The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Book Cover Controversy

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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?

charlie and the chocolate factory cover 1

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Bookshelf Report: Mts. & Tunnels Full of Books

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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.

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Song of the Week: The Golden Key by Galen Green | Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland

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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

 

Bookshelf Report: Staying Fit With Superheros, R. Kelly and Tacos

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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.

hallway-book-shelves

How do you organize your books?

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.

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Song of The Week: Making Me Beg by MoZo | Inspired by Timothy Egan’s Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher

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short-nights-of-the-shadow-catcherLast 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.

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Retreat! — Early Musings From My Willapa Bay Arist Residency

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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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Bookshelf Report: The Tale of Two Bookshelves From the West Side

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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 (or bookshelves I should say) comes from the West Seattle home of Sheri Fairchild. As you can tell by the pictures below she is in avid reader. She also loves her dogs (dogs not pictured) and has been known to rock the karaoke mic (also not pictured).

sheri-bookshelf-report-1

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Bushwick Artist Showcase Poster – August 3rd at the Sunset

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Here it is folks… the poster for our upcoming Bushwick Artist Showcase, August 3rd at the Sunset featuring Bucket of Honey, Debbie Miller w/ Mozo, and Sean Morse. This design was brought to you by none other than the mighty Travis Young. (clap clap clap etc.)

I hope to see you all at the show. High five.

bushwick-artist-showcase-poster

 

Bushwick and the Red Badge Project

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A few years ago I was the featured speaker at a local high school’s Veterans Day assembly. This was, of course, an egregious error. I was there to accompany the school choir, directed by bandmate Brian Hoskins, in a performance of “Carry On,” a piece I wrote inspired by the stories of a B-17 pilot in World War II. The student-group in charge of scheduling a speaker had failed to do so and, without my knowledge, slotted me in. Gulp.

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Music Inspired by Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life – Free Download

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Last April at the Royal Room we performed original music inspired by Molly Wizenberg’s A Homemade Life. It was a pretty spectacular night. Not only was it our first attempt at representing a cookbook in our book club, but Molly Wizenberg herself was in attendance.

Since then, two of Molly’s favorite songs from that evening (she said so herself over on her blog) have recently been recorded in the studio.

Slow Roast My Tomatoes by Debbie Miller
Bread And Wine by Nick Foster and Jazmarae Beebe

You are going to want to spend some time with these tunes – they are pretty great. You can download them for free.

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