CD cover

Sarah Vowell seems to be at the center of a stylish sort of literary entertainment scene. Contributing editor and consigliere to This American Life, Vowell seems to have come into contact with all sort of famous people, getting to know them well enough to get them to play characters in the audiobook version of her previous book The Partly-Cloudy Patriot. It featured Conan O’Brien, Seth Green, Stephen Colbert, David Cross, Paul Begala, Michael Chabon, Norman Lear, and music by They Might Be Giants (hear excerpts).

Hearing her unusual voice led director Brad Bird to hire her to play Violet in The Incredibles and the audiobook of her new book Assassination Vacation, an investigation of the tourism around the sites of presidential assassinations, features Bird as assassin Charles Guiteau. Conan O’Brien plays a Lincoln’s son, depressed that whenever he meets a President, that President is shot. Stephen King plays Lincoln, Dave Eggers plays a contemplative tour guide, Catherine Keener a museum curator of body parts, Jon Stewart plays the nation’s first slacker president, and Tony Kushner plays the leader of a sex cult.

In this excerpt, Vowell gives a short revisionist history of Maryland:

Listen to Sarah Vowell read an 8-minute excerpt from her new book [6MB MP3].

Keywords: Maryland, offbeat, offputting, Civil War, state song, Lincoln, patriotic gore, racist, Timothy McVeigh, George W. Bush.

posted March 25, 2005 07:16 PM (Books) (1 comments) #

Nearby

Blogshine Sunday: US Greenlights, Funds Genocide
Fraud in Science
How is Disney like the Soviet Union?
Summer Founders
The Truth About the Drug Companies
The Truth About Maryland
Stanford: Mr. Unincredible
Lessons in Capitalism #1: Division of Labor
Stanford: Out at the Movies
Stanford: Form Without Content
Stanford: A Wired Rave

Comments

I must say that I like her voice and that of Emma Watson as well. I’m a sucker for voices.

posted by Rich at March 27, 2005 03:57 AM #

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