March 2nd: New Murakami Story on my Calendar

I must say March is a little late to buy a new calendar. Still the Murakami Calendar App is worth the full 2 bucks as it will give you 10 more months of starting your day with the occasional Murakami quote, Murakami info, Murakami art, Murakami covers and some new Murakami stories!

The app itself is pretty basic – I would say perfectly minimal – and matches both the dreaminess we find in his stories as the new and old cover art for all Murakami titles published by Random House. The ‘new’ stories (that apparently already appeard in Irish literary magazine Southword in 2006) bring us the shortest Murakami texts ever. Could it be that the upcoming April release will be the first Murakami flash fiction collection? We know he likes to alternate his longer works with short stories… and personally I think 1Q84 was a bit too long.

What are you going to do today?

Read an exclusive story by Murakami. Without the music.

Julio Iglesias

Once we had been duped out of our mosquito coils, we had nothing left to defend ourselves with against the attack of the sea turtle. I tried ordering more mosquito coils by phone and from a mail-order house, but, just as I thought, the telephone line had been cut, and there had been no mail service for more than two weeks. I should have known the cunning beast would never let us get away with such a thing: our stock of mosquito coils had kept him in misery too long. Now, for certain, he would be gloating and smiling and napping on the ocean floor, preparing himself for tonight.

“We’re done for,” my girlfriend said. “As soon as it gets dark, the sea turtle is going to eat us.”

“No, we can’t give up hope,” I said. “If we rack our brains, we don’t have to let any damned sea turtle have his way with us.”

“But he stole every last one of our mosquito coils.”

“No, keep your mind on fundamental truths, woman. If the sea turtle hates mosquito coils, there’s bound to be something else he hates.”

“Like what?”

“Julio Iglesias,” I said.

“Julio Iglesias? But why?”

“I don’t know. The name just popped into my head. A kind of intuition.”

Following my intuition, I put Julio Iglesias’s “Begin the Beguine” on the turntable and waited for the sun to set. The sea turtle was sure to attack after nightfall. Then it would all be settled one way or the other: the sea turtle would either eat us or weep.

Just before midnight, we heard the wet slapping of footsteps outside. Instantly, I dropped the needle onto the record. As soon as Julio Iglesias began singing “Begin the Beguine” in that syrupy voice of his, the footsteps halted, to be replaced by the anguished groans of the sea turtle. Yes! We had beaten him!

That night, Julio Iglesias sang “Begin the Beguine” 126 times. I myself hate Julio Iglesias, but fortunately not as much as the sea turtle does.

The Murakami Calendar App at iTunes UK.
The Murakami Calendar App at iTunes NL.
The Murakami Calendar App is currently not available in the US.

Free App – McSweeney’s Small Chair

Booktunes’ favorite McSweeney’s Small Chair App is now available for free! To celebrate the second anniversary of this great app, McSweeney’s offers a free download that comes with a free one month subscription. The price for a six month enrollment has dropped.. so yeah 7 months of Sweeney’s content for just a few $’s or €’s.

Just when I planned to give it a a present to Mr. Number Nine, McSweeney’s decided to give it away for free. Nice gesture… and of course the ultimate opportunity for everyone to finally enjoy the Small Chair content wherever you go. So Mina, please make shure to get a new phone throuhg Job or Olivier soon.

I haven’t checked the iPad version yet, but the new iPhone version is more or less the same as the 2 (!) years old application. Only thing that really changed is the upper-left corner psychedelic art installation. Driving me nuts.

Get it here, and if you haven’t read Eggers’ debut yet, go in app and read the 1776 pages in digi!

Favorite App & Mag – Mitchell & Eno

Mc Sweeney’s Small Chair, our favorite app, just pushed a conversation with Brian Eno and David Mitchell to my iPhone. Mitchell takes off with some good questions, and thinks that Eno’s sound painting results in ideal writing music. What about his new tunes?

Halfway now and I just found out that this text originally appears in the the 2011 Music Issue of The Believer Mag. Ordered it immediately… will keep you posted!

App: McSweeney’s Small Chair Small Screen

With no books around, the battery of my laptop all flat and my bank account slowly moving away from that red figures, I decided to finally buy the McSweeney’s App. As soon as I started to fiddle around with this internet tendency, I wanted to get back to bed to finish the second story I had been given access to by Timothy & Dave. Mina, what are your thoughts on this?

The 6-dollar app pushes the weekly Small Chair content to your Apple device for a period of 6 months. Also, you’ll be able to follow all the McSweeney’s website material for ages and beyond.

Two stories showed up after installing the app: ‘Two Free Men’ by Sheila Heti and ‘Raw Water’ by Wells Tower. First one is a really short one with beautiful illustrations by Liz Lee, second story is a really good one about a couple in a camper moving towards a new life. Since I am only on page 18 of the 134 – on an iPhone that is – I can only tell you that the first flicks of the thumb telling about an itchy wife and a cranberry colored lake look promising!

I must say that the reading off an iPhone works pretty good and that I do look forward to my train traveling later today. The in-app purchase of complete McSweeney’s will have to wait until I will have a bigger screen to roll with.

Have a look at all McSweeney’s related things here and get the app through iTunes. Tell me more about apps-alike in the comment field!