I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THERAPY?-Never Apologise Never Explain (2004).

This album is the prior release to One Cure Fits All. It’s not true that Therapy? works on a harsh release/melodic release kind of schedule, although judging by these two discs it sure seems that way.  Never Apologise begins with a blistering, noisy “Rise Up.”  The really notable difference with this disc and other Therapy? releases is the amount of noise in the track. One of Therapy?’s most notable sounds has been a guitar that is so clean it sounds almost unreal.

This disc is far more sludgy (and seems even more angry), witness: “Die Like a Motherfucker.”

The whole disc is fairly short (under 40 minutes), very fast, and in relative Therapy? terms, lyrically not very interesting.  Consider this a solid rawk album.  And, again, one that is not available in the States.

[READ: April 29, 2010] Metrophilias

Brendan Connell’s new book is a short story collection.  And the short stories are indeed very short.  The longest one is 4 pages; most are 2.  There are 36 stories in all and each is named after a city.

I love the title of the book.  Metrophilias.  Technically, what? City love?  Love in a major city?  [Of course the prefix metro- means “mother” so I guess the title is literally motherlove, but that’s not how it’s intended].  And so each short story shows a snapshot of an individual in love in that city.

Each city is represented by at least a small nod that locates it, whether it is a street name or a building, or as in many cases, by an entire culture coming to the fore.  As such, some cities are far more identifiable as cities, and yet the content of the stories is so individualized that the city itself is (in many cases) irrelevant.  Of course, some of them could only be set where they are.  But before I get too obsessed with that aspect of the stories, I should move on to the people on the stories.

I’ve read a number of Connell’s pieces before.  He focuses on what, to me, is the eccentric, the idiosyncratic, the fetishitic.  And these stories are no exception.  In each story the main character is in love.  And yet the objects of love are, in many stories, objects: statues, an amputated penis, a robotic woman, a stuffed animal.  Or, the expression of love comes from something abnormal: fire, absinthe, a carpet, a sword.  And, some of them are even more animalistic: the actual consumption of a person (“You murdered him?” “I ate him”).

The thing that I have always admired about Connell’s writing is his word choices.  He always chooses a word that is distinctive, and very specific, even if (as if often the case) I have to look it up to see exactly what the word means.  Connell knows what he wants to say in great detail.  He is especially thoughtful with his adjectives–especially with things like colors and textures.

I’m less impressed by the punctuation (leaving out an apostrophe in the second sentence of the book, ouch!) but I’ll blame the editor for that one.

Overall, this book is transgressive.  And yet, aside from one or two pieces it is not very, for lack of a better word, “vulgar.”  There are so many euphemisms for what I’m trying to say he’s not, that it’s hard to pick the perfect word.  I hesitate to say it’s not explicit, because the way that Connell writes, he is always very explicit.  But this book is not overly gory or sexual.

Overall, the stories remind me of Frank Zappa’s Baby Snakes “A [book] about people who do stuff that is not normal”).  And yet despite these fetishes, they are all (for the most part) sympathetic.  In fact, these quirks help to humanize them.  As such, this book is a celebration of the eccentric.

I won’t lie.  This book is not for everyone.  If you’re at all squeamish about, well, anything I mentioned above, you will not enjoy this book.  But if you’re open minded, these stories are a fascinating look into the many ways that people find love.

I think the brevity of the stories really enhances their impact as well.  The stories aren’t designed to shock (although one or two are written so that the love object comes as a surprise) but by being so short, the transgression has maximum impact.  I think if they were longer, they would have overexposed what is, after all, a snapshot of a person.

The only story I didn’t “get” was Warsaw.  I’m surprised by this because as I said, his stories are very explicit.  So even if he’s hedging about a revelation in a story, it always arrives.  And yet in “Warsaw” I’m really at a loss as to what happened.  My imagination is roaming all over the place, but I can’t decide what the character had done to himself.  Aside from that though, I was taken in by all the stories: their sights and smells.

I’m fascinated that many of these stories are quite old (3 were originally published in 2001) and even more fascinated that many of them were originally titled something other than a city.  Connell had perhaps unconsciously been building this concept for nearly a decade, and it’s nice to see them gathered together in this format.

Table of Contents:

• Athens
• Barcelona
• Benares
• Berlin
• Carthage
• Dublin
• Edinburgh
• Florence
• Gwangju
• Havana
• Istanbul
• Jerusalem
• Kiev
• Kinshasa
• London
• Luxembourg
• Manila
• Mexico City
• Moscow
• New York
• Oslo
• Paris
• Peking
• Quito
• Rome
• Seville
• Sybaris
• Sydney
• Thebes
• Tokyo
• Uberlândia
• Vancouver
• Warsaw
• Xi’an
• Yerevan
• Zürich