“Today, according to the ISU, figure skating’s governing body, ‘Ladies must wear a skirt. The Ladies dress must not give the effect of excessive nudity inappropriate for an athletic sport. Men must wear full-length trousers: no tights are allowed and the man’s costume may not be sleeveless.’”
npr
First Listen: Joanna Newsom : NPR
Hear ‘Have One On Me’ In Its Entirety. Finally.
John Adams Re-Imagines the Hymn : NPR
I’m not particularly religious, but Christian Zeal and Activity has become one of my favorite bits of classical music. See also the Lego version that focuses on the preacher segments.
I think Jones suffers from a common problem some good actors have: the character she has created is so individual that you don’t really realize it isn’t a cliche. You know her, so you feel like she’s a type, even though she’s not. If this is a cliche, who was the last Betty Draper before Betty Draper? I’m not sure there was one.
Complexity, Beauty, and the Underappreciated January Jones. Most interesting character on the show so far, but then I’m only halfway through the second season.
Exclusive First Listen: Yo La Tengo on NPR
Hear the band’s 16th album, ‘Popular Songs’ in its entirety.
Exclusive First Listen – Tim Buckley – NPR
Live at The Folklore Center, NYC. March 6, 1967.
My homeboy Steve Reich won a Pulitzer. So did Atlanta author Douglas Blackmon, for his awesome book (judging by what I read when I borrowed it from Mom between holiday meals last winter), Slavery by Another Name. Need to move that one back on the list.
NPR’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century, with excerpts from each.
The Snow Man
Wallace Stevens reads The Snow Man. Jay Keyser reads it on NPR (less dreary, more enthusiasm) and praises it highly before dissecting a little bit. Keyser also has this crazy idea of writing the poem out on notecards and making a hanging mobile out of it a la Alexander Calder.
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitterOf the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare placeFor the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
“David Rakoff, who swore off TV in college, returns to it in dramatic fashion: he attempts to watch the same amount of television as the average American—29 hours in one week.“
On NPR, a conversation about Holden Caulfield, protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye. The literary remembrance has some interesting segues into how you read the book differently as you grow older, the beginnings of a teenage culture in the ’50s, and whether or not you can imagine Holden as an adult.
Terry Gross interviewed Chuck Close a couple years ago. Chuck Close is known for his super-large portraits built up from smaller bits. For some reason I just really liked his interviewing style. [via 43 folders]
A couple weeks ago, NPR hosted an awful interview with Sigur Ros. Incredibly painful to watch. They recently followed up, bringing in music writer Jancee Dunn to help with a director’s commentary to find out where all the suckage came from.
A short NPR story on the names on paper bags by Barbara Klein: “One of the names, ‘Alan Rumbo,’ intrigues her. She traces the bag back to its maker, and actually gets to talk to the line worker at the paper bag plant, Rumbo himself, who explains how the name on the millions of bags he makes propelled him to hero status with his kids.”
