Mr. and Mrs. Caspar Babypants write some books
Read More »You may never have heard of Gilles Vigneault, but he’s a cultural icon in Canada, particularly in Quebec, where his music so popular that one of his songs has replaced “Happy Birthday” as the birthday party anthem of choice. One of Vigneault’s fans is Roland Stringer, founder of publishing company The Secret Mountain; he’s referred to Vigneault as “French Canada’s Pete Seeger,” and now, he’s giving Vigneault a chance to raise his profile with American listeners — and readers — with Secret Mountain’s latest beautifully packaged book/CD combo, Sunday in Kyoto. A collection of 14 Vigneault songs performed by Canadian singers including Patrick Watson, Thomas Hellman, Coral Egan, and Vigneault’s daughter Jessica, Kyoto highlights Gilles’ gentle whimsy; the title track, for instance, is about a Cajun musician who lives in Kyoto with his Japanese wife,
Read More »Wendell Berry – Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World (2009, Counterpoint) purchase this book (Amazon) This is a beautiful little book, and the calmest, gentlest illustrated short story about a mouse fighting for its life against a terrible flood that you are ever likely to read. That should come as no surprise to longtime fans and followers of Berry’s prolific output, which reflects the pride and commitment to tradition of his agrarian lifestyle. In his nonfiction work, Berry has argued for the merits of a philosophy he calls “solving for pattern,” which is a fancy way of saying that you should try to solve as many problems as possible at once – and do so in such a way as to minimize the likelihood of additional problems. It’s sort of a mouthful,
Read More »Cool picture, huh? It comes from a scene halfway through Philip Pelletier’s One Night in Frogtown, in which our hero, young Tad — that’s him there with the downcast look and the saxophone — is given a tongue-lashing (ha, ha, ha!) by a group of classical music-playing frogs who have no patience for Tad’s love of the blues. Of course, Tad’s already been cast out by the blues-playing frogs for not loving the blues enough — and his journey’s only halfway finished, because all the frogs in Frogtown are pretty stuck up about their favorite kind of music, and they take offense at Tad’s eclectic nature. In case you hadn’t already guessed, One Night in Frogtown is a book about fitting in, and one that uses love of music (which can be a pretty divisive
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