The Streetwise Cycle

Singer-songwriter Alanna Lin (a.k.a. Fascinoma) wrote a lovely song inspired by The Streetwise Cycle and performed it live at the party. 

Listen to the song here: 
   

Click over to the Fascinoma page on Bandcamp.com to download the mp3 and read the lyrics. 

From The Streetwise Cycle song: 
   
   Ain't got gasoline to start your car 
   Pure man power drives your shopping cart 
   No cash money but you got your heart 
   Streetwise, sleep tight 
   Your policy is right 

   No one wants you 
   To know their name 
   Cuz you might be the only one they blame 
   Give away anything you got to eat 
   Streetwise, sweet life    
   Now you may go in peace

Here's the program from Saturday's launch party for The Streetwise Cycle, with details about the book and everyone whose work appeared there.  

Click "Fullscreen" to read it, and click "Print" to take it with you. 

For best effects, print it double sided in landscape mode on 8.5x11 plain paper and fold it in half. 

Composer Bruce Bennett is currently working on a piece of music to accompany The Streetwise Cycle. I'm delighted that I'll be able to use a piece of his music at the party to accompany moving images and text associated with the book. 

Bruce is an active performer of improvised music, and as a composer, his works have been played by a wide range of groups and artists, including the Arditti String Quartet, the Avenue Winds, the Berkeley Symphony, Del Sol String Quartet, Earplay, Tom Dambly and Michael Zbyszynski.  

Bruce's interests and activities include compositions and improvisations for live, interactive, electroacoustic music; conducting; the free-atonal music of the Second Viennese School; the music of the post-World War II European avant-garde; contemporary American and European avant-garde; and the Frankfurt School, particularly Adorno's writings on aesthetics and mass culture. 

Listen to his work or read more at Bruce's website. 

Update #2: Don't worry if you missed the interview. You can hear it online right here.

Update! Indymedia On Air has been moved to 8:30 pm today. Listen in tonight! 

Here's a quick preview of my interview with author Terry Wolverton about independent literature. In this clip, she talks about how changes in the corporate structure of publishing has changed our literary culture. 
  

Listen to the full interview on Monday, March 14 at 2:30 pm on KPFK, 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara, or online at kpfk.org. 

You'll also get to hear from Terry at the Streetwise book launch party. Hope to see you there! 

I didn't pick them because their band name is a punctuation mark - that's just a literary bonus. Ampersand will be busking live outside the Echo Park Film Center before the program begins. 

Ampersand is Rachel Garcia and Thu Tran. They met in the winter of 2006, as students at San Francisco State University, at an open mic night. Tran's songwriting is influenced by pop and folk. Garcia's vocal styles are based in jazz and the blues. It all comes together to create Ampersand’s cheerfully soulful "city folk" sound. 

Ampersand's music ranges across themes and styles, and they always strive to make good-hearted, positive music. Their music is a hybrid of different influences and inspirations, reflecting their diverse musical and cultural backgrounds. 

Get a preview of Ampersand's music on MySpace, follow them on Twitter and become their best friends on Facebook. 

Or come hear them at the party on March 26!  

I spent this weekend on the streets of LA with my handy H2 recorder, creating Streetwise Cycle audio clips for Broadcastr. 

It's a new social media site that allows you to post audio stories and pin them to a map. You might think of it as "place-based podcasting." 

On Saturday I drove to each location where a Streetwise story takes place and recorded a brief chat about that place and its story, then read an excerpt. That only took four and a half hours. 

For example, click here to listen to the story titled Shelter, recorded outside the Iglesia Roca de Salvacion in East LA.  

To explore Broadcastr, jump over to the site and zoom in on the map to anywhere in the world you're interested in. Well, it's still mostly the US right now. You can search topics, cities or author names. 

Broadcastr is still in beta, so the bells and whistles don't all fully work. Still, it's a fun site where you can listen and learn a little more about the places around you. 

More details on the publication party: 

     Saturday, March 26 
     Doors open at 7:30 pm 
     Program begins at 8 pm 

     Echo Park Film Center 
     1200 N Alvarado (@Sunset) 

I'll be reading from the book and signing copies. We'll also have buskers, video, original music and art inspired by the book, and a few words about the importance of independent literature in our modern era. 

Plus a little food and wine!  

You can RSVP for the party right here on Facebook. 

Anything else you need to know? 

Since The Streetwise Cycle appeared online, I've been talking with artists in various fields about creating work inspired by the book. So I'm excited to announce that you'll get to hear Alanna Lin at the publication party. 

Alanna Lin a.k.a. "Mindy Chiu" is a singer-songwriter, blogger, and performance artist who received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Critical Studies Department at CalArts in 2003. She composes and performs original music as Fascinoma (a folk-pop project) and has recently completed a concept album entitled Emergency Songs: Before, During, and After with LA-based composer, Monk Turner. The project reflects upon friendship, loyalty, and public safety in the face of The Big One. 

Alanna will be performing original work inspired by The Streetwise Cycle. 

Stay tuned to this blog for announcements of more musicians and other artists whose work will appear at the party. 

Meet Juliette, the official podcast station of The Streetwise Cycle. She's of Japanese origin, and her enclosure is constructed of a fine walnut-finish vinyl veneer. 

This book began as a collection of short stories, but it quickly grew into a multimedia fiction project, including a podcast of the full book. At the publication party I'm going to try to recreate some of that online multimedia experience. 

To that end, this past weekend I took apart an old 8-track tape player and reconfigured it to play mp3s. When you're at the party, be sure to visit Juliette at the podcast listening station to hear an excerpt of the book. 

Can't wait? You can always download the full podcast right here.  

For more pics of Juliette's inner workings, click on.