Following his exceptional profile of Father John Misty, Paumgarten goes deep with the intriguing, shrewd and self-aware St. Vincent:
When she listens to a playback, she often buries her head in her arms, as though she can hardly bear to hear herself, but, really, it’s just her way of listening hard. Once, during a mixing session, while she was at the board and I was behind her on a couch, surreptitiously reading a text message, she picked up her head, turned around, and said, “Did I lose you there, Nick? I can feel when attention is wandering.” Her cheery use of the name of the person she is addressing can seem to contain a faint note of mockery. There’d be times, in the following months, when I’d walk away from a conversation with Clark feeling like a character in a kung-fu movie who emerges from a sword skirmish apparently unscathed yet a moment later starts gushing blood or dropping limbs.
I was very sad to learn about the sudden death of a woman I was lucky enough to know while serving on the Prison Performing Arts Board. Agnes opened many eyes, including mine. She prized art, championed underdogs, fostered resilience, brought joy. Hers was a world-improving life.
After discovering this short appreciation in a Jonathan Lethem essay collection on bookish things, I just read it aloud to my wife, who'd been curious about why I've been so utterly taken by this series and increasingly hungry for each subsequent volume. Lethem nailed it ("Knausgaard's approach is plain and scrupulous, sometimes casual, yet he never writes down. His subject is the beauty and terror of the fact that all life coexists with itself."), and he was only one volume in.
I can still remember encountering Crewdson’s work for the first time in The New York Times Magazine more than a decade ago. Original, absorbing and haunting. Today’s “Monocle Weekly” interview with him had me heading to his website, which alerted me to this documentary.
Where have I been to miss this marvelous podcast for its first 101 episodes? Hrishikesh Hirway interviews musicians and asks them to break down a single song, which we hear in bits … and bits … and then in its entirety. It’s a fantastic idea executed with great polish, sensitivity and humility (Hirway is almost never heard from). I’ve so far enjoyed Jeff Tweedy/Wilco, Ghostface Killah and Bjork, with many more in the queue.
Insightful and entertaining New Yorker profile by Alec Wilkinson. I can still vividly recall seeing the White Stripes at The Pageant in 2002, a blazing tricolor duo that owned that room from start to finish.
The novel feels immediately canonical, so firm and unerring is Hamid’s understanding of our time and its most pressing questions. Whom are we prepared to leave behind in our own pursuit of happiness? Whom are we able to care for, whom are we willing to care for, and why are our answers to those questions so rarely the same? At one point, Saeed points out to Nadia that millions of refugees previously came to their own native country, “when there were wars nearby.” Nadia replies, “That was different. Our country was poor. We didn’t feel we had as much to lose.” Comfort, she knows, can anesthetize one against concern for others.
This is my first Hamid book, and I’m impressed. Looking forward to catching up with some recentinterviews.
I'm pleased to be speaking to the St. Louis chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators on February 23 about the refreshed messaging and identity platform my team introduced for Forest Park Forever in 2015.
I've really been missing new Knausgaard material, as I've been waiting for the next translation... and suddenly I saw this new book being reviewed. Grabbed it from the library and gobbled it up in a few nights. Knausgaard and fellow writer Fredrik Ekelund exchange emails during the most recent World Cup. The topics are soccer, literature, childhood, family, yearning, memory... and on and on. Totally unique and enjoyable.
I have endless gratitude for and pride in the America that welcomed refugees I would be lucky enough to get to know and love, with my wife and her parents at the top of the list.
Loved this World Book Club episode, with informed and curious readers asking Karl Ove Knausgaard about one of my favorite works of literature in several years. We shouldn’t be surprised that he’s a thoughtful and candid interviewee.
I'm such a believer in how Fried and his Basecamp colleagues position themselves for productive work. (Also great: this blog post about how the team made decisions about what Basecamp can solve and chooses not to solve.)
