I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SUPERCHUNK-Late Century Dream (2001).

A Superchunk song that opens with keyboards, “Late-Century Dream” is one of the most mellow singles that they’ve recorded (even more mellow than some of the acoustic songs they’ve done).

It’s followed by “The Length of Las Ramblas” an even more mellow track.  This one is also full of keyboards (sort of tinny, high pitched keyboards) and acoustic guitars.

Rocking guitars return on “Becoming a Speck” which reminds me of “1,000 Pounds.”  It’s a fast-paced, punchy song with a guitar solo that sounds like it might collapse on itself any minute.

“Florida’s on Fire” is an acoustic rendition of the song from Here’s to Shutting Up. Initially, when Superchunk was a punky bratty band, these acoustic numbers were kind of a novelty.  Now they showcase the extent of musicianship that the band possesses, and this one is no exception.

It’s a good EP, and the last one that I bought prior to their return this year.  They have a couple other ones that I’m going to try to track down.  But in the meantime, it’s all Majesty Shredding.

[READ: October 10, 2010] “An Actor Prepares”

Donald Antrim is the next writer in the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 40 issue.

This story is a funny look at college theater.  The subject is not terribly new, and yet there are so many wonderful details and the theater teacher is so over the top that this story was completely enjoyable.

The narrator is Reginald Barry, Dean of Student Life and Wm. T. Barry Professor of Speech and Drama at Barry College (ha!) and this semester his students will be performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream.   I had to look up some of the quotes in the story to make sure they were actually from the play (I didn’t know the line “Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me” was in Shakespeare), but they are, and Antrim takes lines like this and runs with them.

Barry has wonderful plans for this production which he envisions outside on the grounds of the campus, with a culminating orgy occurring just as the fireflies come out.

And naturally the faeries will be wearing very skimpy outfits throughout.  The costume design (pasties and G-strings) “not only subverts our male-dominated culture but underscores the young lovers’ cruelty toward one another in the Athenian grove.”  Although Barry can see this design is really the costume designer’s sexual antagonism toward him.  And of course, since he’s acting in the play too, he’s quite excited about the performance.  Although he admits, “possibly–I should say probably– it was risky of me to attempt simulated sex with undergraduates.”

The story gets more anarchic and absurd as it proceeds.  Puck is played by a blind student (and his entire performance will be staged in a giant hole), and one of the major roles seems to have been earned because of the student’s ability to score high grade pot.

By the time of the performance, the campus has been deluged by rain for several days (as well as several other amusing and not so amusing things), but the show must go on.   And, as to be expected, it ends in insanity.

Although for all of that the actual ending is a bit of a let down (but really, that’s to be expected, I think).  Still, it was a very amusing piece.

When I looked up Donald Antrim, I learned that I had bought a book by him probably 15 years ago called, Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World. I don’t know why I bought it when I did, but it has been on my shelf, unread, for over a decade.  Realizing now that this funny author was the same guy, I went to grab the book and give it a spin.  And it is now gone.  I wonder if I purged it recently in a cleaning spree.  Typical.