There is a controversy lighting the book blogosphere on fire this month. When Penguin Books published the cover to their new British edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory many people reacted with confusion or anger. Released for the 50th anniversary, the cover depicts a dolled up young girl sitting with a woman who is presumably her mother. Before I go on, take a look at the cover and decide for yourself. What do you think?
The Bookshelf Report is an ongoing series where a Bushwick reader invites us into their home and shares a little bit about the books that occupy their shelves.
Today’s bookshelf comes from one of our very own Bushwick Artists Chris Poage. Over the last year or so, Chris has dazzled crowds at several Bushwick events. He is also currently a big part of one of Seattle’s best bands Mts. & Tunnels.
I highly recommend you listen to this Mt.s & Tunnels song while you read the rest of this.
This week’s Bushwick Song of the Week is a bluegrass tune written a few years back by Galen Green. It’s titled The Golden Key and was inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. Here is what Galen had to say about his inspiration behind the song:
I was listening to a lot of bluegrass and old-timey music at the time I wrote that song. Ralph Stanley, murder ballads, that sort of thing. I really enjoy the language in bluegrass music. It can sound fancy and flowery, but really plain at the same time. It usually has a strong narrative. Plus there are certain lyrical motifs and metaphors that always pop up, like traveling, alienation, despair, longing, salvation, damnation, the promised land, and of course getting really drunk. I thought Alice In Wonderland – a book about a young girl getting lost, eating magic mushrooms, carousing with disreputable creatures, finding a hidden magic kingdom, pissing everyone off, nearly being executed, and finally finding her way back home before anyone noticed she was missing – was a bluegrass song waiting to happen. After that, it pretty much wrote itself. The only problem was that I could fit just a single chapter of the book into my song, so it might work better as some sort of bluegrass-opera concept album.
— Galen Green
Did someone just say “bluegrass-opera concept album?!” That sounds incredible. I’m really hoping that happens at some point. But until then, check out Galen’s fantastic song below — plus you can download it for FREE. It was recorded live on January 6, 2012 at the Fremont Abbey.
Don’t forget to download it. It is FREE! Just click on the blue “download” link below and you’ll be all set.
For more info about Galen Green visit his website — galengreen.com
The Bookshelf Report is an ongoing series where a Bushwick reader invites us into their home and shares a little bit about the books that occupy their shelves.
Today’s bookshelf comes from one of our very Bushwick Blog writers, Kerry Garvin. She has recently moved and her bookshelves are as pristine as ever. Let’s take a look and what she’s got going on.
I organize my books by category or genre. All the cookbooks are on a shelf in the kitchen and all the craft books are on a shelf in the craft supplies cabinet. In my living room, I have a pile of comic and cartoon related coffee table books for easy access and in the hallway I have two small bookshelves of books I’ve read and want to reread and books I haven’t read yet. The top shelf here is devoted to children’s books I’ve found at used bookstores and want to reread and write Bushwick Blog posts about. The other shelves are mostly Young Adult novels, but there are some non-fiction and fiction for grown-ups mixed in as well.
Last fall Read and Destroy went on a mini-tour through the Timberland Library system, performing a program of tunes we’d written inspired by Timothy Egan’s “Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis”.
The book is a biography of Curtis (1868-1952), who spent decades tirelessly working on his 20 volume series “The North American Indian”. As Wikipedia so conveniently describes:
Curtis’ goal was not just to photograph, but to document, as much American Indian (Native American) traditional life as possible before that way of life disappeared. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume in 1907:The information that is to be gathered … respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost.” Curtis made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of Indian language and music. He took over 40,000 photographic images from over 80 tribes. He recorded tribal lore and history, and he described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies, and funeral customs. He wrote biographical sketches of tribal leaders, and his material, in most cases, is the only written recorded history although there is still a rich oral tradition that documents history.
The daydream had a pronounced hold on me for many years: disappear into a cabin in the woods for a couple of weeks to write my next album. I took it for granted that I’d emerge with brilliant, pathbreaking material—more importantly, however, I’d get to bury some cryptic, legacy-building disclosure in the liner notes (remember those?) once I’d recorded everything, something like “Conceived over ten days and two quarts of huckleberries in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.” Who could resist buying that?
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