Alt.Latino explores the world of modern Chilean music.

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GalleyCat interviews Justin Taylor and Eva Talmadge about their new book, The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide.

Q: From your experience, which book/author receives the most tattoo requests?

E: Kurt Vonnegut and e.e. cummings are probably the most popular authors when it comes to literary tattoos.

J: And of course, if we had wanted to we could have done an entire book of just Shakespeare.

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Austinist interviews Julie Klausner about her book, I Don't Care About Your Band (What I Learned From Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, And Other Guys I've Dated).

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Mediashift lists 10 truths about the modern music business.

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The October edition of the Music Alliance Pact has been posted, including 35 songs chosen by 35 bloggers in 35 countries.

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Literary Minded interviews author China Mieville.

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Doc Martens is giving away DM50 The Album, a collection of 10 cover songs by indie bands.

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Two translators talk to Work in Progress about the works of Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa.

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WUWM is streaming Iron and Wine's recent Milwaukee performance.

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At Omnivoracious, author Tony Hiss lists 10 books and a movie that evoke "deep travel."

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On sale for $2.99 at Amazon MP3: Les Savy Fav's Root for Ruin album.

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Fresh Air interviews Philip Roth about his new novel, Nemesis.

The Toronto Star reviews the book.

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Pitchfork gives the 20th anniversary edition of Morrissey's Bona Drag album (out October 19th) a 9.8.

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Nicole Krauss talks to All Things Considered about her new novel, Great House. An excerpt from the book is also shared.

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Win a copy of David Sedaris's new book Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk in this week's Largehearted Boy contest.

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Follow me on Twitter and Stumbleupon for links (updated throughout the day) that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

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also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Shorties posts (daily links from the worlds of music, literature, and pop culture)

Atomic Books Comics Preview (highlights of the week's comics & graphic novel releases)
daily mp3 downloads
Largehearted Word (highlights of the week's book releases)
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

Bikini – “A Cheerleader” From their forthcoming release for Lefse, due out in November.

Holy Fuck – “Red Lights”

The Santa Barbara Independent interviews Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss, a former teacher.

Who's got the tougher gig, teacher or musician?

Oh man. They’re very different. I think in terms of day-to-day responsibility and work, teaching is more difficult. I taught in a really low-income school, so I had to give 200 percent every day. But I think they share that common sense of responsibility; trying to do something that is going to be really good. Certainly when you’re making music you are committed to doing something that is hopefully exciting. They're different, but challenging. The daily grind of being in the van every day is hard, but I’m not a morning person, and I never have been. I do not miss waking up at 5 a.m. [Laughs.]

Click Track interviews Mary Timony about her new band, Wild Flag (which also features Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney and Rebecca Cole of the Minders).

How to Dress Well's Tom Krell talks to the Chicago Reader about the success of his music career (and subsequent attention).

"It sucks," he says. "It's no fault of any of the people in the industry, but music is not the main focus of my life. I never really planned on it being that way. When I meet people on the business end of this music-industry thing, they tend to really gross me out. I'm not trying to make money through this."

The San Jose Mercury News profiles the Morning Benders.

It's likely that most of the band's fans are more taken with the album's rich and detailed sound than its philosophical underpinnings. "Big Echo" possesses grand, Phil Spector-like production values. It also has the instrumental nuances of an old Beatles record. The Morning Benders' principal songwriter as well as its lead singer, Chu grew up with an infatuation with classic '60s and '70s era rock. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Neil Young and the Beach Boys are among his influences.

The Telegraph profiles singer-songwriter Imogen Heap and her use of social media to connect to her fans.

Communicating via Twitter and her YouTube channel, Heap has invited her fans (to whom she is invariably 'Immi') to play an unprecedented role in her work. She asked her Twitter followers to write her press biography (she received 1,500 suggestions from fans from across the world, and it was assembled from 81 tweets), she requested fans to submit photos inspired by her lyrics to the photo-sharing website Flickr for her Ellipse album artwork.

DCist interviews Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub.

NPR is streaming Avey Tare's new album, Down There (out October 25th).

Sun Airway – “Put The Days Away”