httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTAVi7W2y-k

(Via Piony’s Journal) Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink and Simon Rattle talk about the experience of conducting Mahler’s Symphonies. Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

A lifelong resident of Illinois, Levi Stahl works at the University of Chicago Press. For the past three years he has maintained a literary blog, I've Been Reading Lately. He has written for the Poetry Foundation, the Chicago Reader, the Bloomsbury Review, the New-York Ghost, the Quarterly Conversation, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. His short fiction has recently been published in the New York Moon. Levi is also an editor with Joyland – Chicago edition (he's currently accepting submissions from current and/or former Chicagoans. For more information, you can e-mail him at levistahlATgmail.com)

We met recently in Chicago to talk about his role as publicity manager for the University of Chicago Press. Early on we talk about copy writing and appealing to as many different audiences as possible, about tours and dealing with the media, about differences between university and mainstream publishers, Modernism, Robert Graves, black and white comedy teams, and finally, about the role Levi played in getting the UCP to re-issue a series of Richard Stark (pen name of Donald Westlake, who, sadly, died the day before we conducted our interview) 'Parker' mystery novels, most notably The Hunter, which, though stained through with violent 'thuggery' is, according to Levi, very well written, and filled with insight into humanity.

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Di86RqDL4

Here are some hurried notes on the most intriguing points made in this Google talk by Denis Dutton, editor of the terrific Arts and Letters Daily, and author of The Art Instinct:

Main contention is that ‘Art’: its creation and appreciation, are innate; that these activities are universally human, that they developed as part of a survival mechanism. Dutton bases this on his observation that there exists uniform, universal, cross cultural agreement about such things as artistic standards,  definitions of art (pleasure as an end in itself, expressive individuality, creativity and novelty, concomitant criticism; intellectual challenge, traditions and institutions, distinctive emotion specific to each work of art; realistic representation, individual display of intrinsic skill and virtuosity, special focus: art bracketed off from real life ‘making special,’ imaginative experience: for producers and audiences ) and aesthetics: what constitutes ‘great’ art;

A Darwinian adaptation argument is made for the existence of an ‘artistic instinct’ (likes, dislikes, fears [snakes, heights], features that helped us to survive). Art, Dutton argues, is defined by: the pleasure/higher satisfaction it offers, its universality and its spontaneous development. He cites the ancient art of storytelling, suggesting that it must have developed because of its connection to adaptation: narrative and imaginative fiction were used as a safe method through which to try out new ideas – what might have been, what might be – to pretend, and to run through ‘what if’ scenarios. They were low cost experiments, low risk experiences which took place in the ‘theatre of the mind.’ Storytelling is seen by Dutton as didactic and instructive. It helps develop interpersonal skills, and to regulate social behavior.  The survivors of our species were ones who had the most refined capacity to use this faculty.

NB

Maxim Jakubowski’s celebrated bookshop, Murder One has closed. This from the Guardian’s Stuart Evers:

"Inclusive and without snobbery, Murder One amply demonstrated that the best bookshops are places not just of commerce, but of community; places that make feel you belong. It’s the kind of store that bibliophiles dream about: well-stocked, well-staffed and shabby enough to lose days browsing within. It’s just unfortunate that such shops don’t have enough paying customers to keep them afloat, or that these customers visit all too infrequently – something of which I’m certainly guilty.

These kinds of shops are facing a long, bloody battle – and one which, without significant reinforcements, they are likely to lose. As we hear of the travesty of another brilliant independent going down, we’ll mourn the loss, wring our hands and damn Amazon and the supermarkets and Waterstone’s. Yet perhaps the most important detail we’ll probably keep under wraps: the last time we actually spent any money there.

Murder One closing its doors for the final time is undoubtedly a .38 shell for independent bookshops, but whether it’s a body blow or a warning shot all depends upon us, the consumers. No one, no matter how iconic or established, can exist on fond memories alone: just ask Woolworths. Use these shops now, because it doesn’t take a master sleuth to deduce what will happen if we don’t."

Several years ago I was in London photographing

bookstores

along Charing

Cross

Road. I knew at the time they were an endangered species.  

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Passage

Jenny Saville. From the Saatchi Gallery:

"With the transvestite I was searching for a body that was between genders. I had explored that idea a little in Matrix. The idea of floating gender that is not fixed. The transvestite I worked with has a natural penis and false silicone breasts. Thirty or forty years ago this body couldn’t have existed and I was looking for a kind of contemporary architecture of the body. I wanted to paint a visual passage through gender – a sort of gender landscape. To scale from the penis, across a stomach to the breasts, and finally the head. I tried to make the lips and eyes be very seductive and use directional mark-making to move your eye around the flesh."

Torso 2

‘One of the most striking aspects of Jenny Saville’s work is the sheer physicality of it. Jenny Saville paints skin with all the subtlety of a Swedish massage; violent, painful, bruising, bone crunching.’

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Mr. Wikipedia tells us: "Rain Taxi is a Minneapolis-based book review and literary organization. In addition to publishing its quarterly print edition, Rain Taxi maintains an online edition with distinct content, sponsors the Twin Cities Book Festival, hosts readings, and publishes chapbooks through its Brainstorm Series. Rain Taxi’s mission is “to advance independent literary culture through publications and programs that foster awareness and appreciation of innovative writing.” As of 2008, the magazine distributes 18,000 copies through 250 bookstores as well as to subscribers. The magazine is free on the newsstand. It is also available through paid subscription. Structurally, Rain Taxi is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. It sells advertising at below market rates, much of it to literary presses."

Rain Taxi’s website tells us that the publication is a winner of the Alternative Press Award for Best Arts & Literature Coverage that runs ‘reviews of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction with an emphasis on works that push the boundaries of language, narrative, and genre. Essays, interviews, and in-depth reviews reflect Rain Taxi’s commitment to innovative publishing.’

I dined and conversed with RainTaxi editor Eric Lorberer , indoors, recently in Minneapolis. We talk here about the state and nature of today’s book reviewing business. Please excuse the abrupt ending.

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Reading and just loving A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam. This from early on:

"Against all odds the Great Books joined the roster of postwar fads like drive-ins, hula hoops, and Mexican jumping beans. Tens of thousands of Americans rushed to join Great Books discussion groups, prompting Time magazine to print the hilarious claim that "Great Books has switched many Americans – at least temporarily- from the works of Spillane to those of Spinoza and St. Augustine." And then nothing. Well almost nothing. Sales sputtered in the late 1960s [after eventually selling 1 million sets], flatlined in the 1970s, and later fell off the cliff. An attempted 1990 relaunch of the Great Books – this time with women! – was a disaster."

Hard to resist too, incidentally, a book dedicated "To my three great sons."

Kathy Stransky co-owner, with her husband, of Midway Used and Rare Books on University Avenue in St. Paul Minnesota for the past 27 years, talks about the impact of the Internet, Half Price Books moving in down the street, high tech book scouts, rapid transit and thieves on her business. Gloom and doom? Yes, it’s been hard, but still, despite diminishing returns, nothing can beat doing what you love for a living. Nothing can beat the complete joy of reading either, says Stransky. Listen too for the two authors who are most in demand among book thieves.

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This from the New York Times  (via Carolyn Kellogg):

"The fanciest iPhone app I tried was SnapTell, which doesn’t use a bar code, but makes a search from a photo you take of an item. SnapTell correctly recognized the CD from the cover, and returned nine online prices, starting at $10.65. It should have given results for local stores but didn’t, so I tried a more common item, the Doris Kearns Goodwin book “Team of Rivals.” SnapTell not only found it online, but also at two stores less than 10 miles away — and at a discount."

And as if this isn’t bad enough, the used book store is under attack too from this: Bookscout Pro: 

" BookScoutPRO is a mobile pricing tool. With it you can get pricing and availability for books, music, video and more on your own web enabled cell phone or PDA almost instantly. This allows you to identify a valuable item AT THE SALE before you buy it. You will know how many copies are available for sale, the approximate popularity of the book and the current going prices….Currently BookScoutPRO supports Amazon, Abebooks, Alibris, Biblio, eBay (stores and auctions), eBay Express, Half.com, ECampus and Textbook."

Even more reason, if you want them around, to loyally support your local bricks and mortar new and used independent bookstores.

From here.