Odds & Ends

Hi, everyone. I hope you had a nice weekend, and perhaps a fiddle-laced St. Patrick's Day. Just a quick note to let you know that I've just posted some new links in the "Elsewheres" section (to your right), including a running record of our semester's music ("LIT 376 Soundtrack") and the beginnings of a bibliography ("LIT 376 Bibliography") of critical (and creative) sources related to our inquiry this semester. The latter may be useful to you as we move into the second half of the semester and towards your multigenre essays, which may be enhanced to the extent they reflect your immersion in the scholarship and theory of our course material.

If you haven't seen them yet, there are recent blog posts from Jenna, Reed, and Kelsey just below. Check them out & leave a comment to keep the conversation going, if you are so inclined!

Finally, mindful of some of your music DNA references, maybe some of you will be interested in the following news from the music world: May will be a big month in that both The National and Patty Griffin will be dropping new records; the new record from Iron & Wine releases on April 16, and you can stream the song "Grace for Saints and Ramblers" at RollingStone.com. Are there any Alela Diane fans out there? If not, there should be! Her new record will be out this year, too, and she has released the song "The Way We Fall" to whet your appetite. Finally, some of you asked about Martin Sexton after we heard his track "Way I Am" in class some weeks ago: if you're curious, check out his "YouTube Wednesdays" site, where a new video is posted each week of one of his live performances. You'll get a sense for what a one-person dynamo he is on stage ... and, oh, that voice! "Glory Bound" is still one of his signature songs, so that might be one to sample, and I'd recommend "Black Sheep," too, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

Cheers!