I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Eat Your Paisley (1986).

Who has angered the volcano gods?

My friend Paula is the only person I know who truly appreciated the Dead Milkmen.  And we spent many a car trip singing/shouting lyrics like “B.F. Skinner has eaten my dinner” (“Where the Tarantula Lives”).  While this may not be great literature or even terribly clever, there’s not too many songs (punk or otherwise) who name check B.F. Skinner.  So there.

Of course, “Beach Party Vietnam” is not quite as clever, although

– Hey Frankie, aren’t you gonna give me your class ring?
– Oh I’m afraid I can’t do that, Annette
– Why not?
– ‘Cause I don’t have any arms!

Never fails to entertain.

This second Milkmen disc jumps light years above the first.  The band sounds more accomplished, the recording is fuller and the lyrics are more bizarre and often funnier.  Rodney Anonymous Melloncamp does wondrous things with his vocal stylings (he’s still very bratty, but he does different “accents” this time).

It even features an interesting instrumental “KKSuck2” which, while under 2 minutes, holds up quite well as a solid song. And there’s some fun being poked at Hüsker Dü on “The Thing That Only Eats Hippies” (“Now it’s got  a sweet tooth for long hair so Bob and Greg and Grant you should beware.”)

Joe Jack Talcum is featured on vocals on “I Hear Your Name.” (a rather tender ballad) and on prominent background vocals on the wonderfully chaotic and super fun to sing along to “Two Feet Off the Ground.”  And “Moron” has the delicious opening verse: “Hanging out on the commode listening to Depeche Mode.”

Only six songs are under two minutes here, and that’s a good thing: their songs seems more fully realized (with actual parts!).  “Earwig” has three  different sections, even.  And while two songs are around 5 minutes long, the bulk are just under 3, the perfect length for a punk pop song (well, not quite pop, but at least pop-skewering.)

This is definitely the album to pick up for early DM fun.  ‘Scuse me while I puke and die (ha ha ha ha).

[READ: March 31, 2010] The Skating Rink

I simply can’t keep away from Bolaño these days.  I don’t even love 2666 and yet I’m very happily tracking down Bolaño’s other books, starting with this one.  (Which I guess technically is his third written novel if this bibliography is true–and why wouldn’t it be?).

This story is written in a fascinating way:  There are three narrators.  Each gets a chapter (from 1 to 10 pages) to tell the next part of the story.  The narrators are: Remo Morán, Gaspar Hereda and Enric Rosquelles.

As the story opens we learn pretty quickly that a murder has taken place.  But we don’t learn any details at all.  We also learn that the titular skating rink is going to play an enormous part in the story.  The story is set in Spain in the city of Z (which is quite close to the cities of X and Y).

In the first story line, we learn that Gaspar has gotten a job from Remo.  He knew Remo a long time ago, and when he returned to town, although he didn’t seek Remo out, it was quite fortuitous that they were acquainted.  And this job is as a night watchman at a local vacation campground.  He hangs out with El Carajillo and learns the ins and outs of the camp.  Eventually he becomes infatuated with two women, an opera singer and her younger charge.  He shares many conversations with the younger woman, and she seems (distantly) fond of him.

In the second story line, Enric  is a public official working for a woman named Pilar.  She is trusting of him and gives him free reign in most of his assignments.  One day he sees Nuria.  She’s an ice skater and the most beautiful woman ever to set foot in the city of Z.  She is a very talented, Olympic skater, and yet despite her prowess, she is dropped from the Olympic team (to make room for younger skaters).  He decides to use his  position (and public funds) to build a skating rink in the Palacio Benvingut, an abandoned public building.  The rink is created just for her; no one else in the city knows about it.  Once it is built, he shows it to her and they spend every day: her skating and him watching her.

In the third story line, we learn that Remo, a poet and local businessman with his hands in many businesses has actually been dating Nuria.  He had previously been married to Lola, with whom he has a son.  Their divorce was amicable, and he is still friendly with her.

Remo doesn’t know Enric, although we can see that their paths are going to cross over Nuria, and it turns out that Enric worked with Lola, so their lives have already overlapped unexpectedly.

As the story proceeds, the three narrators offer different views of the action.  But one thing is certain: someone was murdered on the ice of the skating rink.  And, of course, once people learn that someone was murdered on the skating rink, well, then people learn about the skating rink itself.

I loved the way this story was constructed.  I admit that I was confused by the storyline when it opened because we start in the middle of something and the narrators are clearly talking to someone (although no one is ever specified) who knows what went on.  It’s also a little confusing at first because the characters reference each other, so yeah I had a little trouble remembering who was who.  But once I wrote their names down and was able to get some details straight, it was much easier to keep the story lines separate.

The writing (or should I say the translation, by the superb Chris Andrews) was faced past, exciting and really compelling.  The scenes in the campground were vivid and dark, the scenes on the ice skating rink were cool and lonely and Remo was just a wonderfully confident and aloof character who gets what he wants.

There’s also a lengthy sequence where Enric follows the woman from the campground through the city, and it is a wonderfully detailed and very creepy at the same time.

The book was quite short (182 pages) and there was not an ounce of fat on the prose.  This was one of Bolaño’s first books after he switched from poetry to prose, and he has an economical gift for writing.  I simply could not put this book down, and I can tell that the more Bolaño I read, the more I am getting sucked into his world–it’s violent, the people are usually kind of reprehensible, and yet it is described so beautifully that you can’t stop reading.

For ease of searching, I include: Bolano.