Music, Culture, Arts and Entertainment 10-25-2021

In Ruth Ozeki’s new novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness, the objects around him speak to a boy who is grieving the loss of his father. The most central object is the Book itself, which writes Benny’s story, engaging in a heuristic dialog with its young subject.

The novel is a hero’s journey and coming of age story that spins the tale of Benny and his also-grieving mother Annabelle with compassion and wisdom. No surprise there, as Ozeki is a long-time practitioner of Zen Buddhism and has been a Zen priest since 2010.

With its blend of sympathetic characters, riveting plot, and engagement with everything from jazz, to climate change, to our attachment to material possessions, The Book of Form and Emptiness is classic Ruth Ozeki — bold, wise, poignant, playful, humane and heartbreaking.

We spoke with her in 2013 about her third novel, A Tale for the Time Being, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Booker prize.

Ruth Ozeki teaches creative writing at Smith College and is affiliated with the Brooklyn Zen Center and the Everyday Zen Foundation.

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When nonagenarian writer Hilma Wolitzer and her husband came down with Covid last year, she couldn’t anticipate the season of grief it would bring—nor that the way out of that grief would be led by a book. Wolitser survived but her husband did not.

Wolitzer’s daughter, the writer Meg Wolitzer, suggested her mother put together a collection of short stories that Hilma had written over decades. It was meant as a way to deal with her loss.

The stories are linked, about a married couple, Paulie and Howard, and the course of their marriage over a lifetime.

Their life together is ordinary, but the writing is not. Wolitzer wields her pen masterfully, illuminating her characters and their motivations with, as one reader, Lauren Goff, put it, “wit, with rage, with grief, with the kind of prose that makes you both laugh and thrill to the darker, spikier emotions just barely visible under the bright surface.”

Hilma Wolitzer is the author of 13 novels, including four for young readers and one of nonfiction, in addition to her new story collection, Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket.

This month on Live Culture, Martha is in discussion with two members of VozTerra, an experimental sound project based in Bogotá, Colombia, which addresses the climate crisis, social justice issues, and the effects of Covid lockdown through innovative collaborative audio recordings mixing ambient noises and music. Much of it incorporates sounds of nature from the threatened and environmentally rich Van der Hammen Reserve, while the Sounds From Your Window project offers a global interactive aural glimpse of life during the lockdown.

VozTerra is an audio project created with the purpose of raising awareness about the care of our natural ecosystems, and to open up new experiences for listening, in dialogue with global communities. VozTerra is a proud recipient of the Latinoamerica Verde Awards and features an excellent website full of audio meditations, videos, sounds, music and ways to participate and get involved. You may listen to more here: https://www.vozterra.com/

The music albums Ventanas Volume 1, Ventanas, Volume 2, and  Alteraciones, and Reserva, all from 2021, are now available on most major sound platforms for listening, with sale  proceeds going to the artists who donated their talents to this project as well as an ecological tree planting initiative, and a fund to support older musicians living on the margins. There is also a wonderful video, an official selection from the AXD Short Film Festival  about the Sounds from Your Windows project is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uguCxdUD_WE

VozTerra  was created in November, 2019 by Lany Arévalo, Héctor Buitrago, Rafael Puyana, Diana Restrepo, and Daniel Roa, who, in collaboration with The Museum for the United Nations – UN Live, developed the multimedia web platform for this innovative and timely project. Don’t miss this conversation with two of the VozTerra Collective:  Rafael Puyana and Diana Restrepo as we meet on Zoom from Sweden, Hong Kong, and Bogotá to discuss art, social justice, and the climate crisis during the time of Covid. This is environmental activism at its most creative, compelling, and inclusive. More about the The Museum for the United Nations – UN Live here:  https://museumfortheun.org/about/

Diana Maria Restrepo is a distinguished sound artist and performer. She graduated in percussion from the Paris Conservatoire and did her Masters’ studies at the Sound Studies Program of the University of Arts, Berlin. Her artistic concerns point towards personal and collective memory as plastic matter and its relation to sound. She has worked in soundscape, radio, audio design, and installation. She has extensive experience managing and curating artistic and cultural projects. More about Diana can be found at www.dianarestrepo.co

Rafael Puyana is a media artist, designer, interactive creative director, educator, and live coder. He has been exploring the intersections between art, design and technology in the digital landscape for around 15 years, for projects and companies in Colombia, Canada, United States, and Mexico. He currently supports companies and special projects with the crystallization of their ideas into prototypes and digital tangible products: applications, mobile, web, installations, and  AR/VR.  More about Rafael can be found at: www.rafaelpuyana.com