David LowBenjamin Lyons ’81, who runs the independent label Valid Records, was recently interviewed by Dan Godston at Examiner.com. Lyons talks about his early musical influences while growing up in Pennsylvania, his thoughts on the music scene in New Orleans, and running the record label. Valid Records is dedicated to presenting the creative possibilities of the New Orleans music scene and has released recordings by artists such as Rob Wagner, Jonathan Freilich, and Hamid Drake. The following is an excerpt from the interview: Dan Godston: How did you get the idea to start Valid Records? Benjamin Lyons: By the late ’90s,…
Fans of Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, the creator and composer of the long-running Tony Award-winning Broadway musical In the Heights, have a chance to catch him perform again on stage. Miranda has joined the national tour of In the Heights to recreate the role of bodega owner Usnavi as the show plays a five-week run at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, Calif. from late June through July 25. The Los Angeles Times and the Ventura County Star recently caught up with Miranda. He will also be appearing with Freestyle Love Supreme, the hip-hop improv group, at the Gramercy Theater in New York…
The White House recently announced this year's 13 White House fellows, and among them is Harley Feldbaum ’97, director of the Global Health and Foreign Policy Initiative and a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He directs all daily operations of a $1.6 million Gates Foundation grant to improve global health policymaking and train future leaders at the nexus between international relations and global health. Feldbaum also serves as an author and senior consultant to the CSIS Global Health Policy Center and is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project. He resides in…
Sam Wasson ‘03 has written a new book, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman (HarperCollins), about the making of the beloved 1961 Hollywood classic directed by Blake Edwards and based on the Truman Capote novella. The book was published June 22. In a recent article about the book in New York magazine, Mary Kaye Schilling writes: “A fascination with fascination is one way of describing Wasson’s interest in a film that not only captures the sedate elegance of a New York long gone, but that continues to entrance as a love…
Carolyn Parkhurst ’92 made a huge splash on the literary scene with her first best-selling novel The Dogs of Babel. She has just published her third novel, The Nobodies Album, and it has already received several positive reviews in such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Entertainment Weekly as well as on NPR. The protagonist of the novel is Octavia Frost, a famous best-selling novelist who is also known to be unpleasant. As she is about to deliver her latest manuscript to her New York publisher, she finds out her rock star son Milo has been…
Sarah Dashew ’94 has released her second album, Where I Belong (Whistlefoot Records), a 10-track set which deals with the themes of love, place, and belonging. The title track is a light, sweet love song with a spirited horn solo that sets an upbeat tone for the rest of the album. In addition to writing and performing song, Dashew also co-produced the project with Los Angeles-based producer Eric Peterson. Drawing upon influences as diverse as James Taylor and Prince, her unique style mixes elements of folk, pop, country and soul. She grew up sailing the high seas with her family…
Singer and songwriter Chris Pureka ’01 has released her third album, How I Learned to See in the Dark (Sad Rabbit). The musician usually performs solo, but she is currently on tour for the first time with a three-piece band, including an electric guitarist, a fiddle player, and a drummer. In a feature about the new recording at Madison.com, Rob Thomas wrote: “With its cryptic, sometimes ominous lyrics and dense arrangements, Dark goes beyond the stripped-down Americana sound that Pureka fans are familiar with. … Creating the layered, offbeat arrangements on "Dark" took Pureka nearly a year to complete.” In…
In a May 30, 2010 op-ed in The Boston Globe, Juliet Schor ’75, the author of a new book Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth, offers some observations about the U.S. economy and how it can improve for the better. She argues that a debt and consumption-led process in not a viable way to build wealth. Schor observes changes in some Americans’ attitudes toward consumption. She asks: “Do Americans need more cellphones, cheap air travel, and junk food?” and goes on to write: “A growing number of people are answering that question in the negative, pioneering a lifestyle that…
Ron Bloom ’77 is cited in this year’s issue of Time 100, in which the magazine singles out 100 people who “most affect our world.” His name has been included on the list of “Leaders.” For the Obama administration, Bloom serves as senior adviser for manufacturing policy and has been chief adviser to the Treasury Department on the auto industry. Time writer Bill Saporito notes: “Would it be fair to say that Ron Bloom has a unionist's heart and an investment banker's soul? Or would that insult one or both parties? A Harvard-trained banker who later hired on with the…
This year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, Tinkers by Paul Harding, was a bit of a surprise. The book had gotten excellent reviews (though it wasn’t reviewed by The New York Times) and was pushed by independent book sellers. But it was far from a slam dunk for a prestigious literary prize. Even more surprising is the publisher, Bellevue Literary Press, where Erika Goldman '81 is editorial director. This is the first small publisher to release a Pulitzer fiction winner since Louisiana State University Press published A Confederacy of Dunces. Bellevue Literary Press is part of New York University’s School…
Bill Shapiro '87 has edited an entertaining and often fascinating book, Other People’s Rejection Letters (Clarkson Potter), in which he has collected 150 rejection letters sent to famous and ordinary people and presented exactly as they were written. The letters included are surprisingly varied, sent by text message, e-mail and by the U.S. Postal Service, and messages are handwritten, typed, illustrated and scrawled in lipstick and crayon. Alongside letters rejecting Gertrude Stein, Andy Warhol and Jimi Hendrix, readers can peruse notes from former lovers, relatives, would-be bosses, potential publishers, universities, Walt Disney Productions, the pope and even “the Private Office…
Paul Lewis ’88, an assistant professor in the School of Architecture, Princeton University, is also a partner at LTL Architects (Lewis.Turumaki.Lewis) in New York City. LTL Architects is one of five teams commissioned by New York City’s Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center to produce work featured at the Museum of Modern Art (11 West 53 Street, 212-708-9400) exhibition, Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront. This project addresses one of the most urgent challenges facing the nation's largest city: sea-level rise resulting from global climate change. The exhibit is open from now until Oct. 11.