I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ROB SZABO-“If I Could Do It All Again” (2003).

Rob Szabo is a singer-songwriter.  And this song is a pretty traditional singer-songwriter song.  It’s got some humor, it’s got some cliches.  In some ways he reminds me of Jill Sobule (lyrically, not vocally, obviously) or maybe Loudon Wainwright III.

Szabo has a number of albums out already.  I listened to a few others songs on his radio station and I enjoyed them.  He strikes me as the kind of musician that the more you listen, and the more carefully you listen, the more rewarding his music is.

I wasn’t all that impressed by “If I Could Do It All Again,” but the other tracks were certainly good.  And I could easily enjoy listening to his stuff when the mood was right.

[READ: June 15, 2010] “Stet”

This was probably my favorite story of the bunch.  It’s funny, it’s dark and its very Canadian.  I suppose that if you want to write a “Canadian story” it’s easy to set it where he does (so you can mention a LOT of Canadiana) but this story works beyond the surface.

And the surface is that this story is set in a Canadian newspaper.  Mansour, Fabien and Matt are trying to meet a deadline.  They bemoan their late hours, their hard work, their horrible bosses and the inevitable decline of newspapers.But beyond that, the story is funny and interpersonal.  Fabien says, ‘Ey, what’s our style for two-four? ‘Yphen or no ‘yphen?” The news is national: “Saskatchewan, ‘ard to spell, easy to draw.”  And it deals with interesting newspaper decisions: “Frickin’ Alberta.”
“… says we change ‘militants’ to ‘terrorists’.”

But the crux of the story is something that anyone can relate to: trying to switch work shifts with someone.  It’s a darkly comic piece.

Syjuco also wrote the novel Ilustrado, which I’ve read great things about and which I hope to read soon.

“Stet” is available here.