For those who study fiction, form, or genre, Like Family should be required reading. It begins as a tribute but morphs into a eulogy for love itself, a stark realization that passionate and all-consuming love is far beyond the narrator, maybe beyond modernity. The story invites such an epic statement, but it also keeps us in check.
An Interview with Justin Isis
The author of Welcome to the Arms Race talks about his new novel and how it relates (or doesn’t relate) to his previous novel, about his favourite sci-fi writers, and particularly about Lawrence Miles, about the Singularity, Artificial Intelligence, and lots more.
Christine Evans on Cloudless
The author of Cloudless reads from and talks about her new verse novel Cloudless, her unique characters, the way the book came together, why she used verse, about the interlinking lives, about Perth in the 1980s, about the magic in…
Cuba and Mali, Man and Woman: Diawara & Fonseca’s At Home (Live in Marciac)
David Honigmann of The Financial Times wrote of the performers Fatoumata Diawara and Roberto Fonsecaand of the audience’s affection for the two artists alone and together, and of the developing harmony of the concert, the variety of Diawara’s singing, and the delicacy and power of Fonseca’s keyboard playing. The conscientious Diawara and the experimental Fonseca brought compassion, drama, friendship, and rhythm in their creation and exploration of a shared international musical palette.
A review of Cloudless by Christine Evans
The voice of the playwright is obvious in Christine Evan’s verse novel Cloudless. A rich blend of characterisation, setting, and powerful thematic weaving from poem to poem, the novel takes us deep into the heart of working class Perth in the 1980s. Each of the eight key voices who make up the story are on the cusp of something: their lives about to change.
Repertoire is Resonant: Jackie Allen, My Favorite Color, and Heather Pierson, Motherless Child
Jackie Allen has a light, sensuous, pretty voice—and that is a very good thing: her voice has personality, and is given to sensitive expression on her album My Favorite Color, a good and varied collection of songs. Consequently, Jackie Allen’s handling of a song such as Arlen and Capote’s “A Sleepin’ Bee,” about a test of love, is lively and sweet.
Interview with Destiny Allison
Destiny Allison truly lives her motto that life is art. As a widely collected sculpture artist and four-time author, each creation bespeaks her passion for life and the search for meaning in the experience. Today we’re talking with Allison about her new book The Romance Diet, her thoughts on social issues, her new release, and what is was like to “bare all.”
American Music of Grace and Grief in Louisiana, featuring Rotary Downs, and Marc Broussard
The rock band Rotary Downs’ album Traces is the work of a band that seems intent on suggesting consciousness—the cosmopolitan and the local, the enlightened and the deranged. Its passion is roving. Lead singer and guitarist James Marler and guitarist Chris Colombo, keyboard player and percussionist Anthony Curccia, bassist Jason Rhein, bassist and guitarist Alex Smith, drummer Zack Smith are Rotary Downs. “Orion” is fast, with light beats and expanding rhythms, fine and intense; for a song that is broadly existentialist—about individual life and the human condition.
An Eccentric and Passionate Singer: Shelby Lynne and her album I Can’t Imagine
Sometimes Shelby Lynne, a musician and visual artist, speaks as if there is a great deal to say but she is not sure whether she can find the precise word or whether her listener will understand: she can sound as if she is arriving from a very private place. Honest, eccentric.
The Legacy of Billie Holiday: Music and the work of Jose James, Annie Lennox, Cassandra Wilson, and Audra McDonald
Jose James is a wonderful singer! He is suave and thoughtful, and thoughtful yet light and sensuous, when performing “Good Morning Heartache,” a song that is part of the great Billie Holiday’s legend. Jose James has the sensuality of youth, and that gives certain songs something special—that sensuality gives him another weapon against despair, against a too predictable pathos. His mastery of “Body and Soul” is incantatory and impressive, as it is a difficult song that maintains its difficulty despite its popularity with singers.