Posts Tagged ‘Media’
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry
By Caroline Small
Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, Archeophone Records, $26.95, double-CD set
Ragtime singer George W. Johnson was born a slave on a Virginia plantation and died a Manhattan theater doorman, but in between he became the first-ever black recording artist and the most popular black singer of his day. (Rumor has it that Thomas Edison himself discovered the singer whistling on the Hudson River ferry.) Johnson’s extant recordings, made between 1890 and 1903, appear on the Grammy-winning “Lost Sounds,” a double-CD set also featuring spoken-word tracks by Booker T. Washington and boxer Jack Johnson. The set boasts extensive liner notes co-written by Maryland resident and NPR producer David Giovannoni. Read more and listen to samples at www.archeophone.com.
(March 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
By Caroline Small
Philip Morsberger: A Passion for Painting
By Christopher Lloyd, Merrell Publishers, $49.95 (hardcover)
Baltimore-bred and Carnegie Mellon–educated painter Philip Morsberger is affectionately celebrated in Christopher Lloyd’s visually beautiful retrospective, featuring detailed full-color plates that highlight the painter’s synthesis of postimpressionism and pop art. The book includes an essay on Morsberger’s life plus personal “letters of appreciation” by his admirers and friends, including science fiction writer Brian Aldiss and Priscilla Tolkien, daughter of J.R.R. View his paintings at www.marypaulinegallery.com.
American Artisanal: Finding the Country’s Best Real Food, from Cheese to Chocolates
By Rebecca Gray, Rizzoli Books, $26.95 (hardcover)
“Joy of Cooking” editor Rebecca Gray’s “natural history of food” pays homage to traditional agriculture and the burgeoning organics movement. Profiling 25 artisan farmers and food producers from across the United States, chapters illuminate how sustainable cultivation of ingredients and small-scale processing make for healthier, higher-quality food. Inspiring reading for farmer’s market enthusiasts and gourmands alike, complete with recipes and ordering information.
My Father’s Heart
By Steve McKee, Da Capo Press, $25 (hardcover)
When Wall Street Journal editor Steve McKee was diagnosed with serious cardiovascular disease at the age of 52, his thoughts went to his father—a lifelong smoker and workaholic who had died of a heart attack when McKee was 16. McKee’s efforts to learn more about his father’s life and disease resulted in this touching memoir of grief and loss, a book that gives personal depth to a common medical concept: “family history.”
(March 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
Buzz Growing Strong for Local Boy-Hero
By Caroline Small
Courtesy of John Gallagher
Poor Buzzboy! His mentor has turned into a villain, his former evil nemesis has become a baker, and it’s up to him and his team of ex-super-sidekicks to save the world. Good thing there are lots of cheeseburgers and milkshakes available to keep up his strength!
Buzzboy, the world’s coolest super-sidekick, makes his off-duty home in Northern Virginia, where artist and publisher John Gallagher draws the kid-friendly comic out of his Sky-Dog studio in Falls Church.
The diner-dwelling superhero shares at least one similarity with his creator.
“I’m personally obsessed with diners,” the cartoonist said. “When I was younger I’d go to the Tastee Diner in Bethesda and draw, and I always said I’d trade my drafting table for a diner table in a heartbeat.” After Gallagher moved back to Northern Virginia with his wife, a Great Falls native, he’d sneak out to the 29 Diner whenever he got a chance.
“So my wife bought me a diner table for Christmas!” he laughed.
When Gallagher began drawing Buzzboy in the 1990s, “it was hard to find a market,” he said. “Comics shops are mostly frequented by people 18 to 35 years old.”
So Gallagher, a seasoned graphic designer, decided to publish the book himself. When he combined the first four issues into a bound graphic novel, sales took off because libraries could buy the book.
“Educators and librarians have been our greatest supporters,” he noted proudly.
Interest from educators helped prompt Gallagher to co-found Kids Love Comics (see below), a non-profit literacy advocacy organization. He now spends his time traveling around the country to speak to literacy and children’s groups.
It’s a labor of love for Gallagher, who said, “I’ll take any chance I get to support the magic and fun of comics.”
Visit Buzzboy online at www.buzzboy.com.
www.KidsLoveComics.com
Concerned graphic novels are a little too graphic for your kids? The non-profit organization Kids Love Comics agrees with you. The group advocates for age-appropriate comics—encouraging publishers and artists to produce them, and libraries and parents to buy them. Whether your youngster is a reluctant reader or just fascinated by comics, visit the site for recommendations, a blog, news and links to kid-friendly comics sites and resources.
(March 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
Know Your Pet
By Caroline Small
Good Dog. Stay
Anna Quindlen; Random House Publishing, $14.95 (hardcover)
Best known for her Pulitzer Prize–winning column in The New York Times, Anna Quindlen turns her trademark curiosity and humor toward remembering the life of her labrador retriever, Beau. A dog’s enthusiasm for simple pleasures and capacity for unconditional love is well-covered territory to fans of dog books, but it is no less heartwarming for its familiarity.
A Cultural History of Animals, 6 volumes
Linda Kalof and Amy Fitzgerald; Berg Publishers, $650.00 (hardcover)
This monumental set digs into 4500 years of human ideas about domestic, wild, and work animals, from totem and sacrifice to zoos and pets–even animals of the future. Kudos for fantastic organization: Readers can follow a single theme throughout history, or read a single volume for a survey of a particular period. A great gift for the animal lover who has everything—or check your local library.
When Species Meet
Donna Haraway; University of Minnesota Press, $60.00 (hardcover)
Donna Haraway has long been an intellectual rock star. A biologist-turned-philosopher, Haraway’s affection for non-human species, obvious in earlier books like “Primate Visions,” takes center stage in “When Species Meet.” Tales of designer pets, animal therapy and lab animals mix in with deeply personal stories, informed by her boundless belief that animals belong in our human families. For animal lovers seeking books of substance, Haraway’s sensitivity and smarts make this a sublime choice.
(February 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
By Caroline Small
Lady’s Bridge (Deluxe Edition), Richard Hawley, Mute U.S., $17.98, CD/DVD
If Nat King Cole had covered Roy Orbison, it would have sounded a lot like Richard Hawley. The English crooner pulls material from his industrial home turf of Sheffield—and steel mills have never had such a moody romantic appeal. Hawley’s a musician’s musician, the guitarist for critically acclaimed second-wave Britpop band Longpigs and a session musician for Robbie Williams and Beth Orton. His last album, 2005’s Coles Corner, was a sleeper hit in the UK, nominated for the 2006 Mercury Prize. He’ll never be a rock star, despite his Buddy Holly/Elvis Costello image, but he can play, and he can sing, and his music sets an addictive atmosphere.
Listen to samples at www.myspace.com/richardhawley.
(February 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
Astronomy Club Captures Shining Moments
By Caroline Small
Craig Tupper offered his backyard to star gazers until recently moving the Astronomy Club’s robotic telescope to Lovettsville. Courtesy of Phil Wherry
Craig Tupper finally has his backyard back.
For the past five years, the government finance manager and amateur astronomer has provided a grassy home in Centreville for the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club’s robotic telescope and the hand-crafted, specially designed observatory structure Tupper and his colleagues built for the equipment.
Now ensconced in a semi-permanent location in Lovettsville, NOVAC’s remote-controlled scope is equipped with a digital camera so club members can go online, point the scope at an object in the sky, and take a picture.
While astrophotography used to require massive telescopes like NASA’s Hubble, digital advances have made the hobby available to science buffs just about anywhere—but a remote-controlled camera-equipped telescope is still a very ambitious project.
“The technology to do this has been available for about 10 years,” Tupper said, “but it’s not easy still. I’m not aware of any club that’s successfully put one up and kept it running.”
NOVAC is America’s largest astronomy club, so if anybody can get it to work, they can.
“When it was up and running in Centreville, we’d have members signed up all night,” Tupper remembered, but a recent power failure at the remote site caused the equipment inside the observatory to overheat. “It’s still not working the way it’s supposed to,” he lamented.
When functioning, the scope can take digital images of celestial objects from colorful nebulae to illuminated quasars, the brightest objects in the universe.
Club members can take images just for pleasure, and some watch the skies intensely, hunting for supernovas and tracking the position and orbits of asteroids. Urban light pollution interferes, though. The club hopes to move the scope to an even more remote location because, as Tupper noted, “there isn’t even a semi-dark sky within an hour’s drive of the metro area.”
Visit www.novac.com/robo/images.php for images taken by the telescope and learn more about NOVAC.
(February 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
By Caroline Small
The Lady Vanishes
(Alfred Hitchcock, $34.99)
The Criterion Collection’s all-new digital transfer of Hitchcock’s classic comic thriller comes in a two-disk set loaded with extras: excerpts from Francois Truffaut’s 1962 audio interview with Hitchcock, a new video feature on the film by scholar Leonard Leff, essays by film scholars—and the first-ever home video version of the 1941 feature-length spinoff adventure “Crooks Tour,” starring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne in reprisals of their much-loved “Lady Vanishes” roles.
Private Fears in Public Places
(Alain Resnais, $24.95)
Master French director Resnais (“Last Year at Marienbad,” “Hiroshima Mon Amour”) follows an ensemble of characters as they look for love in gorgeous wintertime Paris in this adaptation of Englishman Alan Ayckbourn’s stage play of the same name. The lighthearted return to New Wave icon Resnais’ familiar themes of loneliness and longing won him Best Director honors at the 2006 Venice Film Festival.
The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer
(Jan Svankmajer, $29.95)
This surrealist Czech artist and filmmaker is often cited as an influence by some of the English language’s most imaginative and innovative directors, including Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. This two-DVD set, an outstanding introduction to Svankmajer’s quixotic and creepy dream world and a must-own for any art film collector, covers almost 30 years of his experimental animated work and includes a BBC documentary about the filmmaker.
(January 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
By Caroline Small
Courtesy of AngiesList.com
When Indianapolis-based web company Angie’s List started rating D.C.-area services in January 2006, the response from Northern Virginia consumers was enthusiastic. Two years later, more than half of the D.C. region’s subscribers are from Northern Virginia—over 11,000 of us contribute and read reviews on the site. “We were thrilled by the demand from Virginia,” offered founder Angie Hicks. “We actually expanded the service area because of the demand we found there, and Northern Virginia is still one of our fastest growing areas.” The site, which charges a membership fee, rates everything from solar panels and warranty companies to bridal shops and car washes. Get a local overview at www.angieslist.com/spdirectory/washington_dc/index.htm.
(January 2008)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Monday, January 5th, 2009
Amateur Radio Group Revels in Good Signals
By Caroline Small
Photography by Jonathan Timmes
It took Dave Putman 40 years to fulfill his teenage ambition of operating a ham radio. Back then he couldn’t have imagined that shortly after getting his license, he’d be supporting the Red Cross during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, providing voice communications that helped with relief operations at Dulles Airport. Mainstream telecommunications were clogged, but the ham operators’ alternative technologies and low frequencies—starting below the familiar AM broadcast band and ranging down into the microwave spectrum—could get the word out loud and clear. Putman, now president of the Loudoun Amateur Radio Group (LARG), remembers the group’s operators “were activated and ready to respond before the call even came in.”
Although the encroaching urban landscape and restrictive zoning laws can make it difficult for hams to construct antennae, club members are still ready to jump in and assist whenever Northern Virginia needs them during weather or manmade disasters. But when discussing his hobby, Putman takes pains to emphasize the group’s fun side. Hams attend festivals, or “hamfests,” and participate in contests in which they try to contact as many other operators as possible. Often worldwide events, contests can involve Morse code, as well as voice and digital communication.
Although many LARG members love to tinker—Putman praises one who constructed a station that can sustain global communications for 48 hours and support multiple operators at the same time—hams can start with a station the size of a car radio. “A small wire strung from a window to a tree across the yard,” Putman said, is all you need to “converse with a fellow ham in Italy or Bogota, Colombia.” Thanks to this simple technology and the Federal Communication Commission’s recent elimination of Morse code proficiency requirements for licensing, said Putman, “LARG has almost 100 members this year, more than ever before in our 15-year history.” Visit LARG online at www.k4lrg.org.
(January 2008)