His work transcended the cultural barriers of the time. In “Wonderful, Wonderful,” the verses seem to have an Asian, specifically Chinese, rhythm, although the refrain is exultantly western. It is amusing to be reminded of how cultures are always gesturing across borders, and even oceans.
The Young Master: Usher Terry Raymond IV’s album Looking 4 Myself
It has a rampaging rhythm that is both artificial and dominating. Yet, in a masterful composition about separation from a lover and loneliness, “Climax,” Usher uses a beautiful falsetto voice that defies the clichés of masculinity and ugliness dominant in much contemporary music. That song is a work of excellence.
The Solace of Quiet Beauty: kora player Ablaye Cissoko and trumpeter Volker Goetze’s collaboration, Amanké Dionti
The quality of Ablaye Cissoko’s voice is at once light and wise, with a timeless sensitivity, and the soft rhythm of his singing in “Amanké Dionti” sounds like the invocation of a ritual amid a bare, dusty landscape, though one imagines that now such music can be made in a teeming city, the music merely the remnant of an older civilization.
The Work of a Writer and Musician of Expansive Vision: Channel Orange by Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean moves from high life to low life. “I ain’t been touched in a while,” claims the singer-songwriter’s narrator in “Pilot Jones,” and its continuing lyrics point to alienation, slovenliness, and addiction as part of the atmosphere. It is free lyric association regarding an indulgent state that seems more troubled than liberated. FrankOcean, through language, through the texture of music, has found a way to suggest how deep, how mundane, and how overwhelming experience can be.
A review of Face of the Enemy by Joanne Dobson and Beverle Graves Myers
A minor character speaks of seeing Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, but we readers never get to go there and see him perform. Perhaps I’m spoiled, with too high expectations, because so many creative artists, from Thomas Wolfe to Woody Allen, have already brilliantly evoked New York.
A review of Blue Friday by Mike French
Mike French’s Blue Friday is a science fiction that draws on George Orwell’s 1984 to show a society gone mad. Though written in a light-hearted farcical way, the novel takes a hard look at state sanctioned control and the way in which it perverts even the most humanistic of subjects (such as work-life balance and “family values”).
Interview with Stuart Tett
The creator of the Tintin Young Reader’s edition talks about his love of Tintin, about how he became involved with the Little Brown Young Readers project, why Tintin remains so popular, his work on the series, upcoming titles, his favourite Tintin villain, his other Tintin projects and where to find them, and lots more.
Interview with Margaret Wertheim
The author of Physics on the Fringe talks about how her years of collecting the work of ‘outsider physics’ turned into a book, about the notion of some aspects of modern physics being more akin to art than science, about…
A review of Physics on the Fringe Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything by Margaret Wertheim
As with the work that Wertheim has done through her Institute for Figuring, Physics on the Fringe affirms that there is room in this world for knowledge seekers of all kinds, along the broadest of spectrums. Wisdom can evolve and present itself in many ways – through empirical, mathematically sound, proven processes, and through hands-on aesthetically rich intuitive processes.
Interview with Danny Iny
The author of Engagement from Scratch talks about his company Firepole Marketing, about the power of blogging, about why creative people need to market, author promotion, his book and why he’s giving it away, on philanthropy, mantaining the balance between…