Bushwick’s big The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy event is but a few short hours away. Before picking up the book to read before the show, I was very unfamiliar with Douglas Adams and his writing. Shame on me! And I consider myself to be a nerd. So to better prepare myself for the show, I read up a bit on him. Here are some things I learned.
Bushwick artist Tekla Waterfield just released this music video for her song Dream Chaser. It is the first single off her debut album “This Nightlife Is Wearing On Me” — available now on her Bandcamp page.
The music business, like the human condition, is complex, ambiguous, and frequently arbitrary – curiously-suited to a risk-averse individual like me. Yet here I am, fifteen years into what at this point can only be called a career.
In the beginning, I brandished a stringent list of performance absolutes in the hopes that adhering to them would assure success. I’d also read so many musicians’ biographies in high school and college that I had language ready for my own narrative, overlooking the fact that such a straight-to-Behind-the-Music (or American Idol, if you prefer) approach would deprive one of the experiences of creating, interacting, and growing in real time. We all learn things along the way.
Like all teachers and students, The Bushwick Book Club Seattle also takes the summer off. We love summer vacation! And now that summer is over, and our 6th season is in full swing (our next show is on Halloween night, original music inspired by Stephen Kings’ Carrie) we checked in with some of our Bushwick artists to see what they were up to this summer. We asked them what they read, listened to and what projects they worked on or having coming up.
Here is what they had to say.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is written in three languages: English, Spanish and Science Fiction. From the opening epigraph, a quote from Galactus, to the final pages, the entire text is shot through with genre references, both well-known and obscure. Most folk are familiar with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but likely not M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel series. Read more
The Bushwick Book Club Seattle kicks off its sixth season with music inspired by Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I wanted to learn more about both the author and the book in preparation for the show. I took to the Internet to find out some additional facts.
Although Bushwick’s Wild inspired event has come and gone, I still find myself thinking about both the book and the movie often. These nagging thoughts caused me to go on an all-out Google blitz to find out more about Wild, its author Cheryl Strayed and the Pacific Coast Trail. Here are five facts I learned during my investigation. Read more
The Bushwick Book Club is pretty pumped to be working with the Seattle7Writers for our next show. Authors and collective members Timothy Egan, Nancy Horan and Garth Stein will be on hand as the Bushwick artists perform original music inspired by their work. I, being unfamiliar with the Seattle7Writers, went on a quick Internet fact-finding mission and thought I’d share those results with you here. Read more
“Read for you by the author” is a six-word sentence that I dread hearing at the beginning of an audiobook. More times than not I listen to author-read books and am annoyed by their reading style. While they may be good writers, they are not professionally trained voice-actors and it shows. Unfortunately, their lack of skill is often a detriment to the audiobook and sometimes leads me to become disinterested and stop listening. In these cases, reading the book rather than listening to the audio would be beneficial.
There are exceptions to every rule though and some authors are great at reading their own work. Their vocal skills enhance their books so much that I vastly prefer picking up the audio rather than the print version. I was reminded of this when I heard that David Sedaris is coming to town to perform his work at Benaroya Hall. Sedaris is my favorite audiobook performer and I never read his work anymore in favor of the audio.
Me Talk Pretty One Day is a hilarious read, but after listening to the audio, I’ve never looked back. I revisit about once a year. Hearing Sedaris read his story of French lessons makes me cry laugh-tears. When I read it to myself, I only LOL. His dry sense of humor is captured perfectly in his audiobooks and he is good at accents and does an impeccable Billie Holiday impression. Sedaris audiobooks are not to be missed.
Here are five other authors whose audiobooks are superior to reading the print book because of their voice-acting prowess.
As I wrote back in August, I spent the entirety of that month as an artist-in-residence with Willapa Bay AiR in Oysterville, WA, on the Long Beach Peninsula. It was truly a special time, with extraordinarily special people, and I learned many things about, well, many things: art; process; community; shellfish… Here, then, are some of my findings, presented in internet-ready, Buzzfeed-y ‘arbitrary-number-of-things-in-list-form’ fashion (missing only the ‘#7 is Totally Crazy!’ teaser)—enjoy:
For one month I got to live in a world where what I do was as important and recognized as any career pursuit—to my artist-peers and the staff, certainly, but in the community as well. With lovely grounds, comfortable quarters, on-site chef, and nearby ocean, everything was relaxed and easy, which in turn led to sustained productivity! Two of the five songs I finished, including one very much co-inspired by setting, even made their way into Read & Destroy’s October library sets.
