[Moshe]

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/..._id=1003053553

An expert blend of storytelling and music has always been a hallmark of NPR program "This American Life," and that sensibility is on full display on the two-disc set "This American Life: Stories of Hope & Fear," due Nov. 7 via Shout Factory.

The 11 complete tales, including David Sedaris' "So a Chipmunk and a Squirrel Walk Into a Bar" and John Hodgeman's "Slingshot," are set to music from the likes of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, Wu-Tang Clan mastermind the RZA, Tortoise (as remixed by Tom Ze), Carly Simon, Calexico and Morcheeba. "This American Life" host Ira Glass penned the liner notes, while artist Divya Srinivasan, who designed the cover for Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois," created the artwork.

In related news, "This American Life" will premiere a new weekly show on Showtime in January.

[Moshe]

http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/38207

Thurston Moore, Mogwai, Tortoise, RZA on "This American Life" Comp
http://static.pitchforkmedia.com/ima...nlifecomp.jpg? Indie rock and NPR aren't such strange bedfellows anymore, and this latest pairing of the two seems downright cozy. On November 7, Shout! Factory Records will release This American Life: Stories of Hope & Fear, a two disc set compiling segments from the nationally syndicated, Ira Glass-hosted radio program "This American Life", which broadcasts weekly from Chicago's WBEZ headquarters.

Sounds fine and dandy for schoolteachers and sweater-knitters, but here's where it gets hep-to-the-max: most segments feature a story or an interview set against the music of underground and not-so-underground sensations like Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, Mogwai, Tom Zé (remixed by Tortoise), the RZA, Blonde Redhead, Calexico, Ida, Philip Glass, Carly Simon, Morcheeba, and more.

Divided into two discs along Hope/Fear lines, the collection even features storytelling by the ever-popular David Sedaris and "The Daily Show" correspondent John Hodgman. As if that weren't groovy enough, Divya Srinivasan (of Sufjan-Illinois and Waking Life fame) designed that purty cover up there. Complex tracklist after the jump.

Disc One: Hopes

01 An Interview with Jorge Just: "If I Can Make It There"
- Blonde Redhead: "In Particular"
- Bobby Johnson: "The Rules of Personal Space"
- Bobby Johnson: "Beautiful People"
- Galt MacDermot: "Bathtub"
02 Jonathan Goldstein & Starlee Klein: "Is This Thing On?"
- Ben Webster: "Blues for Billie Basie"
- Ben Webster: "Blues for Piney Brown"
03 David Wilcox: "Thinking Inside the Box"
- Aerial M: "Skrag Theme"
- Carly Simon: "Itsy Bitsy Spider"
- Gustavo Santaolalla: "Did This Really Happen?"
04 Alex Blumberg interviews Griffin Hansbury: "Infinite Gent"
- Ida: "Maybelle"
05 Sacha Rothchild: "Miami Vices"
06 An interview with Myron Jones & Carol Bove: "The Babysitters"
- Evan Lurie: "Jerry's Theme"
- Tom Zé: "Curiosidade (Tortoise Remix)"
- Kruder & Dorfmeister: "Deep Shit Pt. 1 & Pt. 2"
- Philip Glass: "Dance V"
- Portastatic: "Untitled (Track 15)"
- Ida: "Maybelle"
- Thurston Moore: "Kissing on the Bridge"
- Rick Rizzo/Tara Key: "Good Evening Mr. Peckinpah"

Disc Two: Fears

01 Michael Bernard Loggins, as read by Tom Wright: "Fears of Your Life"
- The RZA: "Flying Birds
- John Lurie: "Arriving at Kenny's"
- Mogwai: "Xmas Steps"
02 An Interview with Julie Snyder: "On Hold No One Can Hear You Scream"
- Bobby Johnston: "Many Hats"
- Bobby Johnston: "The Rules of Personal Space"
- Bobby Johnston: "Lullaby Lost"
- Zamfir: "The Lonely Shepherd"
- Erwin Helfer: "I'm Not Hungry But I Like to Eat-Blues"
- Leroy & The Drivers: "The Sad Chicken"
- Galt MacDermot: "Princess Gika"
03 Nancy Updike: "Anti-Oedipus"
04 David Sedaris: "So a Chipmunk and a Squirrel Walk Into a Bar"
- Calexico: "Sprawl"
- Galt MacDermot: "Bathtub"
- Black Cat Orchestra: "Seum Ma"
- Ben Webster: "When I Fall In Love"
05 John Hodgeman: "Slingshot"
- Caleb Sampson: "Circus in Outer Space"
- Calexico: "Whipping the Horse's Eyes"
- Morcheeba: "Big Calm"
- Mayfair Recordings: "HP Toys"

[atari 2600]

that sounds interesting & worth checking out & all, Moshe, but


let me get this straight...

somebody like carly simon participates (or is invited to participate), but not Laurie Anderson (who has been on NPR more times than any of these other performers)?

excuse me, I can't help myself -- people probably aren't gonna like this post...(by the way, I wrote this out the other night, but decided not to post it)

------------------------

at least Lou Reed knows she's the shit

Stories From the Nerve Bible
The Speed of Darkness & Other Stories
Moby Dick: Songs & Stories
The Ugly One with the Jewels & Other Stories

Stories stories stories...
stories about "this American life"

Laurie Anderson premiered United States, an 8-hour, 78-song, performance piece about "American life" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music way back in 1982.

Laurie Anderson began composing United States in 1979, nearly four years before its debut performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. An eight hour production in four parts - Transportation, Politics, Money, and Love - the work is modeled after the structure of a classical opera. The portrait of a technological society and its people, Anderson’s “talking opera” portrays a subject which is constantly changing or on the move. Featured in the work are the themes of driving and flying cross-country. Lush with geographical references and imagery, Anderson’s song and stories were complimented by a complex, multimedia stage production (a form of presentation she pioneered) consisting of thousands of slides and film clips. Projected over and behind the performers were, among other things, images of maps, wild animals, astronauts, and electrical equipment. Anderson even devised a makeshift hologram, created by rapidly waving a violin bow in the light cast by a slide projector. Pairing violin and voice with electronic synthesizers and drum beats, the sound of the opera matches Anderson’s handling of images and subject matter. Dreams, Bible stories and images of nature are complimented by radio dials, airports, and outer space. In a striking image, performers held violins in front of their faces producing large, alien-like shadows on a translucent screen. Playful and sharp-witted, Anderson’s United States combines familiar objects, images, and situations to produce an uncanny, evocative performance.

An example of the way in which Anderson transforms an everyday occurrence into something strange can be found with the song “Language is a Virus.” Dedicated to the Beat writer William Burroughs who coined the phrase “language is a virus from outer space,” Anderson’s song scrutinizes everyday examples of language-use from pain cries to performances to overdubbed Japanese films. Remarking in an interview that “it’s a strange thing for an author to say that language is a disease communicable by the mouth,” Anderson’s song relates a similar terror of communication. The song concludes with Anderson describing a group of traveling salesmen who promise her a world connected by a vast network of technology, resembling something like a string of Christmas lights. Wary of the “Neurological Bonding” the salesmen celebrate, Anderson pleads with them, singing “Count me out. You gotta count me out.” While “Language is a Virus” and other songs and stories from United States bemoan the ever-increasing dependence of Americans on technology, each song is marked by Anderson’s sense of irony and humor.

In the end, United States is the story of a society navigating the waves of digital innovation to a distant utopia on the horizon. Seeing technology as a tool which can amplify or enlarge, Anderson’s opera utilizes such technologies to reach out to her audience.

numerous pages abound about Laurie's storytelling prowess
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...aurie+anderson
She was even recently commisioned by The Chicago Adler (the nation's first) Planetarium to be the narrator of the story of the Universe & Time itself. I went. It was beyond amazing.