the memory palace » 19th century

Distance

admin — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 04:59:17 +0000

What They Saw

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:08:44 +0000

This is the third episode in a series of Civil War stories I’m doing every month for Slate.com as part of its Slate Daily Podcast

Music: Two pieces here. Both straight out of a favorite summer of mine, maybe 1999. First (and last): “Another Sunday” by Tara Jane O’Neil and second, “Every Day a Sunrise, a Summer Every Year” by Telegraph Melts.

Mary, Mary, and Mercy

admin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:55:56 +0000

Crazy Bet

admin — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:10:22 +0000

This episode is part of my on-going collaboration with Slate.com. Once a month, for a stretch, I’ll be producing a Civil War-themed podcast as part of the series.

Road Trip

admin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:58:45 +0000

Notes: This episode appeared originally as part of a series called “Civil War Stories” I’m doing for Slate.com. Starting in August, 2011, these episodes appear monthly as part of Slate’s Daily Podcast and then appear here as part of the regular podcast feed two weeks later.

Music: Just two tracks this time. A loop from “In the Devil’s Territory” by Sufjan Stevens. Then “You’d be so Nice to Come Home to,” off of Nina Simone’s Live in Newport album. Incidentally, this track is one of my very, very favorite things that exists in the world. Also, it’s the second time i’ve used it in an episode. First time was the first one. A long time ago.

A Stretch

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:53:10 +0000

Music: We’ve got three pieces (Chickens, Swamp, and Squirrels) from Orion Riegel Dommisse’s album, also, delightfully, called chickens. Windy bit is Africastle by Battles. Plucky, shuffly, stringy bit is from Alexandre Desplat’s score to The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Notes: This episode was originally commissioned for the fine, fine design and architecture podcast, 99% Invisible. Hear a shorter version (and discover more about said fine, fine podcast, here). Also note: 99% Invisible is produced by my friend, Roman Mars. Until he was modestly internet-famous, Roman’s image was nearly impossible to Google-image as you’d just get a bunch of Roman statuary.

Natural Curiosity

admin — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 03:28:45 +0000

The Music: The “theme,” as it were, that you hear in the beginning and through a fair amount of the piece is from the opening of the score to the movie, Please Give, as is the piece at the end (Memory Palace Thumbs Up on both the movie and the score, by the way). We also hear a song called Le Chat Noir and a bit of a song called Quiet Drive from Elmer Bernstein’s score to a move called Kings Go Forth, which I’ve never seen (and is, apparently, a WWII flick in which Sinatra and Tony Curtis get into a love triangle with on the South of France with a townie played, naturally, by Natalie Wood). There’s also a piece called “The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus IX” by a Tuba Quartet called, ahem, Sotto Voce. The thing, it turns out, that I love about Sotto Voce is that their albums feature moody/edgy portraits of the four members of the quartet made to look like they’re in a Nu Metal band, circa 1994. Also they are called Sotto Voce. And they are a Tuba Quartet.

The Footnotes: I read a bunch about Joice Heth but, it turns out, I really only needed to read one thing: The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum’s America by a dude named Benjamin Reiss. It’s pretty kick-ass.

OMG!!! JKP!!!

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:45:43 +0000

The song is “Battle of the Species” by Antibalas.

The Sisters Fox

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:52:08 +0000

The harp bit at the beginning and end is In California from the new Joanna Newsom triple record. Then three pieces from Max Richter’s 24 Postcards in Full Color and Song for Jesse from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ soundtrack to The Assassination of Jesse James by Yada Yada Yada.

There’s plenty of great stuff written about the Fox sisters, including a book-length take (Talking to the Dead, by Barbara Weisberg) which appears to be all that. I’ll recommend a dynamite book called Occult America: The Secret History of how Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, which despite its hyperventilating, Dan Browny spoooooooky conspiracy title, is great and readable and scholarly at the same time. Great context. And, this is sort of an standing order: go to the NYTimes’ pre-1981 archive. There are some vintage stories about the Fox Sisters there.

I Have Not Yet Begun to Rot

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:49:25 +0000

The martial song in the front is from the Horatio Hornblower soundtrack. The part that comes up in the middle of that and then picks up again after, is “Dmi We Meet Again?” from Jon Brion’s Synechdoche, New York soundtrack (slightly enhanced). The Porter part starts with a mix of “To Rest Near You” by Rachel’s and “Something You Can’t Return To,” also on the Synechdoche soundtrack. Then “Song for Jesse” from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Follow that up with a couple from the Marie Antoinette Soundtrack, “Opus 17″ by Dustin O’Halloran and “Avril 14″ by Aphex Twin, in that order.

There’s a ton about Jones’ body (incidentally, this is the story I’ve gotten the most “I knew this story, but I like how you told it” sorts of emails about). For some reason, I was particularly charmed by a webpage straight out of Portsmouth, NH (R.I.P Yoken’s). They’ve got pictures of the preserved, dead Jones there too.

The Moon in the Sun

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:19:48 +0000

Acoustic guitar bit in the beginning is “Saint Cloud” by Six Organs of Admittance. Next up (and again at the end) is “Snookered” by Dan Deacon–a favorite song of 2009, if you care about that sort of thing. Also, “Harmonics” by Fridge.

You can read the original articles in their entirety in several places online. (Why not go to the museum of hoaxes website to find it? it’s a fun site). The articles, incidentally, are wonderful. Really a work of genius of a particularly lovely sort.

400 Words for 79th Street

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 03:01:47 +0000

Bookending music is “Shame” by Low. Two bits in the middle are by Mi and L’au: “They Marry,” and “Philosopher.”

You can read lots and lots about Minik Wallace. (So much so that I felt a little lame about doing it). There’s even a quite good American Experience documentary. However, special commendation has to go out to Kenn Harper, a First Nations author (I believe) from up Canada Way, who not only wrote the (seemingly) definitive Give Me My Father’s Body: The Life of MInik, the New York Eskimo” and was the guy who got Minik’s father Qisuk’s bones repatriated. Amazing.

This Ungainly Fowl

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:11:00 +0000

The music is from an album by Sonna. Who were from Baltimore, I think. I don’t know what the album is called (I’ve long since lost the cd case and it doesn’t have a name on the actual disc, as was the fashion, lo about 2000, when it came out on Temporary Residence). It’s a nice little cd. I had a lovely time once watching them play in my friend Bea’s living room.

There is obviously tons and tons written about Poe and his death. The single most useful thing I found, however, was this sort of literature survey put out by an outfit called the Edgar Allan Poe Historical Society. m.

Plummeting Approval

admin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:41:21 +0000

We roll through a couple of movie score pieces (“piano 1″ from Jon Brion’s Synecdoche, New York soundtrack, “Tissue,” from Thomas Newman’s Little Children soundtrack). Then you’ve got “Temporary Loan” by Edith Frost (from her Calling Over Time record–which is so good, by the way), “Every Day a Sunrise, a Summer,” by Telegraph Melts, and The Hold Steady covering Springsteen’s Atlantic City on a benefit album from an an international organization called WarChild that works on child soldier issues.

Accounts of Sam’s life vary pretty wildly and can be pretty tricky to sort out. One of the best accounts (it’s gotta be the most comprehensive), it seems, is Paul E. Johnson’s book, Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper.

The Messrs. Craft

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:40:11 +0000

The first and last bit are from a song called “Sunder” from the album permafrost by Jersey Turnpike (it’s a lovely album)After that you’ve got Roadrunner, by Papa M and Triangles and Rhombuses by Boards of Canada (late-nineties style on those two). There’s a Erik Satie snippet in there and Can’t Return (for the Last Time) from the Synecdoche, New York soundtrack.

I ran across the Ellen Craft story twice recently, most powerfully in James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom (which turns out to be a good audio book, incidentally).

High Above Lake Michigan

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:48:36 +0000

There are two Erik Satie pieces in here: Denieres Pensees 1 & 2. Then you’ve got a little Rainbow, by Battles. And then at the end, En Gallop, by Joanna Newsom (which I felt lame about looping so heavily because I know it so well and know that it’ll be distracting to those who do. But then I convinced myself that a loop works a little bit like a Ferris Wheel and felt marginally better).

I’m a full-on Columbian Exhibition of 1893 nerd. Have a ticket to it framed on our dining room wall. For all of your Chicago World’s Fair fact-needs, The Devil in the White City is the place to go. For your heartbreak and beauty needs, go to Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware.

The Brothers Booth

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 04:09:23 +0000

The first two pieces are two different versions of Aphex Twin’s “Jynwythek Ylow.” The first is by a chamber ensemble called Alarm Will Sound from an album in which they do chamber music versions of Aphex Twin compositions–which sounds super-lame but is actually pretty great. The second version is the original of the Drukqs album. The piano piece is “Opus 23″ by Dustin O’Halloran.

I’ve read about the Booths in several places (you kind of can’t avoid them), but I think I fell for Edwin’s story during the visit Sarah Vowell takes to see his statue in Gramercy Park in “Assasination Vacation.”

International Brotherhood of Mothers

admin — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:56:58 +0000

The two piano pieces that bookend the piece are by Max Richter from his 24 Postcards in Full Color record. The one in the middle is Maybelle by Ida. It popped up on shuffle the other day and stunned me. I hadn’t heard it in years. It’s really lovely.

My friend, Tony Field produces a show called “Backstory with the History Guys.” A version of this story airs on their mother’s day special. www.backstoryradio.org

The Saddest President

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:25:21 +0000

The song is “Pastoral” by Moondog.

I first read about the sad, sad Pierces in a book of Presidential profiles I got at a used bookstore. The book, upon further research, got a key detail wrong. I SO wish it were right, though: the way I first learned the story, Benny Pierce gets killed on the way to the inaugural. So, they’re on their way from New Hampshire; Jane is convinced that they are tempting the wrath of God; the train stops in Baltimore and Benny dies, proving it; she gets off the train; Franklin has to keep going because he’s about to be inaugurated as President of the United States. An epic, if apocryphal, story. Damn facts…