I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SWANS-“I Crawled” (Live in Dublin 22 October, 2010) (2010).

My friend Lar posted this video on his blog (he was lucky enough to see the show in question).  I have yet to fully digest  the new Swans album, although I found it to be slightly less abrasive as their earlier work (but more abrasive than their later period stuff–it’s as if they picked up just before when Jarboe joined the band).

I wondered how intense a Swans show would be these days.  Well, this video goes a pretty long way to showing that it is pretty intense (although I’m sure it was more intense actually being there–Lar’s review of the show is pretty great).

So, “I Crawled” comes from their 1984 EP Young God, back in the day when they were heavy and slow and scary.  The original is slow, ponderous and whispered (I’d love a beats per minute calculation on this one).  As the song continues, the intensity picks up, even if the speed doesn’t.  And after 5 minutes you’re ready to submit.  (And that’s only the first song).

The live version is a bit more lively.  It’s not quite as heavy, and the vocals are a bit clearer, but it is no less menacing.

It’s telling that the cameraperson keeps going back to the two drummers, as they are really the most intense action in the song.  Between the kit drummer keeping the beat (with a maraca on the largest tom drum I have ever seen) and the by now beloved shirtless, long-haired percussionist named Thor who adds dimensions of noise to the proceedings.  He also adds an amusingly tiny melodica which, contrary to expectations, adds a portentous eerieness that is not present in the original version.  Swans are back and they are not mellowed out at all.

Check out the video here.

[READ: November 7, 2010] “To The Measures Fall”

This is a strange little story.  It opens with a girl riding a bike through Cotswold (and begins with the words “First read through”.  She is a young literature student studying abroad in England.  While riding her bike she stops at a used bookstore and buys a copy of To The Measures Fall by Elton Wentworth (the book/author is not real, I checked–although there’s some great blog posts about him already).  The book costs more than what she could pay for 6 LPs, but she decides to buy it anyway.

The rest of the story shows this woman grow up through the sixties and Vietnam, a failed marriage, a new marriage, a failed PhD and a new career.  The story arc finally ends around the present time.  And all through that time she has kept this book with her, whether intentionally or not.

The novel has a strange magnetism over her.  First when she didn’t read it, she felt compelled to keep it because she had spent so much on it.  And then later, when she did read it, she found it unsettlingly sticking with her.  And then she read it again.  And again.

But the story isn’t really about that novel exactly, it more of a series of snapshots of at this woman’s life and her relationship to reading.  From being a lit major, to being a professional with no time to read, to finally starting to read to her kids: books have always been there.  And, like an old friend you forget about, Elton Wentworth has been there too.

There’s a weird conceit in the story.  After every major stepping stone in her life with this book, a bold-face type asks a kind of essay question: How much would you have offered for the book had you been male?  Does the book go to Goodwill, the Salvation Army or the twenty-five cent pile at your graduation lawn sale?

These questions are sort of interesting but really they’re more of a distraction.  I understood that they were meant for the narrator, but at times, I felt like maybe I was supposed to ponder the answer myself, and yet without knowing details like the narrator does, how could I possibly?  Mostly I think they were just distracting and detracted from the story somewhat.

It wasn’t an amazing short story, but I did enjoy following this woman’s life along with this author who clung to her.