Hear Sylvia Plath Read Fifteen Poems From Her Final Collection, Ariel, in 1962 Recording

Hear Sylvia Plath Read Fifteen Poems From Her Final Collection, Ariel, in 1962 Recording:

“Add to the available accounts of Plath (there are so many) this, please: nobody brought a house to life the way she did.” So writes Dan Chiasson in a February New Yorker piece commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death. Chiasson’s plea is made all the more poignant by his careful readings of the tenderness—amidst the pain and horror—in Plath’s final collection, Ariel, which she left sitting on the kitchen table to be found along with her body. (The collection has recently been restored to correspond to Plath’s final wishes).
Chiasson’s refocusing of Plath’s legacy feels necessary, given that, as James Parker writes in The Atlantic, “Her short life has been trampled and retrampled under the biographer’s hoof, her opus viewed and skewed through every conceivable lens of interpretation.” It is sometimes difficult to connect with work—even with that as stunningly accomplished and resonant as Plath’s—through this thick haze of sensationalism and cult fandom. Even if many of the poems in Ariel—most famously “Lady Lazarus”—seem to request this kind of scrutiny, many others, Chiasson writes, including the title poem, need to be approached afresh, without the morbid celebrity baggage Plath’s name carries.

Is this possible? Perhaps one way to reconnect with the poetry is to hear Plath herself reading it. In these recordings, you can hear her read fifteen poems from Ariel, her New England Brahmin vowels inflecting every line, drawing out internal rhymes and assonance, then clipping at caesuras like a well-bred horse’s trotting hooves.
The title poem “Ariel”—which Chiasson eulogizes as “a perfect poem, perfect in its excesses and stray blasphemies”—is, in fact, partly named after Plath’s favorite horse. Also enfolded in the title is the captive sprite bound to perform tricks for Shakespeare’s mage Prospero in The Tempest, and an Old Testament name given to Jerusalem, meaning “lion of God” (the second stanza begins “God’s lioness…”). Plath’s poetic self-understanding is as complex as this allusive layering suggests, and the poem’s jarring ellipses demand very close attention.

The readings here are arranged in chronological order (of composition) from recordings made on October 20, 1962. Part One (top) contains “The Rabbit Catcher,” “A Birthday Present,” “A Secret,” “The Applicant,” and “Daddy.” In Part Two (middle), Plath reads “Medusa,” “Stopped Dead,” “Fever 103°,” “Amnesiac,” and “Cut.” Finally, Part Three (bottom) begins with the title poem, “Ariel,” then “Poppies In October,” “Nick And The Candlestick,” “Purdah,” and, lastly, “Lady Lazarus.”
Related Content:
On 50th Anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s Death, Hear Her Read ‘Lady Lazarus’
For Sylvia Plath’s 80th Birthday, Hear Her Read ‘A Birthday Present’
The Art of Sylvia Plath: Revisit Her Sketches, Self-Portraits, Drawings & Illustrated Letters
525 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free
Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Washington, DC. Follow him at @jdmagness
0 comment(s)

This Is What Macklemore Sounds Like When Covered By a Closing Door, a Microwave, and Half-Filled Glasses

This Is What Macklemore Sounds Like When Covered By a Closing Door, a Microwave, and Half-Filled Glasses:
I would never have the patience to even begin starting a project like this...

Great use of that microwave timer, dude.
[ Comment on this story ]
[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

BDX Drumline Showcase with 10 top NW drumlines play Saturday June 1st

BDX Drumline Showcase with 10 top NW drumlines play Saturday June 1st:

Join the Garfield High School Drumline in the 5th annual BDX Drumline showcase this Saturday June 1st at Noon in the Gym. (Inside the Quincy Jones Performing Arts Center at 400 23rd Avenue). The event will feature drumlines from Washington Middle School + Musicians from FELA, Garfield High School, Cleveland High School, Glacier Peak High School, Lincoln High School, Bellevue High School, Tahoma High School and the Seahawks Blue Thunder Drumline! Tickets sold at the door, $10
Here is a recent performance of the Garfield Drum Line at the Moore Theater with they shared a stage with Duff McKagan, formerly with Guns and Roses and Mike McCready with Pearl Jam and Michael Shrieve of Santana.

Wire Recorder Piece (1944)Halim El-DabhIn 1944, Egyptian...

Wire Recorder Piece (1944)Halim El-Dabh
In 1944, Egyptian...:

Wire Recorder Piece (1944)
Halim El-Dabh
In 1944, Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh attended a zar ceremony, in which music and chanting are used to cast out evil spirits and heal the sick. Because the zar is typically performed exclusively by women, El-Dabh wore women’s headdress in order to enter unnoticed. He also smuggled in a portable wire recorder (a predecessor to the magnetic tape machine) which he had borrowed from the Middle East Radio Station in Cairo. El-Dabh recorded the ceremony and later processed the sounds, filtering out the lower frequencies and adding reverberation by re-recording in a room with movable wall panels. The result was this brief but haunting piece of sonic art, in which ethnographic field recording merges seamlessly with the transformational editing practices of electronic music.
Source: Crossing into the Electric Magnetic (2000)

Music: Gateways To Geekery: Listen to an 8-bit mashup of every song from the new Daft Punk album

Music: Gateways To Geekery: Listen to an 8-bit mashup of every song from the new Daft Punk album:







Joe Jeremiah has been covering songs in chiptune style on his YouTube channel for a while, but the latest in his “A Bit Of 8-Bit” series comes right on the heels of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, and it combines elements of every song on that album. As he cycles through the big melodies from each track, the names flash onscreen like a “Ready Player One” motif to track each song as it floats in and out of the track. He’s even got an 8-bit necktie and 8-bit-rimmed glasses to match the visual style to the music. Much like Daft Punk does on Alive 2007, the track blends elements of each song over one another to form a one flowing, cohesive performance. Only 8-bit style.

Read more

Giant New Sound Installation by Zimoun Inside an Abandoned Chemical Tank

Giant New Sound Installation by Zimoun Inside an Abandoned Chemical Tank:








Prolific sound artist Zimoun (previously here and here) has completed work on what may be his most ambitious project ever, a towering sound installation inside an abandoned toluene tank in Dottikon, Switzerland. The permanent installation uses 329 of the artist’s trademark prepared dc-motors and cotton balls that have been affixed to the inner tank walls, and relied on contributions from Hannes Zweifel Architecture, Davide Groppi, and many others. The result is a whirring, rhythmic soundscape that is completely camouflaged within an old factory. Via Zimoun’s artist statement:

Using simple and functional components, Zimoun builds architecturally-minded platforms of sound. Exploring mechanical rhythm and flow in prepared systems, his installations incorporate commonplace industrial objects. In an obsessive display of simple and functional materials, these works articulate a tension between the orderly patterns of Modernism and the chaotic forces of life. Carrying an emotional depth, the acoustic hum of natural phenomena in Zimoun’s minimalist constructions effortlessly reverberates.

Zimoun has completed several additional installations in the last few months, all of which can been seen on his website.

Hear the Classic Winnie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929

Hear the Classic Winnie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929:
Here’s a rare recording from 1929 of the British writer A.A. Milne reading a chapter of his beloved children’s book, Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne was a prolific writer of plays, novels and essays, but he was mostly known–much to his exasperation–as the creator of a simple and good-natured little bear.
Pooh was inspired by his son Christopher Robin’s favorite teddy bear. In Milne’s imagination, the stuffed bear comes alive and enters into little adventures (or one might say misadventures) with Christopher Robin and his other stuffed animals. The name “Winnie” was borrowed from a famous resident of the London Zoo: a black bear from Canada named for the city of Winnipeg. The young Christopher Robin liked visiting Winnie at the zoo. He also liked a graceful swan he saw swimming in a pond at Kensington Gardens, who he named “Pooh.” His father combined the two names to create one of the most popular characters in children’s literature.
Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared in stories and poems in popular magazines. In 1926 Milne collected them in a book, Winnie-the-Pooh, with illustrations by E.H. Shepard. Each chapter in the book is a self-contained episode or story. In the recording below, Milne reads Chapter Three (click here to open the text in new a window) “In Which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle.” You can find the full text in our collection of Free eBooks.

Related Content:
200 Free Kids Educational Resources: Video Lessons, Apps, Books, Websites & More
The Epistemology of Dr. Seuss & More Philosophy Lessons from Great Children’s Stories
Morgan Freeman Teaches Kids to Read in Vintage Electric Company Footage from 1971
1 comment(s)

Film: Great Job, Internet!: Read This: 20 essential music documentaries are streaming online now, well worth watching

Film: Great Job, Internet!: Read This: 20 essential music documentaries are streaming online now, well worth watching:







Music documentaries are seemingly a dime-a-dozen, with nearly every artist, genre, or subculture worth discussing having some sort of coverage. It can make it difficult to determine what is actually worth watching and what's not, but thankfully Pitchfork rose to the occasion and compiled a handy list of 20 music docs that both merit their existence and are currently streaming online. Some, such as 1996's examination of the grunge movement Hype!, are considered to be classics of the form, whereas others explore musical curiosities such as Jandek and G.G. Allin, but they all exude the necessary traits of being both informative and wholly entertaining.

Read more

Nina Simone Performs Six Songs in 1968 TV Special, The Sound of Soul

Nina Simone Performs Six Songs in 1968 TV Special, The Sound of Soul:

On September 14, 1968, Granada Television broadcast The Sound of Soul, an intimate studio concert in London by the jazz pianist and singer Nina Simone.
Most of the program can be seen in the 22-minute video above. Simone’s choice of material is characteristically eclectic. There is a two-song medley from the musical Hair (“Aint Got No/I Got Life”), a blues with lyrics written for her by the poet Langston Hughes (“Backlash Blues”), a pop song made famous by the Animals (“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”) and a song written by her bassist, Gene Taylor, in reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King, titled “Why? (The King of Love is Dead).”
Midway through, Simone changes into an African robe and headdress. She is accompanied by Taylor on bass, her younger brother Sam Waymon on organ, vocals and percussion, Henry Young on guitar and Buck Clarke on drums.  The original broadcast reportedly included an encore with one of Simone’s signature songs,  ”Mississippi Goddam,” but that has been cut in this video. Here is what’s on it:

1. “Go to Hell” by Morris Bailey, Jr.
2. “Ain’t Got No/I Got Life” by Galt MacDermot, James Rado and Gerome Ragni
3. “Backlash Blues” by Nina Simone and Langston Hughes
4. “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
5. “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus
6. “Why? (The King of Love is Dead)” by Gene Taylor

Related content:
Nina Simone Sings Her Breakthrough Song, ‘I Loves You Porgy,’ in 1962
Nina Simone Sings of Social Injustice in a 1965 Dutch Television Broadcast
2 comment(s)

TV: Great Job, Internet!: Someone animated Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster from Parks And Rec, and it's great

TV: Great Job, Internet!: Someone animated Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster from Parks And Rec, and it's great:







Back in April, The A.V. Club premiered an almost 9-minute clip of Patton Oswalt spouting off an improvised Star Wars filibuster during a taping of Parks And Recreation. Millions of people watched it, marveled and laughed, and the world was good. Now, because the Internet is the Internet, some awesome person has made an animated version of said speech, and it is, of course, fantastic. Isaac Moores’ take on Oswalt’s spiel is funny, smart, and full of excellent Star Wars clip art. Watch it below, and may the nerdy, nerdy force be with you. 

Read more

Music: Newswire: Lord Of The Rings star Christopher Lee releasing his second metal LP just in time for his 91st birthday

Music: Newswire: Lord Of The Rings star Christopher Lee releasing his second metal LP just in time for his 91st birthday:







Christopher Lee, best known for his role as Saruman in The Lord Of The Rings movies, is releasing a metal record. Charlemagne: The Omens Of Death is actually his second hard-edged LP, and his second record devoted to the life of Charlemagne, the one-time Holy Roman Emperor. Lee tells The Guardian that will be “100 percent heavy metal,” and that while he’s “not screaming or anything,” it will definitely be a step further into the darkness compared to 2010’s Charlemagne: By The Sword And The Cross, which he describes as more “symphonic.”
Recorded with Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner, Charlemagne: The Omens Of Death features tracks like “The Portent” and “The Devil’s Advocate” and will be released next week, just in time for Lee’s 91^st birthday. Rock ‘n’ roll.

Read more

Boards of Canada: Tomorrow's Harvest

Boards of Canada: Tomorrow's Harvest:
Oh hello new Boards of Canada single. Nice to see you.



Sounds goooood. The entire album will be out on 6/11 in North American (6/10 in the UK) and is available for pre-order on iTunes and at Amazon.
Tags: Boards of Canada   music   video

New from Sigur Ros: Kveikur

New from Sigur Ros: Kveikur:
And why should Boards of Canada have all the fun? Sigur Ros has a new album coming out as well, to be released the week after on June 18. Two singles from Kveikur are already out:





And the album can be pre-ordered on iTunes, at Amazon, or direct from the band.
Tags: music   Sigur Ros   video

Music: Great Job, Internet!: The first single off Goodie Mob's reunion album features Janelle Monáe, is totally nuts

Music: Great Job, Internet!: The first single off Goodie Mob's reunion album features Janelle Monáe, is totally nuts:







Atlanta hip-hop group and original home of Cee-Lo Green Goodie Mob has set an August 27 release date for Age Against The Machine, its first album since reuniting last year and the first to feature the full line-up since 1999. “Special Education,” the just-released first single, sets a ridiculously high bar for the rest of the album. The track features an insane, almost industrial exploding funk beat, a stately chorus from fellow Dungeon Family member Janelle Monáe bemoaning uniformity in music, and a pretty killer verse from Cee-Lo himself.

Read more