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Spring 2008

Disturbance-Loving Species

Much has been made of the supposed decline of short fiction in recent years. But Peter Chilson’s intelligent, gripping, and emotionally complex new book, Disturbance-Loving Species, winner of the prestigious Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for fiction, defies that doomsday thinking.The one novella and four short stories that make up this collection throb with the life of Africa, from a market “like a great pond-based ecosystem, billowing with hierarchies of species and teeming with predators and parasites, opportunists and victims” to a taxi ride in which “the driver sped across a crowded city, slowing for no person, no camel or donkey, no pothole . . . … » More …

Spring 2008

The Way I Feel Tonight

For a lot of musicians, recording a second CD is typically a tough proposition. Do you take your music in a new direction, or do you maintain some aspects of the first CD that garnered attention and fans? Jennifer Lynn ’03 manages to do both on her sophomore effort, The Way I Feel Tonight.

From the opening track, “Waitin’ On A Pretty Girl,” you know you’re in for a change in this CD. The subtle acoustic-guitar intro quickly gives way to a boot-stomping country rocker, full of blazing country chicken-pickin’ guitar and feisty vocals. Shifting between the blues-inspired “You Got Me Where I Want Me” … » More …

Spring 2008

Salt Lick

Anyone familiar with Brian Ames’s three books of short stories⁠—Smoke Follows Beauty, Head Full of Traffic, and Eighty‑Sixed⁠—will know that he’s a writer of imagination and depth. His stories explore the boundaries between everyday existence and the chaos that lurks beneath the surface of ordinary life. Some of his characters are shaken when they glimpse the reality that underlies the world of appearances, as when Dr. Mullenix, in “A Taste Like Fear” (SFB), discovers a murdered angel half buried at the edge of an African watering hole. Others slip through the fissures that open beneath their feet and are lost—sometimes literally, as in the title … » More …

Summer 2008

Recess at 20 Below

Perhaps more than most books for children, Cindy Lou Aillaud’s Recess at 20 Below has its feet firmly planted in the real world. The reason for that, of course, is that it’s illustrated with the author’s own photographs of children at the school in Delta Junction, Alaska, where Aillaud teaches physical education. And it’s probably for that reason too that the book makes the most of what some might consider an unlikely subject—the way kids cope with sub-zero temperatures in the far north. Through a combination of first-person narrative—presumably spoken by one of the schoolchildren—and engaging images, Aillaud walks her readers (5 to 10 years … » More …

Fall 2008

Return to Warden’s Grove: Science, Desire and the Lives of Sparrows

Warden’s Grove is a tiny cluster of spruce trees in the generally treeless expanse of the north Canadian tundra, and Christopher Norment – who received his master’s degree from WSU in 1982 – spent three long summers there studying sparrows; this excellent little book is his account of those summers. Readers expecting a tale of high arctic adventure will be disappointed – there are no attacks by ferocious grizzlies, no horrifying acts perpetrated by men made desperate by starvation, and no daring escapades by intrepid explorers of the last frontier. Instead, Norment delivers a tale of patient waiting and watching, of detailing the daily lives … » More …

Fall 2008

Louisiana—A Pianist’s Journey

In one of my first musical memories, I am sitting with my grandfather at his player-piano, watching the punched rolls spin as we listen to the popular music of his youth. As a young child, I hadn’t yet developed a curiosity for the vast wealth and breadth of the piano literature. Hearing Louisiana—A Pianist’s Journey has given me a chance to revisit this type of music through a unique collection of works. Kenneth Boulton’s recording and the accompanying booklet effectively encapsulate Louisiana’s rich cultural history and transport the listener to a graceful era in American music.

This innovative two-CD set presents works by both American … » More …

Fall 2008

Where the Fins Meet the Frets

If life imitates art, then for Ray Troll, so does music. More specifically, his music imitates his art. The debut CD from Ray Troll and the Ratfish Wranglers titled Where The Fins Meet The Frets contains 16 original songs that one could say leap directly from Ray’s artwork, which is playful, humorous, and dripping with double entendre.

Ray Troll and his Ratfish Wranglers hail from Ketchikan, Alaska, a population of roughly 14,000 hard-working folks, mostly in the fishing industry. To say that Ray’s songs are influenced by this town and its people would be an understatement. Almost every track is fully drenched with Alaska wilderness … » More …

Spring 2008

FensePost (fensepost.com)

When we were growing up, my best friend, Byron, and I would regularly head down to our local record store and browse through the new releases. Typically I’d pick out the ones that had the most interesting covers, and then read about the band. Byron would invariably find his band du jour, and explain why they were so great. Most of the time he was right (although his love of the band Flipper still confuses me). At some point we’d get to discussing what bands we liked and didn’t, and, eventually, why they were inferior to Judas Priest in some way. Point being, music for … » More …

Fall 2008

During the War Women Went To Work

How often have you heard a group of women in their eighties reminisce about their service in World War II? My guess is—never. Out of all the interviews, books, films, and commemorations about World War II, female voices have seldom been heard. This video, funded by the Washington State legislature for use in the schools, and created by Bristol Productions under the direction of Karl Schmidt ’81, remedies this oversight. In it, more than 50 Washington women talk about their service in the state’s shipyards and aircraft factories, as WASP (Women Aircraft Service Pilots), in the Army (WACs), and the Navy (WAVES), as nurses, and … » More …

Fall 2008

The Little Book of Dinosaurs

I can remember, as a boy of 10 or 12 in Massachusetts in the early ’50s, prowling the stacks at the Cambridge Public Library⁠—a ponderous but beautiful Romanesque stone building set in a park between Cambridge High and Latin School and Rindge Tech—looking for books on paleontology. I didn’t know the word “paleontology” then, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have cared what it meant. What I wanted to know about was dinosaurs. All I could find were text-heavy tomes, not especially designed for people my age, sparsely peppered with meager little line drawings, plus, if I was lucky, a full-page black-and-white plate or … » More …