Dark Night of the Soul by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse ad David Lynch

Last week my friend Steve told me about an album/book collaboration from the unlikely trio of Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and David Lynch. While that sounded unbelievably cool and strange in my pregnancy fog I completely forgot about it. Luckily this morning on my daily troll through my Bloglines page I came across the NPR post on the project. It's called "Dark Night of the Soul".

While I realize this is not an interview in the strictest sense...or in any sense at all, I felt it was appropriate to post as in their highest form good interviews are truly a healthy collaboration, as this is.

Click on the NPR link below immediately! While unfortunately the official website says the book is sold-out, you can listen to the whole album at NPR. The performers on the album besides Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse include: James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.

Here is the link to the NPR page:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104129585

Here is the link to the official page for Dark Night of The Soul:

http://www.dnots.com/

Style Rookie? Not in my book!

I was puttering around trying to find interviews with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (which I will be posting soon) and as often happens...no as always happens, I got distracted and went off in a completely different direction.

Well I'm so glad I did, because I came across an interview in Interview Magazine with this awesome little girl named Tavi Williams. She is twelve, but has already made a big splash in the fashion blogging world and is SO SO SO adorable...and completely mature and self-possessed at the same time.

Check out all her wonderful self-portaits on her blog Style Rookie. She's a genius mash-up of Pippi Longstocking, Blossom, and bona-fide fashion hipster. Please let me be blessed with a daughter as cool as she is someday!...Please let me be as cool as she is someday! :-)

Here is the interview with her at InterviewMagazine.com

RadioLab - The Are We Really Having This Interview Interview

I'm not an avid Podcast follower, but my husband and I have been spending a lot of time in the car recently and have been listening to WNYC's RADIOLAB.

It is somewhere in the realm between "A Prairie Home Companion" and "Star Trek"...in my mind anyway. If you like the intersection where science meets philosophy, narrated by great story tellers, then you will love RadioLab. With their funny and poignant commentary and trippy sound editing, hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad, along with the scientists and philosophers they interview, never fail to take us on an entertaining and educational journey.

In their words: Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we'll feed it with possibility.

CHECK IT OUT HERE

* You can also download the Podcasts on iTunes for free.

Anna Comes Out From Behind Her Sunglasses

There is a new documentary coming out this Friday about Anna Wintour and the making of Vogue's September issue. While to many the world of fashion is superficial and a symbol of all that is unduly self-important (and maybe it is) I love fashion and the culture of Style.

The visual recontextualization of our world they create in Vogue Magazine is full of a fantasy and glamour that is always transporting and sometimes quite provocative. I could spend all day just going through my old issues of Vogue and be completely happy...and maybe, it's true, feeling a little unglamorous. But who cares?!! It IS only fashion after-all and can only add or take away from us what we let it.

Anna, the reining queen of the fashion world, who once again is someone we rarely get access to, has finally decided to let us into her world. I'm very excited to see how the bitches of fashion claw over each other to make one of my favorite magazines.

Click on the above video to see Anna on The Late Show with David Letterman. No one can say the old girl has lost her edge!

And here is an interview with the director of The September Issue, from The Sundance Channel. CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON LOWER LEFT CORNER

Who was Dolly Parton's Jolene?

There are certain songs that once you hear seem to follow you through your life. There are probably few people who can ignore the haunting melodies of Dolly Parton's "Jolene". It never gets old for me and I have always wondered who the woman in the song was.

My friend just introduced me to an NPR interview with Parton where she talks about how she wrote this song. It's not what you'll expect for sure.

Check it out below. I have included a Dolly's auto-biography and and a DVD she made performing with friends in my store if you're interested. It goes without saying that I think Dolly is the bee's knees and I hope I can find lots of interviews with her, because she is always entertaining and wonderful.

David Lynch's Interview Project

David Lynch is one of our great american filmmakers and I love his quirky, yet brutally real, way of writing characters. If you haven't seen Twin Peaks or Blue Velvet they are American cinema classics and should be required viewing for all of us. I have included them in my bookstore if you are interested.

My Dad just introduced me to Lynch's new video interview project. (Thanks Dad! You're the coolest!!) THIS IS AMAZING! I can't believe I didn't know about it before, but I have been loving watching these videos.

Basically instead of writing characters, Lynch sent out a team of filmmakers to go all around the USA interviewing people they came across...and I'm sure it was no shock to him that all of the subjects could have been characters in one of his films. But I suppose that is the genius of Lynch; he has always been able to make the everyday seem strange and exotic or somehow extra-terrestrial. By and large though all of the subjects are very endearing and give us a glimpse into the lives of some of middle-America's more colorful citizens. They feel like the video versions of Robert Frank's, or Walker Evan's photographs.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have. And please check out the "About" section with Lynch as he is adorable and just as much fun to watch as any of the other subjects.

FOR THE WEBSITE CLICK HERE

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and The Women of Liberia

Here is a short interview in the New York Times Magazine online with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia. Not only is she obviously a very smart and strong woman, but she talks about the role women in Liberia have had in ending the violence there. A documentary called Pray the Devil Back to Hell is mentioned that seems absolutely amazing and a must see. I have included the link for the film's website below the link for the interview.

For the NYT Magazine interview CLICK HERE.

For the link to the documentary and it's trailer CLICK HERE.

New Plan of Action for the Archivist

There are alway tons of articles and interviews that I am unable to show you because they are on TV or in magazines. So I've decided, in the hopes of keeping this blog a little more consistent than it's been in the past, to start posting where you can find them here. Hopefully this will enable all of you to find more fun and interesting interviews about the people you are really interested in.

Here we go!

There is an interview coming up on September 14th with Oprah and Whitney Houston that I am really excited to see. As you will read below, this is her first interview in 7 years. With the roller-coaster/train-wreck that has been her life over the past decade, I think this will probably be very interesting! I hope she's back on her feet finally though, because I just love her music...that's right, deal with it! :-)

As reported by PEOPLE MAGAZINE:

"Whitney Houston is coming to Oprah Winfrey's famous couch.

The Grammy Award-winning singer, 46, whose much-anticipated upcoming album,I Look to You will be released Aug. 31, will sit down with the talk show queen for her first interview in almost seven years.

Calling it "the most anticipated music interview of the decade," Winfrey, 55, will welcome Houston as her first guest on the The Oprah Winfrey Show's 24th season, which airs Sept. 14.

Houston held listening parties for her album in L.A., N.Y.C. and London. The CD is her seventh studio album and marks a comeback after a seven-year hiatus from the business. "

Snicker Bars and The Lunch Lady: Lessons in Leadership

I loved this little interview in the The New York Times with Career Education Corporatation president Gary E. McCullough. My ears always perk up when a good businessman or manager decides to impart an anecdotal pearl of wisdom.

In a funny way I think we are all starting to approach our lives more like businesses and businesses are finally starting to acknowledge that they need to be behaving more like individuals that are responsible for their fellow man and neighbor. Well, hopefully on the latter anyway. Maybe I'm just being REALLY naive...but you never know. :-)

Here's the interview.