NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 Wed, 15 Jul 2020 13:14:50 +0000 https://www.gpbnews.org/post/playing-music-together-online-not-simple-it-seems 107201 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0000 Playing Music Together Online Is Not As Simple As It Seems Etelka Lehoczky Asterix the Gaul, which kicks off the first volume of Papercutz' new Asterix reissues, doesn't feel like the genesis of an international juggernaut. Sure, the 1959 cartoon is funny: Diminutive-but-crafty Asterix and his towering sidekick Obelix are Laurel and Hardy transplanted to 50 B.C., delivering gonzo comeuppance to the Roman soldiers who hope to bring all of France under Caesar's rule. But nothing about René Goscinny's goofy narrative or Albert Uderzo's hyperactive, deliberately lowbrow drawings portend what the Asterix series became: a half-century-spanning, globally-bestselling, nation-defining phenomenon. Asterix's enduring popularity has puzzled critics for decades, even as the series has racked up sales of 380 million books, been translated into 111 languages and spawned dozens of adaptations in various media. In France, Asterix is a treasured icon, the series' worldwide success a source of national pride. "Asterix is our ego," a Frenchwoman told The New York Times in 1996. https://www.gpbnews.org/post/glug-potion-and-new-translation-asterix-aims-conquer-america 107195 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 11:00:00 +0000 With A Glug Of Potion And A New Translation, 'Asterix' Aims To Conquer America Lars Gotrich YouTube This Friday at 2 p.m. ET, join us for an online listening party for Lianne La Havas ' self-titled new album, hosted by World Cafe 's Raina Douris and featuring a live conversation with NPR Music's Suraya Mohamed and Lianne La Havas herself. You can RSVP via NPR Presents and watch via YouTube . The London-based singer-songwriter didn't mean for five years to pass without an album. She toured heavily after 2015's Blood was released, performing at the Tiny Desk and supporting acts like Coldplay and Alicia Keys. And then, as it does, life got in the way — a time that inspired many of the songs on Lianne La Havas about falling in and out of love, and learning to love herself. The music rattles with yearning and urgency, captured by a live-in-the-room sound. When featuring the single "Bittersweet" on Heat Check in March, NPR Music's Sidney Madden wrote that La Havas' voice "pulls you up into the hemisphere with tight strings of levity." So please join us in the chat room to ask https://www.gpbnews.org/post/lianne-la-havas-will-join-npr-musics-listening-party-lianne-la-havas 107185 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 10:00:00 +0000 Lianne La Havas Will Join NPR Music's Listening Party For 'Lianne La Havas' Rose Friedman Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. https://www.gpbnews.org/post/bill-buford-discusses-his-culinary-journey-new-memoir-heat 107172 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:34:00 +0000 Bill Buford Discusses His Culinary Journey In New Memoir, 'Heat' editor Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. https://www.gpbnews.org/post/lake-dirty-dancing-rising-again-after-more-decade-after-it-dried 107186 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:34:00 +0000 Lake From 'Dirty Dancing' Rising Again After More Than A Decade After It Dried Up editor Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. https://www.gpbnews.org/post/nbcuniversal-debuts-peacock-streaming-service 107187 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:34:00 +0000 NBCUniversal Debuts 'Peacock' Streaming Service Sidney Madden The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music's Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It's the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. Considering how many of us have rearranged our lives to make the home-office lifestyle work, Diana Gordon's setting for her Tiny Desk (home) concert frames her music in a curated chaos that's all too relatable. Teetering towers of manilla folders, the Y2K kitsch of a slime green Apple iBook, clunky cardboard boxes and a Curb Your Enthusiasm coffee mug — it's just the right amount of cramped, mundane confusion to aid her creativity. Like the workplace props that flank her, an intriguing dose of neurotic mess makes Gordon's latest EP, 2020's Wasted Youth, feel so fitting for these unprecedented times. With her masked-up guitarist, Davin Givhan, helping to guide her, Gordon's nihilistic invincibility on "Rollin" and sonic https://www.gpbnews.org/post/diana-gordon-tiny-desk-home-concert 107184 as https://www.gpbnews.org Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000 Diana Gordon: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert Ari Shapiro Sophie Mackintosh wrote her first novel, The Water Cure , while she was also working a full time office job. It was a success — longlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2018. So she left the day job to write her second novel, Blue Ticket. And as she did in her first book, Mackintosh has created a world in Blue Ticket that explores themes of gender, power and family. "On the day of the first period, teenage girls are assigned a blue ticket or white ticket through a lottery system," Mackintosh says. "The blue ticket means you can't have children and a white ticket means that you can. And this one decision that they make very early on in their lives kind of dictates the rest of their life and follows them around." Interview Highlights On the protagonist, Calla, a blue-ticket woman So I had decided — for a long time I decided I wasn't going to have children, and I was very firm on this. And then when I kind of reached my late 20s, I found myself experiencing something which I imagine a lot https://www.gpbnews.org/post/brave-new-world-meets-handmaids-tale-sophie-mackintoshs-new-novel 107149 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 20:03:00 +0000 'Brave New World' Meets 'The Handmaid's Tale' In Sophie Mackintosh's New Novel Jeff Lunden Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST: Performing artists are struggling to find ways to reach audiences during the coronavirus lockdown. Musicians are streaming concerts from their homes. Theaters are trying everything from Zoom plays to radio dramas. And one opera company is trying to reach its audience one listener at a time over the telephone. Reporter Jeff Lunden decided to take the call. JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: This is a story of love and separation. Two days before my phone rang, I got an email. And it says, my love, I miss you terribly. Each day without you is like... JENNIFER ZETLAN: A day without breathing. I long to see your face, the twinkle of your eyes. LUNDEN: The email is from my beloved. She says she's written some lyrics to songs she wants to sing to me and adds a postscript. ZETLAN: I've taken up learning a new language in quarantine, so all the songs will be in German. Here's the English translation. LUNDEN: I waited. Then the phone rang. https://www.gpbnews.org/post/site-opera-offers-live-performances-over-phone-just-1-person-time 107150 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 20:03:00 +0000 On Site Opera Offers Live Performances Over The Phone For Just 1 Person At A Time Justin Chang Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air . TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. At a time when many Americans are still home and life seems to have come to a standstill, our film critic Justin Chang says it could be an especially good time to watch "Palm Springs," a romantic comedy about two people forced to repeat the same day over and over again. It stars Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti. It's streaming on Hulu and playing in some drive-in theaters around the country. JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: "Palm Springs" was a hot ticket at this year's Sundance Film Festival, one of the last public events to take place before the movie industry shut down. I didn't see it there, but having caught up with it months later at home, I can't help but feel as though this breezily entertaining movie plays a little differently in the era of COVID-19. It's a comedy about isolation and repetition, which might not sound too appealing at a time when many of us are also leading lives of isolation https://www.gpbnews.org/post/palm-springs-romantic-comedy-total-winner-lockdown-era 107135 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:56:00 +0000 'Palm Springs' Romantic Comedy Is A Total Winner For The Lockdown Era Terry Gross Saturday Night Live 's Colin Jost knows there's something about his clean-cut image that rubs some people the wrong way. When he joined SNL as a writer in 2005, he worked off-camera — and didn't have to think about his looks. "When you're not on camera or on television, you don't really consider what you look like," he says. But all that changed when he began working on-air in 2014 as the co-anchor of the show's "Weekend Update." "Some people look at me and have sort of a visceral, angry reaction [to me]," he says. "You see it in our audience. When I get hurt or hit on camera — like when [castmate] Cecily [Strong] throws drinks in my face or throws up red wine on me — the audience really loves it." Jost's new memoir, A Very Punchable Face, describes his experiences growing up in a middle-class household on Staten Island . "Part of writing this book was being excited to talk about parts of my life and weird episodes in my life that I thought that would be entertaining for people," he https://www.gpbnews.org/post/colin-jost-snl-knows-youre-laughing-his-very-punchable-face 107133 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:14:00 +0000 Colin Jost Of 'SNL' Knows You're Laughing At His 'Very Punchable Face' Elizabeth Blair https://www.gpbnews.org/post/mythbuster-grant-imahara-electrical-engineer-and-robotics-wiz-dies-49 107131 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 16:33:00 +0000 'Mythbusters' Star Grant Imahara, Electrical Engineer And Robotics Wiz, Dies At 49 Marcela Davison Aviles Here, in my neighborhood, life is a mix of re-revised rules for living and reality checks. Every day the local authorities publish new data on the where of illness. Daily a new national atrocity snaps a klieg light on us. Reading these days is a necessary escape from, and immersion into, reckoning. And so it is with Asako Serizawa's stunning and visceral debut, The Inheritors . Every page speaks to our current zeitgeist. Each character in these stories is occupied and occupier, trapped in a moral and existential crisis that's unnerving because it's evergreen, because the nature of human tragedy is our own making and the lessons we keep learning never seem to take. The book is a labyrinth of collected stories which follow a Japanese family's history over 150 years, beginning in 1868 and emerging into a future set in the 2030's, and connecting one family's multi-generational experiences living in a colonial and post-colonial world — in Japan, China, and the United States. The inheritors https://www.gpbnews.org/post/inheritors-maps-complicated-family-tree-through-centuries 107111 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 11:00:00 +0000 'Inheritors' Maps A Complicated Family Tree Through The Centuries editor Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Seventy five years ago this summer, the United States brought an end to the Second World War. An American battleship anchored in Tokyo Bay in 1945 - Japanese officials and top hats came aboard and formally surrendered to General Douglas MacArthur, who gave a speech. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) DOUGLAS MACARTHUR: It is my earnest hope and, indeed, the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past. INSKEEP: Having invaded China and attacked the U.S., Japan ended the war in ruins. That's the overall story. But what was the experience for people in the wreckage of Japanese cities? Japanese civilians lived and died in U.S. fire bombings, atomic bombings and a years-long U.S. occupation as they rebuilt their devastated country. The writer Asako Serizawa says her parents and grandparents were among those civilians. She imagines the stories of such people https://www.gpbnews.org/post/serizawas-inheritors-family-reflects-trauma-war 107107 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 10:23:00 +0000 In Serizawa's 'Inheritors,' Family Reflects On Trauma Of War Lauren Frayer Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: One of the most famous actors in India has COVID-19. Big B, as he's called, is Amitabh Bachchan. Bollywood fans are praying for recovery, as NPR's Lauren Frayer reports. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Praying in non-English language). LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: At a Hindu temple in Bhopal, India, the faithful chant prayers for Amitabh Bachchan and his family. The 77-year-old Bollywood icon and his son were both hospitalized over the weekend with COVID-19. His daughter-in-law and granddaughter also tested positive and are isolating at home. The Bachchans are bigger than royalty. There's another Hindu temple dedicated to Amitabh Bachchan in Kolkata, complete with a life-sized idol of the actor on a throne. The sanctuary walls are plastered with movie posters. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken). FRAYER: "We're not fans, we're devotees," this man told local TV. https://www.gpbnews.org/post/bollywood-star-big-b-hes-known-contracts-coronavirus 107109 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 10:22:00 +0000 Bollywood Star, Big B As He's Known, Contracts Coronavirus Bobby Carter The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music's Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It's the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. I've never come across a moderate Benny Sings fan. The Dutch singer-songwriter and producer has maintained a cult following for over 15 years and performed in the United States for the very first time at the Tiny Desk back in 2016. He's released a couple of singles since we've transitioned to Tiny Desk (home) concerts and I felt it was the opportune moment to ask him to take part. Recorded at his studio in Amsterdam, the set list reads like an inventory of quarantine essentials, opening with "Apartment" from last year's Free Nationals LP and closing with "Music." The hook reminds me that I'm not the only one who continues to seek refuge in song. He sings, " Music help me through this / I can't do this on my own / But music https://www.gpbnews.org/post/benny-sings-tiny-desk-home-concert 107100 as https://www.gpbnews.org Tue, 14 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000 Benny Sings: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert The day Margo Price walked into the studio to start recording her new album, That's How Rumors Get Started , she had butterflies in her stomach, a mixture of excitement, trepidation — and morning sickness. "I definitely was not expecting to be pregnant," she says. "I had planned to go into the studio regardless of what was happening in my personal life." Her daughter Ramona was born last June — and her new album is now out in the world, too. Price says that the two processes, making an album and having a baby, were eerily similar. "I think when you're making art and you're creating something, you have this feeling of protection," she says. "You keep it to yourself at first, and it's evolving and growing and changing. And the same [can be said] when you're carrying a baby. It's such a process that it's really hard to describe either one. I think they're both kind of mysterious in their own way. It's something that's just so personal." NPR's Ailsa Chang spoke to Margo Price about staying https://www.gpbnews.org/post/margo-price-mysterious-process-album-making-and-motherhood 107086 as https://www.gpbnews.org Mon, 13 Jul 2020 20:40:00 +0000 Margo Price On The Mysterious Process Of Album-Making And Motherhood Neda Ulaby Updated at 8:39 p.m. ET Tuesday The Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled the death of actor Naya Rivera to be an accidental drowning. She had disappeared on July 8 while boating with her 4-year-old son, and her body was recovered from a Southern California lake on Monday. Best known for her starring role on the Fox show Glee , Rivera was 33 years old. Sheriff William "Bill" Ayub said Monday Rivera's remains were found in Lake Piru in the Los Padres National Forest, not far from Los Angeles. For six seasons, from 2009 to 2015, Rivera played the role of an unexpectedly popular television antihero. Glee 's Santana Lopez was a cynical, initially closeted high school cheerleader with charisma to burn and an ax to grind. "The only straight I am is straight-up bitch," Santana announced in Season 2. But the character's bullying eventually yielded to team spirit and a tender romance with another cheerleader, the sweet natured but dim Brittany. Glee fans pushed for the storyline, https://www.gpbnews.org/post/glee-actor-naya-riveras-body-recovered-california-lake 107065 as https://www.gpbnews.org Mon, 13 Jul 2020 17:48:00 +0000 'Glee' Actor Naya Rivera's Death Ruled Accidental Drowning Kevin Whitehead Copyright 2020 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air . TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. Our jazz critic Kevin Whitehead has a review of trumpet player Ambrose Akinmusire's new album with his longtime quartet. Akinmusire is from the Bay Area. He broke out in jazz over a decade ago. He won the Thelonious Monk Competition, started recording a series of ambitious records for Blue Note and made an appearance on Kendrick Lamar's landmark album "To Pimp A Butterfly." Here's Kevin's review. (SOUNDBITE OF AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE'S "YESSSS") KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Ambrose Akinmusire's quartet from their new album poetically titled "On The Tender Spot Of Every Calloused Moment." This singular trumpet player has a keen sense of musical drama, using space and shading to good effect. He's hardly the first improviser to choose a few notes or gestures with care. But he can really push the idea without giving up the vocal quality that jazz soloists prize. (SOUNDBITE OF AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE'S "YESSSS" https://www.gpbnews.org/post/trumpeter-ambrose-akinmusire-mixes-playful-and-solemn-new-album 107064 as https://www.gpbnews.org Mon, 13 Jul 2020 17:26:00 +0000 Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire Mixes The Playful And Solemn On A New Album Terry Gross As a child, Welsh actor Matthew Rhys fell in love with old American noir films — so much so that he'd sometimes channel iconic movie stars. "There were moments when I was pulling the last drag on my cigarette and then ... trying to casually throw a one liner," Rhys says. "[Humphrey Bogart] was in my head a lot vocally." Rhys plays the title role in the new HBO series, Perry Mason. His version of the iconic criminal defense attorney is younger and more hardboiled than the one Raymond Burr played in the popular TV show from the '50s and '60s. The new series focuses on Mason as a divorced private investigator in the early 1930s in Los Angeles — before he became a lawyer. "He's a man who kind of lives on whiskey and cigarettes," Rhys says of his version of Mason. "I was getting to fulfill a number of romantic notions in my inner child." Rhys lost weight for the role. He says it wasn't a significant amount — just enough to thin out his face: "It was one of the things I remember seeing a lot https://www.gpbnews.org/post/perry-mason-matthew-rhys-lives-out-his-boyhood-noir-fantasies 107058 as https://www.gpbnews.org Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:53:00 +0000 In 'Perry Mason,' Matthew Rhys Lives Out His Boyhood Noir Fantasies