I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: STARLIGHT MINTS-Built on Squares (2003).

The Pixies were a weird band….  They wrote fantastically catchy alterna-rock, and yet, deep down, they were pretty weird, with shouty parts and quiet parts and bizarro lyrics about slicing up eyeballs and monkeys going to heaven.  Well, imagine if their music was REALLY weird, going beyond guitar/bass/drums to incorporate cellos, triangles and samples.  That approximates the Starlight Mints.  I first heard them on a sampler.  Their track “Submarine #3” blew me away.  It was under 2 minutes long and was weird and wonderful.  I can’t recommend that song highly enough.  Their debut album was solidly weird too.

This is the follow up, several years in the making.  And, all the parts are in place. The orchestration is a bit bigger, and yet it is still a somewhat unsettling listen.  Just as you think you get the pace of a song, they’ll throw in an unusual cello riff, or some unexpected sample.  This is not to say that the songs aren’t catchy, you just have to listen carefully for the catchiness.  And, since the songs are all under 3 minutes or so, you have to listen quickly.

I mentioned the Pixies because the second half of the album (and most of their first one) really sounds like a Pixies record.  In fact, there are parts of the songs (surf guitar, sparse solos, and Alan Vest’s voice which at times is an uncanny match for Black Francis’) might make you think you found a long lost Pixies track.  Then, of course, they throw in a trumpet, and you say, nope, not the Pixies.  So, if you like the Pixies, but wish they were just a bit more odd, definitely check out the CDs by these guys.

They released one other album after this one.  I’ve no idea what they’re up to now.  They have a MySpace page, but there’s not much on it except for a couple of songs.

[READ: June 2008] The Tunnel

I bought this book when it came out way back in 1995.  It was heralded as the next big book (and I mean big physically…it’s over 650 pages long). In fact any kind of search for this book tends to return the phrase magnum opus! It also will tell you that it took Gass some 25 years to write this book! He had written a lot of non-fiction since his previous novel: Willie Master’s Lonesome Wife, but this was his first attempt at fiction again.

I recall pretty well that when the book came out it was supposed to be a big thing, a good read, an important work. But, man was it difficult. And, as I look at the Publisher’s Weekly review now, they say it was something of a disappointment. I rather wish I had read THAT before I fought my way through this book. In general, I like modern works, I’ve read Pynchon, I’ve read Gaddis (not that I GOT them, but I read them), but this book was a really difficult read for me.

The central premise is that William Kohler is writing a book about the Nazis, it is called Guilt and Innocence in Hitler’s Germany. But he has been writing this book for many years with no completion in sight (a dig at Gass’ own slow work on this book?)  And so, Kohler is a failed academic. He is a failed writer. He is a failed husband. He is also, somewhat strangely and now compulsively, digging a tunnel in his basement.  The tunnel begins metaphorically as a way to escape from his life, but he becomes obsessed with finishing it, and as a result it becomes his only lasting triumph (such as it is).

There are many, many funny things in this book. Kohler needs to find a way to dispose of the dirt he is digging out of his basement (I’m not kidding, he starts digging a hole through his basement wall out into the yard), so he starts filling up the drawers of the chesterfields and bureaus that line his house (his wife is an antiques collector). His ruminations while doing this are universally funny. There are vivid images of bloated antiques seeping dirt.  Also, he has imagined a secret society called the Party for Disappointed People whose symbol is the cover of the hardcover edition (basically a blob-like shape (see the cover image) that could be a tunnel or a sphincter….and he explains each possibility in great detail). As you can imagine, the Party’s membership is constantly growing.

There’s also some very funny discussions about backstabbing/backbiting/bitchy academic professionals. There are many books written from the point of view of failed academics, and they universally critique the same things from their colleagues. This book is no different, nevertheless, it is quite funny. Gass really has the failed academic thing down quite well.

There is also a reminiscence/dream sequence part of his book (I can’t remember which, but also, I’m not sure if I ever figured out the context) of him as a young man in Germany.  There were some very vivid scenes of his apartment and of his living in fear.

Each of these sections were clear as a bell, and quite enjoyable. And yet, somehow, overall, the book is convoluted and confusing. As I said, it’s a long book, and the clear sections are scattered throughout. But the rest seems like a haze. It’s hard to like and dislike a book at the same time, and yet even though there was much I liked about the book, I’d say overall it was a really difficult and arduous task.

Part of the difficulty is reflected in the fact that I can’t remember that much about it (aside from those details, which proves that I read it, right?).  Normally you get a pretty clear sense of a book so that you can at least summarize it in a paragraph.  But not with this one.  There was a time in my life (in graduate school, mostly) where I enjoyed a book for its difficulty, and if I had to really work to figure it out, well, that was even better.  Sadly, now that I’m older and have precious little time to devote to reading, I don’t enjoy the really difficult books anymore, and I’m not willing to put in the effort.  That’s pretty lazy of me, I know, but so be it.  The Tunnel may have been worth the effort, but I doubt if I’ll ever find out.