power from legendary short stories like John Cheever's "The Swimmer." The elevation to "classic" can lead to over-recommendation, over-teaching, over-quoting, and over-familiarization. Worst of all, truly great stories about the murkiness of mid-life reckoning, if exposed too early, risk engendering permanent disgust in high school students whose aesthetics are too dewy for such dolor. Even among mature enthusiasts, an overexposed "classic" often starts to float in the litosphere as a concept more than a story, detached by assumptive renown from the thrilling muscle-and-tendon exertions that created it in the first place--i.e. words, narrative, plot.</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Westchester Waterbodies</span><br />
An old proofreader's trick for making text fresh is to read it backward, or to reprint it in an unfamiliar font, but those contrivances seem too hiccuppy for a story that wants to flow across the dorsal muscles of a man who decides to "swim" home across eight miles of suburban pools. Neddy Merrill's odyssey along the mythic "Lucinda River" holds some surprises for both him and the reader, but how to make them new?</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">A Dublin Defamiliarizer</span><br />
The answer, for me, was to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2011/02/14/110214on_audio_enright">listen to Anne Enright read "The Swimmer"</a> aloud in this <i><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=256945396">New Yorker: Fiction</a></i> podcast <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anne-enright-reads-john-cheever/id256945396?i=91389333">(iTunes link to Enright episode here</a>). From the moment Enright says "The pool, fed by an artesian well with a high iron content, was a pale shade of green," in her rounded and soft, almost furry, Dublin accent, I noticed more fully the elemental setting of "The Swimmer": its mineral flavor, liquid summer hues, and its <i>al fresco</i> alertness. By the time Enright animates Cheever's tender enumeration of Neddy's physical sensations with her foreign female voice ("he had slid down the banister that morning"), it was all new: I was immersed in the story as if I had never read it before.</div><div><br />
</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">Audio Brackets</span><br />
This podcast includes a pre- and post-story chat between the reader-author and <i>The</i> N<i>ew Yorker</i> fiction editor Deborah Treisman, in which the issue of over-familiarization is addressed, and Anne Enright makes several tart and charming observations about American short stories. If you're coming to this post in March 2011, you might still be able to download the episode of the <i><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=253191824">PRI: Selected Shorts Podcast</a></i> in which Mary-Louise Parker reads a tart short story of Enright's own devising, called "(She Owns) Everything," in which handbags substitute for pools (trust me, it works). (<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/an-irish-ear-colum-mccann/id253191824?i=91476043">iTunes link here</a>, but be warned that these podcasts expire after about a month.)<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0b5394;">More Cheever</span><br />
Litagogo's review of <a href="http://www.litagogo.com/2009/04/john-cheevers-cocktail-of-compression.html">Richard Ford reading "Reunion" by Cheever</a>, also from the <i>New Yorker: Fiction</i> podcast (with links).</div></div>Holloway McCandlesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15876608358700337920noreply@blogger.com0