Baaba Maal: New Release from Palm World Voices by gypsyman, Aug. 5
And on the flip side to the above, when you have an artist as different as this Senegalese artist - especially one very few have heard of - an essay form describing the culture backdrop of the man and his music is absolutely necessary. Well-written and fascinating. Baaba Maal's CD drops tomorrow)
Music Playlist: Song Title = Band Name by Robert "Radish" Burke, Aug. 3
Burke asks a question I have never even thought to ask - what bands have released songs of their band names. Love that. Of course, he also comes up with a hefty bag full of examples. The commentators were also inspired to come up with some o..b..s..c..u..r..e-as-a LoadsaMoney reference references. Or a question on Aaman Lamba's Blogcritics Quiz Time.
REVIEW: Keep on the Sunny Side: June Carter Cash, Her Life in Music and Press On
by Al Barger, July 31
To not have June Carter Cash's release here at Blogcritics would have been a crying shame. It would have been like having the Adept book series without Lady Blue (who June Carter Cash reminds me of). I had mentioned this absence in an review of Johnny Cash's latest The Legend, but if it wasn't some tight writing, it wouldn't be here.
Thanks all. Temple
EDITORS on EDITORS
To give the writers here (that's you) the prominence deserved in any Editors' Choice, we stop Section Editors picking other Section Editors' work (or Eric Olsen or Phillip Winn) in the general picks.
Aug. 1 - Lisa Hoover's Review: Whatever: The ‘90s Pop & Culture Box
Temple's pick: I think I have to break my "not buying a CD ever again" oath (in favor of digital download) and get this one. Aaargh.
Aug. 4 - Eric Olsen's 10,000,000 Served - Blogcritics Breaks Barrier
Lisa Hoover pick: The best news to hit Blogcritics since, well…ever.
Article comments
1 - Joanie
Thanks, Temple. You gotta listen to the whole version of "Love Hurts" to get just how gutsy of a move it was for Little Milton to take on the song. (I actually like it and I'm a die-hard Nazareth fan from way back.)
2 - Al Barger
Thanks Temple. It's always good to get a little recognition for my efforts.
3 - Aaman
This is one of the best selections of editors' picks - and not just because I'm in it - fine reading herein, folks.
I also recommend The Duke's IRA-related moonage daydreams
4 - Matt Paprocki
Wow. I didn't think that inteview was anything special. Thanks!
And why the Killing Stone question?
5 - Temple Stark
For this site, (almost) any interview is special. Add to that, Bryan's a big name. As I stated I like seeing what other people ask. With most of the interviews done for newspaper journalism the questions are silent. I just liked your questions and wanted to pick one and that was one.
6 - gypsyman
Wow, thanks so very much both Wally and Temple. Quite an honour to picked twice in one week.
Maybe I should have been switched to pending long ago, and had editing help. Thanks to those editors with the patience to deal with my backwards brain.
Oh and on a Love Hurts note: You haven't lived until you hear Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris' duet of that song. Of course Lisa left a comment in my Emmylou review that she and Elvis Costello did it together in concert. I hope someone somewhere recorded that moment.
gypsyman
7 - Pam Avoledo
Thanks, Temple! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
8 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
yet more reasons for keep a fella glued to blogcritics. and Aaman, thanks a lot, man, for that nod right there!
9 - behzad
Dear Editor ;
I noticed that blogcritics online has a book review section, I wanted to introduce "The Quince Seed Potion". The Quince Seed Potion is a novel by Morteza Baharloo ,Published by Bridge Works Publishing . I am looking for the process of having a book review/author interview in your book review section based on this novel. Would you mind letting me know about this process ?
The Quince Seed Potion , set against the backdrop of Iran's turbulent modern history, is a saga of an indentured servant's devotion and love for his masters during the years 1928 to 1981. The changes in the fortunes of the protagonist, Sarveali Jokar, as he dedicates his life to serving the Shirlu khans, great rural landowners and farmers, mirror the changes in Iran and the disintegration of the wealth and power of the family dynasty as the Islamic Revolution of 1979 unfolds.
Sarveali, like his country, experiences violence and humiliation, recounted in a series of episodes reminiscent of Tales of the Arabian Nights. In the face of contempt and cruelty, he remains loyal to his masters, the only family he ever knows, through their own travails. His homoerotic affection for his favorite master and boyhood companion, Teimour Khan, although rejected, sustains Sarveali through the years. His adventures, including marriage to a cousin, her repeated promiscuity and eventual murder, his opium addiction and imprisonment, recall the ups and downs of Voltaire’s Candide. As the Khans are forced into exile or assassinated and Iran is transformed from a monarchy to an Islamic state, the reader is asked to decide if Sarveali's selfless life is totally tragic or suggests a kind of redemption for both the servant and his country.
Morteza Baharloo was born in Iran in 1961, emigrated to the U.S. in 1978, and now lives in Houston, Texas. He is chairman and co-founder of Healix, Ltd., a 400-employee international provider of pharmaceutical and health-care services, based in Texas. He returns periodically to Iran, where he is restoring rural estates built by his grandfather and great uncles in the 1920s.
The Quince Seed Potion :
The household cock crowed, heralding the exact moment when darkness surrendered to dawn, just as two tiny limbs emerged from the laboring woman's dark orifice. The semi-somnolence of Fatima, the Bald Doula, shattered. “I see them!” she yelled. “I see them! I see them!” she repeated, as if competing with the noisy cock. The collective shouting of the female spectators blended with the painful cries of the woman now deep in labor, and the clamor of preadolescent girls who were present to observe their own procreative destinies. As the neighboring cocks crowed in concert, the doula turned her attention from the spectators in the cramped room to the laboring woman. What the doula saw terrified her...
For more information please, visit : www.mortezabaharloo.com
Would you mind letting me know about your book review process ?
Sincerely Yours,
Behzad