February 2012
9 posts
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46 Things to Read and See for David Foster... →
sometimesagreatnotion:
This is a really, really, really great compendium of DFW stuff (his writing, other’s writing on him, notes, interviews, videos, etc) that is basically perfect for anybody out there who considers themselves a DFW dummy, but would like a good place to start knowing more about this fearlessly brilliant writer and man.
Also, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN FIFTY TODAY.
The commencement...
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Leeky Potato Soup
I’m making this as we speak- my first Tumblr-found recipe. gocookyourself:
3 Medium Leeks / 5 Medium Potatoes / 1l Vegetable Stock / Onion / Carrot / Butter / Salt / Pepper
Read More
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“[…] there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don’t know what...”
– David Foster Wallace
(via clementina)
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“The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain...”
– Michelangelo
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“I can hope, I can daydream, but certainly think that the chances of me being...”
– writer Donald Hall on NPR’s Fresh Air (via forwhenifeellikesharing)
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“I can’t remember not being a Bob Dylan fan. For a songwriter, it’s like asking...”
– Fantastic songwriter Matthew Ryan in American Songwriter magazine, when asked “How did you first get into Bob Dylan?” American Songwriter is doing a series this month, asking the same 7-8 questions to a variety of songwriters. I feel like I can tell, just from their answers, whether or...
January 2012
10 posts
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“I consider the first 20 performances just learning the piece. Think about it...”
– Philip Glass on repetition. Philip Glass on repetition. (via nprfreshair) Grateful to have read this today. It encapsulates how I feel The Madison Arm has approached our live shows. And it’s why I love to keep playing them; somehow the band is able to keep rediscovering them and unearthing...
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“If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, film, comic...”
– Ray Bradbury (via msbookish)
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“I’m not really bothered by anyone borrowing anything from anyone. I think art...”
– – Matthew Caws of Nada Surf, talking about Bob Dylan with American Songwriter magazine. Also worth noting is this quote: “I was very inspired by the idea of what a song can do and how adventurous words and melodies can be. If he’d never been born, I probably wouldn’t have thrown as many songs...
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“You know, it really got me when people would come by and would tell me stories...”
– Dennis Apple and his wife, Buelah, came to StoryCorps to talk about their son Denny. Nearly 21 years ago, Denny came down with mononucleosis. Before going to bed one night, he took some medicine, and talked about where he wanted to sleep. He never woke up. (via nprfreshair)
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“I’ve always thought that writing isn’t really that hard. It’s...”
– Lyle Lovett (Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/lyle-lovett-quotes-0212#ixzz1kKL7Arfs)
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Calvin/Spider-Man & Hobbes/Venom →
As a fan of both Calvin & Hobbes and Spider-Man, I felt contractually obligated to share this.
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How Long To Work On A Song (Joe Henry interviewed...
Two of my favorite songwriters/musicians talking shop. An excerpt:
When my wife’s beloved grandmother was telling us how she made a piecrust, she said, “Then you add some cold water to the flour and shortening.” “How much water?” my wife asked. “Oh, just enough, but not more,” she replied. And that’s how long you work on a song.
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Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar... →
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Ridley Scott on sticking to one's guns
(from Pajiba.com, a great little article on the making of Alien)
Ridley Scott described a guy crouched down, “wobbling” the actors’ seats (to simulate engine thrust), saying it irritated people and that everyone rolled their eyes. “Every step you make, everyone’s a Doubting Thomas.”
Scott said he “…wondered how many people fall by the wayside because you can’t push your point home and don’t...
December 2011
2 posts
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“Do you. It isn’t easy but it’s essential. It’s not easy because there’s a lot in...”
– Charlie Kaufman at a BAFTA lecture series called Screenwriters On Screenwriting.
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“Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.”
– David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (via sometimesagreatnotion)
It takes energy to stay true to vision, to dreams, to self, to integrity.
November 2011
2 posts
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“Don’t let the facts get in the way of the truth.”
– – Mary Gauthier, more than twice while talking about writing to the Rocky Mountain Song School
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October 2011
4 posts
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“For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by...”
– Tom Waits, interviewed for NPR today
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“You play for an hour and he would yell across the room, ‘Scribe!’ And I looked...”
– Tom Waits on collaborating with Keith Richards on his latest album. [related: Keith Richards on Fresh Air] (via nprfreshair)
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Joe Henry on his new record Reverie (thanks to... →
“I work hard on the writing (I am a savage and delighted rewriter), then try only to disappear into the songs when recording them.”
September 2011
2 posts
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sometimes a great notion.: “The need to indite,... →
I EXIST.
sometimesagreatnotion:
“The need to indite, inscribe—be its fulfillment exhilarating or palliative or, as is more usual, neither—springs from the doubly-bound panic felt by most persons who spend a lot of time up in their own personal heads. On one side— the side a philosopher’d call ‘radically skeptical’ or…
August 2011
3 posts
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A Letter From Roald Dahl →
Was just talking with a friend about Roald Dahl’s great books. He was saying he’d consider naming a son Roald but how do you even pronounce it? (I have heard “RO-ahld.”)
Creative. Random. And unapologetic about it.
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Megafaun's new song, "State/Meant"
One of my favorite bands out there today with another great song. I love these dudes. Love the nod to “Cortez The Killer” in the verse melody too.
megafaun:
Hey everyone! We hope you get a chance to check out this next jam from our new record. It’s called “State/Meant”, and we should probably come clean about the fact that this is the only song on the record that uses Philly’s...
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July 2011
6 posts
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“When it was light enough to use the binoculars he glassed the valley below....”
– Cormac McCarthy in The Road, one of the best things I’ve ever been lucky enough to read. Happy Birthday to its author today.
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David Lowery on one of my all-time favorite songs,... →
(Make sure you listen to the extended interview.)
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June 2011
7 posts
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“Sometimes the earliest gigs are the hardest. You’re playing over there by...”
– Gillian Welch on doing what she does, staying true to it, sticking with it. Oh, and crappy early gigs. (via July/August 2011 issue of American Songwriter)
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“Victor Hugo would write naked and tell his valet to hide his clothes so that...”
– James Surowecki in a great article about procrastination in The New Yorker (via @erinmckeown)
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“Every work of art is one half of a secret handshake, a challenge that seeks the...”
– Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs (via sometimesagreatnotion)
Great book with, as expected, great thoughts and insights articulated by one of my favorite authors.
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“When writing is going well, it’s hard, and for most of us, most of the time it’s...”
– Jim Shepard (via t3chn0b4bbl3)
Monday: Jim Shepard
(via nprfreshair)
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“[I]t gives me great joy to make music; even telling dark and horrible stories, I...”
– John Darnielle (Mountain Goats)
(via infinitegestures)
I’ve been listening to The Sunset Tree a bunch this week. And it confirms everything Darnielle says here. I love the idea in here about the defiance in survival. Great writer.
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“There is no such thing as a person whose real self you like every particle of....”
– Jonathan Franzen in a NY Times Op-Ed (thanks to @ericboam)
May 2011
8 posts
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