I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: FISHBONE-Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe (1993).

I had actually forgotten about this album, because it was so overshadowed by Truth and Soul and Reality….. When I put it on I wasn’t expecting much (Fishbone had something of a precipitous decline around this time).  So, I was amazingly delighted with how much I remembered this album and how much I enjoyed it (which shows to me that I must have listened to it a lot back in college).

This album is much much heavier than anything they’ve done up to this point (I can’t speak for the releases that came after it).  It does have some variety of songs, but not nearly as much as their previous releases.  The other notable thing is that there’s no short songs on it.  There’s none of the one minute songs that they’ve put throughout their discs.

“Swim” was the single from the album and it is heavy and moshy.  The video, I seem to recall, was a lot of people crowd surfing.  “Black Flowers” slows things down a bit, but unlike previous ballads, this one is still pretty loud.  It’s got a great catchy melody, but it’s still  quite dark. “Servitude” reminds me of some of King’s X’s s darker moments, with their riffs and dark harmonies.  (This just shows how Fishbone is much more metal on this release).  Their first “lighter” song is the return to ska with “Unyielding Condition.”  It’s a nice let up from the heaviness, and is still catchy. “Lemon Meringue” is the other lighter moment, with a nice bass riff included.

Funk returns with “Properties of Propaganda” and the repeated chants of “Fuk This Shit on Up.”  “The Warmth of Your Breath” is hardcore insanity, the type of song that would have been about 2 minutes on another disc sort of overstays its welcome, although the often repeated line “may your dog’s colon be familiar with the warmth of your breath” while barely audible can’t help but raise a smile.  And even though “Drunk Skitzo” features Branford Marsalis, it’s still too long for such silliness.

So, it’s really the first half of the disc that I liked a lot…I guess some discs run too long.

I never got a Fishbone CD after this one.   The reviews were pretty lousy by then.  But of course, the reviews of this one were lousy too, so maybe I’m, selling their later output short.

[READ: January 3, 2009] McSweeney’s # 29

My cover for this book happens to be red.  Huh.

This issue comes as a hardcover book.  There are planets on the cover, including a die cut hole that shows the moon of the next page.

On the bottom of every page of the book are matchbox labels.  Most of them are Eastern European in origin.  They were collected by Jane McDevitt, a web designer in the UK.  Some of the images are available on her Flickr site: www.flickr.com/photos/maraid.  They are a pretty cool collection of images.  And, they brighten up all the work .

This was a good collection of stories, fourteen in all.  And so:

BRIAN BAISE-“It’s Nice When Someone is Excited to Hear from You”
This was an unusual story about a truly unpleasant character.  Roger had been working in San Francisco in an IT position.  He moved to Toledo, OH almost on a whim, and spends most of the story reminiscing. On a business trip he meets up with an old friend wherein his true nature is revealed.  There is one action in the story where I genuinely gasped.  An enjoyable story, but such an unlikable protagonist!

DAWN RYAN-“The Strauss House”
This was an interesting story about race and sexuality.  Barbara is a high school student.  As is her best friend Sam.  Barbara and her brother Steven were adopted by a white family, possibly because they are black.  Sam is a poor white girl who more or less moves in with Barbara’s family.  Barbara has matured sexually more quickly than Sam.  She convinces Sam that they should become intimate,  and the experiments have the expected result on their friendship.   What is particularly interesting about the mind games that are played is that the stakes are very high for Sam.  She has grown accustomed to many things in the Strauss house, and who knows how she’ll be able to cope if they are taken away.

NATHANIEL MINTON-“The Land of Our Enemies”
This was an interesting story that follows the lives of two men whose plane is about to crash in the rain forest.  One man, Peterson, a man of God, lands the plane.  He uses all of the materials on board and even the plane itself to build a small city.  He also quickly sets out to build a church.
Meanwhile, the other man, Freyman, an RAF soldier, jumped out of the plane.  He used the parachute to land safely.  However, after a few days, he is set upon by natives.  Their stories are told parallel.  Peterson, persuades some criminals (whose boat has crashed) to assist him in building his city.  Freyman survives the natives (in a gruesome scene) and convinces more and more of them to follow him.  As these two former plane-mates build their armies, their inevitable confrontation looms.  I really enjoyed this piece.

J. ERIN SWEENEY-“Augury”
This story has a woman returning from the Malay Peninsula believing that a common animal there would do well in the Pennsylvania forests.  The loris is a tree dwelling mammal who is easily frightened but who, if given the chance, will spout off aphorisms of wisdom.  After getting the loris imported, she finds that, like the kudzu in the south, they have begun to take over the community.  However, she learns that a chef has been trying to create delicacies from invasive plants/animals.   While the tension of whether the animals can be made into food isn’t the driving force of the story, it nicely compliments personal issues that the narrator is dealing with.  A fun, if unusual story.

PETER ORNER-“Kosciuszko”
Something of a reminiscence, this story gives a brief history of Tadeusz Kosciuszko.  But really, the story is about the narrator and his friend Barkus, who used to buy weed under the statue of Kosciuszko in Chicago’s Langley Park.  The narrator knows what happened to Koscciusko, but not what happened to Barkus.   And he ponders the possibilities.

JOHN THORSON-“Following a Lifetime of Fabrication, In the Wake of Decades at Sea”
A rather strange tale about the Mindfish, a creature that the narrator finds after years of believing he made it up.  As with most talking fish stories, this one just gets more surreal as it progresses.

LAURA HENDRIX-“A Record of Our Debts”
As this story opens, we learn that the narrator’s town is slowly coming down with a disease. The origins are unclear, but the townsfolk, looking for someone to blame, believe that it was the narrator’s sister, Selma, who caused the problem.  Symptoms are unspecific, but seem to be based around general dementia (Selma sits in the woodpile eating logs; Mrs Lemon, the store owner stops taking payment–which leads to the title–who is keeping a record of their debt at the store?)  It’s a good, chilling tale of scapegoating.

NELLY REIFLER-“History Lessons”
This story is fascinating.  It begins as a third person story of a couple lost in the woods.  Then, slowly it morphs into a  first person story.  The tale is actually being narrated by something or someone that the couple happened upon while lost.  It is never quite clear what this sentient/omnipresent being is.  This creature (and its child (?)) assist the couple out of the woods and then return home with them.  The story ends happily for the couple, but less so for the narrator.  I felt lost in the woods myself while reading this, but I was completely engrossed by it.  I’m still not sure what all was happening, but it was a cool story.

BLAZE GINSBERG-“My Crush on Hilary Duff”
The intro to this story explains that Blaze is a highly functioning autistic person, and he has been writing stories since he was 9.  As such, I feel bad saying anything negative about this piece.  It is written as a diary (or internet movie, it is suggested) about how he has a crush on Hilary Duff for two years.  It had moments of humor, but mostly was just like reading someone’s diary.

RODDY DOYLE-“The Painting”
There’s something about Roddy Doyle that makes me love everything he writes.  I don’t know what it is, but I’m never disappointed.  And this one is no exception, even when it gets kind of weird at the end.  So the basic story is that Adam, a Polish painter has moved to Ireland and is basically broke.  There’s some wonderful back story about how Adam loves Ireland because it doesn’t change…and he hates change, even down to the swirling leaves forever covering the sidewalk.  Through a complex series of steps, he meets Eve, a woman who lives nearby and whom he agrees to paint. She is a beautiful, straight talker.  He is intimated and that intimidation turns to love.  The purity of his love encourages him to do some questionable, but ultimately honorable acts.  It was quite a moving story, even if the ending surprised me.

BEN GREENMAN-“The Govindan Ananthanarayanan Academy for Moral and Ethical Practice and the Treatment of Sadness Resulting from the Misapplication of the Above”
This is the history of the karmic boomerang, a boomerang with 1 of 8 profound sayings written on it.  The piece is written as a historian’s look back upon the history of Govindan and the origin of his favorite phrase “How do you feel when the person who made you the saddest feels sad?”  A thought provoking little tale.

ERICA PLOUFFE LAZURE-“Cadence”
I admit to being a bit confused when the story revealed that the two people met in Basic.  Being a computer guy, I kept thinking it was some kind of Basic computing class.  Of course, many would have realized sooner that it was Basic training.  The tale comes across as a justification for dating your best friend’s girlfriend (and what the protocol is for servicemen).  Once i got it straightened out, it was  good story.

YANNICK MURPHY-“Calls”
This story is a series of entries.  Each series begins CALL: In which the traveling farm veterinarian (is there a word for this) details what his visit was for.  Then there is ACTION: where he describes what he did.  The next is RESULT: in which we learn the success of his visit.  The first few entries also contain THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME, WHAT THE CHILDREN SAID TO ME WHEN I GOT HOME, and WHAT THE WIFE COOKED FOR DINNER.   The notes are somewhat mundane, albeit funny, (especially the entry that has WHAT THE WIFE MADE FOR DINNER and a separate entry WHAT I ATE FOR DINNER), until the spaceship arrives on his front lawn.  This story went from okay to great in a matter of just a few pages.

JOYCE CAROL OATES-“Labyrinth”
This story was placed on the inside back cover of the book.  It is written in a large square spiral with the story winding its way to the center.  It is also a very short story.  It concerns N. who is afraid of being buried alive.  Of course, my telling you that pretty much tells you where the story is going.  It’s a fun journey though.  One of Oates’ dark stories.