I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RICHARD THOMPSON-Across a Crowded Room (1985), Daring Adventures (1986) & Rumor and Sigh (1988).

One thing I have really noticed in my crash course of RT CDs is how completely timeless his work sounds. Aside from a few production values issues, notable on Across a Crowded Room, it’s really hard to know when these songs were done. It’s quite remarkable. And, when you factor in just how solid a songwriter he is, it’s hard to find a bad album of the lot. I wish I had done this sooner, I’d be even more hardcore RT than I am now.

Across a Crowded Room. The only flaw I found with this one was that the backing singers and instrument choices really tend to date this record in the 80s. Some of the songs get a little bogged down, especially when compared to the raw live versions. That said, this disc has five songs that I think are amazing, and that’s just scanning the title list. “When the Spell is Broken” and “She Twists the Knife Again” just show the amazing range of styles that RT can pull off, from beautiful heartbreak to bitter rage. Stunning.

Daring Adventures. Allmusic.com doesn’t seem to like this record very much, and I guess that they have a point that the middle of the record isn’t too memorable. But any record that starts off with “Bone Through Her Nose” and “Valerie” is allowed to coast for a song or two. That said, overall the album is (here’s that word again) solid. And “Al Bowlly’s in Heaven” is simply a wonderfully moving song.

Rumor and Sigh. Wow. This is a high point. “Read About Love,” “I Feel So Good” (one of the greatest balls out rockers that no one knows about!), “I Misunderstood” (oh, emotional heart wringing right after the rocker!). And, here’s what I’m talking about regarding the timelessness of RT, “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” (such a great, tender song about thugs) came out in 1991!? at the same time as “I Feel So Good?” That song simply has classic written all over it, and here it is barely 15 years old (and hey if that’s a long time to you you must not be over 30 yet). And “God Loves a Drunk,” such a sad mournful song that I first heard in a great cover by Mary Coughlan. And this is an aspect not really talked about yet…the number of songs he’s written that others have covered and–proving how great a songwriter he is–how others can makes them sound equally good. Must…stop…gushing. Since you’re here, go check out Richard’s Song O Matic!

Incidentally, here is a great blog with lots of excellent RT info: Taking It Back to the Roots

[READ: June 25, 2007] McSweeney’s #19.

I just finished all of McSweeney’s #19 last night, and it is a real mixed bag. Let’s start with the packaging. A pretty nifty box! With cool pictures all around it. Inside the box is a fascinating array of materials. Primarily, they are war-related. And, assuming they are real, they include: a leaflet on War veterans’ pensions circa 1883; a typed correspondence from 1911; Two photos from the YIVA Jewish Research Institute 1920 and 1930; a pamphlet “The Stuff That Wins” from the YMCA to inspire boys in WWI from 1918; handwritten letter; a British pamphlet “Some Things You Should Know If War Should Come” from 1939; flier “Young Men of Seventeen! (Join the Marines Today)”; “The Big Plot (Proof of the Justice Department’s plan to jail 21,105 Americans” (anti McCarthy tract written by Paul Robeson); Air Raid Instructions pocket guide; “Fallout Protection: What to Know and Do About Nuclear Attack” 1961 (written by Robert McNamara…yes THAT one); “Your Horoscope Tells You How You Can Help the Republican Party WIN!” (by the Nixon people); Rainbow mission attack plan; letter from Donald Rumsfeld about leaking classified information (2002); George W. Bush dental records from 1973; “A Pocket Guide to the Middle East” from 1957.

All of these offered varying degrees of fascination. The Middle East one is great for the portrayal of Iraqis as friendly, loyal, warm and gregarious, a pretty stark contrast to how we describe them now. And the remainder of the military tracts were interesting for their historical viewpoints. I read them all, and got something out of most of them, although the Rainbow Mission is a mystery to me. I enjoyed the anti-McCarthy tirade and found it frighteningly prescient to our contemporary concerns about “terrorists”.

Now, onto the fiction. This is probably my least favorite collection of fiction ever from McSweeney’s. I was really surprised by how much I did not enjoy it. Mostly because the subjects of some of the stories were just so beyond anything I would read, but I plowed on through them, nonetheless.

CHRISTOPHER HOWARD-“Prince of the World”
This concerns an escaped slave in 1818. It was violent and unpleasant, and just not a time period or part of the country that I wanted to read about. Possibly my own shortcoming, but nevertheless, I had to struggle to finish this one.

BRENDAN CONNELL-“The Life of Captain Gareth Caernarvon”
This was essentially a diary and travelogue of a great hunter. The list of things this man has killed and eaten was seemingly endless. I didn’t like him or his associates and couldn’t wait for it to end. The fact that he liked to dress in women’s clothes did nothing for my opinion about him. This could have been satire, but I’m not so sure.

UPDATE: March 29, 2011.  Connell included this story in his recent collection, which I have reviewed here.  I have totally changed myopinion of thes tory, and here’s the new review:

The Life of Captain Gareth Caernarvon
“The Life of Captain Gareth Caernarvon” was the story that I read inMcSweeney’s and hated.  But now, having read more from Connell and more in this book, I found the story to be quite different from what I remember and in fact I now think it’s very cool.  In my memory, this story was exclusively about the Captain killing animals.  (And there is a lot about his killing abilities–his is a hunter extraordinaire).   I grew weary of the story because it essentially describes in detail all of the game that he has slaughtered during his life (he personally reduced the population of buffalo by a quarter).  What I must have missed last time are two small sections about his childhood and how it impacts his adulthood, which were fascinating and a bit chuckle inducing.  I also really enjoyed the discussion about whether a Frenchman or an Englishman would taste better.

I’m going to blame the circumstances of my initial reading for disliking this story so much the first time.  It’s certainly not a pleasant, feel-good story, and it definitely revels in the bloodletting, but there is plenty more to it which I missed the first time around.  At this point I only wish he had continued the story with one more section about his fetish.

SEAN CASEY-“The First Chapter”
This is a story about a man trying to recreate his moments before birth by somehow going back into his mother’s psyche. I felt like it was trying to be daring with lines like “Months before my parents fucked each other….” but really it just left me cold. It seemed like he was trying to condense Tristram Shandy into a short story but it was simply nothing of consequence.

And the pieces I liked:

ADAM GOLASKI-“The Bellelli Family” “The Cotton Market, New Orleans” “The Cafe Singer”
I enjoyed all three of these short entries very much, and they really helped buoy my spirits. They were three anachronistic fictionalized stories of what is happening in famous paintings by Degas. He quotes a review of the work and extrapolates from there. Pretty funny stuff, and apparently part of a larger series that I would like to see.

T.C. BOYLE-“The Wild Child”
Since this is a huge novella and takes up more space than the other works combined, it rescued the otherwise poor volume for me. I’ve been a fan of Boyle’s for quite some time, although I haven’t read his recent work, including Talk Talk which this is apparently an appendix of sorts to. It is a story concerning the capture and “socialization” of a boy left for dead in the woods. It seemed very similar to a lot of “capture the beast-man-child” stories, but he followed through on so many details and aspects that it became more than just a run of the mill story. My only gripe with the story was that the folks who captured the boy believe him to be deaf-mute because he does not respond to any sound stimuli. The story shows that he has been so conditioned by his life in the woods that he cannot hear human-made sounds, but he can hear the sound of a walnut cracking open. I simply don’t believe that any beast would have no reaction to a loud report, even if created by humans. My dog startles at a loud bang, deer will certainly react is a gun is fired. I just found it hard to reckon that part. Otherwise, I was compelled and saddened by the story. Well done, T.C.