I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: KING’S X-Manic Moonlight (2001).

This disc is not terribly popular among the King’s X fans.  A big complaint is that they dared to use drum loops.  It’s kind of a funny complaint because aside from adding a bit of texture (and for some reason, having each song start out with the drum machine), it’s not like they’ve suddenly gone all techno.  In fact, overall the album has a feeling of insular claustrophobia.  It feels like the songs are just densely packed with little room to breathe.

To me, the loops aren’t that odd for a band that’s big into experimentation (although you’ll note they were not used again).  What’s unusual is the addition of funk elements in “Believe,” and some really funky elements in “Vegetable”  There’s also some noisy/crunchy guitar workouts in “Yeah.” This song is also kind of odd as the verses are practically inaudible, but the choruses (which consist of the word “Yeah”) are just so great! Perhaps the most unusual track on the disc is “Skeptical Wind” which comes across as a rhymed/spoken-word piece that references Mia Farrow among other things.

But the title track sounds most like the King’s X we know and love.  In addition, “False Alarm” and “Jenna” are pretty close to the earlier Ty ballads (even though Ty doesn’t sing them).  They contain the harmonies we’re used to, but really they are sort of smothered in all of the surrounding noise.

The album is still full of great songs…the guys never lost their songwriting chops.  It’s just the way the songs are presented that makes them sound so different. It’s an interesting experiment, for which I give them credit, but it really doesn’t showcase the best aspects of the band.

[READ: Throughout 2008] Schott’s Miscellany 2008

In the best case of “but I thought you liked him” ever, Sarah bought me this book for Christmas, certain that I had read and enjoyed other books by him.  Interestingly, I had never heard of him or his books.  But I was very intrigued by the concept of it.

As you might imagine, I enjoy trivia and I like facts.  And for a person like me, this collection is fantastic.  As the subtitle says, it is an almanac; however, unlike the standard almanacs (Information Please, etc.) which are just lists of information.  Ben Schott (could he be the only one who works on this book?) gathers all of the interesting things that happened from September 2006 through August 2007 into interesting, subjective groups, with interesting, subjective names, and then writes about them.

I’m going to quote from Wikipedia here because this is a fascinating piece of trivia.  It concerns his first book, Schott’s Miscellany, which started him on the road to publishing sensation:

As The Guardian wrote of Schott’s Original Miscellany…“the idea for the book came from home-made Christmas cards that Schott sent to friends. They were no ordinary cards, but consisted of little booklets containing all of the essential information he supposed that one needed to get through life, but could never find”.  Schott typeset the book himself and … after sending copies out to his friends, he sent one to the CEO of Bloomsbury, Nigel Newton. As Newton told the Boston Globe, “I was completely bowled over when it arrived on my desk. It was a work of striking originality, and it was remarkable to receive an unsolicited submission like this in the mail. I immediately passed it to one of our editors, who signed it up.”

So, it’s not just the content of the book that is fascinating to me, it’s the entire story of it.

But as for the content:  Check out this link to see sample pages.  You can scroll through quite a number of them (although the print is rather tiny). And check out this site for even more Miscellany fun!

But we’ll look at the contents just so you can see what you get:

Chronicle (includes: Awards of Note (Time‘s Person of the Year, National Spelling Bee Champ, Librarian of the Year, as well as Words of the Year, Don Imus (among other scandals), Barometer of Morality, and summary of news events by month.); The World & Gazetteer (Position of the Doomsday Clock (-5 in 2007), Nobel Peace Prize, Privacy Rankings (this will shock you), Asteroid Impact Hazard Scale and much more); Society & Health (Baby Names of the Year, College Tuition, Cheating in Schools, Unemployment, Dangerous Jobs, etc.); Media & Celebrity (Magazine Cover Stars, Rehab, Who is the Face of What Product?, Top Shows, Do Not Call Registry); Music & Movies (Smoking in Movies, CD Piracy, Most Performed Operas, Three-Quels); Books & Arts (Nobel Prize, Top Selling Books, Bad Sex in Fiction Prize (went to Ian Hollingshead for his novel Twenty Something, Challenged Books); Sci, Tech, Net (Ig Nobel Prizes, Darwin Awards, Planetary Events, Celebrity Patents (See what Jamie Lee Curtis patented!), World’s Worst Sound (#1-vomiting, #5 squeaky seesaw, #10 tasmanian devil), Web 2.0); Travel & Leisure (Passports, Worst Roads, Worst Drivers, Toy of the Year, Worst Toy (Sorry, Heelies)); Sports (Football & Concussions, Top Earning Athletes, Fan Satisfaction Ranking (Buffalo Sabres fans are the most Satisfied sports fans in any sport, Every sport’s playoff standing); The Nation (America Superlatives, New Citizenship Test (see how well you’d do), The Red Phone, Hurricane Names); The States (City Nicknames, State Symbols, Flowers, Social Indicators); Government (Cabinet, Presidential Code Names, Facts about Past Presidents, Campaign Slogans,); Money (Cash in circulation, Presidents on banknotes, Postal rates, commemorative stamps, Virtual Currency); Form & Faith (How to address which dignitary, Etiquette & Introductions, Eating Etiquette circa 1904, New Saints); Ephemerides (Wedding anniversary symbols, Federal Holidays, List of events for each day of 2008, A Woman’s Chance to Marry circa 1911); Index & Errata

It’s a great book.  Read it five or ten pages at a time or cram as much as you can into one sitting. It’s totally addictive.   I only hope Sarah makes sure to get me the 2009 edition this year (oh, and those early books would be fun too!)