Early Releases: Lady Gaga's "Applause" and Katy Perry's "Roar"

      According to Lady Gaga's Twitter account (@ladygaga), her new single "Applause" was leaked on the internet and is now releasing early alongside Katy Perry's (@katyperry) single "Roar".

     

Check iTunes tonight to pre-order Lady Gaga's upcoming album "Artpop" (Nov 11). Perry's new album "Prism" will be out in October 22. You can also buy Katy Perry's "Roar" and Lady Gaga's "Applause" singles by midnight tonight. Let the battle of the billboard begin. Which do you like better?

Check out Katy Perry's "Roar" on VEVO

Check out Lady Gaga's "Applause" below:

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

     The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (a pseudonym of J.K. Rowling's) is a tale of the suspicious suicide of famous model Lula Landry. Cormoran Strike, private detective, is hired by Landry's brother John Bristow three months after Landry's fall to her death. With occasional assistance from the newly engaged Robin, his temporary secretary, he's to determine whether or not Landry's death was, in fact, suicide or murder. Strike is a war veteran, rough around the edges and hard on his luck but very real and easy to relate to.

     From homeless acquaintances to superstar model coworkers and clothing designers, we're meeting characters, suspects and witnesses from all walks of life. It would seem every character has something to hide or that they'd rather not say regardless of how helpful it would be in the investigation of their former friend or family member's death. Most interesting of all are the people who are afraid of being reprimanded for crimes or scandal unrelated to the suicide/murder but whose true details and admissions stand in the way of Strike's successful investigation. What will it take to get them past their barricades and speaking the truth so necessary for justice?

Author J.K. Rowling

     Throughout the novel it's up to the reader (and Strike) to take everyone's account, decide what's true and what's false and how exactly everyone's story plays together. In a most delicate case seeming most like suicide, we're along for a ride of mystery, excitement and scandal. If you're like me, you won't have an easy time of putting the book down as things come together. During the final hundred pages or so, I felt as if I were flying with an ever-increasing momentum towards a stunning conclusion.

     You can check out The Cuckoo's Calling from your local library. You can also purchase it on Amazon for your Kindle, as a hardcover or audiobook. Don't forget to follow J.K. Rowling on Twitter (@jk_rowling)!

A New Perspective on the Creative Process - Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert, author

This evening I had the joy of watching an eye-opening 18-minute presentation via YouTube done by author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) at TED (technology, entertainment, design). I loved her personality and essence on stage and am impressed with her insight and knowledge of creativity and the creative process. Some may disagree with her ideas and way of seeing things but to each their own. Personally I like her idea of looking back and embracing the ancient Greece and ancient Rome theory of creativity as a disembodied source - an "influence" or creative being that comes and goes. She refers to them as "daemons" which according to this site can be good or evil. In this context, of course, they're good daemons that contribute to your creative genius.

I hope you find her presentation as entertaining and enlightening as I did. I look forward to hearing more from this great author.

Gump & Co. by Winston Groom

If you're like me you're surprised to hear that there's a sequel to one of America's most heart-warming stories, Forrest Gump. Winston Groom originally wrote Forrest Gump (1986) and then agreed to the movie deal (1994). Following the release of the film, Groom released his sequel to the story in 1995, Gump & Co.

There are many new, wonderful adventures in store for Forrest Gump in this second book. For example, he invents a new Coca-Cola product, works on a pig farm, meets Lieutenant Dan and Sue (his orangutan I mentioned from the first book) again, joins the army again in World War I, meets the President, unknowingly becomes President of an insider trading business, meets Tom Hanks (the actor portraying Forrest in the 1994 film) and embarks on many more adventures, disasters and experiences. Needless to say, Forrest is still not the Forrest we know from Hollywood. However, he is the father I wanted so badly to see.

The book is begun with the death of Jenny and his mama. There's hardly any time dwelt on either of these occurrences but throughout the book Forrest sees Jenny in times of need and hears her advice. Forrest must raise "Little Forrest" no matter the distance between them. It proves a challenging but fruitful task and became the most treasured part of the entire novel for me.

I struggled a bit with Forrest Gump meeting Tom Hanks. Having seen the film before reading the first book, I already had a Forrest in mind before reading the first page. I'm not sure how my brain survived the collision on these two figures across the span of pages they shared, but it was difficult.

The "shrimpin' bidness" started in the first book fails tragically to environmental factors and a crooked accountant runs off with the remaining millions. However, by the end of this second book, Forrest starts up an oyster business in the same area he "struck gold" with shrimp. The story ends sweetly with the oyster business finding success, Forrest raising one of the brightest young men and being the best friend to all he's met along the way.

If you want to know what the creator of Forrest intended for Forrest following the film's release, read this book. Though it's impossible to take off from the film since the book was so very different, Groom does his best to tie them together in this second, and final story; thus ends the tale of Forrest Gump, fiction and film.

If you love Forrest Gump, you should check out the:

• Book
• Sequel: Gump & Co.
• Restaurant: Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
• Soundtrack
• Movie

Forrest Gump by Winston Groom

In a mere 2.25 days, I opened and closed the book Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. As you may already know, Forrest is an idiot-savant and goes through the book and movie telling us his account of life - we're invited to see things through his eyes. The book takes us through multiple time periods in U.S. history and is a pure delight to devour.

The book, as you might imagine, is very different from the movie. In the book Forrest demonstrates his savant capabilities in the following ways, to name a few:

• His chess skills are out-of-this-world
• His ping-pong capabilities over-shadow most
• He can wrestle like none you've ever seen
• He's the best dang quarterback in the region
• He's a natural master physician and mathematician

However the movie hardly illustrates much more than ping-pong and rifle assembly/dis-assembly. Here are a few more differences. In the book...

• Mama nor Jenny pass away
• Lieutenant Dan doesn't help start the "s'rimpin bidness"
• There is no wedding and no Lieutenant Dan with shiny new legs
• Forrest wins $10,000 in wrestling
• Forrest auditions for a Hollywood movie
• Forrest goes to space in a rocket (and New Guinea as a result)
• Forrest has a male orangutan named Sue
• Forrest runs for senate with the slogan, "I gotta pee!"

I'll stop there but at this point you may be asking yourself, "So what DO they have in common?" For the most part, you'll have to read it. However, they do share themes. Innocence, seeing the world through eyes of another, courage, sheer luck and the hard lesson of life and death. The joy of reading this book was well worth the shock of variation between itself and the movie based upon it. I know you'll enjoy an almost entirely different tale of Forrest Gump as I did when you're tangled in the pages, unable to set it down. 

If you love Forrest Gump, you should check out the:

• Book
• Sequel: Gump & Co. (and my review!)
• Restaurant: Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
• Soundtrack
• Movie

When I Knew by Robert Trachtenberg

Comedian and Author, Eddie Sarfaty

This morning at Lawrence Public Library, I picked up a book called When I Knew, edited by Robert Trachtenberg. It's a collection of stories and paragraphs by the more well-known citizens of our society telling their individual experiences with one of life's greatest moments. When I knew I was gay.

My favorite story was by Eddie Sarfaty, stand-up comedian. It was called "Second-Guessing Grandma" and is also featured as the opener to Eddie's book, Mental: Funny in the Head. Eddie came out to his grandma and went through the oh-so-familiar trials and tribulations of family tension for over a week. When he called his grandma, she would ho-hum around responses and, as he puts it, pins dropped and crickets chirped between fragments of the attempted conversation. Read the story. It's just four pages and will warm your heart much more than my summary. Eddie's story was also adapted for film and became a ten-minute film featured at festivals and online here.

Other stories in the collection were shorter but still straight from the heart. Some were one sentence, others were pages. The very first entry by Andrew Freedman is, "1969; My father was watching the evening news. The announcer said that Judy Garland had died. I fainted. I was nine." Many of the tales are similar in humor and make the book very enjoyable to read. I read it in one sitting and would have had a hard time putting it down for any reason short of an earthquake.