This is a matrix in the original sense of "source". It is a "small-world" network, meaning that the nodes (people) inside it are — mirroring human society — within a few steps of everybody else inside it. The matrix was built to allow regional Brazilian musicians to be discoverable steps away from everybody else in the arts world, and by logical necessity this m.o. requires not only that the great Brazilians be matrixed, but so far as possible, all working artists in our time. Ergo:
THIS MATRIX, THOUGH BRAZIL-BORN, IS UNIVERSAL
This Anne Gisleson matrix node is steps away from the entire planet by the well-known small-world ("6 degrees") phenomenon dictating that in human society you yourself are within several degrees of Anne Gisleson.
1 DEGREE FORWARD: Anne Gisleson (node) ROUTES TO THESE ARTIST NODES
Are these Anne Gisleson's personal recommendations?
CURATION STATUS
- → Routes by The Matrix
Who & Where
- Name: Anne Gisleson
- City/Place: New Orleans
- Country: United States
Life & Work
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Bio:
Anne Gisleson is the author of The Futilitarians: Our Year of Thinking, Drinking, Grieving and Reading (Little, Brown), a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Oxford American, The Believer and many other publications.
Her essays have been featured in several anthologies such as Best American Non-Required Reading, Life in the Wake, and others. She co-edited and co-wrote How to Rebuild a City: Field Guide from a Work in Progress, about ground-up rebuilding efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and wrote the accompanying essays for photographer Michel Varisco’s Shifting, a book about the beauty and degradation of the coastal wetlands.
She teaches creative writing at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and is co-founder of the literary and visual arts non-profit Antenna.
Contact Information
- Email: agisleson@gmail.com
Media & Markets
- ▶ Book Purchases: http://annegisleson.com/The-Futilitarians
- ▶ Website: http://annegisleson.com
- ▶ Stories: http://annegisleson.com/Selected-Writing
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
On Anne Gisleson’s The Futilitarians (Little, Brown) —
“Gisleson writes with wit, warmth, and a spiritual devotion to books... Her search for purpose and connection amid chaos and loss permeates even the most heart-wrenching moments of The Futilitarians-- and it’s what turns the book from a meditation on reading to a celebration of being.” -- Jason Heller, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
“Essential... this is a shattering and very important important book...one of the best books of this year.”
— Dave Eggers
“Truly great writing...Gisleson conjures the strange beauty of her world... An affecting memoir.”
-- Keziah Weir, ELLE
“With beautiful writing, Gisleson effortlessly weaves existentialism around narrative, challenging and engaging readers with a seamless blend of theory and memoir. Writer and educator Gisleson’s first book-length work weighs heavy with life’s toughest questions and then instantaneously elevates the soul with hope, making a charming, captivating, and incredibly smart must-read.” -- Melissa Norstedt, Booklist
“Sets out a search for meaning in grand terms and resolves the search in the beauty of loving detail...Plus, spoiler, it ends in fireworks and a reading list you do not want to miss.”
— Louise Erdrich
“A beautiful book about things that matter-- love, death, grief, anger, regret, renewal, the life of the mind, the life of the heart, and the life of the world around you.”
— Sam Lipsyte
Praise for The Futilitarians —
“The Futilitarians sets out a search for meaning in grand terms and solves the search in the beauty of loving detail. From suicide to set painting, lunch pies to Death Row, from decayed eternity to the complex rebirth of New Orleans, this book never loses the treasure of abiding doubt. Plus, spoiler, it ends in fireworks and a reading list you do not want to miss.”
— LOUISE ERDICH, National Book Award–winning author ofLaRose
“This is a shattering and very important book—and will, if there is justice (and there must be justice), be considered one of the best books of this year. There is an ocean of hurt here, but Gisleson manages to sail through it and show us everything that’s beautiful about this sea of pain. If you love existential literature, or New Orleans, or your family, or are curious about the meaning of life, then you will find The Futilitarians to be an essential book.”
— DAVE EGGERS, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle and What Is the What
THE MATRIX WAS BUILT HERE, inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone... The Brazilian "aleph" doesn't hum...it sings!
Sprawled across broad equatorial latitudes
Stoked and steamed and sensual in the widest sense of the word
Limned in prosody and cadenced song
brəˈzɪl / from "brasa" / Latin for "ember"
w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio
Given the immense untapped power of the small-world phenomenon, from Brazilians the matrix was expanded to include nodes per jazz artists, given jazz's common roots with Brazilian music (nodes based in publicly available information; some artists we informed — Bob Mintzer, Kamasi Washington, David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, Vijay Iyer, Greg Osby — and got thumbs up, others we'll get to), and moved on from there. Artists/academics/"creative people" are welcome to create their own nodes and curate (connect to other artist nodes, so that others may follow). BTW, our logo is a cortador de cana, cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specializes in.
MUCH MORE on all of this in the window below (which, if you are logged in, will instead contain instructions on recommending), and in the window within that window (which includes a "radio" called by The Guardian one of "10 of the best music radio stations around the world"):
