I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE DIVINE COMEDY-Casanova (1996)

Following Promenade, Neil Hannon released Casanova.  Stylistically it is very different.  It features more of a band, rather than an orchestra (although it retains an orchestral feel).  Perhaps because of this, there were three singles from the album, all of which charted in the UK.  “Something for the Weekend” is a wonderfully fun song, full of twists and double crosses, sex and debauchery and, of course, something in the woodshed (all in just over 4 minutes).  It’s a fantastic lead off single.

The second track was the second single “Becoming More Like Alfie.”  This was long before the remake of the movie Alfie, so I had no idea what the song was referring to.  I have not seen either version of the film, but I know now that Alfie is a ladies man, as the chorus leads off, “Everybody knows that no means yes…”

In fact, the whole album deals with sex.  Loving sex, debauched sex.  Sex, sex, sex.

“Songs of Love” follows a few of the more debauched songs with a beautiful ballad of a shy young man who sits in his bedroom noticing that “while they search for a mate/My type hibernate/In bedrooms above/Composing their songs of love.”  The next song “The Frog Princess” was the third single.  It is a sweet and tender ballad of love.  Until you get to the end of the song in which the narrator wonders, “But how was I to know that just one kiss/Could turn my frog into a cow?”

The album is solid and wholly enjoyable.  And it’s clear that Neil wasn’t done with songs about love as shortly after Casanova he released A Short Album About Love.

READ: [December 2008] No Dead Time

From time to time I do an order directly from Oni Press.  I tend to order a bunch of graphic novels at a time, and this was one that sounded interesting.  The general premise is that Nozomi is a young girl who works in a record store.  She’s fed up with the stupid people she has to deal with all day.  (“You were looking for (Led) Zeppelin under Z, weren’t you?”) Meanwhile Seth is an IT guy who is sick of the corporate world, and sick of dealing with his boss.

But really the first thing you notice about this comic, is the totally bizarre looking characters.  Aside from the main characters who are more or less human (even Nozomi is a bit odd looking in certain scenes) their coworkers are all weird: one has tentacles, one has a cat face; and some of the customers are, literally, ogres.  There’s a customer who morphs into different-looking people as he becomes more belligerent.  It’s disconcerting at first, but it works so well once you get used to what he’s doing.

And once you get used to the visuals, it’s the dialogue that really stands out.  Nozomi is a tough punk who is not afraid to stand up to herself even against the most apelike (literally) men.  In a great scene, the ape-jock mocks her lip ring and her awesome comeback is: “I know you’re doing this to make your daddy proud, but if you keep threatening everyone who’s different from you, you’ll end up as lonely and angry as I’m sure he is.”

Meanwhile, Seth is put-upon by his boss for being too idiosyncratic.  Seth can only fantasize about his comebacks as he doesn’t want to get fired.  Until one day when he gets fed up and starts attacking the things that irritate him (like his ex-girlfriend’s face on a billboard).

The basic premise of the story is that these two people stand above the crowd by being thoughtful….not in the nice way of thoughtful (because they’re really not very nice), but in a self-reflective way. The book is kind of mean to the masses, but then anyone who has worked in retail can say that it’s not too far off.  Anyhow, Seth and Nozomi bump into each other a couple of times before sitting down and realizing that they share similar beliefs.  This recap gives away some of the plot, but really it’s fairly obvious that they’re meant to be together as they are the only two “human” characters.

What is fascinating about the book, though, is the depth of the story’s message about individuality, about staying true to your passion, about not giving up childish behaviors, and most importantly about not blindly listening to authorities.  There’s even some historical evidence to back up their claims.  Although much of the evidence is American while the story is set in Canada.  It makes for interesting reading, even if it is a bit like a lecture at times. (I think you can get past  the lecture-like nature of the dialogue because of the wacky pictures and some of the funny banter interspersed within like “Started out with ‘Keep on Truckin’ and became ‘Tommy Hilfiger'”).

There’s also wonderful characterizations of certain people’s voices.  Every time a new character is introduced, you get an arrow with something like: “Talks like she’s reading a book to kids about  a magical unicorn.” My favorite page has these two characterizations, “Talks like Homer Simpson imitating Mr. Burns” (saying, “Can you please place that CD in my hand?  Otherwise I will never find it”) and “Voice like a monkey eating soap.”

And so, for multiple reasons this graphic novel greatly exceeds expectations.  Once you get past the “surface ugliness” of the story, there’s a lot to behold underneath.