Here's an mp3 link to a live Spoon performance of Paper Tiger, from the spoon Website as a valentine gift

Largehearted Boy pointed out that the Mountain Goats Super Tuesday song is downloadable (mp3)

Here's youtube of the Coraline trailer

Here is an apparent screen test for the Where the Wild Things Are movie.

I'm not really sure what to make of it.

Dave Eggers is writing a novel based on the screenplay he wrote based on Where the Wild Things Are picture book. It's a little unclear if this is going to be a big step past those movie tie-in novelizations with "16 pages of photos from the movie!" that were popular at my elementary school book fairs and continue to entice children away from real books.

Lemony Snicket reviewed Lois Lowry (scroll all the way down)

Lois Lowry, who casts her noble and enviable shadow wide across the landscape of children's literature, from fantasy to realism, here turns her quick, sly gaze to parody, a word which in this case means “a short novel mocking the conventions of old-fashioned children's books stuffed with orphans, nannies and long-lost heirs.”

Ted Rall hates the NY Times Magazine's Funny Pages.

But the Times' main error has been its choice of cartoonists, art school graduates with little to say but draw real purty. Comics are about telling stories--not trying to dazzle, as Ware does, with innovative (but confusing) graphic design.

And there's a lot more hate, which is kind of funny to read.

I was looking to see if the Darjeeling Limited was coming out as a Criterion edition DVD...it might not be coming soon, but I did notice that The Ice Storm is getting the Criterion treatment.

There's a sneak preview of the Coraline movie at Neil Gaiman's site.

Film.com looks at Aaron Sorkin. We watched the entire run of the West Wing on DVD this year.

Wolfgang's Vault has some Kinks concerts and also a top 10 list.

And the Library of Congress is disrespecting Scottish authors...

Also a free Mountain Goats download....

Phillip Pullman talks to Horn Book

This article has an update on Wes Anderson's forthcoming adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox, supposedly in the works for a decade...

I like this Chris Silas Neal illustration for the NY Times review of new Tom Perotta book

Interview with Marjane Satrapi

World indie rock music

Quentin Blake might cover a vacant building with a picture
This MIT paper interview with Wes Anderson is a bit more informative than some other interviews

TT: A couple of your movies have several songs by the same artist. Do you get into the mood of one musician or do you find a piece that fits more?

WA: Part of what music can do is help the movie form its identity and give it coherence or cohesion. In the case of this, I think the sound of the movie is really the music of Satijit Ray, who was a director who composed the music for his own films, and that’s one thing we really wanted to embrace with our movie, and it was very well suited for our movie. Much of the sound of the movie comes from Ray’s music.

But also these Kinks songs — we had a sequence in the beginning, middle, and end and they were all connected — and it just sort of revealed itself that these songs all from one record by the Kinks seemed to fit. And those are songs written by brothers so there were links that we liked. Mainly, it was just when we put the music in those scenes, the scenes seemed finish.

TT: Your next movie is going to be an adaptation of the book The Fantastic Mr. Fox, by Roald Dahl, and I was wondering why you chose to do that?

WA: It’s just a book I’ve always loved, and I liked the idea of doing some stop motion animation. I started talking about it with Noah Baumbach [director of “Squid and the Whale”] and we quickly figured out a way we could make a script of it because it’s a very short book. There’s not that much material there so we had to expand it and we had to make up our own version and try to see if we could follow Roald Dahl’s lead and try to write a movie that we hoped he would like.

Here's an interview with Jeffrey Lewis

Here's a Spoon article

Here's an interview with Adrian Tomine

There's a little info on the Mysteries of Pittsburgh movie in this article about Peter Sarsagaard

I found this Randall of Nazareth song (Drag City) intriguing; not too much other information so far

George Saunders on the news:

Like most Americans, I've experienced, over my lifetime, a steady downward spiral in the way I get my news.

An update on Where the Wild Things Are, as re-conceptualized by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers

Maybe this year? November is National Novel Writing Month

Streaming audio of some of the Dylan covers from I'm not there

Here's an article on Marissa Nadler, whose Daytrotter songs are kind of hiding still, apparently downloaded by less than 5 people

Daytrotter has book readings now, such as Matt Friedberger reading Milton

a Hold Steady KEXP podcast is up

and John Darnielle on the appeal of Babyshambles

while Gerard Cosloy reacts to that Sasha Frere-Jones "Paler Shade of White" bit

The role that turned him off for good, he says, was the Person Of Indeterminate Gender in the Jim Carrey film Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events.

Why Craig Ferguson doesn't do acting anymore...

I didn't realize that he was the Person of Indeterminate Gender

Some pretty good Monday links:

Here is the Islands shortfilm/music video about the whale: Tsuxiit
A good reminder of two good Islands shows we saw last year.

Four new unmastered Art Brut songs here for download

Here is a Neil Gaiman short story download: How to Talk to Girls at Parties

And here is some information about the film version of Coraline.
The picture looks good, but I'm not sure about the casting: Teri Hatcher and Dakota Fanning?

WFMU blog on Charlton Comics. Good read, but neglects to mention the Question, who according to Wikipedia, was introduced in Charlton Comics.

The Washington Post conducted a social experiment in which expensive violinist and expensive violin go busking. Do Americans care?

NPR shows to stream. Iggy Pop. Lily Allen.

new "Witches" movie

a little info here

maybe they'll remake matilda too

Harry Potter and unrelated links

So last night we saw Harry Potter. I guess it was well-enough made, but i found it dark overall. Goblet of Fire was the last HP book I made it all the way through; after seeing this movie, I am not sure I want to see the next adaptations. Call them Harry Potter and the Pretend Wizard World is Depressing, that seems apt.

Otherwise:

Michael Chabon has posted a new story/column thing on his website.

NY Times looks at the viewer response aspect of the Historical Society's Slavery in New York exhibit.

Also in the NY Times, how corporate decides who's in a hip-hop crew.

Big Takeover redid their website, so it's no longer 2003.

Jumbled links

those Marathon runners love to litter; the street was filled with Spongebob sponges and paper cups.

Jeff Tweedy on side projects

In 2006, a new album from Rilo Kiley guy side project The Elected

The shadow of Andy Kaufman looms

The Boondocks tv show starts tonight.

Fluxblog says that Toshi Fiery Furnace has a new band: Kapow. fb has a song; there's another one on the Kapow site.

Mcsweeneys has started a dvd magazine thing.

Stephin Merrit news:
Nonesuch Records will release "Showtunes," a selection of original theater music
by Stephin Merritt composed for director Chen Shi-Zheng's "The Orphan of Zhao"
(2003), "Peach Blossom Fan" (2004), and "My Life as a Fairy Tale" (2005). The
projected release date is mid-February, 2006.
(from the House of Tomorrow newsletter)

Sounds like there are some interesting extras in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory dvd.


there is going to be a Bee Season movie coming out next week. They changed a bunch of things (inventing a reason for Kate Bosworth to be in the movie, moving the setting) and casted Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche as the parents. Maybe people will like it; I'm not sure.

Covering Multiple Modalities

Ears

The headline in this article doesn't refer to Antony as Antony...how rare.

here is a brief interview with the Decemberists, who we see on Tuesday.

Predictably, the Animal Collective listens to some obscure stuff (and the Silver Jews)

There was a David Berman appearance a few days ago that sounds interesting.

Eyes

Here is a good article on "authors who read books before they should have".

George Saunders:

"If you're that scared, that's a powerful thing and that proves that words have power . . . and if a work of art is good, and allows kids to confront these fearsome things, then when real evil or bad luck comes at you, you have a kind of scale model with which you can deal with it. You can look at yourself as a part of this long tradition of people who've faced evil or hardships. But to pretend that a kid of four or five has no idea of evil...I was much more aware of good and evil when I was that age...and I think it is more of a disservice when you tell a kid that the premonitions of evil that she has are made up, that they don't exist."

The Seattle Times reviews the Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

Paul Auster goes on about the struggle of writing

Ears and Eyes

The NY Times says that SVU is now the most popular 'Law & Order'

A bunch of links regarding the Squid and the Whale, which I hope to see.

According to this review, The Squid and the Whale is "about three-fourths of one of the greatest films you will ever see."

New York Daily News - Entertainment - Meet the divorcees So the Squid and the Whale is autobiographical. Not so surprising, I suppose.

But for me, the news here is that Fantastic Mr. Fox is stop-motion (not just animated). That is neat...

Newsweek has some pseudo math breaking down Squid and Whale

Jim Jarmusch doesn't like being called quirky

Wired News: Dave McKean Works Digital Magic

Legs

So yesterday I went through a Corn Maze for the first time. It wasn't super impressive, and the two little girls who ran through it showing us where everything was somewhat ruined the effect. But apparently this is a big thing...here is a website for a whole tour of things.

here are some links

Here is an article about the Eels.

A review of a Canadian music festival including Broken Social Scene. It is sometimes interesting to see who is actually performing with them. Somewhat related to that is the new Jason Collett solo album. I liked the last one.

The Papa M guy has a different kind of solo album out now, called Pajo.

Patti Smith played her famous album live.

Here is an article about the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. Other Roald Dahl movies "in the works" according to newsweek:
'The Fantastic Mr. Fox'
Wes Anderson ("Rushmore") will direct the animated story of a fox outfoxing farmers.
'The Twits'
A vile couple in a screenplay by John Cleese.
'My Uncle Oswald'
About a sperm bank—and for adults. May be directed by Alfonso Cuaron

information that hopefully won't make heads spin

Korean baseball players using Cabbage as a cooling agent.

Christgau on the indie rock hits. It's nice that he doesn't feel the need to deal with things right on their release.

A Voice article about the Vashti/Animal Collective EP.

More about that raid on Kim's. I guess it's old news by now, but oh well.

The Star Maker of the Semipopular - New York TimesAbout KCRW. The article title reminds me of some Post Paint Boy lyrics. Anyway, I prefer KEXP, in terms of semipopular somewhat independent public radio to listen to on the internet.

there is now a Wonka Industrieswebsite. Here is the fancy new Johnny Depp movie website.

So the neurologist told me to drink Mountain Dew or Jolt for the caffeine, as this is supposed to help my head. How much caffeine is in various soft drinks? Jolt has about 72 mg, Mountain Dew has 55 mg, Coke has 47. I couldn't actually find Jolt anywhere and am not sure that I would want to. I don't like Mountain Dew but have had some. What is sneaky is the high caffeine count in Pepsi One according to this site.

I hope I can stop with the soda soon. I had managed to cut out the soda between January and June, so hopefully I can manage to return to that approach.

I did not know about this

So apparently Wes Anderson is making a movie version of Roadld Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox . Not much information available, but this seems interesting.

I watched the Life Aquatic last night after buying the dvd. I decided I needed something to watch considering my houseboundedness.

At least my brain is ok, according to the neurologist I saw yesterday. I'm feeling somewhat better due to the meds, and at least I can now read and look at the computer without feeling like my head will explode. Biggest problem is probably the frustration of being sick for a ridiculously long period of time. Oh well.