Life Elsewhere

Discovering new music has been an integral part of my life for many years. That I’m still able to get giddy with excitement when hearing Arlo Parks or Pela or Barzin for the first time is, honestly, the same rush I got when hearing The Stones at The Railway Hotel, the same night Andrew Loog Oldham showed up and changed history. Your brain-pan is either open to new music or it’s stuck in a musty-du...

How often do creative people write a concise bio about themselves that clearly explains who they are? Hardly ever. Then along come, Maram & Con . These are their words: "From friends to lovers, to teammates in marriage, to partners in music. Maram & Con is a duo from Port Townsend, WA consisting of Conor Sisk and Maram Arifi . The duo was created during the isolating years of COVID after j...

Environmental journalist, Robert Hunziker , a frequent contributor to Life Elsewhere shares his opinion on why temperatures across Europe are reaching record highs; why people in Seattle where home air-conditioning is unusual are suffering from extreme heat; how can Florida, already swelteringly hot half of the year, have a heat index that is the highest it has ever been? Robert in his characteris...

In keeping with the Dadaesque spirit of The Shend and his work with Anzahlung , along with The Cravats, The Babymen , DCL Locomotive , The Very Things , and certainly a few more, we could not resist using an absurd redundant headline. As you will hear in the lyrics for What You Think Is All You've Got , the title cut for Anzahlung’s second album, “Diddly Squat” as spat out - er - sung by The Shend...

Camilla Pang An Outsider’s Guide To Humans - What Science Taught Me About What We Do And Who We Are  “Blessed with the solid combination of ASD, ADHD, and Ph. D. - I use the powers of neurodiversity to navigate the under-passed connections of how human psychology can meander beyond the norm. The study of humans and analogous evolving systems are my lifelong passion which is fed by books, obse...

James Hamblin , a  preventive medicine physician and staff writer for The Atlantic was curious about the new science of skin microbes and probiotics. He discovered that keeping skin healthy is a booming industry, and yet it seems like almost no one agrees on what actually works. In his new book, Clean - The New Science Of Skin , Hamblin explores how we care for our skin today. He even experimented...

In this edition two exceptional books and new ambient music. First, we begin with non-fiction, Raising Antiracist Children - A Parenting Guide by Britt Hawthorne (with Natasha Yglesias ), followed by a delve into the world of fiction with Sri Lanka-based author, Amanda Jayatissa , and to close the show, new music from Whatever The Weather , AKA, Loraine James . In Raising Antiracist Children , Bri...

Gifted writer, Patrick O’Neil makes a well-deserved return to Life Elsewhere to talk about the latest volume of his memoir, Anarchy At The Circle K . An in your face gut-wrenching, and at times humorous tale of Patrick’s stint as a roadie, road manager, and drug addict during punk’s heyday of the 1980s. Crisscrossing the highways of America, on tour with such influential punk bands as Dead Kennedy...

“I’ll burn your house, I’ll burn it down with my desire” Lyrics from In The Morning , a song on Barzin’s 2013 album, To Live Alone In That Long Summer . All these years later, Barzin stays with his themes, writing shockingly vivid, yet poignant songs, with Beauty , Dreams , Pretty Girls , and of course, Love reoccurring in Voyeurs In The Dark , the Canadian-based artist’s latest release. After fou...

No matter where you get your news from, it’s always worthwhile discovering an alternate take on the headlines. We regularly call upon the learned Dr. Binoy Kampmark because no matter the topic he is always ready to share his well-considered opinions. In this edition of Life Elsewhere we ask the following: 1. Putin’s war. Is it still news? Or, has the rest of the world already moved on from daily c...

Jori Lewis - Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History Who knew the humble peanut could provide a fascinating backdrop for an expedition into history, geography, culture, economics, and West Africa. Award-winning independent writer, Jori Lewis weaves a complex story in Slaves For Peanuts with a deft hand at including the tiniest of details without ever bo...

Despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the fear of another American civil war, most of the time wars don’t happen, and of the millions of hostile rivalries worldwide, only a fraction erupt into violence. At this moment of crisis in world affairs, this necessary book from a seasoned peacebuilder and acclaimed expert in the field lays out the root causes and remedies for war and explain the reas...

No one can really tell you how it feels. How you will be affected. Grief is immeasurable. Singer-songwriter and spoken word artist, Anika Pyle has bravely produced an album reflecting on the passing of her father. Although she admits it was cathartic, she explains recalling her albeit brief moments with her dad are ever-changing, as her memory plays tricks with reality. Yet, when Anika shares this...

“How many Parks can you have?” Quipped my producer, adding, “Imaging if Arlo Parks had a new release this week?” A good point. Is it a coincidence that two artists we are raving about both have the name Park(s) featured in this volume? And it happens, yes. Since we first heard I Can’t Bike (last year) from Pictoria Vark we were determined to invite the singer-songwriter from Iowa City onto the sho...

On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow. The largest manhunt in Montana’s history ensued, led by the FBI. As days stretched into weeks, and w...

Samuel Clowes Huneke chose to take what could be considered a niche aspect of a minority in a certain place at a particular time. Except, his fascinating and explorative book, States Of Liberation - Gay Men Between Dictatorship And Democracy In Cold War Germany is far more than simple catalog headings - or cliches - much more. Huneke has masterfully delved into his subject with enormous energy, ut...

Lauren S. Cardon , an Associate Professor of English at the University of Alabama has taken her passion for her chosen field to explore an American trajectory in fashion. The result is, Fashioning Character - Style, Performance, And Identity In Contemporary American Literature , an engaging book examining works by Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, Sherman Alexie, and Aleshia Brevard, amon...

After 29 years with British indie/garage/beat/punk/psych-pop collective Comet Gain , singer/mastermind, and main fireraiser David Christian thought, "Why not do a solo album?" After all, some of his favorite records are also solo records by people from bands; John Cale, Gene Clark, Julian Cope, Stephen Duffy, Mike Nesmith, Curtis Mayfield, Neil Young... under the sun of his new home in the South o...

Elizabeth Williamson - Sandy Hook - An American Tragedy And The Battle For Truth Based on hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and access to exclusive sources and materials,  Sandy Hook  is Elizabeth Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate agains...

“I’ve been preparing for Mark’s departure since the mid-90s.” Mark Pickerel “Everything in this room is influenced by Mark Lanegan, which is a big deal.” Jeff Fielder He was a big, tall, imposing fellow. His scowl could easily be misunderstood. You couldn’t mistake him when he walked into a room. There are many stories, some true, many exaggerated from his hometown of Ellensburg to his adopted cit...

“This is not something that’s going to go down well with some of your American listeners, but Trump is the consummate  American politician. What more could you want to represent you than a corrupt individual who is constantly in the courts, the great tradition of a litigious society. He is the personification of the great American ideal, which is to spend freely in the courts, which is to lit...

The Monochrome Set formed in London in 1978, from the remnants of a college group called The B-Sides, whose members had included Stuart Goddard, later known as Adam Ant . The original line-up consisted of Indian-born lead singer and principal songwriter Bid (real name Ganesh Seshadri), Canadian guitarist Lester Square (real name Thomas W.B. Hardy), drummer John D. Haney (formerly of&nbsp...

Robert Hunziker is a pleasant, polite fellow, he writes extensively on the environment, collating mind-boggling facts and figures. We invited Robert back to Life Elsewhere to bring us up to date with his latest findings on the state of our planet. This was prompted in part by his frequent contributions to CounterPunch . After listening to Robert Hunziker speak for 60 minutes you may well decide to...

Two books by two talented authors. One writer uses imagined dialogue woven into documented events and facts while the other writer creates realistic scenarios with fictional characters. Kerri Maher  The Paris Bookseller When bookish young American Sylvia Beach opens Shakespeare and Company on a quiet street in Paris in 1919, she has no idea that she and her new bookstore will change the cours...

Carl Erik Fisher   The Urge: Our History of Addiction Even after a decades-long opioid overdose crisis, intense controversy still rages over the fundamental nature of addiction and the best way to treat it. With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centu...