I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK SABBATH-Vol. 4 (1972).

When I was younger I liked this Sabbath album a lot more than I do now.  There are some absolutely stellar tracks on here, but most of the songs are a rather peculiar for Black Sabbath.  It showcases ballad-y nature that Ozzy would have for some of his biggest hits twenty years later.

“Wheels of Confusion” opens the disc with a fascinating bluesy sounding guitar solo that turns into a straightforward rocker.  But, as it’s 8 minutes long, there’s a lot of twists and turns.  And it ends with a two and a half minutes of upbeat guitar soloing (with a tambourine keeping the beat!).

“Tomorrow’s Dream” opens with a rocking bendy guitar riff  but in the middle the chorus turns the song into a delicate ballad.  This is followed by “Changes” a full-on piano ballad (!).  It’s catchy, no doubt, and I loved it when I was younger, but I’m not entirely sure it passes the test of time.  This is followed by “FX” which is literally almost two minutes of echoing blips and bleeps, some of which go back and forth on the headphones.  It’s a very strange addition to any disc and is really the perfect example of “filler” unless by some chance this was majorly cutting edge at the time.

This is redeemed by “Supernaut” one of the all-time great Sabbath tunes.  It’s heavy, fast and features a great guitar riff.

“Snowblind” is a another fantastic song.  A great riff, and of course, it’s totally pro-cocaine!  How can you tell?  Well, because at the end of the first verse, you can hear a very unsubtle whisper of “cocaine.”  My, how the band has changed in just a couple of years.  This song also features a ballady mid-section.  It also features an awesome middle bit that rocks very hard (and can be summed as: don’t tell me what to do).  The drugs hadn’t deteriorated Sabbath’s songwriting yet, but give it a couple more records!

“Cornucopia” is one of the weird songs that you find on the second side of a Sabbath album.  It’s a got an awesome slow, doomy opening riff which then turns into a speedy rocker.

When I was kid I really liked “Laguna Sunrise” and I still do.  It’s a pretty acoustic guitar number (with keyboards or strings or something).  After “Changes” you’re not surprised by anything that Sabbath will throw at you, but this song is really shockingly delicate.

“St. Vitus Dance” is probably the most schizophrenic Sabbath song.  The opening guitar riff is so incredibly upbeat, happy and boppy; who knows what will come from it.  And then the verses turn dark and edgy with lyrics about a breakup.  And then the happy guitar bits come back!

The disc ends with “Under the Sun/Everyday Comes and Goes.”  It is once again another wonderfully sludgy guitar riff that turns into a fast rocker (“I don’t want no Jesus freak to tell me what it’s all about!”).  After the verses, you get this wonderfully weird guitar solo that’s like an ascending scale on acid.  Fun!  About three minutes in, it turns into “Everyday…” an uptempo rocker that’s not out of place with the other half of the song, but which does seem like an odd placement.

This disc was strangely experimental for Sabbath.  And, while it’s nice to see them not getting stuck, some of their choices were certainly weird.  And yet all Sabbath fans seem to regard this disc pretty highly (I think it’s the iconic cover that we all remember so fondly).

[READ: December 10, 2009] Unseen Academicals

Terry Pratchett knows football (soccer)??!!  In all the years of Discworld books, I don’ think there has been any mention of football (or even any sport).  Who knew he had a 400 page book about football in him?

Oh, and what is wrong with US book publishers?  Look at the utterly lame US cover at the top here.  First of all, the book is about soccer…why are they reaching for the ball with their hands??  Second, look here at this awesome UK cover by Paul Kidby (the official illustrator of Discworld).  Does he not have publishing rights in the US?

American readers, check out this cover.  It is awesome!  It gives you the whole cast, it gives a wonderful graphic of just what you’d be up against when you play this team.  Look, there’s the Librarian!  And, of course, the drawing is great.  Well, at least we have the internet.

But back to the football.  As with any Pratchett book it’s not just about football.  There is a whole bunch of stereotype-busting, inner-strength growing, pop-culture raspberrying, and general hilarity as well.  Oh, and Rincewind is back!  Hooray!

This book also breaks from a recent Pratchett tradition of chapters.  (No chapters are provided.  Of course, this means it’s hard to find a good stopping point, but I guess that’s okay).

And so, the main character here is a goblin named Nutt.  He is a candle dribbler at Unseen University (and he is very good at making the candles look especially old and well-dribbled (which reminds me of Slartibarfast who really enjoyed making fjords because of all the little crinkly bits)).  Nutt works with Trev.  Trev Likley is the son of John Likley, the most famous “football” player in Ankh-Morpork history.

Football here is mostly just pushing and fighting in the streets.  There are goal posts and there is a ball (it’s made of wood), but goals, when they are scored, are sort of beside the point.  People get hurt.  And that’s most of the fun.  In fact, Trev’s dad was killed in the line of duty, while playing football.  He had scored the most goals ever in a game and was immediately punished for it by the other team.

Trev and Nutt work in the subbasement of Unseen University.  Upstairs from them are two women who work in the Night Kitchen.  Glenda, the head of the kitchen is a steadfast, strong, take-no-shit chef who makes AMAZING pies and suffers no fools.  Except for perhaps Juliet, the beautiful, no, really beautiful, like staggeringly beautiful young woman who works for Glenda.  She’s really beautiful, but she doesn’t have a lot upstairs (meaning that Glenda has to give detailed instructions for making tea) but she’s really beautiful.

Every man is in lust with her and consequently no man can speak to her.  So Juliet is often alone.  When Trev actually talks to her, well, she’s willing to listen.  Glenda, mother-hen that she is, greatly opposes this union because, well, Trev is a chancer, a questionable character and Juliet is naive.

The more you start trying to talk about a Discworld book, the more subplots scream out, “Talk about me too!”  So, without trying to ignore anyone, let’s see:

Juliet is chosen by a Dwarfish designer to model (wearing a beard, of course) their new line of micromail (which doesn’t chafe!)   Pratchett must have been watching a lot of Project Runway, as he has a lot of fun with the behind-the-scenes of a fashion show.  (Drinking, partying till all hours  & all kinds of questionable behaviors).  And he introduces a wonderfully enigmatic character named Pepe a dwarfish? woman? who drinks a lot (!) but he? may not be a woman? although she? is very good with a sharp knife in a dark alley.

A new race also comes into Ankh-Morpork.  Orcs!  And we all know that orcs rip peoples heads off.

The Shove is also introduced.  The Shove is basically the will of the street. The invisible hammer that hits you on the head and says you ain’t supposed to do that.  It takes a strong person to resist the Shove, and really this whole story is about resisting the Shove. The Glenda scenes are particularly wonderful in this regard.

Lord Vetinari, who disapproves of football (even though he knows an awful lot about it), decides to make it a more proper sport by adding rules to it and, you know, putting it in a stadium, rather than on the streets. The Shove resists this change and sets out to see that it fails. Rules be damned.

We also see Vetinari’s “relationship” with her Ladyship, the Uberwaldian Lady who was in charge of Nutt before he was dispatched to Ankh-Morpork.

We also learn that Nutt, the goblin, has a secret past that even he is not aware of (although he is surrounded by phantom birds squawking awk! at him quite a lot.  When his secret is revealed it changes the way everyone looks a him (actually, it really changes the way he looks at himself, because as we all know by now, Ankh Morpork for all of its uncivilities is the most racially tolerant city ever (the police force has vampires, werewolves and trolls on it for crying out loud, why should a goblin have to hide himself?)).

And so, we get a romance subplot (or two…with some wonderfully literal metaphors from Nutt and a minor Cyrano reference).  We get some cool thuggery in the streets (and another new character, Andy, who never met a fight he didn’t want to start).  And, of course we get a heaping helping of the wizards!

The Unseen University’s wizards pop up from time to time in the Discworld books, so it’s fun to get to see inside the building from time to time.  We also get to see Mustrum Ridcully interact with the “treasonous” Dean who left UU for the up and coming Brazeneck College (where he is now Archchancellor, gasp!)  There’s some great comments about magic (and how doing magic to save the day usually means trying to use magic to save every day after that, too).  And, there’s some wonderful jabs at academic life too.

And of course, there is football. The whole reason for football coming into the University is that a bylaw states that they must field a football team every thirty years or so or they will lose a huge endowment.  So, the wizards, who are far more interested in eating than moving, must now try and kick a ball around.

Pratchett really gets to the heart of a football match.  He’s got the excitement down (when the writer from the Times tries to transcribe a match in progress).  You’ve got the hooligans, you’ve got the first Wave, and you’ve got wonderful offsides jokes.  I don’t know what it is about British comedies but they love to make fun of the offsides rule.  (Red Dwarf (my go-to comedy for having a funny joke about almost any topic) has this funny one from the one female cast member: “I mean I’ve tried to fit in I’ve really tried. I even learnt what offside meant”).

Regardless of your appreciation for football or even sports, this is a great Discworld addition.  It’s really got everything (even a cameo by Sam Vimes).  I think this book is longer than recent entries, as well (of course I’m too lazy to confirm that), but it reads very fast.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Discworld series, this is a good place to start reading.  There are some 40 books in the series so starting at the beginning would take you a long time to get here.  Some of the books assume prior knowledge of the series.  But this one doesn’t really.  There may be a few things that you won’t get, but he does a good job of bringing you up to speed.

And really, who doesn’t love a good comic novel from time to time.  The humor is at times childish, but it also has delightful sophistication and wonderful awareness of high and low culture.  I enjoyed this exchange very much (it’s not an exact quote):

Glenda tells Juliet that she should try to speak more posh, that it would be better for her is she didn’t sound so lower class.

Juliet protests, saying that she doesn’t want to sound like–
“My fare, lady” says the trolley conductor.

It works better in the original, but the joke made me laugh out loud.  I’m delighted that Terry is still able to put out such quality work!