Beat News: April 22 1995

Five lesser-known epic songs from the complete catalog of David Bowie show the depth and brilliance of his craftsmanship and musical/lyrical vision.

John Osborne's signature work is 'Look Back in Anger', which opened in 1956 and gave the "Angry Young Men" their name. It's the story of a fuming, flannel-shirt wearing London bloke named Jimmy who slaves away at a candy stand all day and plays hot trad jazz saxophone all night.

A disquieting novel about a strange child by Doris Lessing, the newest Nobel laureate.

I am dismayed to hear that many people hope or believe that J. T. LeRoy/Laura Albert is now forever "destroyed". Destroyed? A fiction writer? What's that about?

Diane Kurys has directed a film biography of rebellious French writer Francoise Sagan, titled simply "Sagan". Perhaps inspired by the success of La Vie En Rose, a recent biopic of Edith Piaf, the new film stars Sylvie Testud (who played Piaf’s friend in "La Vie en Rose"), and follows the story of Francoise Sagan from the publication of her first book to her final days in Normandy.

From a classic Mad Magazine comic, here are the great Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis riffing on what happens when a book gets turned into a movie.

Fort Greene, Brooklyn celebrates the successful launch of a vibrant community-supported bookstore, Greenlight.

Bad Marie is a funny yet strangely haunting new novel by Marcy Dermansky. The hero of the book swipes the husband and young child of one of her only friends for a romp in Paris. She meets several movie stars, stays in very fancy hotels, and ends up flying back across the ocean to barge in on a family that hates her in one of the poorest sections of Mexico. Despite the fun Marie's having, the narrative dwells hilariously on everything she encounters that annoys her. Through it all, though, she never neglects to change a diaper that needs changing, and by the end of the book Marie seems to have even grown up a bit herself. I had a chance to ask the author of this enigmatic new hit novel a few questions. Off we go ...

"Why the hell do I want to see a movie about Facebook?" a friend said about The Social Network, the new film about the geeky young entrepreneur who created Facebook. "Don't I get enough of it everywhere else?" ...

Eyedea, the talented rapper from St. Paul, Minnesota, died in his sleep at age 28.

Prompted by Tom McCarthy's trendy new novel C, AbeBooks presents a tableau of one-letter (or two-letter) books. It's a lot of fun to look at. Of course, I'm an old school techie, so to me C will always be the title of a classic book by Kernighan and Ritchie.

'Life', a rich new memoir by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.

Magic Trip, a new film by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood, tells the story of novelist Ken Kesey's 1964 road trip across America in a painted bus with a troupe of fanciful hippies and legendary beatnik Neal Cassady at the wheel.

I learned about drinking whiskey, specifically bourbon whiskey, from Raymond Chandler. Actually, I recently read in his letters that Chandler was more of a gin man. So I really learned about drinking whiskey from Chandler’s alter ego, Philip Marlowe.

Levi Asher's review of "Kino", a riotous novel about German history and cinema by Jurgen Fauth.