I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Hear It Is (1986).

I’ve claimed that I love the Lips, but then I was very harsh about their cover of “White Christmas,” and I noted that I wouldn’t listen to the soundtrack of  Christmas on Mars very much.  So, I felt I owed them some love.  But my recollection of their early stuff was that it was pretty weird and hard to listen to.

And yet, I proved myself wrong.  Hear It Is is not the Flaming lips of the early 2000’s.  It’s almost like the bratty younger brother of that band.  Only Wayne and Michael Ivins are present, and the band is pretty much just guitar, bass and drums.  The guitar is distorted and noisy (except when it’s acousticy and mellow).  The album doesn’t sound too far out of place for a college radio record in the late 80s.

Except of course that Wayne and the boys are pretty out there. The music is psychedelic, acid inspired and quite punk.  So you get songs like “Jesus Shootin’ Heroin” a seven minute epic of heavy riffs and screaming, but also of background “Ahhhh’s”.  You also get “With You” a song that starts out like a pretty, acoustic ballad. “Godzilla Flick” is a ballad like no other.  And yet despite all of the freakouts and noise, really at this stage what you get is a Led Zeppelin inspired heavy garage band having a lot of fun.  To say that this is going to blow your mind would be unfair, but to anyone who says the early stuff is unlistenable, they are totally wrong.   Hear It Is is sloppy, punky and a little ridiculous, the ideal incubator for what will become the Lips of 2000.

This CD comes with a cover of “Summertime Blues.”  This disc was reissued along with their initial EP and some bonus tracks on the disc Finally the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid.

[READ: 1998 and January 10, 2009] McSweeney’s #1

I have been reading McSweeney’s since its inception.  (My copy of this issue even has the two page typed letter that explains the failure of Might magazine and the origins of this one. However, it’s been over ten years since I read the first issues.  Given my new perspective on McSweeney’s, and how I read just about everything they release, I thought it was about time to go back to the beginning and proceed through the issues until I meet up where I first started reviewing them.

Issue #1 has many features that are absent in later issues:

First is the cover.  This cover is simply filled with words; practically littered with them.  There are subtitles, there are jokes, there’s all sorts of things (I mean, just look at the full title of this issue).

Second is the letters column.  The difference with this letters column compared to most publications is that they are all (or mostly) nonsense.  One comes from an author whose piece is accepted into the issue (Morgan Phillips).  Another is a funny/silly letter from Sarah Vowell.  And there’s a letter to his cousin from John Hodgman (whose comic potential may not have been tapped at this point?).

Third, the contents page has very lengthy descriptions (without necessarily the actual title) for each piece (even the charts and pictures).

Fourth, the author bios are written by Adrienne Miller, in which she tells a long narrative about herself as if it applied to each author.

And finally, the stories are almost all sort of jokey/meta-fiction.  Stories that are not short stories in the traditional sense (or even like the “real, literary”) stories that are in later issues.  The magazine seems to be a transitional stage from the silliness of Might into the hardcover, ISBN-filled books that McSweeney’s would become.

It also lists the contributors thusly (some names are not given on the contents page so I’m including them here).

Main contributors: Zev Borow, Arthur Bradford, Randy Cohen, Courtney Eldridge, Mia Fineman, Mary R. Gallagher, Chris Harris, Marc Herman, Tom Junod, Komar and Melamid, Adrienne Miller, Rick Moody, Mark O’Donnell, Christina Pelham-Fence, Morgan Phillips,  Heidi Pollack, Todd Pruzan, Ted Rall, Marny Requa, Tim Rogers, Phillip Ryan, Steven J. Shalit, Steve Steinberg, Jill Stoddard, Paul Tullis, David Foster Wallace, Jason Zengerle

More contributors: Ana Marie Cox, John Hodgman, Laura Miller, Tish O’Mara, Glasgow Phillips, Morgan Phillips, William Powers, Don Steinberg, Sarah Vowell, Stuart Wade, Ches Wajda

And the pieces include:

NEAL POLLACK-“Man’s Fate–98: Learning to Love Again, A Story in Three Parts.”
This is a story straight out of Neal Pollack’s self-examination oeuvre.  By self-examination, of course, I mean, Pollack talking about his amazing life as a journalist, sex symbol, movie star and all around super guy.  This story is broken into four parts.  The first “The Last Great Andalusian Horse Trainer” reveals Pollack’s upbringing as a rider of horses. (And a man who suffers no racists!).  He uses this talent to tame an untamable horse (while he’s on assignment to interview the horse rider).  The second part “This Albanian Life” concerns his journalistic trip to live with a poor family in Albania, where despite his fame and glory he is actually moved by what he sees.  In the third part “The Burden of Internet Celebrity” he accepts that being a super popular Internet celebrity with over a million hits a day is worth it as long as it helps just one poor person out.  And in the last one, “I Have Slept with 500 Women” he regrets sleeping with at least (but no less than) 500 women because all he wants is love!  The stories are delightful exercises in hyperbole.  Pollack has a book of short stories, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, constructed like this one.

[chart] ANIMAL: Swim/Cannot Swim
A simple chart, with a twist.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE-“Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VIII)”
I first read this story in this issue ten years ago.  I’ve since read it in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, (this story does not appear in BIwHM, but XI, VI, & XXIV do, rather, this story appears in Oblivion, but it is there called “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”) and am now reading it again.  I’m finally getting the rhythm of the story down.  This is a stream of consciousness story in which the narrator, a young man accused of (as best I can tell) negligence for allowing a burglar/trespasser to fall through his weakened roof and onto a tank of poisonous spiders, escorts his mother, a woman who has endured two botched plastic surgeries on her face–the first of which made her look perpetually startled, and the second of which made her look like she was perpetually grimacing in horror–to the courthouse for a trial (although his or hers I’m not entirely sure), all the while he is carrying a briefcase of said spiders, and giving certain details and facts about the lives of these spiders; there is also a funny bit about a previous lawsuit in which they are no longer allowed to say the name of a certain bug killer.   It’s a tricky piece to follow, but it gets funnier with every read.

ZEV BOROW-“R.W. Apple, Jr. is Prejudiced. (An Open Letter to R.W. Apple, Jr.)
The title says it all.  This is an appeal to R.W. Apple, Jr. that he should try to be less prejudiced.  R.W. Apple Jr. is associate editor of the New York Times. but is evidently very prejudiced.

PICTURE-
The “pictures” in this issue are actually descriptions of pictures with an accompanying caption.  It’s a funny way to (I assume) defray the cost of printing pictures.

MARC HERMAN-“Draft Text of a Proposal for a Focus Group Study on How Best to Relate…The Discovery of El Dorado, City of Gold”
This piece is a multi-part story of how Marc Herman should present his information about El Dorado.  Should he do it as fiction?  After he presents a story, he admits that most of it was false.  Or should it be non-fiction (presented complete with bullet points).

TOM JUNOD-“J.H.C”
In this piece Jesus, after acquiring a ring with J.H.C. on it, goes around disrupting circuses that he deems unworthy.  He is especially disappointed in a squirting rose.

MARK O’DONNELL-“Attack of the Fabulons. A Teleplay”
This is a play about a race of beings, the Fabulons, who come to earth intent on improving the tacky appearance of our planet.  It is only through the narrating general’s wise words about kitsch, that the earth is saved.  Pretty funny stuff.

JILL STODDARD-“Four Short Interviews”
I enjoyed this piece immensely. Jill Stoddard has very brief interviews with Al Gore, Stephen King, David Mamet and John Tesh.  Set in, I think,  a bookstore.

ARTHUR BRADFORD-“Mollusks”
This was one of the few stories that read like a short story and not a kind of meta-fiction or parody or just amusing piece.  In this story, Kenneth and the narrator find a gigantic slug, weighing about ten pounds.  Kenneth excitedly brings it home to show his wife, in the belief that he can get some serious cash for it.  Meanwhile the narrator who is hot for Kenneth’s wife, tries to use her anger with Kenneth’s foolishness to win her heart.

CHART-Hot Actors, Hotter Together
Title says it all, really.

RICK MOODY-“On’The Yule Log'”
This piece was rejected from The Times Magazine, which deemed it not useful for a section about “any TV show that you really like.”  Moody explains that he doesn’t like TV.  So, we get a  funny reminiscence about the Yule Log on WPIX and how it never ever disappointed.

COURTNEY ELDRIDGE-“Young Professionals”
This is a story about obsessive compulsives.  This is a story about obsessive compulsives. This is a story about obsessive compulsives. This is a story about obsessive compulsives. This is a story about obsessive compulsives. It was a little long (what with going back and rechecking everything in great detail) but the payoff is pretty good.

MORGAN PHILLIPS-“Frank and Pico. A New Screenplay”
The letters section introduces us to this screenplay and how it is definitive.  Hilariously, it turns out to be three pages long.

MARY R. GALLAGHER-“Have You Ever Been to Portland, Maine?”
This fascinating piece is set up in a series of floor plans of an apartment.  Brief descriptions of what happened in each room are the interesting way to convey the action.  Unique, a challenge to read, but pretty cool.

JENNY HOLZER-“What it Might Look Like if Jenny Holzer, Instead of Typesetting Her Words in Futura Extra Bold Oblique, used a Serif Font, in Small Italics, Center-Justified, on Uncoated Stock, and Didn’t Capitalize All the Letters.”
The title, longer than the actual piece, tells it all.

STEPHEN J. SHALIT-“‘Impressions'” of a Life Very, Very Different from Our Own, Half a World Away, if Not Farther, Depending on Where You Leave From: An Egyptian Remembrance (Or, Notes and Complaints from a Colicky Child)”
This is another piece that was ultimately rejected from another magazine.  Or actually, the first part was rejected, the other parts are more or less diary entries.  It is set up in three columns.  The entries more or less parallel each other, with the first column being the actual story about Egypt, Egyptology and the Pyramids.  The second column is something of a diary entry about his actual trip, which corresponds and yet conflicts with what happens in the story.  The final column is written while he is editing the piece and how difficult it is doing so.  The Egypt stuff was pretty interesting, and the commentary was imaginatively funny.

MIA FINEMAN & KOMAR & MELAMID-“Old Dogs, New Tricks: The Twilight of Modernism, and the Dawn of the Neo-Senilists, by Komar & Melamid”
A parody of art criticism that describes the dawn of the Neo-Senilists: artists who are not afraid to let senility be their guide.  The main target is Willem de Kooning (see painting sample at right).

RANDY COHEN-“DJ & Emma”
This story is told in two parts.  The first comes from DJ’s point of view, the other is from Emma’s.  Emma is a little girl loved by her dad until she realizes that he is just ever so slightly more thrilled to have a son, DJ. (Daddy Junior).  Part Two gets pretty crazy as Emma and her mom take to the professional rodeo circuit.

PICTURE-

ZEV BOROW-“Haole Go Home! (Small Gestures from the Hawaiian Secessionist Movement)”
A fascinating look at the Secessionist movement in Hawaii (I didn’t know there was one).  The article looks at various ways in which Hawaii has made steps towards independence.  Some are slight, but the bulk is very real.  (Especially since President Cliton’s apology.) This is another piece that was rejected from a different publication.  Evidently, New Jersey’s own Grover Cleveland did not want to annex Hawaii.  Huh.

At the end of the book is a collection of very short (most are half a page) stories (the precursor to flash fiction?) by multiple authors, entitled:

“Wooden Duck Decoys of the Heart, but which you may refer to as ‘Potpourri'”

CHRISTINA PELHAM-FENCE-“Heaving, Having or Even Less Than That”
The first story that ends with a man being run over by a bus.

McSWEENEY’S STAFF-A Story Which Takes Place During the Korean War and Stars Paul Theroux, V.S.Naipaul and Jane Bryant Quinn, Financial Expert for Newsweek, a Weekly Magazine for General Readers”
The first of a few pieces that feature Paul Theroux.  This one  imagines these authors in the Korean War.

CHRIS HARRIS-“What We Talk About When We Talk About Post-Modernism, While Snacking on Snacks and Listening to Popular Music Played with Electric Instruments (Episode XXXVI: Jacques, You Mustn’t!)”
This piece was my favorite of the bunch.  It is a story in which the characters discuss the omnipotence of the author, and one character tries to escape from the author’s desires.

CHRISTINA PELHAM-FENCE-“Great to Be An American”
Also run over by a bus.

McSWEENEY’S STAFF-“A Sexy New Story Where Instead of Made-Up Names All the Names Used Are Those of Legal Experts Who Appear on Television”
Title says it all.  It would be funnier if I knew/remembered who all the people were.

McSWEENEY’S STAFF-“A Brief Tale Wherein Edmund Morris, 100 Best-Novels Panel Member and the Man Behind the Sentence, “In the Meantime, If Any Contemporary Novelist has a “Great” Work Under His Belt (or Her Girdle), I’d Recommend Delaying Publication Until After the Millennium.  Then You Might Make Our Next List,’ Is Eaten By a Huge Snake”
Title literally says it all.  Hilarious.

TODD PRUZAN-“A Short Fictional Passage Entitled ‘Drift Nets’ in Which Several Enterprising Characters Troll the High Seas, Exploring Abandonded Trade Vessels for ‘Pirated’ Goods, and Learn to Cope with Distinct Personalities in a Close-Knit, High-Stress Environment”
Complete with footnotes explaining the humor.  This was a funny little piece imagining Phillip Glass (and other Glasses) on a boat, searching for booty.

CHRISTINA PELHAM-FENCE-“All the Gold in China”
Yes, hit by a bus.

McSWEENEY’S STAFF-“A Short Story Extracted from Chapter 6 of Paul Theroux’s 1997 Novel Kowloon Tong, Printed Without Alterations to the Original Text, Except that in This Case Nearly All the Words Have Been Replaced with the Words ‘Paul Theroux'”
Title says it all. Funny.

JILL STODDARD-“An Unfinished Novel About Berkeley in 60s.”
The longest piece in this section.  Stoddard accepts that her parents robbed a convenience store but is very disappointed that they lied about how it happened (they weren’t in theater costumes).

TIM ROGERS-The Buns All Surprises: A True Story”
An intimate look at sorority pledges getting their acceptance letter and running down campus to get their pins.  And the man who joined them.

PHILLIP RYAN-“A Five Parter for Mature Readers”
Five section, seemingly unrelated. Confusing.

TODD PRUZAN-“A Passage Set in Antarctica, Where the Author Has Never Visited”
Unexpectedly a bus comes into play once again.

MARNY REQUA-“Recent Newspaper and Magazine Headlines Explained to Our Readers.”
This section was very funny.  Marny Requa explains in great detail, including a bibliography at the end, the full depth of meaning in several recent newspaper headlines.  So, for instance, “The Day Samba Stopped” is  about France’s defeat of Brazil in the 1998 World Cup.  She goes into great detail about he Brazilian people, as well, as the history of samba music, and also about Don McLean.  Hilariously in-depth.

PAUL TULLIS-“Briefly About the Crimean War”
A mostly serious, but slightly silly five paragraphs about the Crimean War and its affect on Russia

TED RALL & PAUL TULLIS-“Television Advertsments, Reviewed with Great Passion.”
Very passionately reviewed ads for Conseco Direct Life, Scholl’s Dyna-Step Inserts, Post Cereal, Anheuser-Busch and Honda Lawnmowers.  RAll’s reviews (the first three) are mild and funny.  Tullis’ reviews (the last one) is scathing and hilarious.  The 4th one is uncredited (accidentally I’m sure) but given the tone, I assume it’s Tullis as well.  I dont recall any of these ads, but the reviews are all really funny.

And finally:

Biographies of most of the contributors by ADRIENNE MILLER written before she read the stories in question or knew the authors responsible.

This issue ends with a list of the (presumably) fake Meg McGillicuddy Series. At least 40 hilariously titled volumes already!

***

So, my overall feeling is that it’s a fun start to the jounral/periodical/whatever.  It’s interesting to see how much it has changed over the years, but you can see the kernel of it right from the start.