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Archive for August, 2009

Bryan Lee O’Malley–Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (vol. 2)

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Oni Press, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sex, Short Books, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Threats, Video Games, Violence, YA Books on August 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »

scott2SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 2: Slaapkamers Met Slagroom (1997).

syr2The second SYR release is like the other side of the coin from SYR1.  The premise is the same, the players are the same, but the result is rather different.

The first track is nearly as long as the previous disc (17 + minutes) and it seems to run through a variety of song styles (including noise experiments) before settling down into a noisy improv.  The third track features the first “vocals” on these discs–rather unsettling sounds that Kim spits out.  (Online lyrics pages say that there are actual words here so I’ll take their word for it; I just like to think of them as vocal stylings).

While SYR1 was a smoother listen, this one is more jagged.  Not quite the noisefest they are capable of but not exactly easy listening either.

For this disc all of the titles, liner notes etc. are in Dutch.  (SYR1 was in French).  Each volume in the series is in a different language.

[READ: August 9, 2009] Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

The second volume of the series, (and the one the film is named after) continues the exciting saga of Scott Pilgrim and his band Sex Bob-omb.

This second volume introduces us to The Clash at Demonhead, the band that Scott’s ex-girlfriend took to stardom, after they kicked Scott out of the band, of course.

But before we get to the Knives Chu’s new favorite band,we learn about the origins of her former favorite band: Sex Bob-omb.  We see how Scott and Kim first met and why she acts so strangely around him.

But more importantly, plotwise, we get to meet Ramona’s second evil ex-boyfriend, Lucas Lee.  He is a broody actor who also just happens to be in Toronto filming a new picture.  And fight they do.

But they’re not the only ones who do battle in this volume.  There’s a rip-roaring battle scene between Knives and Ramona that takes place in the beautiful Toronto Reference Library.

But the book is more than fighting and music: there’s a cooking lesson for making vegan shepherd’s pie.  Veganism will loom large in Vol 3!   And there’s even more fun asides (with captions and comments about various characters) in this volume.  I especially enjoyed the ones that give the characters’ states of mind.

While the first volume was certainly fun, it feels like he is having even more fun with volume two.  It’s a very fun series, and the books are very fast reads (for better or worse…often worse.)

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Bryan Lee O’Malley–Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life (vol. 1)

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Oni Press, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sex Bob-omb, Short Books, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Threats, Video Games, Violence, YA Books on August 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

pilgrimSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH -SYR 1 Anagrama (1997).

syr1

After Washing Machine, Sonic Youth began recording a series of EPs (that gradually grew into longer discs) in which they explored their improvisation/longer piece needs.

And so SYR1 was released.

It contains for tracks and runs about 25 minute.  It’s not simply guitar feedback or waves of distortion.  Rather it is songs built around themes which are followed to their logical ends.

Thee EPs aren’t for everyone. There’s no lyrics, there’s no choruses.  It’s sort of like how the end of “The Diamond Sea” was a chance for SY to let loose and see what happened. I can’t even say that the songs and motifs are necessarily memorable (although I’m led to believe that some have cropped up on the proper albums).  I don’t listen to these a lot, but they are fun to put on from time to time, if you’re in an avant garde mood.

[READ August 9, 2009] Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life

I had read this book a few years ago.  But I had read it in bits and pieces over several weeks, and so I didn’t feel like I had a real grasp of the story.  This is especially true because the story begins simply enough and then turns into a wild hallucinogenic story that is very funny, very very funny, in fact, but also incredibly surreal.

When I was at BEA in New York this year I ran into the guy from Oni Press who told me that they are making a film of Scott Pilgrim, which is pretty fantastic.  I’m rather looking forward to seeing it.  But because there are so many interesting visual things going on in th graphic novel, I can’t help but wonder how they will transform them.  And also, Book 6 of this series may be written with a different ending from the film, so that should be fun, too.

But speaking of the visuals….

O’Malley’s style is utterly fascinating.  When I first started reading, I felt like the artwork was “sloppy” in that sort of stylized sloppiness that people take some time to achieve.  (I think mostly this is because of the character’s eyes.  They are a refined sort of manga but the pupils are so large that i found it disconcerting.)  But when reading it through this time, I realized not only is it not sloppy, it is meticulously designed in a very cool way.  Take Scott’s hair, which is commented about through the series.  I’m not going to go and spout on about how long he must have spent getting his hair just right, but clearly there was effort and planning in the length and style, even if it is primarily drawn with a  few broad triangles. (more…)

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Dave Eggers–“Max at Sea” (New Yorker, August 24, 2009)

Posted in Boredom, Children's Books, Dave Eggers, Dischord Records, Funny (strange), McSweeney's, Meta, New Yorker, Oddities, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Spike Jonze, Threats, Violence on August 19, 2009| 2 Comments »

nyorkerSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-TV Shit (1993).

tvshitThis is a funny little addition to the SY catalog. It is essentially four covers of a song by Youth Brigade called “No Song II” (which is from Dischord records, Possible EP here).

The original song is one second long, with the band shouting “No”

So, covers of it are obviously absurd.  There are 4 tracks in total on the disc, the last two are each over three minutes long (!)

The band is in full noise/freak out ensemble, complete with maniacal screamer/lunatic  Yamatsuka Eye from the Boredoms (and elsewhere).

Obviously it’s a bit of fun, and little more. It’s only for super-die-hard fans or anyone who might like the Boredoms-style of noise rock.

[READ, August 18, 2009] “Max at Sea”

Since I just finished Eggers’ How We Are Hungry, I was delighted to find a new story by him in the New Yorker. The picture next to it looks like a still from the upcoming film of Where the Wild Things Are (Eggers cowrote the screenplay). So, when the story started and Max put on a bear costume, I thought, huh, that seems very familiar.

As the story progressed, well, it seemed really really familiar. Now, I admit I don’t know Where the Wild Things Are by heart, but I sure recognized a lot of it. And then I confirmed with Sarah that indeed, this short story IS the story of Where the Wild Things Are. Eggers has fleshed it out (presumably for the screenplay) and added some details and things, but the whole plot of the story is Maurice Sendak’s.

And I’m not sure how I feel about releasing it as a short story. It is acknowledged in the Eggers bio in the front of the magazine that it does come from Sendak’s work, but somehow it seems wrong to take up a fiction spot in the New Yorker (that most venerable of fiction locations) with a story that is a retelling of someone else’s story. (more…)

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Dave Eggers–How We Are Hungry: Stories (2004)

Posted in Adventure, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dave Eggers, Egyptology, Marriage (Happy), McSweeney's, Pixies, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Violence on August 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

eggersSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Washing Machine (1995).

washingAfter the short blasts and diverse collection fo songs on Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star, Washing Machine sounds like almost a different band. For although there are a few shorter pieces here, they also give us the 9 minute title track and the, brace yourself, almost 20 minute “The Diamond Sea.”

Perhaps the most amazing thing about “The Diamond Sea” is that the first 5 or so minutes are probably the catchiest song they’ve ever recorded.  It’s a gentle, meandering piece with great chord changes and some of Thurston’s most delicate singing to date.   There’s an edited version available which basically just lops off the last 12 or 13 minutes, but keeps the first chunk (including the controlled chaos of the feedback solo) intact.  Those last 13 minutes are where SY gets to open up and experiment.  It’s all sounds and washes and textures.  There very little in the way of feedback squalls, and yet it’s not  conventional song structure either.  It’s very cool.

The other lengthy song is “Washing Machine” one of their weirdest songs in recent memory with Kim going downtown to buy her”baby a soda-pop.”  She talks in a sort of New Yawk accent, exaggerated and almost silly as they discuss washing machines.  Actually, I take that back, their weirdest song (for Sonic Youth) is clearly “Little Trouble Girl” as it is a straight up tribute to/mockery of doo-wop songs (with main vocals done by the Pixies’ own Kim Deal).

Two Thurston songs, “Junkie’s Promise” and “No Queen Blues” give him some great lyrics done in a catchy fashion (even is “No Queen” revels in its own dissonance).

But none of the songs are “singles” per se.  Even the catchiest among them have portions that are designed to keep casual listeners at bay.  Although “Unwind,” another delicate song could easily meet the most sensitive listener’s needs.

But it’s “The Diamond Sea” that points the direction SY would be heading for in the next few years: longer, more abstract pieces.

[READ: August 8, 2009] How We Are Hungry

I really enjoyed Dave Eggers’ first book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.  And, obviously, I’ve been a fan of McSweeney’s for years. So, why did it take me this long to read his collection of short stories?  I have no idea.

They were really fantastic.

But before getting to them, I want to address the look of this book.  I have often commented on the quality of the books that McSweeney’s publishes.  But it seems like especially for Egger’s books, they pull out all he stops (and, sure, he’s allowed, it is his company).  This book is beautiful.  It has an embossed leather (faux?) cover of a gryphon on it.  It also comes with a page ribbon and an elastic to keep it closed.  It truly is a beautiful book. (more…)

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Periodical: Entertainment Weekly

Posted in Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Britney Spears, Children's Books, Entertainment Weekly, Film & TV, Graphic Novel, Music, Stephen King on August 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ew2I’ve been reading Entertainment Weekly for years and years.  I think I subscribed back in like 1993 or so.  And I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with it.  I’ve canceled my subscription on a number of occasions, mostly because I believed that it didn’t cover enough of the indie stuff I enjoyed (which is still largely true).  But then I’d see an issue and realize that it is a fun magazine to flip through, so I’d re-subscribe.

Over the years, EW has morphed more and more.  And each change to the magazine makes me like it less.  And now in its current iteration, which happened about a year ago, I feel that they have removed all pretense to being a “smart” publication.  Although, at least they stopped including the bold line of text which presumably highlighted the best line of a review.  Evidently they thought we couldn’t ewread the entire half-a-column-length of an article.  But they removed that, and it’s back to simple reviews.

I’ve always been sort of iffy about their rating system (A through F).  It’s a simple guide, so it’s easy to see quickly whether they liked it or not, but as in school, it seems hard to pinpoint exactly what the difference is between say an A- and a B+.  But hey, that’s their thing, so it’s okay.

And as a sort of all-purpose guide to entertainment, it’s pretty useful.

The new design has largely changed the order of things in the magazine.  And so The Must List which used to be a small thing in the middle now opens the magazine as a full page extravaganza (highlighting in a nutshell what is wrong with this latest incarnation of the magazine–something that used to fill up a page at most is now a two page spread with bigger pictures!) (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 8] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Boston, MA, Canadian Content, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Garbage, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Paul F. Tompkins, Prison, Set at School, Sonic Youth, Sports, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, The Sound of Young America, Violence, Yuck! on August 15, 2009| 5 Comments »

ij8SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star (1994).

ejstns“Bull in the Heather” is one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs.  I love everything about it (even if I haven’t got a clue what it’s about): the simple opening, the switch to harmonics, and, my favorite part, the drum break that leads to the chorus (who ever heard of getting a drum break stuck in your head?).

There’s a lot to speak for this disc even though it seems to be overlooked (as the empty spot between Dirty and Washing Machine).  Take the absolute variety of textures, and the almost surreal mixtures of styles within (short) songs (like “Bone” which opens with super fast paced drumming and howls from Kim and then breaks into a very mellow (and catchy) chorus).

For sheer variety: the disc opens with an acoustic guitar strummer by Thurston (“Winner’s Blues”), and then, after the single “Bull in the Heather,” there’s the 2 minute noise-fest “Starfield Road.”  This is followed by the cool and catchy “Skink,” which is like Kim’s version of the slinky and cool “Self-Obsessed and Sexxee.”  This is definitely Kim’s disc, she sings about half of the songs, and shows a great variety of styles here.

“Androgynous Mind” is one of those weird songs that has a wonderfully catchy vocal line but where the music is pretty much abstract nonsense.  And speaking of catchy, this disc continues with SY’s notion of sing along choruses (even if what you’re singing doesn’t make a lot of sense (“Screaming Skull” fits that bill perfectly)).  And then “Quest for the Cup” does a 90 degree turn after the intro.  All of these shifts and changes occur in less than half an hour.

The last 20 minutes or so settle the disc down somewhat (except for the brief “In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader,” but the 7 minute closer “Sweet Shine” ends the disc on a mellow note.

This is also the last SY disc produced by Butch Vig.  Vig’s production is often described as clean. But Vig doesn’t clean up the noise that SY makes, he just makes it, I guess, crisper would be a better word.  Compare the way that Garbage’s “Vow” opens with a big grand noise and then stops dead after a few seconds.  Vig seems to be a master of controlling noise to make it stand out more.  And in that respect, his technique really shines through on this disc…it feels almost mechanical in its precision.

From this point forward, Sonic Youth would break away from this style of music into a freer and looser almost jazz feel, so even if the album title doesn’t make literal sense, it describes the disc quite well.

[READ: Week of August 10] Infinite Jest (to page 589)

Last week, showed Gately’s car speeding through Cambridge.  He runs over a discarded cup which we follow as it sails down the street and hits the Antitoi’s door.  It was very cinematic.  Discussions abound about whether IJ could (or should) be filmed.  I’m not going to add to that discussion but I did want to mention what I see as the filmic way the book written.

In many movies you are introduced almost casually to many of the protagonists, seeing them in their most typical place of employment or hang-out spot or some such thing.  And in films, it doesn’t seem that weird to get a two minute or even 30 second establishing shot of character A before jump cutting to character B.

And that’s how IJ starts, with all of these jump cuts, establishing shots, of characters.  Clenette’s scene is hard to read, but if you saw it in a movie, you’d say, okay that’s her character.  And, for the most part you would expect her to reappear later in the movie. I’m not sure what anyone expects to happen in IJ, so who knows what we think the Clenette scene is about, but realistically, the character has to come back, even if what she said didn’t make any sense at the time.

And as movies go, so does the book, cutting back and forth between scenes building the stories along as they inevitably intertwine.

It’s also not unheard of to have what seems like it may be the end of the chronological story appear first (we haven’t seen any return to the Year of Glad yet).

And so, yes I will say a thing about the filmic possibilities of  this book.  Sure the book is long, and yet so much of the book is description, stuff that in a movie can be done with an establishing shot, even a slow one.  The whole Joelle/overdose scene which covers so many pages could be filmed rather quickly.  So could Eschaton. The question of course is how much would be lost in translation.  And that I can’t answer (although I expect quite a lot).

Be a hell of a film, though.

ijdot

So, in a few places, especially on Infinite Tasks, people have been mentioning some crucial information that happens on Page 17.   I felt bad that I didn’t recall anything that happened on page 17, so I went back and re-read this section (and how weird is it to re-read parts of a book that you haven’t even finished yet?)

And so Page 17 feels like a major spoiler!  It feels like so much is given away!  It feels like such an essential part of the story that it’s amazing how it’s sort of tossed off in a hallucinatory sequence.

I think of John N.R. Wayne who would have won this year’s WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father’s head.  There’s very little doubt that Wayne would have won.

Wow.  So much packed into those two sentences!  Holy cow.

And, the end of that sequence has an orderly ask Hal, “so, yo, then man what’s your story?”

Is that the device that sets up that Hal is telling this whole book?  I just blew my mind.

ijdot

This week’s reading begins with the aftermath of The Escahton debacle.  Or the precursor to the aftermath, anyway.  And it features the color blue. A lot.

It also gets to a question I’ve been puzzling about for sometime: why isclouds every IJ book jacket/promotional material designed in a sort of cloud motif. Well, in the section we lean that Uncle Charles’ office is decked out in an unsettling cloud wallpaper (which is coincidentally the same wallpaper as Hal’s dentist).  It has only appeared briefly so far, so it seems odd that it would take on such an iconic feel.  But we’ll see if it comes back.

(more…)

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Sherman Alexie–“War Dances” (New Yorker, August 10 & 17, 2009)

Posted in Cancer as plot device, Death, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Military, New Yorker, Sherman Alexie, Sonic Youth on August 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

nySOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Dirty (1991).

dirtyI think of Dirty as a pretty commercial album.  I mean, it’s got Butch Vig as a producer for crying out loud.  And, it has three singles released from it.

The lead off track “100%,” and track three “Theresa’s Sound World” are as catchy as anything.

And of course, Lee’s “Wish Fulfillment” is just an amazing track, and is certainly a nod to a more poppy sound.  But it is “Sugar Kane” that strikes me as their most commercial attempt yet. Of course, saying all this, one must remember that Daydream Nation & even Sister had tracks that were short and catchy.  Dirty almost feels like a condensation of that sound.

“Orange Rolls, Angel’s Spit” is one of those songs that mixes catchy sections and utter noise so successfully.  And “Youth Aginst Fascism” has a wonderfully catchy vocal line but it is backed by the squeakiest most unmusical guitars on the record (and has the memorable “I Believe Anita Hill” line).

But despite all that, there’s also two completely un-Sonic Youth songs on the disc: “Nic Fit” is a one minute hardcore punk blast while “Creme Brulee” is a solo guitar (a sort of out-of-tune, cheapo amp effect) strumalong sung by Kim.  Kim also gets “Drunken Butterfly” which is certainly not easy listening, (although the mocking of The Door’s lyrics is pretty funny).  And “Shoot,” which is one of Kim’s menacing spoken-wordish pieces that changes the overall temperament of the disc.

But, yea, there’s no denying that this is a commercial album. It features some of their catchiest and easiest-listening tracks.  And yet, the disc is certainly done on SY’s terms.  For even if they did make it onto the Billboard charts (#83), they certainly never got played on Top 40 radio.

[READ: August 6, 2009] “War Dances”

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this short story or not.  But then this story is broken down into multiple small sections and the heading on the first was My Kafka Baggage. Now, I like Kafka, but Kafka can also be an “lazy” indicator for “weird stuff ahead”.   Nevertheless, I read the opening and I was intrigued. By the end of that section I was hooked.

And even though I felt the second section wrapped up things really nicely (it wraps up a story about the narrator’s father, but not the whole story itself), I pressed on.

All of this sounds like it’s not a strong vote of confidence for this story, but that’s far from the truth. The story was fantastic. I couldn’t get enough right up until the end, which was very satisfying.

The story concerns a forty year old Native American Indian guy. He has two kids and his wife is away in Rome on vacation. When his kids start clamoring for food, he realizes that he can’t hear them very well.  And sure enough, when he goes to the doctor, his hearing has suddenly dropped to about 30% of his normal ability. (more…)

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Clash of the Gods (The History Channel, 2009)

Posted in Adventure, Bible, Clash of the Gods, Death, Demons, End of the World, Fables, Gods, History, Homer, Marillion, Natural Disasters, NPR/PRI/PBS, Religion, Sex, Supernatural, Universities, Violence, War, Wikipedia on August 12, 2009| 21 Comments »

[WATCHED: August-October 2009] Clash of the Gods

clash

[UPDATE: October 26, 2009]

I have now finished the entire series.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I learned from it.  (Not that I considered myself an expert, but you never know what you’ll get from TV series). The biggest surprise was how much this series filled in the gaps of things I half knew, or things that I didn’t know were missing from my knowledge.  Can’t ask for more than that!

I’m still a little confused by the inclusion of Tolkien, but that’s okay, it was a good episode nonetheless.

General negatives: I never did get used to the egregiously repetitive imagery (if I never see Zeus pulling off his hood again, I’ll be thrilled).  I also got rather tired of that crazy howling wind/scream noise that they used as some kind of dramatic effect.  But hey, that’s okay.

The actors and the CGI and all that was fine.  They had to include some kind of footage or else it would just be people talking to us, right?  I wonder where they got the actors?  The women were all quite beautiful. The men were less handsome than I would have expected (but then the male gods were all old, right?).  How did they cast these episodes, I wonder?  Okay Zeus: can you sit in that throne?  Good.  Can you remove your hood? Good. Athena: Can you stare smoldering at the camera?  Good.  I wonder how people tried out for the part of “soul writhing in hell” or whatever it was.

I’m not sure if the “that was the myth, but how does it relate to reality” part was supposed to be the real draw of the show.  Some of it was interesting, some of it was weird, and some of it was just stretching plausibility.  There’s been a lot if discussions below in the comments about the emphasis on Christianity throughout the series.  From a historical point of view I thought it was interesting.  Although there were time when I wasn’t entirely convinced.

It was the professors who really impressed me.  They were consistently informative, and clearly enjoyed what they were talking about.  There were one or two who I would NEVER have wanted in class (their voices were rather sharp) but there were also a few that I would have signed up for multiple times, no question. So thanks to them for doing the show (I know, it was a real drag for them to get out of the classroom and do TV, right).

I’m still trying to find more information about the people involved, but it is cleverly hidden (as is everything else about the show).  What is it with The History Channel’s website?  This is the only professor who I’ve found with a blog: Wormtalk and Slugspeak.  And he tells some interesting details about doing the show.  As for the rest, well, you’ll have to watch the episode and write down their names, apparently.

I’ll give a special shout out to the professor at Rutgers, since she’s just down the street, but i don’t remember her name.

[UPDATE: October 26, 2009]

See bottom for comments on final two episodes that i watched: Thor and Medusa (which I missed the first time around).

[UPDATE: October 15, 2009]

See bottom for comments about Beowulf and Tolkien.  (I haven’t watched Thor yet).

[UPDATE: September 28, 2009]

See bottom for comments about the Odyssey episodes.

[UPDATE: September 21, 2009]

I’ve been getting a number of hits here with people looking for the Clash of the Gods narrator.  So, his name is Stan Bernard.  He was also the narrator for Zero Hour and MonsterQuest as well as a few other things.  I’ve not seen anything else he’s done.

[UPDATE: September 2, 2009]

See bottom for reviews of 2 more episodes]

[WATCHED: August-October 2009]

I don’t normally review TV shows.  There’s just too much to keep up with.  But I’m making an exception in this case.

I had heard about this show on a public radio program.  The host was talking to some of the guys who were involved in making it, and it sounded fantastic. (I regret that I don’t know which host or even which radio station, I was driving a rental car and just happened upon the program, I think his name was John, which, frankly doesn’t help at all).

I love Greek mythology, and so did the host of the radio show.  When he said that the series was designed not only for people who are new to the mythology but that it would also give deeper information for those who were familiar with the stories, I has to check it out.

Two episodes have aired so far, Zeus and Hercules.  And the radio announcer was right.  The episodes are good.  They give the general story of the myth and then throw in some uncommon details.  But, perhaps most interestingly, they also include ways in which recent archaeological digs have uncovered information that shows the reality behind the stories.  And, even more interestingly, they discuss how some of the myths not only correspond very well to actual historical events, but also correspond to events from the Bible and other cultures’ mythologies.  So, Noah’s flood, is recounted in Greek mythology as a Zeus destroying the world.  And both are based on what is believed to be a real event in which a volcano erupted and flooded most of the Middle East.  The parallels are uncanny.

The stories (narrated by a frankly uninspired narrator) are interspersed with my favorite part: faculty from various universities (and Scientific American magazine) give their historical insight into the myths.  And they’re all pretty excited about what they’re talking about (and each has his or her own quirky mannerism which is fun to look for–and they were all apparently told to wear black, otherwise it is an amazing sartorial coincidence).

The absolute worst part of the series (and I fear it will continue through all  of the shows since it was in Zeus and Hercules) is the absolutely horrid “reenactment” footage.  It’s bad enough that the footage is kind of lame (even if the blue contacts do “pop” on screen as they said they would in the radio interview).  But they reuse the same footage over and over again in the same episode–heck in the same segments of the same episode.  It is maddening.  Are they really telling us that they couldn’t have had Zeus do something other than sit down heavily on his rocky throne?  (I think they showed that particular scene 6, maybe 7 times).  I realize that if the actor isn’t actually going to speak, there’s not a lot he can do, but come on, show us something else! (more…)

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Zev Borow-“A Guide to Summer Sun Protection” (New Yoprker, August 10 & 17, 2009)

Posted in Black Flag, Cancer as plot device, Essays, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Nirvana, Raymond Pettibon, Sonic Youth, Zev Borow on August 10, 2009| Leave a Comment »

nySOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Goo (1990).

gooI’m not sure exactly why this Sonic Youth album was the first one I really got into.  I assume it’s because I was working at the radio station and probably got a bit of hype about their switch to DGC records.

And, say what you will about DGC being a major label, DG had some really great taste at the dawn of that label.

Goo and Dirty are sort of lumped into a kind of sellout phase for SY.  But  Goo is certainly harsher than Daydream Nation, and yet it also seems to flirt with the mainstream (with Chuck D appearing on it, and “Goo” having something resembling a sing-along chorus”).

Yet “Mary-Christ”  has a crazy background vocal section.  Kool Thing, the one with Chuck D, has a catchy enough chorus but the squealing guitars are very harsh.

Lee’s “Mote” is probably the catchiest song on the disc, although really the middle section has these sort of smooth songs like “Mote” and “Disappearer.”  But with “Mildred Pierce,” you get the scariest , most abrasive ending to a song you can imagine (and from what starts as a really pretty instrumental too).  And “Scooter and Jinx” is pretty much just a minute full of noise.

While 1991 may have been the year that punk broke, it’s Goo, complete with its Raymond Pettibon cover that sent punk, kicking and screaming, mostly screaming, into the mainstream.  All ready for Nirvana to smash the door wide open.

I just looked up Raymond Pettibon and learned that he is Greg Ginn’s brother.  Ginn founded Black Flag and of course Pettibon (whose real name is also Ginn) did virtually all the artwork.  I would even daresay that it was Black Flag that propelled Pettibon into underground fame…  he even outlasted the band that gave him his fame.  Wow, thanks Wikipedia.

[READ: July 5, 2009] “A Guide to Summer Sun Protection”

I don’t normally mention the Shouts & Murmurs one-page items from the New Yorker, but since Zev Borow is in pretty much all the McSweeney’s I’ve been reading, I thought I’d bring him up again. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 7] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Fables, Funny (ha ha), Infinite Summer, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Violence, Voivod, Yuck! on August 7, 2009| 8 Comments »

ij7SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-Nothingface (1989).

nothingfaceIn light of Marathe and the Antitois, and Quebec separatists everywhere, I figured I’d mention my favorite CD by a rocking Quebecker band.  When Voivod started they were a rumbling thrash band.  They put out an album with the wonderful title of RRRÖÖÖAAARRR.  They were very fast, very loud, and their singer had a really peculiar delivery style.  I later learned that this was because he’s a Quebecker and French is his first language.  Since he sings in English, his stresses and emphases are off-kilter, (and the guitarist seems to play to this particular feature, so the music is off-kilter as well) making for a very surreal experience.

They were probably my first inroduction to really cool French names.  Because even though they had stage names (Piggy, Blacky, Snake, and my personal favorite: Away) their real names were foreign and cool like Denis D’Amour and Jean-Yves Theriault.

Nothingface is the pinnacle of their prog-creative energies.  It is a fantastic progressive-rock/heavy metal hybrid.  There are fascinating time-changes, with cool atmospheric aspects that counterpoint the heavy sections.  And the overall theme of the album is technology gone awry.

On their previous records, melody was not really evident.  And it’ hard to believe that a disc that is so full of time changes could still be melodious.  Yet the bridge of “Nothingface” is quite pretty, which, again, counterbalances the weird chord structures of the solo section.  There’s even an awesome cover of Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domine” that adds some cool metal guitars to an already trippy song  The Floyd version is spacey and psychedelic.  Voivod add an element of menace to the song.  Very cool.

And then there’s a song like “Missing Sequences” which has 4 different sections in the span of less than two minutes.  An opening that is slow and spacey, interrupted by a loud “Now!” which brings to a weirdly chorused verse that morphs into a rough staccato bridge followed by a speedy guitar break and then yet another verse style.  By the time we hit the 2:30 mark, the song breaks down into a bass-only sequence.  And then it mostly repeats itself. That is, until the ending minute which is something new entirely.  It sounds impossible on paper and yet it is done seamlessly and is one of my favorite tracks on the disc.

There’s also the weirdly propelling and compelling “ground and rock and sand come crumble tumble down” sequence of “Pre-Ignition” that throws a cool catchy riff in the midst of a fast charging song.  And “Into My Hypercube” has some fantastic riffs, including another really cool bass-only section.

And the whole album works great with headphones.

In the 1990s, metal bands experimented with lots of different genres and effects, but it was this 1989 release that really highlighted what kind of fantastic music you could make within the strictures of heavy metal.  Voivod makes some pretty unusual sounds with their instruments (guitar most of all), and the album can be a challenge, especially if you like you music light and easy), but for me, this is one of the best discs around.

[READ: Week of August 2] Infinite Jest (to page 508)

50% through.
Halfway House, er, I mean Half Way Home.
Thoughts:

The rewards are coming quickly now.  There seems to be a payoff every few pages.  I am totally loving this book and the environment it has created.

Since the Boston Marathon is mentioned in the book, I’ll say that we are currently at the 14 or so mile point (downtown Wellesley).  Congratulations, you have just made it through “Screech Tunnel.”  [See the Boston Marathon route here.]

ij

I’ve been going on and on about chronological years and when exactly Subsidized years started.  I even quoted other people who had calculated the actual year that Subsidized time was set up.

And, of course, all this time, all we had to do was to look at the NAME of the Year of Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge….  As this clever thread shows, others figured out pretty early in the reading that the 2007 in the year was a pretty big clue as to what year Subsidized Time began.

(Presumably non O.N.A.N. countries do not follow Subsidized Time?  And the, again, presumably Japanese made Yushitsu is on numerical-year-time.  Or is that a thread that has already been discussed already?).

I am pretty embarrassed to have realized this at this late a date, and I’m delighted that everyone let me figure it out for myself (and that no one was cruel enough to rub it in.)

Now if you wanted to argue against the Yushityu 2007 as a dead giveaway to the year, you could say that, for instance, Microsoft Products don’t always indicate the year that they came out.  But for confirmation of Yushityu, we can use a perpetual calendar.

We learned that November 7th is the the day of the exam that Schacht is taking.  This is a Saturday class.  The perpetual calendar show that Nov 7th falls on a  Saturday in 2009.  Therefore YDAU=2007.   I’ve been trying to use all this logic to puzzle this information out, and here the author basically just TELLS us it from–well, not the get go exactly–but from a pretty early point.

All of this self-flagellation is also because of my own lack of clock-watching in the book.  I have somewhat obtusely not been following the chronological dates very carefully.  It was only when I consciously realized that Marathe and Steeply are having their mountainside chat in April/May of the YDAU when all of the events at E.T.A. and Ennet House are taking place in November that it dawned on me that the time line was not only present, it was pretty important.

So, I spent some time crafting a general timeline of events–something I haven’t seen anywhere else, (but then I haven’t actively been looking for it because I don’t want to get Spoiled).   So at the end of this post I’m going to put my timeline of events thus far. I’ll see how important it is to update it in future posts.

But now on to the book:

This week’s reading jumped back and forth between topics a bit more frequently. (more…)

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