January 26, 2007

Susan Cheever

American Bloomsbury

A tight-knit group of writers live and work together, animated by sexual electricity. The beautiful teenage novelist falls for an older poet who’s in love with another woman. The pioneering feminist journalist dies in a freak accident with her Italian lover, leaving behind a string of broken hearts. We’re talking about the 1850s, when Emerson, Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in close quarters in the village of Concord, Massachusetts. Susan Cheever delves into the surprisingly un-Victorian personal lives of these literary stars in her new book, American Bloomsbury.

New Orleans Comedy

Click here to view a sideshow of pin upsIn a city struggling to get back on its feet, the stand-up comedy scene in New Orleans is also making a surprising comeback. We sent Greg Warner down to see what people are finding to laugh at.

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Rotary Downs

New Orleans is famous worldwide for its R&B, brass bands, piano players – not its indie rockers! The band Rotary Downs doesn’t sound like the New Orleans we’re used to, but their music still captures the anger and melancholy of the city now. They join Kurt in the studio to play a few songs off their latest album, Chained to the Chariot.

Andy Kaufman

Andy Kaufman Comes of Age

Andy Kaufman's blend of comedy and performance art involved making up strange, annoying characters and staying in character, even beyond the walls of the TV studio. His routines bewildered audiences in the '70s and '80s. But with performers like Sasha Baron Cohen, Stephen Colbert and Sarah Silverman, the world has finally caught up with Kaufman's genius. Eric Molinsky connects the dots.

(photo courtesy: www.WayneWilliamsStudio.com)

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Billboard

In time-lapse photography, the bloom of a flower takes just seconds. Musician and computer programmer R. Luke DuBois has developed the aural equivalent: time-lapse phonography. DuBois used the technique to condense Billboard's pop charts into a single piece of music: 42 years of #1 hits compressed into 37 minutes. It's called “Billboard.” Produced by Trent Wolbe.

(photo courtesy: bitforms gallery nyc)

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