I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE FEELIES-Only Life (1988).

The Feelies were based out of Haledon, NJ, a town not more than fifteen minutes from my house.  I’ve always felt this weird association to them.  One day a coworker drove me past one of the band members’ houses when I worked in North Haledon (in retrospect this was probably bullshit).

It was this album that introduced me to them.  Prior to the internet, it wasn’t always easy to find out how many albums a band had out, so I assumed this was their first.  I’d assumed that we were close in age and that I could have run into them at any local club or hangout.  Well, it turned out that this was their third and their first came out in 1980.  When I was 11.  So, clearly  there is absolutely no way we were peers.

Somehow, when I first heard The Feelies, I had not been exposed to The Velvet Underground (what?).  So, when I heard them, it didn’t occur to me to say, “Hey that guy sounds just like Lou Reed.”  And he does.  Almost uncannily so on “It’s Only Life”.

But hey, get past that and you’ve got a really great jangly alterna-pop record from the late 80s.   While R.E.M. is sort of the master of the jangly pop song, there’s no real comparison here (okay, actually “Deep Fascination” could be mistaken for R.E.M. until the vocals kick in).  The biggest difference is tempo. The Feelies just kind of meander along at a calm and relaxed pace.  Not slow enough to be, god forbid, dull, but not exactly peppy either.

One thing I like about the band is that the bass and drums are always out in front.  The bass, in particular seems to really propel the songs (especially “Too Much”) which provides a great rhythmic feels and allows the guitars ample room to roam.

And the guitars do roam.  There are two guitars and they share soloing duties.  This soloing bit is rather a departure for college radio bands in the late 80s.  So, it definitely set them apart (as did the fact that there are like 30 words in each song).

The gorgeously simple yet very compelling “Higher Ground” is certainly a high point for the disc.  As is their cover of the Velvet’s “What Goes On.”

When I was a DJ in college, I randomly selected “Away” to play during a show (the first Feelies song I’d heard).  Even after twenty-one years it’s still as fresh and interesting.  It’s also rather different from the rest of the album.  It’s uptempo for one thing.  But it also starts with a cool slow guitar opening.  The song builds faster and faster and has a great sing along chorus.   The drums also sound wonderfully abrasive.  It’s really a great song and a great introduction to an underappreciated band.

[READ: November 22, 2009] Intermere

Following hot on the heels of Symzonia, I received Intermere through Inter Library Loan.  Intermere is even shorter (at 150 pages)!

What I liked about the story is that it removes all pretense as to the setting up of and the getting to the inner earth location.  As the story opens, our narrator, Giles Anderton, is pretty much immediately in massive trouble.  The boat he is on is about to sink and he is soon plunged headlong into the ocean.  (What an exciting opening!)

When he wakes up a short time later, he is on an island and is warmly greeted by a group of very short but very beautiful (ie, very pale) people.

From here, the book follows a track remarkably similar to Symzonia.  (In fact, there appears to be a whole subgenre of Hollow Earth fiction that is inspired by Symmes’ ideas).  The first real difference, and a neat twist, is that the Intermere people are telepathic.  They immediately determine where he is from (Central United States) and who his mother is.  This is significant because Anderton’s mother is about to learn that her son has been shipwrecked and that his foster brother (a convoluted plot point) has just been killed in the war.  This double dose of bad news will likely be too much for his mother.

Oh, what war you may ask?  Well, the Intermerians keep very strict tabs on the goings on in the outside world, so even though the world was at peace when Anderton left, in the six months since then, the Chinese Empire has gone to war with the West (!).  [I’m curious about the xenophobia here, but am not inclined to pursue it much; however, note this quote:

the 400,000 Chinese and affiliated races are more insidiously dangerous than you know. They will cultivate the seed now being sown and prepare the dragon’s harvest of blood.

Jeez, what do you think was on Taylor’s mind?].

They show Anderton that he can communicate with his mother telepathically to assure her that he will be alright and not to fret.  (She is relieved when she gets this transmission).  When he asks them about this technology, we get the best reply ever: Would people who didn’t understand the telephone ever imagine that you could talk to someone so far away through wires?  Of course, not, and so it is with you and our wireless communication.

It’s hard to beat that logic.

As Anderton is acclimatizing to this new land, he meets many of the VIPs of the nation.  He is first greeted by Xamas, the First Citizen.  And, as soon as we see “First Citizen,” we know what that means: a detailed explanation of the political make up of their world!  And like with Symzonia, only the best people are chosen to run the country.  But it is more democratic here: everyone is allowed to hold an office for one year, although you must, of course, be qualified; they consider it an honor and a duty and one for which they receive no extra money or honors.   After the year, they return to their previous life satisfied in a job well done.

This Utopian society is sort of socialist, although it is modified somewhat.   Everyone is allowed property (there are fascinating restrictions based on age) but they mostly work for the good of the community.  The one knock against equality is that only the men can own houses while their wives run them.

Oh, and of course, as we learn more about this sort of social structure, we learn about their currency (even the exchange rate with the dollar!), and blah blah taxation etc.

But it’s the science part that is quite fun.  Like Symzonia, there is awesome energy potential down here.  And the Intermerians are willing to explain some of it to him.  They basically have this egg shaped device that somehow channel the world’s natural electricity (if they told him any more he’d no doubt use it to try and take over the world, so we never learn how they harness all of this power).  With these eggs they can make cars that go 1,000 miles and hour, they (well, the wives) can heat food with no source of fire and they can use them for illumination as well. They also have 3 different vehicles, the medocar, the aerocar and the merocar

As he’s given a tour of the main city and the lesser surrounding cities, he is introduced to many more VIP’s: Karmas, the custodian of works and polity; Maros, the curator of scientific research and application; Alpaz, the curator of learning and progress and Remo, the curator of useful mechanical devices (because no one inside the earth would be named John, of course).

There’s even a discussion of religion.  The basic tenet down here is that religious sects are quite foolish.  As long as people bow to the one true God (who I am fairly certain means a Christian God), what difference does it make if they worship via Catholicism, Protestantism, “Hindooism” or even polytheism.  These Earthly sects have caused nothing but wars, not to mention countless lives lost in aggressive missionary work.  And if they all believe in a Supreme Being who cares how they worship Him?

Since I gave away part of the story of Symzonia, how can I resist comparing it?  [So, ahem, Spoiler]: In Intermere, our hero believes that he is going to be adopted by the people there and welcomed as an honorary member.  But of course, he cannot be (especially since they told his mother that he would be back soon).  And one morning he wakes up and finds himself in merocar, speeding back to the surface, until he arrives in…Singapore?.

He sells the merocar (at the telepathic recommendation of Remo) and eventually reunites with his mother.  The book abruptly ends with this passage:

I shall not describe the meeting with my mother nor speak of what was said in relation to the strange and brief communications which passed between us months before.

Well, okay.

So, in sum, Intermere is short on plot although it’s a bit more interesting than Symnzonia in its method of arriving inside the earth.

But, as I am learning with these Utopian stories, the people who live in these Utopias are kind of jerks.  They are very smug about their superiority, they show off all of the time, and they appear to have virtually no fun.  They don’t believe in any kind of finery, they don’t believe in dressing well or adorning themselves in anything.  They barely sleep and spend most of their time in contemplation.  Which may sounds ideal, but really, it sounds kind of awful.   There’s a great episode of Red Dwarf where the crew meets a holographic Utopian spaceship that sounds not unlike this bunch, and they all come off like a bunch of tossers.

I can’t help but wonder if people were offended by these Utopian stories when they were published.  Basically, here’s this guy airing his grievances about specific things that he hates with the country or religion or technology and claiming that these Utopians are vastly superior to us because they follow the lifestyle that the author thinks is awesome.

I have recently compiled a list of some 50 Hollow Earth-related stories.  I’ve half a mind to read all of them over the next few years or so (most are quite short which will be a nice change of pace).  But if they all follow this same format of Utopian politics and unworthy Externals, I may abort that goal.  One of the sources of Hollow Earth stories listed a number of stories that are different, ether more adventurous or even satirical, so I think those will be next.  Many of them are also free from Google Books, so I’ll look into that as well.

If you’re along for the Hollow Earth journey, welcome aboard!