Urban Life & New York City – Page 23

Correcting Politico and Drudge on “Dreams From My Father”

May 2, 2012/1 Comment/in Books & Writing, Media, Blogging, Internet, Philip Turner's Books & Writing, Publishing & Bookselling, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

Happy to be quoted at length in this TPM story by Brian Beutler about the erroneous reporting by Politico, which mistakenly reported today that Barack Obama had failed in the earliest editions of Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance to acknowledge that he created composite characters in the book. I know otherwise because I published the first paperback edition of the book, in 1996, as I have written on this blog. I contacted TPM this afternoon to correct the record on the needlessly murky situation created by the false report that originated with today’s Politico story by Dylan Byers, then amplified on the Drudge Report. You may click on the TPM story or read it below.

A former executive of the original paperback publisher of President Obama’s 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father weighed in on Wednesday’s manufactured controversy over whether Obama represented fiction as fact by using composite characters in his autobiography.

“It is unfathomable to me how Dylan Byers of Politico could have overlooked the very plain disclaimer that the book carried from the very start,” Philip Turner said to TPM via email. Turner was an editorial executive with Kodansha America, which published the paperback version of Dreams from My Father in 1996.

“The reference to ‘compression’ appears on page ix of the Introduction of the book I published then, which I have on my desk as I write this message,” Turner says. “What’s more, the 1996 paperback was an exact reprint with no changes of the hardcover edition that had been published a year earlier….” (emphasis added).

The fact that Obama used composite characters in his memoir — and that he disclosed this in the book’s introduction — was widely known before it was mentioned again in an excerpt from David Maraniss’ upcoming Obama biography, published Wednesday in Vanity Fair. It even featured prominently in a 2007 story by Politico’s top political reporter Mike Allen.

But on Wednesday, Politico published a story that made no reference to the disclaimer, suggesting Obama had misled his own readers. That piece has since been appended with a correction, but still reads as an indictment of the President.

—

For the record, this is the entire comment I sent to TPM which they quote from above:

As the first paperback publisher of “Dreams From My Father,” in 1996, I feel obliged to confirm everything in the above TPM story by Benjy Sarlin. The reference to “compression” appears on page ix of the Introduction of the book I published then, which I have on my desk as I write this message. What’s more, the 1996 paperback was an exact reprint with no changes of the hardcover edition that had been published a year earlier. For the record, I was editor-in-chief of Kodansha America then, and we acquired the rights to publish the book from Random House, whose imprint Times Books had done the hardcover. In the early 2000s Kodansha’s license to publish the paperback expired and rights reverted to Random House. Their Three Rivers Press imprint republished it in paperback in 2004 with a new preface by the author, and yet his original Introduction, with the disclaimer about “compression” remained in the book then.

It is unfathomable to me how Dylan Byers of Politico could have overlooked the very plain disclaimer that the book carried from the very start. I wonder if commenter @wpilderback isn’t right in his explanation below: “This was an opportunity for them to remind people that Obama slept with a white woman, and nothing more.” Even if Byers just made a stupid and avoidable mistake, I’m sure Drudge was only too happy to perpetuate the error.

For readers interested in further information on the paperback edition I published, I refer you to a personal essay I published last month on my blog The Great Gray Bridge, via this link: http://philipsturner.com/2012/03/11/dreams-father-circa-1995-96/

From the Annals of Republican Chutzpah

April 28, 2012/0 Comments/in Media, Blogging, Internet, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

With the first anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden approaching on May 1-2, the NY Times reports on the emerging right-wing line, that the Obama administration is supposedly “politicizing” the killing of Osama Bin Laden. This might be funny if weren’t so offensive, considering how after 9/11 the Bush administration relentlessly capitalized on raw emotions, national grief, and fear of terrorism to gain political advantage over Democrats. Refresh your memory with this Karl Rove quote from a Washington Post article on January 18, 2002:

“We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America,” Karl Rove said at the Republican National Committee meeting here.

That Rove quote was an early indicator of how they would manage the 2002 mid-terms. Or, just recall the staging of the 2004 Repub convention, held right here in New York City, when Mayor Giuliani and other pols fetishized the attacks, even while they were beginning to deny compensation and benefits to Ground Zero recovery workers who were already falling ill from their work on the toxic pile.

Today’s Times story, under the headline, Obama Trumpets Killing of Bin Laden, and Critics Pounce, allows Repub mouthpieces to give ridiculous quotes like the one below, in response to the fact that this week President Obama did an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams in the White House Situation Room, where the president and other administration officials monitored the raid on Osama’s Pakistan compound:

Tony Fratto, a deputy press secretary under Mr. Bush, said that it was “unseemly” to use the room for such a purpose. “I don’t believe it ever would have occurred to us to conduct an interview in the Situation Room,” he said, “and don’t believe we would have considered it appropriate.”

Worse, John McCain also tries to diminish the president:

“The one decision he got right into a pathetic, political act of self-congratulation. Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad.”

Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. The Republicans are panicked that their prior political advantage on this issue has been eroded and they’re desperate to minimize what is clearly going to be an advantage for President Obama over Mitt Romney in his re-election bid. The only question is how big an advantage it will be, especially considering Romney’s George W. Bush-like line from April 2007 spoken during the Republican primary campaign of that year, ““it’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” That line led to criticism from Republican pundit Byron York: “We have already spent billions and gone to a lot of effort to try to get bin Laden … it would be worth still more money and still more effort to kill the man behind 9/11.”

I also find it amusing that the right-wing often claims that Democratic presidents somehow sully or diminish the office. Remember FBI agent Gary Aldrich’s claims about the Clintons supposedly disrespecting the office, or the claims of incoming Bush staffers (later proven untrue) that outgoing Clinton admin officials had sabotaged White House phones and computers during the transition in 2001? This is also the theme to the right-wing recycling of claims this week from the 2008 campaign that President Obama is merely a celebrity, with a racial subtext tossed in.

The Times story by Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear does far too little to remind readers of Republican conduct in this area, failing to point out the historical hypocrisy that the right-wing is dealing in here. If you feel as I do, please share this commentary widely.

Happy to Be a Good NY Google Neighbor

April 26, 2012/0 Comments/in Media, Blogging, Internet, Music, Bands & Radio, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

I posted earlier this week that I’d had a heads-up from Google Places NYC informing me that this blog and I are being featured in their Meet Your Google Neighbor program, which gives denizens of Gotham an opportunity to share online reviews of favorite restaurants, taverns, merchants, music venues, and bookstores, as well as educated comments about the best bike paths, picnic spots, urban beauty spots, and all manner of urban entertainments.

This afternoon I received the email blast that Google Places NYC sends out to all their subscribers with the announcement of each week’s new Neighbor, and it’s fun to see how they promote the fact that we New Yorkers relish sharing our favorite places with one another, and will give you a piece of our mind about them, given the chance. Below are screen shots of that email, which I’ve begun to share with the venues I’ve recommended on my Google Places page.

I’ve sent the email to The Living Room, the excellent club on the Lower East Side, with my write-up of a show I attended there last November–when Amy Helm, who sang with her father Levon on his Grammy-winning albums–sat in with the super alt-country Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. The Living Room’s longtime owner Jennifer Gilson quickly replied that she was delighted I was on the record saying of her business “Excellent vibe to this mostly acoustic room, though they also know how to rock out here. . . . I love this mellow listening room.” She asked me to say hello the next time I’m in the club and continue sharing reviews of shows I attend there.

I first learned about Google Places NYC last December when I attended an audacious event in the sumptuous lobby of the Jane Hotel in the West Village, where they–along with The New Inquiry, BOMB Magazine, ForYourArt, and New Directions Publishing–organized a public reading of the entirety of author Frederic Tuten’s influential 1971 novel, The Adventures of Mao on the Long March. After the nearly four-hour long reading, The New Inquiry‘s Rachel Rosenfelt introduced me to Google’s Esther Brown, who told me about the mission of Google Places NYC. When I wrote my blog essay about the reading I shared it with Esther, and we’ve been in touch since, with her encouraging me to start a Google Places page and begin writing reviews. This initiative of Google’s is an excellent example of the creative sort of community building that can be done with cool tools on the Web.

From the time I began conceiving The Great Gray Bridge I envisioned the site becoming a virtual water cooler for the appreciation of urban life, books, music, and culture so it’s really gratifying to see the blog gaining more recognition via Google’s promotion. Happily, the Web feature includes a photo my wife Kyle Gallup recently took of our son Ewan and me on a boat ride around Manhattan with the Statue of Liberty as backdrop. It’d hard to be more New York than that! // click through ‘share’ link below to see Statue of Liberty photograph . . .

Blogging the PEN World Voices Festival April 30-May 6

April 26, 2012/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner's Books & Writing, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

As a member of the estimable literary advocacy organization the PEN American Center I attended a number of events during the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature last May and reported on some of them for the PEN blog*. More than two dozen PEN members have accepted the invitation to become Festival Correspondents this spring and I’m excited I’ll again be one of them. We’ll be posting to a friendly new tumblr platform** and fanning out all over the city to participate in and cover the fifty-event literary smorgasbord with nearly 100 novelists, poets, playwrights, translators, critics, and editors from dozens of countries. There are many highlights on the program, including two with women writers that I’ll be covering on Thursday, May 3. In the first, Margaret Atwood will be discussing The Writer’s Mind and the Digital Otherworld with longtime editor and friend Amy Grace Lloyd. In 2005, I published a book with Margaret, Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose 1983-2005, a collection of fifty-eight pieces of her criticism and literary journalism, so it should be fascinating to hear her examine such questions as “What does it mean to write with the Web? and “How does our constant access to information and ideas affect the landscape of imagination?” The second program will be Understanding Egypt with the courageous Mona Eltahawy who I wrote about on this blog, in The Broken Bones of Mona Eltahawy, after she was beaten by Egyptian security forces, later re-gaining her freedom in in part because of global online protests, especially on Twitter.

These ticketed events will be held at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium, beginning at 6 PM and 8 PM respectively. I invite you to attend one or both of these talks. Make an evening of it! If you do choose to attend, or end up at another event during the week, please say hello. PEN encourages active literary citizenship so if you are a writing or publishing professional, and have been considering getting involved, I suggest you do so. The international and domestic work PEN does on behalf of free expression is extremely effective and important.

For my readers’ convenience, here again is a link to the Festival program.

*My coverage from PEN World Voices in 2011: 1) Getting Real with Superheroes (which was also published with PW Comics World on the Publishers Weekly website) and 2) Summoning Ghosts at The Standard

**To read the PEN World Voices Festival tumblr please use this link. The Twitter hashtag for the festival will be #PENFest12. As soon as my full schedule for the week is available I will share it here. Meantime, here is my newly updated PEN member profile page.
// click through on share link below to see photo of Mona Eltahaway . . . //

Dean Haspiel on Drawing (and Remembering) Harvey Pekar

April 24, 2012/0 Comments/in Books & Writing, Philip Turner's Books & Writing, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

Here’s a neat visual feature by comics artist Dean Haspiel on the Trip City website detailing the different approaches and multiple takes he experimented with before settling on a final version for the cover of a 2008 Harvey Pekar “American Splendor” comic. Haspiel was one of thirty comics creators who participated in Comic New York–A Symposium that was held at Columbia in March and which I covered for PW Comics World and cross-posted about on this blog. Speaking of the late Pekar, I’ve recently received a copy of Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland from Zip Comics with art by Joseph Remnant and edited by Jeff Newelt and it’s a terrific posthumous edition of the great comic writer’s work.

And if you’re a Pekar fan–I’ve loved his work ever since he used to shop in Undercover Books, my Cleveland bookstore, in the 80s–you’ll enjoy this podcast on the Trip City website, with the voices of Haspiel, Remnant, Newelt, Zip Comics publisher Josh Frankel, and Harvey’s widow, Joyce Brabner.

Being a Good New York Neighbor

April 23, 2012/1 Comment/in Books & Writing, Music, Bands & Radio, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

I’m pleased to be featured this week in Google’s interesting Meet Your Google Neighbor program, which gives denizens of New York City and other locales an opportunity to share their enthusiasms for restaurants, merchants, music venues, bookstores, and urban activities. From the outset of this blog I’ve designed the site to span “urban life, books, music, culture, current events” so it’s very gratifying to see this blog gain more recognition via Google’s promotion. Happily, the feature includes this neat photo my wife Kyle Gallup recently took of our son Ewan and me on a boat ride around Manhattan with the Statue of Liberty as backdrop, a trip I blogged about in A Spring Sailing Around Manhattan.

Jill Barber and Plants & Animals in NYC–Romance and Rock ‘n Roll

April 20, 2012/0 Comments/in Music, Bands & Radio, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

Wednesday night was another great night for live music by Canadian artists in New York City. First stop on the evening’s program was Joe’s Pub to hear Jill Barber, a latter-day chanteuse who weaves a retro spell that even with her backward glances is always fresh and vibrant. She showed an enchanting stage presence, and her 3-piece band was superb, with Drew Jerucka on violin and clarinet; Robbie Grunwald on piano and accordion; and Steve Zsirai on upright bass. In addition to her vocals and songwriting, Barber also played a small guitar, left-handed.** She exuded a winsome charm, unselfconscious glamour, and improvised with light banter between songs. She sings in a distinctive tone that is the aural equivalent of B Grade maple syrup–my favorite–sweet and smoky. After she sang “Chances”–with its lyric, “Chances, what are the chances/The chances that I’d find you/Stealing glances across a crowded room/And taking a chance or two“–against a backdrop of plucked violin, tinkling piano, and a strange rumbling that could only be heard in New York, Jill said, “I can’t tell if that’s me trembling, or the subway.” Don’t fear, I thought to tell her, it is the #6 train. She continued, “I write a lot of love songs, I hope you like love songs.” The love song is indeed her milieu, and in her hands each one provides the listener a vivid romantic narrative. Among her most affecting numbers was “Measures and Scales,” with its minor key, old-world violin and accordion accompaniment, and haunted lyrics of a doomed love: “He plays piano in a jazz band/And I love him for the man that he could be/I asked him, if I let you, would you play me/Then delighted as he tickled every key . . . I am just a dreamer wearing sensible shoes/I still dream in colour even though I sing the blues . . . But it disappears somewhere when the music is done/Every song ever written has a final note“. Her show-stopper was “Oh My My,” with its invocation of a surgeon who may, or may not, be able to mend its narrator’s broken heart. This song had hot clarinet, piano boogie-woogie, and great sung-shouted lyrics.

Something I appreciate about Jill Barber’s musical enterprise is that though she’s cultivated this vintage atmospheric, she’s not playing it for camp humor or just capitalizing on some sort of Mad Men vibe; in fact she’s been working in this vein since her 2008 album, “Chances.” Her latest album “Mischievous Moon” has just been released in the U.S. and she traveled to this gig from Vancouver, British Columbia, where she lives with her husband, author and C BC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence,*** to play shows in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Joe’s Pub, where I’d never been, is a handsome music room with great lighting and excellent acoustics. I had a nice time chatting with Jill and manager Evan Newman after her set, when I learned she’s also playing in New York City Saturday night in the Studio at Webster Hall. I’ll be eager to hear Jill Barber and her band again, whether it’s this weekend or another time in the future. I urge readers to seek out her music–she’s a unique talent as a singer and performer, and when I reflect that she also writes her own songs, it’s clear to me how special she is.

After that great set of music I quickly finished my drink and then–never able to get enough live music–taxied in the rain to the Mercury Lounge where the Montreal band Plants and Animals were due to go on at 11 PM. I just made it in and snaked through a full room to in front of the stage as they were strapping on their axes. The band has a lot of NY fans! Recognition applause and whoops accompanied the opening of many songs. They were tremendous, with great singing by Warren Spicer, energetic lead licks and great guitar tone from Nick Basque, and a terrific rhythm section anchored by drummer Matthew Woodley. Plants and Animals started out as an instrumental trio, and according to information on their website, lyrics and vocals came relatively late into their repertoire. As a residue of those origins, their songs are often longer than the usual pop standard of three minutes, stretching into the six and seven minute range. They really like to stretch things out and it makes for rewarding listening for the live music listener. As the last band of the night, there was no act following them, and the crowd soon picked up on the fact that they weren’t going to hustle off after a 40-minute set, as is often the case at tightly scheduled clubs. This was ideal given the band’s instrumental and orchestral instincts. With that in mind everyone relaxed and grooved to the abundance of tunes they rolled out. They played such songs from their 2008 album “Parc Avenue” as “The Mama Papa,” and “Bye, Bye, Bye,”–with a sweet autoharp bit played by Basque–and from their newest album, “The End of That” I recognized “LightShow,” “Why, Why” and the eponymous, “The End of That,” in which Grant Lawrence astutely hears a kind of Velvet Underground vibe. In short, they played a mess of songs from all their albums, and the set edged in to the 90-minute range. High fives were exchanged all around the dance floor when they finished the second song of their extended encore. Plants & Animals will be playing at NXNE in Toronto in mid-June, a festival I attended last year, and I hope to make it there again. When I do, I’ll be very excited to hear them play once more.

**Jill’s singer/songwriter brother Matt Barber, about whom I blogged after I heard him perform last year, also plays guitar left-handed. Clearly, left-handedness and extravagant talent run in the family.

***Full disclosure: Grant Lawrence is a personal friend of mine, about whom I have previously written on this blog. // click through on share link below to see more photographs . . . //

Imaginary Cities’ Album Release Party

April 18, 2012/2 Comments/in Books & Writing, Music, Bands & Radio, Urban Life & New York City /by Philip Turner

Last June I attended the North by Northeast Festival (NxNE) in Toronto for four days of great music and some terrific panels on digital publishing and the future of books. I’m hoping to return to Toronto for the festival again this June. One of the many musical revelations I experienced last year was Imaginary Cities, a band from Winnipeg that features one of the most exciting lead vocalists I can ever remember hearing. Her name is Marti Sabit, and with songwriting bandmate Rusty Matyas they are the heart of this fabulous quintet that takes onboard many musical influences and then creates their own memorable and original sound. A bit of Dusty Springfield and a dose of the early Phil Spector sound seem two parts of the formula. In addition, they are absolutely great on stage with Marti sporting a great look and an electric personality that infuses sex appeal with the fun she has singing all these songs with her fellow musicians. It is impossible not to come away smitten by her and the whole band.

I’ve followed Imaginary Cities closely over the past year, listening regularly to their debut album “Temporary Resident,” noting with satisfaction their successful tours of Europe and Australia, and the frequent posting of live performance videos on such websites as this one. I was excited when I learned a few weeks ago that “Temporary Resident” would be getting a US release, with an album release party on April 10 at the Lower East Side music venue Rockwood Hall. Last Tuesday night I walked into the club about ten minutes early and stepped right in to a conversation with Marti and Rusty. I reintroduced myself and quickly told them how much I’d enjoyed their performance at NxNE. They seemed happy to meet this CBCRadio 3-loving NY-based fan. I was happy to see their manager in the house, Stephen Carroll, a member of The Weakerthans, who I heard live last December in a show I wrote about here.

When Imaginary Cities began their set I was thrilled to hear how good these familiar songs sounded live and up close. Rusty Matyas is a really talented guitarist and solid on other instruments such as the trumpet he played on one song. There’s a lot of power and restraint in his playing. He sneaked in a lot of tasty licks, but the songs aren’t really vehicles for lead-playing or instrumental solos. Instead, they’re showcases for Marti’s soaring voice and striving lyrics with their great choruses, such as the one on “Hummingbird.” The rest of their line-up is David Landreth on bass, Alex Campbell on keyboard, Ryan Voth, on drums. It was a quick, efficient set at this tightly scheduled club but really dynamic and satisfying, as they worked through most of the songs on their album, plus a couple of new tunes. Even though it looked as if most of the audience had not heard their music before, it was clear they won folks over with the powerful songs, inspired musicianship, and winning stage presence. It’s hard not to love Marti the first time you listen to her sing and watch her move to their music.

hummingbird is singin
I can hear her through the trees,
singing of her days gone by
in perfect melody
do I take the task
of telling her the truth
or do I let the world around her
be the window she sees through

tell me that you’ll break away
say that its all gone
go ahead and count the days come on come on come on

After the show, I congratulated the band and had a few more words with Marti. She was fun to talk with and I enjoyed telling her again how much I enjoy their music, and how their lyrics inspire me. She seemed surprised and thanked me, saying she’s written many of the lyrics herself. We stood for a photo that a server took of us, and I left the club to head around the corner to another show later in the evening, this one featuring Yukon Blonde and my friends in Library Voices, to be covered in another post.

Coming Back to NYC May 15

I’m happy to say that on May 15 Imaginary Cities will be back in New York City as a headliner at the Mercury Lounge on E. Houston Street. If you like what you hear on the video above and love hearing live music like I do, I suggest you make plans to come hear Imaginary Cities. I believe you’ll be glad you did. And if you have any questions, check out the amazing reviews they’ve been receiving back home. Glowing US reviews are sure to follow, with the album just released here last week.

“A Motown-treated Nina Simone.”- -The Globe and Mail
“Anthemic and Psalmic” –Paste Magazine, Best of What’s Next
“I f%@king love this band” –Grant Lawrence, CBC Radio3
“Now this is my kind of music. Haunting, sweet, uplifting, soulful and emotive.” –Discorder Magazine
“The album leaves one wanting more of this infectious and completely unique pop music; it’s almost impossible not to become an instant fan.” – Performer Magazine
“This duo deliver(s) a rich sounding record that’s solid from first to last tracks.” –FutureSounds.com
“The duo’s clear, melodic pop instrumentation has a certain lightness of being that is gently anchored by Sarbit’s smoky alto.” –Sound on the Sound / / more, with pictures . . .