Sep/072
The Boss returns to E Street
Oh happy day! Bruce Springsteen has just announced an new album entitled Magic. Due on October 2nd, the new disc reunites The Boss with the E Street Band. If you pre-order “Magic” on iTunes, the first track (Radio Nowhere), is free. The tune feels like the best of Born to Run and The Rising come together. So, this teaser has me really excited for the new album. Here is the complete track listing.
01. Radio Nowhere (iTunes)
02. You’ll Be Comin’ Down
03. Livin’ in the Future
04. Your Own Worst Enemy
05. Gypsy Biker
06. Girls in Their Summer Clothes
07. I’ll Work for Your Love
08. Magic
09. Last to Die
10. Long Walk Home
11. Devil’s Arcade
I’ve really enjoyed We Shall Overcome and Live in Dublin, Springsteen’s recent departures with the Seeger Sessions band. However, Bruce always sounds best with Clarence, Little Steven, Max, Patti and the rest of E Street backing him up.
Finally, word has it that the entire band will kick off a world tour in October … complete with festival seating as with tour for The Rising. I sat three rows from the stage at the Cincinnati stop on that tour. Barely a year after 9/11, that show was the single most moving live music event I’ve ever attended. It was full of emotional moments running the gamut from bittersweet sadness to sheer, unabashed joy and celebration. So, I am looking forward to the new tour as much or more than the new album.
Rock on Bruce and E Street!
Nov/032
Author Neil Gaiman discusses blogging
Re: Journal – by burrows
William Gibson just stopped blogging [williamgibsonbooks.com], stating that informal blog/journal writing gets in the way of writing fiction.Is there a conflict for you between maintaining your journal and writing fiction? How do you manage your time / ideas / approach, in order to stay active in both?
Neil [Gaiman]:
I’ve enormously enjoyed the immediacy of having the blog. In some ways it sort of bypasses established promotional and advertising systems. It means that, for example, if I’m giving a talk or doing a signing, many of the people who would have wanted to know this, know it. So while Steve Martin and I were both headlining at New York Is Book Country, and his face was on the ad material, mine was the talk that sold out. And if he had a blog, and blog readers, and so on, like I do, his would have sold out as well. It also means that I have several hundred thousand people cheerfully being some kind of a knowledge pool, for when I need to know things (especially techie things, which are always very mysterious to me) and more questions always being sent in than I could ever answer.
I found this snippet really interesting. It is very telling about the power of the blog/online journal. Not only can blogs be a non-intrusive, opt-in marketing tool (intended or no); the medium also provide an unprecedented means of two-way communication between artists and thier audiences. This recipriocal and potentially symbiotic exchange has tremendous potential.
May/030
Jitender Singh Shunty
Shunty used to be a carefree man. He belonged to a well-off family which ran a thriving transport business. But something suddenly snapped inside him one day when he saw a man stealing wood from a burning pyre at Delhi’s Nigambodh Ghat cremation ground. Shocked, Shunty confronted him. Weeping uncontrollably, the middle-aged man said that he had lost his wife in an accident and didn’t have enough money to perform the last rituals. He had no choice but to steal wood. “I was stunned. I never knew this could happen to human beings in our society. Later, I came to know that there were people who often left a dead body unattended,” recalls Shunty.
Having traveled to India, witnessed a public funeral procession and visited the riverside location of many such funeral pyres, I was touched to learn of the story of Jitender Singh Shunty from Idealist.org. It is good to be reminded that people of such considerable compassion and committment exist in this troubled world. I was fortunate enough to meet similar folks during my trip. People like Biplab & Sumita Chatterjee as well as Ravi & Neena Dugal. It reminds me that I need to post my travel log of that trip.
