I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ODDS-Bedbugs (1993).

This CD features the minor “novelty” hit “Heterosexual Man” (the video featured some of the Kids in the Hall in it).

This disc feels like a big step forward from their first disc.  It isn’t radically different, but it feels more accomplished and maybe more confident.

The bluesy tracks feel bluesier (“Car Crash Love”), the rocking tracks feel more rocking (“The Little Death”) and the acoustic songs feels more substantial (“What I Don’t Want”/”Fingertips”) with really nice harmonies.

And of course, there’s “Heterosexual Man” a great, funny rocker with a fantastic sing-along chorus.  Odds are still doing poppy, slightly alternative rock, but they’ve simply gotten better at it.

[READ: September 13 2010] Light Boxes

I received this book from the Penguin Mini at BEA.  It’s been sitting on my shelf tempting me since then and I decided that I would give it a read (even though I am anxious to start the two books that are next on my list).  Well, it was certainly a good book to read first as it is even shorter (and faster) than its tiny size suggests (it’s 150 pages).

I’d never heard of Shane Jones before (he’s a poet and this is his first novel), but the premise sounded so intriguing: a small town is experiencing perpetual February (going on some 900 days now).  It is cold and dark and depressing and for many, sunlight is but a distant memory.

And plotwise, the story is interesting: a spirit/god/being (let’s call him February) is playing tricks on the townsfolk to keep them in this state of February.  He convinces them that someone in town (let’s call him February) is causing the perpetual cold.  He also seems to be inspiring the town’s children to go missing.  And all of this is a punishment for men’s attempts at flight: kites, balloons, even birds are now verboten (and the priests enforce the rule).

So yes, intrigue and confusion.  The confusion is deliberate, and as you proceed through the book, it’s not always clear whether the February that they are talking about is the month, the spirit, or the scapegoat.  And when the main character, Thaddeus’ daughter goes missing, she is referred to variously as Bianca and “the girl who smelled of honey and smoke.”  But in fact, it’s not always evident if “the girl” is indeed Bianca (because every February has a corresponding girl”).  But that’s all part of the intrigue.  As are the scraps of parchment that seem to float from the sky.  Oh, and don’t forget the men on the cover who wear different colored bird masks.

It’s a lot of stuff packed into this tiny story.  And it’s made all the more fascinating by the style of the writing. Some chapters (no chapter is really more than two pages) open with the name of the character it is about, while others open with a bold sentence that continues in regular type.  Some chapters are three lines long. Some chapters are lists (like Six Reports from the Priests) or this seeming non-sequitur chapter:

List of Artists Who Created Fantasy World to Try and Cure Bouts of Sadness:
1. Italo Calvino
2. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. Jim Henson and Jorge Luis Borges–Labyrinths
4. The creator of MySpace
5. Richard Brautigan
6. J.K. Rowling
7. The inventor of the children’s toy Lite-Brite
8. Ann Sexton
9. David Foster Wallace
10. Gauguin and the Caribbean
11. Charles Schulz
12. Liam Rector

And most of the chapters look like (but don’t really read like) poetry.

But with all that going on, overall I was a little disappointed in the book.  There was a lot of intrigue and a lot of cool twists and things, but it felt deliberately difficult without a real reward at the end (although there is a great big END at the end).

There were definitely moments of beautiful writing, and the whole multi-layered confusion was kind of fun (maybe a second read would be more effective, but I’m not inspired to read it again); however, I feel like the intrigue of the premise never resulted in the payoff that I wanted.