Music

Wu Han and David Finckel take a conservative course navigating passionate feelings about the future of classical music.Inside the offices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center hangs an old letter from an alarmed listener.“The accordion is not a chamber music instrument,” huffs the letter, written in the wake of a concert featuring a Bach sonata transcribed for cello and accordion. “Please do not impose that on your loyal audience again.”The sentiment gives a sense of the grand passions aroused by even tiny tweaks to the society’s programming. Since becoming the organization’s artistic directors in 2004, the husband-and-wife team of David Finckel and Wu Han have faced those passions, which fuel an often fiery debate about the future of classical music.Some quail whenever the society, which presents more than 100 concerts per year in New York and beyond, veers even slightly from traditional crowd pleasers, including works by Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Others have said the organization should be more adventurous and do more to highlight the work of living composers, who are rarely featured on its main stage at Alice Tully Hall. (Of nearly 100 works on its Tully series this season, two are by living composers; neither was written in the 21st century.)Reviewing the society’s opening night last month in The New York Times, Zachary Woolfe chided the organization for “a conservatism extreme even by classical music’s low standards.”In an interview, Finckel, a cellist, and Wu, a pianist, discussed that criticism, as well as the impact of the pandemic and the return of live concerts. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Wu (on piano, third from left) played Mendelssohn last month with, from left, the violinist Richard Lin, the violists Matthew Lipman and Arnaud Sussmann and the bassist Blake Hinson.Cherylynn TsushimaWhile several of your concerts in New York this season have been crowded, it’s unclear whether audiences will show up for culture as they did before the coronavirus. Are you concerned about the future for arts organizations?WU HAN The future of the arts is actually brighter than before. The appreciation for music has grown tenfold because you realize how important it was in your life. For me to walk onstage now is still incredibly emotional. I don’t see how it will ever be the same after this pandemic.How did the pandemic change you and your organization?WU People know that in hard times we have each other’s backs. We support each other. The musicians know that. There’s incredible bonding.DAVID FINCKEL In Soviet Russia, in Communist China, people were literally prevented from hearing music — not by a disease, but by governmental laws and censorship. It’s the way that I, as a privileged American, can feel an even deeper kinship with people having lived in Germany during the 1930s, or the 1940s and 1950s in China, and certainly the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.The pandemic wreaked havoc across the arts and forced the cancellation of dozens of your concerts. You made the decision to pay artists 50 percent of their promised fees and to add 75 percent more when those dates are rescheduled. How have you approached planning going forward?FINCKEL Now we have a couple of sort of hybrid seasons where there are programs carried over. It never occurred to us to say, “Oh, because we couldn’t do it, it’s no good, it’s old, it’s like food you throw out in the fridge.” These programs don’t go stale. They’re still there waiting for new life.Wu and Finckel (on cello, at right) played in 2015 with, from left, the violinist Daniel Hope and the violist Paul Neubauer.Tristan Cook/Chamber Music Society of Lincoln CenterYou have been criticized for not doing more to feature new music, especially in concerts at Tully Hall, your main stage. Can you explain your approach to programming?FINCKEL We never want to force people to listen to music that they don’t want to listen to because we think it’s good for them. We will make educated guesses as to what we think they might like and latch onto. And in those instances, we stick our necks out.There’s plenty of adventurous programing on the stage of Alice Tully Hall; one has to just study the brochure a little more carefully. But there are definitely programs for people who don’t want to have anything to do with the 20th century, and there are programs for people who don’t want to have anything to do with the 18th century. So it’s all there.Does Chamber Music Society do enough to champion new music, almost all of which is played in far smaller venues than Tully?WU You should have old music, you should have new music, you should have the best musicians playing, then you should shoot for as many places to play as possible.I don’t really care about having a premiere. The main idea is to have new music played as much as possible. New music should be thriving, should live forever, and should be played as much as possible.In a recent review in The Times, Zachary Woolfe, while praising your performances as “generally of unimpeachable quality,” said that the programming of your opening night last month showed a “blinkered view of music” that “encapsulates what the society has presented for some time.” What is your response?FINCKEL I just feel very sorry for this point of view. The person is missing so much opportunity for enjoyment. I mean, there is more variety and diversity in a single string quartet of Haydn than you can find in about a hundred works of other composers. Our repertoire spans 500 years of music. You know how much variety there is in that 500 years?How do you judge the success of your concerts?FINCKEL We use ourselves to judge, because we know when we hear a concert whether it came up to our expectations and our hopes as a good program or not. We know whether we played well or not. We know whether our artists played well. We consider ourselves experienced enough to be the ultimate judge of that and to build upon that experience, to take the organization forward. We take the blame.WU When the hall is completely empty, when nobody wants to come hear our programming, when we finish playing and there’s no applause, when people hate it so much that they don’t want to come to see C.M.S. — that’s the time we have a problem. We are far from there.What do you see as your main challenges in the years ahead?FINCKEL People have a hard time sitting still. Attention spans are getting shorter. The only thing this doesn’t change is the length of a Schubert trio. You can’t make it shorter, and you can’t play it faster. You can’t cut sections out of it. The art is what it is.We have this religious faith in the power and the quality of the art form — that it will grow up like grass grows up through concrete. It doesn’t matter how much concrete you put down; the grass is always going to come up. More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherIn the last decade, hip-hop has become increasingly familiar with the mosh pit, stage diving and crowds that take on lives of their own. No one’s career embodies that more than Travis Scott, whose fans are known as Ragers and who has built an empire on encouraging them toward abandon.The cause of death of the eight people who lost their lives at Scott’s Astroworld festival on Friday remains unknown. But video footage of the event shows issues with crowd control. Hip-hop festival performances are oriented toward the rowdy these days, and the tragedy at Astroworld feels like it could be a potential pivot point away from an era in hip-hop that’s become improbably wild.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the history of moshing in hip-hop, how the last decade has seen the energy typically associated with hardcore and punk shows become central to a huge swath of rap music, and the future of the rage.Guest:Roger Gengo, founder of Masked Gorilla and Masked RecordsConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

This Australian musician’s third album, “Things Take Time, Take Time,” rolls in a breakup, therapy and the pandemic as well as death and other certainties.MELBOURNE — Courtney Barnett has been spending a lot of time thinking about the future.The Grammy-nominated Australian songwriter built a reputation and an audience from spinning the minutiae of her everyday life into sprawling, clever songs. The title of her third, “Things Take Time, Take Time,” is both a reminder and new way of thinking for Barnett, 33. The album, due Friday, largely swaps her grungy guitars for soft, sweet drum machines and urges patience and reflection in its lyrics.Barnett seems both the deliverer and recipient of its gentle prodding. A contemplative and unhurried speaker, she projects an air of calm but writes songs that betray her inner turmoil, like the metaphorical duck paddling madly beneath the smooth pond surface. In 2014 she started to gather more international attention, boosted by a performance on “The Tonight Show,” where she played “Avant Gardener,” a song chronicling a mundane day set alight by an asthma attack that lands her in an ambulance.In a September interview, she described how she’d recently opened her copy of “Comfortable With Uncertainty” by the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron to a chapter titled “Start Where You Are (Again and Again)” and was struck by its message: “Like: ‘Start, start right here, right now’ — as in, don’t focus on the future so much,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about that in the last few years. There’s something really peaceful in being able to just be like, ‘OK, I’m just going to do that thing — right now, for now — that I want to do, instead of projecting it into the impossible future.”Barnett was chatting in a park near her home in Melbourne. It was the city’s 221st cumulative day under strict Covid-19 lockdown, and indoor interviews were out of the question, so she grabbed a weak soy latte and found a spot in the sun. Kids who had been stuck inside for months jockeyed for attention; a woman nearby gossiped with a friend in a shirt that said “Empathy Coach.”Observations of how people interact when they think no one is watching recur often in Barnett’s songs. “Rae Street,” where she lived when she wrote the song that opens her new record, is filled with them. Her apartment there provided her with solitude after years of alternating between tour vans and living with her former partner, Jen Cloher.The song pieces her glimpses of neighborhood life together with a sense of impermanence: “Next door the kids run amok/The mother screams, ‘Don’t you ever shut up?’/And there’s one thing I know/The sun will rise today and tomorrow.” That’s about as far into the future, it seems, that she’s comfortable focusing on.During a brief gap in lockdowns last year, Barnett’s struggle to grasp what she called “the unknown elements of an unknown future” culminated in a late-night panic attack. “I walked to the emergency room at 4 a.m. and then was too embarrassed to go inside,” she wrote in an email after our interview, “and then I realized I was half-hysterical and the sun was coming up. It really knocked me around for a while.”Overwhelmed and overstimulated, the next day she took two significant steps: She started seeing a therapist, and decided to begin watching “The Sopranos” for the first time — without knowing that the opening scene shows Tony Soprano in therapy after having a panic attack.Barnett, like that beloved Jersey crime boss, tends to keep things close to her chest. While she was promoting her 2018 record “Tell Me How You Really Feel,” interviewers would often take its title as an invitation, and Barnett became skillful at sidestepping their demands for deep introspection.It “sounds a bit morbid,” Barnett explained, but her new LP is about “how to look at life and death in an open way, not a scary way.”OK McCausland for The New York TimesMuch of this time was captured by the filmmaker Danny Cohen, whose camera rolled from March 2018 through February 2021 as Barnett experienced the often mundane, sometimes spectacular life of a working musician: She toured internationally with her band; moved her guitars, clothes and notebooks into different sublets in Melbourne (spending a brief period sleeping in the mezzanine of the warehouse where Milk! Records, the label she founded, operates); and became the first female solo artist to win best rock album at the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) awards. The result of the filming, a documentary called “Anonymous Club,” screened at the Sydney Film Festival this month.Aware of her reluctance to open up on demand, Cohen gave Barnett a Dictaphone and requested she speak into it when she had something to say, to expel the “thoughts that you just reserve for your head and you’re not saying out loud,” he said in an interview. She ended up recording around 20 hours of audio.In some clips Barnett tinkers away at seeds of new song ideas. She confesses early on that the conversation she’d hoped to have about her second record — one that centered “around fragility and depression and mental health” — was “swept to the side because I was too scared to talk about anything real or heavy.”The film bridges the gap between the Barnett who felt burdened by the rigors of touring, and the one who is emerging from the world’s longest lockdown with a record that is altogether more hopeful. “Things Take Time” is a study both of the simple certainties of life and the big thing that comes after it. But in Barnett’s hands, death is not something to fear; merely something else to ponder every now and again, no bigger or more important than love or nature or parenthood or faith.Before the pandemic, catastrophic wildfires overtook parts of Australia. Feeling like there was little to feel hopeful about, “I wrote ‘Write a List of Things to Look Forward To’ then,” Barnett said of the jangly, buoyant track on the new album that typifies her “survival technique”: being “annoyingly optimistic” in the face of a widespread extinction crisis and the deaths of her grandmother and an uncle.She added, “And then Covid was the next year. It’s like, well, this song is so appropriate.” She attempted a laugh. It “sounds a bit morbid,” she explained, but the LP is about “how to look at life and death in an open way, not a scary way. A lot of the album feels like that for me: like a weirdly optimistic study of death.”The filmmaker Danny Cohen filmed Barnett from March 2018 through February 2021 for a documentary called “Anonymous Club.”OK McCausland for The New York Times“Things Take Time” includes several generous and crushed out love songs, along with “Here’s the Thing,” a track that bottles up what it means to be so aware of every gesture that you feel self-conscious every time you say anything at all. When Barnett first sent the song to Stella Mozgawa, the drummer in the band Warpaint, who produced “Things Take Time,” she knew Barnett was ready to share more of herself than she had before.“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve never heard you sing such a stark love song,’” Mozgawa said in an interview. “I remember being quite touched by that.”As a longtime admirer of Barnett’s work, Mozgawa compared hearing the new music to being in a cinema, watching the previews and not noticing the curtains that will eventually draw back to reveal even more of the picture you realized existed. “It’s kind of like a broadening or a widening of what she’s capable of doing,” she said. “So you can see a little more of the screen, a little more of the vision.”When a friend first suggested Barnett write a list of things to look forward to during that scary, sad summer, she thought about Joshua Tree, Calif., where she wrote several songs that appear on her new album. Soon after our interview, she returned to the desert and felt the last few years come full circle.I asked her, over email, what that list would look like if she were to write it now. She replied: “I just wrote one this week. 1. Sunrise & coffee tomorrow. 2. Turning 34. 3. Playing the new album. 4. Family xmas 2022. 5. Getting a dog one day.”“Maybe life is less linear and more of a celebration of small moments,” she wrote. “I don’t know, that probably sounds so naïve.” More

Richard Klein left behind his life as a Hebrew day school teacher in California and became an actor in Mumbai, often playing a “mean British officer.”It’s Never Too Late” is a series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.By most accounts, Richard Klein had a pretty good life: a solid job as a teacher at a Hebrew day school in Oakland, Calif.; friends that were like family, and a passion for singing and dancing that ruled his nights and weekends. But one morning, at the age of 45, he woke up and realized that he had yet to embrace his full potential. He wanted to break into Bollywood.“I’ve always loved performing, and I was listening to Indian classical and devotional music a lot,” at the time, Mr. Klein said. The 2001 Bollywood epic “Lagaan” inspired him to try and make his passion his profession. “Things have come full circle,” he said, adding that he appears in the 2022 film “Lal Singh Chaddha” with Aamir Khan, who starred in “Lagaan.”Six months after that fateful morning, Mr. Klein, who is divorced and has no children, moved to Mumbai. At first, he lived in the coastal metropolis part time. He alternated between a gig editing subtitles for English-language television shows in Mumbai and tutoring back in California, where he would make enough money to underwrite another six months of trying to make it in the performing arts world in India.Eventually it paid off. Mr. Klein, now 55, has appeared in dozens of Indian films, television shows and commercials, playing such varied roles as a scientist, doctor, chef, spy, and, owing to his ability to nail a British accent, quite often, a “mean British officer.”Making the change was not without strife. Still, he said he would do it all over again. “I’m in India, you know, the land of reincarnation,” Mr. Klein said, “but as far as I’m concerned, I have this one life that I’m dealing with. I want to make the most of it.” (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)“Being here gives me the opportunity to be the best version of myself. I wasn’t feeling that opportunity in the U.S.”Prarthna Singh for The New York TimesWhat was your life like before you made this change?I had been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for about 20 years. Mostly, I was a teacher: math, science, computer lab. My nights and weekends were spent doing some kind of performing arts. I’ve always had an affinity toward music. I remember being a little kid, walking through the park, singing. A stranger walked by, and I sort of got quiet. My mom said: “Don’t be shy. You sing out loud and don’t worry about anybody else.”What was the watershed moment?I was working as a teacher at a Hebrew day school, and one morning I woke up and thought, “If I don’t do something, I could be here for the next 20 years.” That wouldn’t be a terrible outcome, but it wasn’t the one I wanted.I studied India in graduate school, when I was pursuing a degree in religion. Learning about India inspired me to adopt the nickname Bhakti, which I’ve used since 1991, though I never changed my name legally. In a broad sense, Bhakti means devotion and love. The word is a reminder to lead with my heart instead of my head, so every time I hear my name, I think of that.My first trip to India was in 1995 as a backpacker. I absolutely loved it. I went back a few times after that. So I thought: what if I go there, stay, and see what happens? On one of my first nights in Mumbai, I went out to a jazz club. All the performers were foreigners. We got to talking afterward, and I ended up joining their group as a singer, which was my first foray into the performing arts world here.Richard Klein acts out a role from a potential script in his Bandra apartment.Prarthna Singh for The New York TimesPrarthna Singh for The New York TimesWhat was the biggest challenge that you had to navigate?When I first arrived, I was staying in fairly cheap places. A lot of times, there was no hot water in the shower. A lot of times there wasn’t even a shower — most of my time in India, I’ve taken a bucket bath, which is actually great.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

Northern Ireland’s health minister has sued Van Morrison, who has said the minister’s handling of Covid-19 restrictions was “very dangerous.”Paul Tweed, the lawyer for the health minister, Robin Swann, confirmed on Monday that a lawsuit had been filed.“Legal proceedings are now at an advanced stage, with an anticipated hearing date early in 2022,” Mr. Tweed said in an email, adding that he could not comment “any further at this stage.” The Belfast Telegraph reported the lawsuit on Sunday.Joe Rice, a lawyer for Mr. Morrison, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. He told The Associated Press that Mr. Morrison would contest the claim, arguing “that the words used by him related to a matter of public interest and constituted fair comment.”In June, Mr. Morrison denounced Mr. Swann from the stage at the Europa Hotel in Belfast after several other concerts were canceled because of virus restrictions.Mr. Morrison, 76, who was born in Belfast and was knighted in 2016, has dismissed the coronavirus pandemic — the death toll for which surpassed five million people last week — as media hype and has criticized Covid-19 restrictions though his music.In the fall of 2020, as another wave of the pandemic raged, Mr. Morrison released three protest songs that criticized the measures that Northern Ireland’s government had taken to slow the spread of the virus. One song, “No More Lockdown,” claimed that scientists were “making up crooked facts” about the virus.At the time, Mr. Swann called the songs “dangerous” in an interview with BBC Radio Ulster.“I don’t know where he gets his facts,” Mr. Swann said of the songs. “I know where the emotions are on this, but I will say that sort of messaging is dangerous.”The songs also prompted Mr. Swann to write an opinion article for Rolling Stone in which he said that Mr. Morrison’s “words will give great comfort to the conspiracy theorists.”In August, Mr. Morrison dropped a legal challenge against a “blanket ban” on live music in licensed venues in Northern Island, according to the BBC. As Northern Ireland eased Covid-19 restrictions, live music was allowed to resume.Mr. Morrison welcomed the news at the time but also said he was disappointed that he had to cancel some concerts in Belfast over the summer.In May, Mr. Morrison, who is known for hits like “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Moondance,” released a double album, “Latest Record Project, Vol. 1.” The album, including the songs “Why Are You on Facebook?” and “They Control the Media,” has been assailed by critics who have accused Mr. Morrison of antisemitism and embracing conspiracy theories. More

Sheeran’s “=” (pronounced “equals”) opens at the top of the Billboard 200 with modest streaming numbers for a star of his magnitude.Ed Sheeran may be one of the world’s most popular artists on music streaming services, but his latest turn at No. 1 owes a lot to old-fashioned album sales.Sheeran’s new album, “=” (pronounced “equals”), opens at the top of the Billboard chart with the equivalent of 118,000 sales in the United States, including nearly 62 million streams and 68,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm.Those numbers are modest for a star of Sheeran’s magnitude. He draws 76.8 million listeners a month on Spotify, more than any other artist except Justin Bieber, and Sheeran’s 2017 song “Shape of You” is that service’s biggest hit ever, with 2.96 billion streams worldwide. (Its music video also has 5.5 billion views on YouTube.)Yet the 62 million clicks for “=” is the least number of streams for any new title at No. 1 this year, and streaming overall accounts for only about 39 percent of its total consumption in the United States. Of the 68,000 copies that were sold as complete packages, 33,000 were digital downloads, 26,000 were CDs and 9,000 were vinyl LPs, according to MRC.Also this week, Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” falls one spot to No. 2, Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is No. 3, and Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” is No. 4. Megan Thee Stallion’s “Something for Thee Hotties,” a compilation of stray tracks, opens at No. 5 with the equivalent of 39,000 sales.On the singles chart, Adele’s “Easy on Me” holds at No. 1 for a third week, while anticipation in the music industry builds for her new album, “30,” due Nov. 19. More

The singer and songwriter Josh Ritter’s musical work is often praised for its imaginative and deeply considered lyrics. His first novel, “Bright’s Passage” (2011), started as a song before Ritter transformed it.For his second novel, “The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All,” he was inspired by the history of Idaho, where he grew up. It’s narrated by Weldon Applegate, a 99-year-old man remembering back to his teenage years, when the long line of lumberjacks in his family seemed like it might be petering out.The novel is a tall tale laced with humor and salty language, delivered by Weldon in a classically folksy manner. (His father was “so poor he could barely afford to whistle a tune.”) Below, Ritter talks about the irascible Weldon, the history of timber towns, the characters in his head and more.When did you first get the idea to write this book?About seven years ago, living in Woodstock, N.Y. I’ve always been really interested in myth, and particularly American myth, because you can get such big ideas into small spaces.I was sitting on the floor with my daughter, Beatrix, who was very young at the time, and I just noticed the floorboards in this house, which were immense. Each one looked like a supper table. I was thinking of the people who took down those trees and moved them, and how they had turned them into these incredible floorboards. I’ve never really read a story about lumberjacks, and I grew up around lots of timber towns. So my mind went from those floorboards to those towns in northern Idaho where I was a boy, and from there the idea was just so plain: I had to write a lumberjack tall tale..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}I started working on it, but I was touring a lot, on the road with my family, raising a little kid. I picked up the novel and put it down a bunch of times in that period.Josh Ritter, whose new novel is “The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All.”Laura WilsonWhat’s the most surprising thing you learned while writing it?When I was growing up, the woods had emptied out some. There wasn’t the kind of influx of people from all over the world. What I learned in my research was that back just a hundred years ago, it was hopping. Around that area, there were the silver mines, there was timber, fishing, all the agriculture. Huge labor disputes. To walk down the streets of one of these towns now and imagine back, it was a profound experience to learn about that period.And for me personally, as a writer I’ve worried that there’s a store of characters or a store of songs in my head, and when I get through those I won’t have anymore. I’ve fought with that in my music so much. When I started to work with Weldon Applegate and let his voice out, I realized that there was a well there — a spring rather than a cistern. There’s something that’s continually creative, that made me feel like: OK, I have all the characters up there, they will always come. I just have to listen for them.In what way is the book you wrote different from the book you set out to write?I wrote many drafts of this book, maybe 15 or so, and with each draft there was time in between. It developed as I put it down and stepped away from it. I think of it like painters stepping away from the canvas to get a view. With a novel, you have to put it down and forget that you wrote some of it.What I noticed is that Weldon is a much more sympathetic character than he started out as. When I started writing him, he was not only cantankerous, he was a real hard-ass. Over time, he had changed. He’d gotten a little bit more humane; there was a sweetness there that was really surprising, and I was charmed by it.There’s a book — I think it’s Flann O’Brien’s “At Swim-Two-Birds,” I read it so long ago — where the author’s characters come alive and do stuff while he’s asleep. There’s that element to writing, which is so beautiful. Sometimes with songs or stories, I really do think that you end up following them, they’re like a strong dog on a leash. You follow along and pretend that’s what you meant the whole time.What creative person (not a writer) has influenced you and your work?I have two that are very important to me. The creative heroes I’m always on the lookout for are people who make big changes in their art and continually change. And they manage to have families and lives that aren’t consumed by their art. Their art doesn’t eat them up. They manage to feed the fire without getting burned. One of those people is Tom Waits. He’s done an amazing job of always finding new ways to express himself and communicate with the world.The closer, even more personal one, is my own mom. She was a neuroscientist, and a major force for me in envisioning what it was to have a life where you loved what you did and worked on it as a joyful activity. And my mom loved Tom Waits.Persuade someone to read the novel in 50 words or fewer.Moonshine, avalanches, witches, devils, murder, piano players, mobile homes, old injuries and lightning strikes. More

The music festival at Astroworld in Houston left eight people dead. Here is what is known about them so far.Excitement and adrenaline soon turned to panic and horror as a crowd of 50,000 descended into chaos at the Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday night. Unconscious bodies were lifted and surfed through the crowd, while other attendees begged for the concert to stop as they watched others around them collapse.Hundreds of people, including a 10-year-old child, suffered injuries. Some were rushed from the NRG Park in Houston, where the festival took place, to hospitals. By Saturday afternoon, Houston’s mayor confirmed that 13 victims remain hospitalized, including five minors. And eight people, ranging in age from 14 to 27, with one age unknown, were dead. Here is what we know about some of the lives that were lost. Franco Patino, 21, was majoring in mechanical engineering technology at the University of Dayton in Ohio.Patino FamilyFranco PatinoFranco Patino, 21, a senior at the University of Dayton in Ohio, was among those who died at the music festival, the university and one of Mr. Patino’s brothers confirmed.Mr. Patino, who was from Naperville, Ill., was majoring in mechanical engineering technology with a minor in human movement biomechanics, the university said in a campuswide email on Saturday. Mr. Patino was a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and Alpha Psi Lambda, a Hispanic interest fraternity, the university said.A brother, Julio Patino Jr., said his younger brother was planning to pursue a career in biomedical engineering and had a particular interest in prosthetics. Julio Patino Jr. said his brother was active in volunteer work and regularly sought to help others.“He was just that type of person,” he said. “He was always there for the people he cared about. He had a big heart.”He described his brother as an avid video game player (“Call of Duty” was a favorite) who competed in football, rugby and wrestling in high school. He said his brother had been to other concerts without incident but that this was his first time attending the Astroworld festival.“This should have never happened,” Julio Patino Jr. said of the deaths at the music festival. “There should be more rules in place to prevent this in the future. They should have stopped the concert right away as soon as all this started happening.”John HilgertGreen ribbons appeared at Memorial High School, just outside of Houston. It was the favorite color of John Hilgert, 14, a freshman, who was the youngest person to die at Astroworld, according to the authorities. He told friends that he wanted to get to the performance by the rapper Travis Scott early to get a good view, The Houston Chronicle reported. Now, family members, friends and former coaches were left to make sense of his death. On social media, those who knew Mr. Hilgert told similar stories of a young, kind boy who was known for being a good student and an athlete who played baseball and football. “The kid impacted everyone that met him,” Justin Higgs, a former baseball coach of Mr. Hilgert, wrote on Facebook. “Privileged to have had the opportunity to coach him during those seasons of his life.” Mr. Hilgert’s principal, Lisa Weir, sent an email to the entire school the morning after the concert, identifying Mr. Hilgert as one of the victims. The school will have counselors available to talk to students. “He was one of the nicest kids I knew and always made people laugh,” a friend tweeted. Brianna Rodriguez Brianna Rodriguez, 16, was a student at Heights High School in Houston and was a drill dancer as part of the band program, which paid tribute to her on Saturday on Twitter. “Brianna was someone who performed with the band and was someone who could always make anyone smile,” the band said. “Although she’s gone and she cannot perform with us anymore, we know she’d want to still enjoy our time in heights.”In an automated phone call on Saturday to parents, the school’s principal, Wendy L. Hampton, said that a student had died on Friday night while off campus and that grief counselors would be available. The call did not identify the student. On a GoFundMe page raising money for funeral expenses, Ms. Rodriguez’s family said that she was passionate about dancing.On Sunday, Erica Davis, a trustee for the Harris County Department of Education, shared photos of Ms. Rodriguez on Twitter.“There is no level above Tragedy … my heart mourns for families and all who experienced this,” Ms. Davis said. Rudy PeñaRudy Peña died at the Astroworld music festival.GoFundMeRudy Peña, 23, was identified by a cousin, Kimberly Escamilla, as being one of the victims. “Rip to my cousin,” she wrote in a Facebook post, “you will be missed.” She described him as “always smiling and so nice.” His sister, Jennifer Peña, told The Laredo Morning Times that he was “the sweetest person, friendly, outgoing.” She said that Mr. Peña had been taken to Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, where staff members told Mr. Peña’s mother that he had died. Danish BaigThe brother of Danish Baig described him in a Facebook post as a “beautiful soul” who put “everyone before himself.”“I am scarred for life,” said the brother, Basil Mirza Baig. “You were my role model, and I have so much pain in my heart. I can’t believe I lost you.”Basil Baig, who attended the festival, said his brother died as he tried to save a sister-in-law from “horrendous things that were being done.” People were “trampled, walked and stomped on,” he wrote.“In this time of mourning and grief and such pain, I would like everyone to pray for my family and my brother,” he wrote. Jacob E. Jurinek, who died at the Astroworld music festival, was a student at Southern Illinois University.Jurinek familyJacob E. JurinekHis younger cousins called him “Big Jake.” The nickname suited Jacob E. Jurinek, 20, well, his family said in a statement, because the young man with many friends and a “larger-than-life personality” was known for his “contagious enthusiasm, his boundless energy and his unwavering positive attitude.”Mr. Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he was studying art and media and was on the dean’s list this semester. The chancellor of the school, Austin A. Lane, described him in a statement as “a creative, intelligent young man with a promising career in journalism and advertising.”Mr. Jurinek graduated in 2019 from Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, about 30 miles west of Chicago.At the university, he worked as a graphic arts and media intern for the athletic department, his family said. He was a music fan, an artist and a “beloved cousin, nephew and grandson,” the family said.His father, Ron Jurinek, said Mr. Jurinek would be most remembered as his “best friend.”The father and son were brought closer by a previous loss, the death of Jacob’s mother, Alison, in 2011. Since then, they have been inseparable, and attended White Sox and Blackhawks games together and spent weekends at a family cottage in Southwestern Michigan, the family said.“We are all devastated and are left with a huge hole in our lives,” Ron Jurinek said. Axel Acosta, 21, was a student at Western Washington University.Acosta familyAxel AcostaAxel Acosta, 21, was identified on Sunday by his brother, Joel Acosta, as the man in a photograph circulated by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Texas, which was seeking the public’s help to identify the man.Mr. Acosta was a junior at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., where he was majoring in computer science, his younger brother said on Sunday.Mr. Acosta was a fan of Mr. Scott, but had never been to one of his concerts before, said Joel Acosta, 19, who recalled driving his brother to the airport in Bellingham last Wednesday. From there, Axel Acosta rented a car and drove about 90 miles south to Seattle before flying to Houston for the music festival, his brother said.“He finally had the money to go,” Joel Acosta said. “He was excited to go.”Axel Acosta was from Tieton, Wash., a community of fewer than 2,000 people in the Yakima Valley. When Joel Acosta did not hear from his brother on Friday night, he said he figured that his brother was just having a fun time at the festival. “He said that reception was spotty and the internet was really bad,” Mr. Acosta said. During the concert, Axel Acosta got separated from a person he had been rooming with at a local hotel, his brother said.“The roommate had called me that he had not seen Axel come to sleep that night,” Joel Acosta said. That’s when Mr. Acosta said that he began to worry that his brother might have been among the people who died. His fears were confirmed, he said, when the authorities released a photo of his brother on Saturday. Joel Acosta said he stopped looking at TikTok and other social media posts from the concert.“Now, I can’t look at the videos anymore,” he said. Reporting was contributed by More