Boil 'em Cabbage Down

If you want to learn to play the banjo, or if you want to teach someone else, we've got a site for you: The Old Time Banjo Project. (Also on the site you can link to the ukulele project, for students of that instrument.) (Via)

Stephen King

Who better to talk about writing than Stephen King, in aid of a new story he's publishing in the Atlantic? 'I never started a book that I expected to finish. Because it always feels like a job that's much too big for a little guy like me... When you start, it's very cold, an impossible task. But then maybe the characters start to take on a little bit of life, or the story takes a turn that you don't expect ... With me that happens a lot because I don't outline, I just have a vague notion. So it's always felt like less of a made thing and more of a found thing. That's exciting. That's a thrill.' More...

Authors and their dogs

A wonderful photojournal from Jill Krementz. As the "via" suggests, some of these pups just don't seem right for the person involved, but they do impart the nicest humanity to all of them. Album. (That's E.B.White below, with Susy, who seems exactly right for the author of Charlotte's Web.)

The father of animation

I love Nemo in Slumberland, that amazingly surreal comic of early twentieth century. Its creator, Winsor McCay, also dabbled in movies, so much so that, for all practical purposes, he deserves that title of the father of animation. He started by animating Nemo. 'Audiences didn’t know what to make of “Little Nemo:” No one had ever seen anything like it. The films of Blackton and Emile Cohl showed simple line or stick figures performing elementary motions. McCay’s fully rendered characters moved smoothly and realistically. More than 20 years would elapse before Walt Disney’s artists began creating more believable animation. To McCay’s chagrin, viewers assumed he had made the film using some sort of trick photography of live actors. That skepticism may have led McCay to choose a character for his third film that couldn’t be faked: “Gertie the Dinosaur” in 1914.' More...

Failure quiz

Thank you, LA Times. There's nothing I enjoy more than a quiz, this one on epic flops. See how well you do on it.

Michael Morpurgo

Not familiar with the name? He wrote The War Horse, the children's book on which the hit play is based. (We cited a video of the puppet horse here a little while ago.) The name was new to me, as I don't follow children's publishing, but in fact he is very popular. The profile in the Times is illuminating. 'Published in 1982, the book [The War Horse] was a “huge nonevent” at the time, according to its author, Michael Morpurgo; it drew better reviews than his earlier works but relatively little sales. It did get nominated for a big national prize, which it failed to win. Mr. Morpurgo, transported to the ceremony in a limousine, found that the car had mysteriously dematerialized during the evening; he left by subway.' More...

The language of operas

Should operas be performed in the language of their composers? 'When Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlos premiered in Paris, it was performed in French, but for its Italian premiere Verdi revised it and it was performed in Italian. For many years Wagner's operas, when performed in Italy, were sung in Italian with Wagner's blessing... Composers have always wanted their work to be performed in the language that most of the audience speaks. It would then seem logical that every opera company in the world would adhere to the composer's wishes and perform their masterpieces in the language of the people who make up the audience. However, not one major opera company in the world does this.Why not?' More... (Via)