Photos of Famous Writers (and Rockers) with their Dogs

in Life, Literature, Music | April 12th, 2011

Cour­tesy of New York Social Diary, here is a love­ly series of pho­tographs fea­tur­ing famous authors and their dogs. If you’ve ever won­dered which breeds have served as muse to William Sty­ron, Stephen King, William F. Buck­ley, Kurt Von­negut, then this col­lec­tion is for you. But be warned: We’re still recov­er­ing from the sight of that Lhasa Apso flopped on Von­negut’s lap–we were hop­ing for a wolfhound.

For more artist-canine com­bi­na­tions, Fla­vor­wire has round­ed up a col­lec­tion of musi­cians and their dogs. Unlike the authors, these own­ers real­ly do look like their pets. (See Robert Plant.)

via @brainpicker and The Mil­lions

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Star Wars the Musical: The Force is Strong in this One

in Film, Music | April 8th, 2011

In 1996, three Cal­i­for­nia 17-year-olds (who should have known bet­ter) chan­neled all of their mon­ey and pas­sion into stag­ing a rock opera based on Star Wars IV: A New Hope. They’d only sched­uled it for a three night run, but it played to a sold-out crowd and, accord­ing to Salon’s Drew Grant, earned the two great­est hon­ors a fan can hope for: A review in The New York Times and a cease and desist let­ter from George Lucas.

The whole thing is now final­ly online. Salon has gath­ered all six parts onto one page, and you can also watch it on vimeo. We have includ­ed Part 1 above…

via Salon

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Everything Is Rhythm

in Film, Life, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 6th, 2011

“Foli” is the word used for rhythm by the Malinke tribe in West Africa. But Foli is not only found in Malinke music, but in all parts of their dai­ly lives. Direct­ed by Thomas Roe­bers, this short film por­trays the peo­ple of Baro, a small town in east­ern-cen­tral Guinea, and gives you a glimpse inside their cul­ture of rhythm. As the Malinke man says, “Tous les choses, c’est du rythme.” (“Every­thing is rhythm.”) What makes this film even more beau­ti­ful is the fact that it was edit­ed so as to reflect Malinke rhythms.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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The Quadrocopter Opera

in Music, Technology | April 4th, 2011

Physics gets its own lit­tle opera. And you’ll nev­er look at quadro­copters, those ball jug­gling robots, in quite the same way. Nice work “Opera­man­da”…

via @chr1sa

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The Ramones Live in 1978: 26 Songs in 54 Minutes

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | April 4th, 2011

Princes of New York punk, kings of CBG­B’s (take vir­tu­al tour here), and the only Amer­i­cans, then or now, who could pull off skin­ny jeans with impuni­ty, The Ramones were mas­ters of the short and sweet.  Here’s a record­ing of  a live 1978 set at the Pal­la­di­um in New York City: 26 songs, 54 min­utes, all set to clips from old sci-fi movies.

via NPR

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Do Look Back: Pennebaker and Marcus Talk Bob Dylan

in Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | March 30th, 2011

D.A. Pen­nebak­er’s clas­sic 1967 doc­u­men­tary Don’t Look Back will be re-released on Blu-Ray on April 24. As a fea­tured extra, it will include this ter­rif­ic rem­i­nis­cence between Pen­nebak­er and music journalist/cultural crit­ic Greil Mar­cus, who wrote two of our favorite Dylan books:  The Old, Weird Amer­i­ca: Bob Dylan’s Base­ment Tapes and Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Cross­roads.

Our oth­er favorite is of course lit­er­ary crit­ic Christo­pher Ricks’ nut­ty and won­der­ful Dylan’s Vision of Sin. Ricks and Mar­cus approach the artist through very dif­fer­ent prisms — for a fun chance to com­pare and con­trast, check out their recent joint lec­ture at the Hey­man School for the Human­i­ties. (The video clocks in at over an hour and forty min­utes, too long for some, not near­ly long enough for the Dylan-obsessed.)

via Fla­vor­wire

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Free Grateful Dead Concert Archive

in Internet Archive, Music | March 26th, 2011

“One More Sat­ur­day Night” for your Sat­ur­day night.

If this vin­tage clip filmed in Copen­hagen in 1972 reawak­ens your inner Dead Head, then you can always wade your way into the Inter­net Archive’s Grate­ful Dead col­lec­tion, which hosts dozens of Dead shows from the 1970s through the 1990s. Some con­certs (usu­al­ly record­ed by mem­bers of the audi­ence) can be down­loaded. Oth­er audio (usu­al­ly tak­en from the sound­board) can be streamed. All togeth­er, you will find hun­dreds of hours of free con­cert record­ings.

A few items worth sam­pling include: Live at the Boston Gar­den (May 7, 1977); Live at the RFK Sta­di­um (June 10, 1973); or Live at Madi­son Square Gar­den (Sep­tem­ber 4, 1979).

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David Lynch “Directs” Duran Duran Concert in L.A.

in Film, Music | March 25th, 2011

This past Wednes­day, YouTube streamed a web­cast of the lat­est install­ment of the Unstaged con­cert series. Arcade Fire kicked off the series last August in New York City. Now we cut to the Mayan The­ater in Los Ange­les, where Duran Duran took the stage. The 80s band is still around, still mak­ing music. And they’re smart­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing with David Lynch, who cre­at­ed visu­als that were dou­ble-exposed over the live per­for­mance. Huff­Po inter­viewed Lynch about the col­lab­o­ra­tion (and more) here, and you can always head to YouTube to find videos of indi­vid­ual songs played dur­ing the show.

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