I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Confusion is Sex (1983).

On the Sonic Death album, a collection of live recordings from 1981-83, Thurston mentions that they are touring with the Swans, a New York City doom and gloom band of thunderous proportions.  [This was before the Swans put out their first album, an incredibly slow, bass heavy bombastic disc of nihilism.  I can only imagine how raw they were BEFORE that one.]  Anyhow, that explains somewhat why this disc sounds like it does…if they were a part of a scene with the Swans, then their music would naturally be all about notes, not necessarily music.

There’s a lot of slow, brooding pieces on this disc.  The bass is heavy and rather ponderous, and the vocals are pretty scary.  Although the inclusion of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is an interesting cover choice.  The guitars are angular and quite harsh.  “Confusion is Next” is a stark song sung by Thurston and “Making the Nature Scene” is a similarly stark song sung by Kim.  These two tracks show that the disc is not all one style.  But the overall theme is consistent all the way through.

Later on, Sonic Youth would sound angry but it was often directed at something.  On this one they just sound angry.  Confusion is Sex is an interesting stepping stone to some really amazing Sonic Youth discs that will appear shortly. You can tell that they’re in there somewhere!

The remastered disc adds the Kill YR Idols EP which is more of the same.  But the live recording of “Shaking Hell” just goes to show how freaking scary a SY show must have been back then.  It also confirms anyone’s suspicion that the scariest member of the band was definitely Kim Gordon!

[READ: July 18, 2009] “Is Sex Interesting?”

Wallace Shawn is best known for a lot of things.  He was the “Inconceivable” guy in The Princess Bride, he is the voice of Rex in the Toy Story films, and he is the star and writer of My Dinner with Andre (among many other things).

I enjoyed My Dinner with Andre, both reading and watching it, and I rather enjoy reading what Wallace Shawn has to write.  So, I was pretty excited to read this which comes from a collection of essays called Writing About Sex.

I can’t help but hear his voice when I read his words, which makes it sound even funnier.

He writes that he is a sixty-four year-old man, and people seem to think that he is too old to be writing about sex (which he has been doing since he was 14).   And yet he (still)  thinks that sex is interesting to write about.  And he wonders why.

He looks at various aspects of sex–how the New York Times won’t show nudity, or how it’s funny that men buy magazines with pictures of breasts but not, for instance,  knees. And how the big toe is shaped and constructed in a particular way, while the penis, “located not to far away from the big toe [is] built out of fundamentally the same material.”

I enjoyed him laughing at the implication that “the contemplation of nudity or sex could tend to bring up the alarming idea that at any moment human passions might rise up and topple the world we know.”

This essay was short and it wasn’t mind blowing.  It also wasn’t outrageously funny.  Nevertheless, it was really enjoyable.  It was thought-provoking without taking itself too seriously.  And it was definitely good for a chuckle or two.  I assume that this is the kickoff chapter of the book, so I can only imagine that the rest of the book gets even better.