#FridayReads, July 27–“Two Lives” by Vikram Seth

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#FridayReads, July 27–Two Lives, Vikram Seth’s fascinating family chronicle of the singular marriage between his Indian uncle, Shanti–an improbable, one-armed dentist–and his German-Jewish aunt, Henny Caro, a mixed couple who managed to build a life together despite the difficulties imposed by circumstance and society, amid WWII and the Holocaust. Seth begins the narrative near the end of their lives, in the 1980s, and then works his way forward and back in time, employing interviews he conducted with Shanti and documentary materials he discovers (letters, photos, school papers, etc.). This is a remarkable book, published in 2005.

N.B.: I first read and enjoyed Vikram Seth’s work years ago, when I read and at Undercover Books sold his debut, a brilliant travelogue about China and Tibet, From Heaven Lake. He went on to write a novel in verse, The Golden Gate, inspired he explains in Two Lives, by Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. He is an inventive writer, who seems to never repeat himself.

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3 Great Canadian Bands Coming to NYC, July 30-Aug.3

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Three great Canadian indie rock n’ roll bands are scheduled to play in New York City in the next week. I am out of town right now and will be unable to make these shows, but if you, dear reader, are in the city next week, I urge you to check out one, two or all three of these shows. Here’s the concert rundown:

Monday, July 30 at Mercury Lounge, Deep Dark Woods from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. DDW is a terrific roots band that features soulful vocals, sweet pedal steel guitar, and soothing organ amid a strong ensemble sound. I am sorry to miss this show, as I haven’t yet heard them live, but they are great on record. You can sample the music on their latest album, “The Places I Left Behind,” via this link.

Tuesday, July 31 at Bowery Ballroom, Plants and Animals from Montreal. I heard Plants and Animals at the Mercury Lounge last April, a tremendous show I wrote up on this blog at the time, readable at this link. Their latest album is called “The End of That” and it is a great record with many memorable songs. You can listen to tunes from it here.

Friday, August 3, Rockwood Music Hall, Imaginary Cities from Winnipeg. I’ve heard Imaginary Cities several times, and loved them each time. They are anchored by the amazing female vocalist Marti Sabit, who writes great songs with bandmate, guitarist Rusty Matyas. I wrote about the launch party they played for their album “Temporary Resident” at the Rockwood last April, a post that also includes video of them performing their song “Hummingbird.” You can read more about them and listen to their music at their website.

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The Latest on World Book Night 2013

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Happy to see news reported in Shelf Awareness, that World Book Night, which I had recently written about in this post when I bumped into WBN director Carl Lennertz (pictured below), is proceeding with plans for Spring 2013, to give away tens of thousands of copies of books worldwide in a unique extravaganza of social reading, as was done by the organization and thousands of volunteers on April 23, 2012. I don’t see an exact date yet for the 2013 giveaway, but will report it on this blog as soon as I get that info. Update: It will be April 23, 2013, same as the one this past year.

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NY Times Profiles CBC host Jian Ghomeshi

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Jian Ghomeshi of CBC Radio’s ‘Q,’ one of my favorite talk shows on radio, has been profiled by the NY Times John Schwartz in an article headlined “A Wild Mix of Culture by Way of Canada.” I had recently written about Jian and ‘Q’ in this post, after he won the Gold Award for best talk-show host at the New York Festivals International Radio Awards. I am pleased to see him making so much headway in New York City, and throughout the States, where the program is now carried on 120 public radio stations, including WNYC 93.9 FM at 10 PM on weeknights. I took the photo below of Jian (l.) and CBC host Grant Lawrence when I was recently in Toronto for NXNE, and along with a group of CBC Radio 3 fans was given a tour of the broadcast facility.

 

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Mitt’s Gang, Same as the Bush & Cheney Gang

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This Politico story today by Maggie Haberman reveals that one of Mitt Romney’s bundlers is D.C. lobbyist Richard Hohlt, who was a “go-between” for reporter Robert Novak and the Bush White House in the scandal involving the leaking of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity. According to information that came out at the Scooter Libby trial in 2007, which was reported in the book I published with Murray Waas, The United States v. I. Lewis Libby, Novak sent a draft of his fateful column attacking Iraqi invasion critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson* and outing Wilson’s wife Plame as a CIA official, to Hohlt, who then sent on to the Bush White House. This is interesting on at least two counts.

1) Owing to the opacity and secrecy of the Romney campaign very little has been reported about Mitt’s bundlers, which unlike the Obama campaign, will not disclose any of these key fundraisers, who not only contribute themselves, but influence other donors to give, as well.

2) It shows that Mitt’s fundraising team, just like this foreign policy team, is dominated by unethical old warriors from the Bush years. This is hardly surprising, especially given Mitt’s partiality to Dick Cheney, for whom Scooter Libby was Chief of Staff before his conviction on obstruction of justice in the Plame matter.

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A View From our Train Window

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A view of The Great Gray Bridge from the Amtrak train we recently rode from NYC to Cleveland. Photo by Kyle Gallup. Our route took us in to the open air for a few seconds, then back underground and under the bridge, then back out in the open again, north of the bridge, when this picture was shot. The train ride was the first leg of our current midwest road trip, which has continued by car through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and now to St. Louis. On the return leg of our trip, we’ll be dropping our car off in Cleveland and coming back to NYC via Amtrak. Cross-posted at my Great Gray Bridge tumblr.

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This Week at The Great Gray Bridge

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In the past week at this blog, I’ve written about the best TV ad of the presidential campaign thus far; a brave woman in Alaska who fended off an aggressive grizzly bear; the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema of Austin, TX, which is entering the NYC market only a couple blocks from my office; the great Canadian band Library Voices; Sarah Silverman’s bawdy video that pokes fun at right-wing casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; a new album from Bob Dylan; the award-winning CBC radio host, Jian Ghomeshi; Greenland’s worryingly shrinking Petermann Glacier; a young chess master and Franconia College classmate of mine who vanished in 1978 under mysterious circumstances; the late, great baseball writer, Robert Creamer, who chronicled the life of Babe Ruth; the sweet severance deal Mitt Romney arranged for himself from Bain Capital; the moving book I’ve been reading by Rob Sheffield, my #FridayReads yesterday; and my own personal history, including the story of how during a teenage road trip my brother Joel and I happened to adopt our longtime black lab Noah, pictured here with me.

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#FridayReads, July 20–“Love is a Mix Tape”

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#FridayReads, July 20–Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, Rob Sheffield’s wrenching account of the five-year marriage he shared with his dear wife, Renée, who died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism at age 31. Sheffield tells their tale by opening each chapter of the book by naming the playlists on the many mix tapes that he and Renée made for each other in the time they were together. Sheffield, who is an editor at Rolling Stone, narrates this heartbreak tale in a sweet and disarming voice from a world where music is always on their lips, in their ears, and coursing through their hearts.

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