Come this weekend to listen to the heavenly voices of Austin’s Conspirare Symphonic Choir and Austin’s Symphony put on a French program.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION. Presenting Francis Poulenc’s Gloria and Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. With soprano Mela Dailey
Tickets are available through the Austin Symphony.
Opening around the country is a documentary on Tower Records. For those of you that remember the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s, you will recall how Tower Records had hundreds of stores across the nation, in many other countries and was the place to go for videos, new LPs, singles, posters, music magazines and t-shirts.
For teenagers it was one of the few places that would hire you if you were a long-haired hippy, dressed punk, goth, or hip-hop. Tower saw you as a genre expert and if you worked hard, were detail-oriented and knew your stuff you could work up to becoming a music buyer and/or manager. If you moved around, you could transfer easily to a Tower in your new town or get hired based on your experience.
It was a great gig. Didn’t pay a lot, but you would get promo CDs, tickets to concerts, get to listen to music on your shift and as long as you got your work done you could act as goofy as you wanted.
It was one of my favorite places to work as a late teen and early 20’s – I worked at the stores in Berkeley, Las Vegas and Austin, TX. I kept trying to get a transfer to the Japan store but managers in Berkeley and Vegas kept sitting on my application. My life would have been very different. Le sigh.
They are also raising money for Sacramento to have a museum, archive and perhaps even a traveling exhibit.
It’s playing in Austin at the Regal Arbor (November 6th)
Release dates elsewhere can be found here:
Acclaimed author Isabel Allende (House of the Spirits) will appear at Bookpeople to read from her most recent book The Japanese Lover, a love story between two people whose lives were differently torn by WWII: one from Polish-Jewish heritage, the other Japanese-American.
Set in present-day San Francisco, it is a multi-generational story, featuring the love story of another pair from different backgrounds. The novel promises to share Bay Area history, the inner lives of those in their eighties all captured through a passionate, immigrant lens.
Named one of the most anticipated novels of the year by New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Publishers Weekly, The Huffington Post, and more.
SF Gate has a review of the book here.
Tickets are available at Bookpeople.
Monday, November 16, 2015 – 7:00pm
The Broken Spoke is one of the few places left where you can sit and enjoy a country fried steak, beer or whiskey, hear live country music and dance the two-step. Last year they celebrated their 50th anniversary. Back then they were surrounded by countryside, there are tales of neighbors riding horses down Lamar. Nowadays they are flanked by towering condos. Help Blue Yonder Films complete their documentary so that the world can learn the rich history of the Broken Spoke.
When you enter the Broken Spoke it’s like walking into a time-capsule from Texas in the early 60’s. In one of the rooms they have their own museum of Austin Country music history with photos and artifacts but the entire restaurant itself has changed very little in that long time. Owners James and Annetta White are still a staple in this legendary place where Willie Nelson, Dale Watson, Ray Benson and Billy Willis all played.
Follow their progress on:
Other media attention on the Broken Spoke:
Discovered in the archives of Latin America was a treasure trove of Colonial works of art, sacred music for the feasts and holidays of the Catholic Church. After Mexico defeated Spain these Colonial masterpieces from the 17th and 18th century were neglected for over a century but were rediscovered in the 1940’s.
The Austin Baroque Orchestra is holding their forth annual celebration of these musical archives, presenting works from three cathedrals from different regions, Oaxaca, the Hill Country of Northwestern Mexico and Mexico city. From Oaxaca cathedral you’ll hear the works of Manuel de Sumaya, known as the “Mexican Handel.” From Durango Cathedral in Mexico’s hill country you’ll enjoy Santiago Billoni, New Spain’s Italian-born maestro. From Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral you’ll encounter the pieces by Ignacio Jerúsalem, Mateo Tollis de la Rocca, and Antonio Juanas.
A sample from last year’s selection of the works of Juan de Araujo can be listened to here.
Find out more about these concerts here and here.
Saturday, November 14, 2015 – 8:00PM
First Presbyterian Church of Austin
8001 Mesa Drive · Austin, TX 78731
Sunday, November 15, 2015 – 4:00PM
Mission Concepción
807 Mission Road · San Antonio, TX 78210
Please take the time to enjoy one of the Harry Ransom Centers most recent acquisitions, the Archive of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
The HRC has issued a wonderful video giving an overview of this famous writer and his cultural contribution.
The director helps to explain the value of the Harry Ransom Center to our community, the university and the humanities field at large. The Latin American studies director gives context to the weight of this collection. One of its professors explains how the archive will be used by those in academia. The archivist discusses the collection and how the materials are being conserved and made available.
One of the things I miss most about living in Berkeley is going to record stores with my dad…going to Amoeba Music, or Tower Classics back in the day. Having him teach me about Haydn
or Moondog, telling me his stories of having met Sonny Rollins or Miles Davis decades ago.
These stories and introductions to music helped to shape my tastes, which is why I am delighted with Amoeba Music’s video series ‘What’s in my bag?’ In the absence of programs like old MTV (120 minutes more appropriately), people turn to blogs like Pitchfork…but Amoeba is doing something rare and sorely needed by giving these artists video air-time to share the seminal albums that shaped them as well as the newer works they are impressed by.
[Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links]
George Monbiot alerts us that: “Indonesia is burning. So why is the world looking away?”
To give perspective on the devastation of this fire:
“it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. And in three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany.”
For those of you who would like to have a Palm Oil-free Halloween, please refer to this list:
One of the things I miss the most from my jobs in the 90’s – working in cafes next door to bookstores, working at the UC and Elmwood Theatres in Berkeley, working at Tower Records and Virgin stores in multiple cities – was how close I was to books, music, films. Daily I would receive recommendations from co-workers and customers. I had a finger on a cultural pulse and it was three-dimensional and organic. This was an experience that Amazon and Netflix’s algorithms have not been able to replicate.
Something that Criterion Collection has started comes close and I really hope they continue. They’ve brought in famous film directors (Wim Wenders, Guillermo del Toro), artists (Laurie Anderson) and popular philosophers (Slavoj Zizek) to go through their vaults (Laurie Anderson is absolutely delightful, she’s like a kid in a candy store), select and describe their favorite films.
Their enthusiasm is contagious – I’ve done my best to compile a list of their recommendations under the clips. Enjoy!
One cannot mention the title source of the Strange Pilgrims exhibit without reminding one’s readers that the Harry Ransom Center recently acquired the archives of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
“More than 75 boxes of documents constitute the archive of the Colombian-born author, journalist, screenwriter and key figure in Latin American history and politics. Researchers will have access to manuscript drafts of published and unpublished works, correspondence, 43 photograph albums, 22 scrapbooks, research material, notebooks, newspaper clippings, screenplays and ephemera.”
Wed. Oct. 27 there will be a webcast of acclaimed author Salmon Rushdie’s keynote speech for the symposium Gabriel García Márquez: His Life and Legacy.
