I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ART BRUT Live from the 9:30 Club, November 29, 2007 (2007).

I’ve really enjoyed Art Brut’s two albums.  They are funny but they are not jokey.  They also rock really hard with wonderful, angular punk.

Sometimes I’ve felt the albums are a little bit…shall we say…perfect.  They are very tight and polished on record (which actually serves the records very well).  But I wondered what a live show would be like for them.

And I’m delighted to say that their live set is more shambolic than their records.  The shambolicness suits them very well, because they are clearly a lot of fun live.  As you might expect from the vocals on the records, Eddie Argos is practically a ringleader on stage.  He has playful funny banter; I love the way he introduces almost every song with “Are you ready Art Brut?”

I was also quite delighted with the way he introduced every band member with a song that he was the first musician on.  It allowed for spreading out the various interruptions of the music and really kept the flow.

Some of the guitar bits sound muddied (and I have to admit the recording level is a little lower than I would like–or maybe that’s the radio I’m playing it out of), but again, that adds to their punkier stylings.  But my favorite song “My Little Brother” sounds like it’s on fire!  The band plays it magnificent and the bass sounds amazing.  I was surprised that my second favorite song “Formed a Band” was more or less tacked on as a segment of the final track, but it works well in that location.

Perhaps the most surprising thing was the “drum solo” at the very end.  I kept expecting Argos to tell him to knock it off.  It’s a great live show.

The end of the show includes an interview with Eddie Argos and the singer from The Hold Steady (Art Brut opened for them on this tour).  The questions are mostly for The Hold Steady, but there’s enough or an Art Brut fan to keep listening all the way through.

[READ: December 15, 2010] “Agreeable”

So this is the final work that I printed out from the New Yorker by Jonathan Franzen.  And this means that I am done reading short Franzen works (actually, there’s one other piece that was available in Harper’s but I’m going wait on that one for a while).  Starting sometime in 2011, (although not right away) I’m going to begin reading his novels.

So, I assume this story is also excerpted from Freedom.  It concerns the same character as in the previous short story, “Good Neighbors” although she is not yet Patty Berglund.  She is still Patty Emerson and is a jock in high school.  Tying this in to yesterday’s story, Patty was an outcast even in her own family.  She was taller than all of her siblings and was much more athletic and aggressive.  Her mother had little time for her (she loved her artsy other daughters) and her father, a defense attorney, was often too busy for her.

The interesting set up of the story comes when we see her as a young girl.  She is, as mentioned, an outcast in her own family, and it seems that her father is quite a joker, often at her expense.  As a defense attorney, her father deals with many clients who are guilty and he is not above mimicking them to his family.  And this carries over when it comes to Patty as well.  He mocks her intellectual gaffes in front of everyone. And it’s unclear whether this is an odd way of showing love or just a nasty thing to do (well, it is nasty, but it’s unclear if it’s a clumsy attempt at affection).

This set up is relevant because of what happens to Patty.  Patty goes to a party where she is raped by a popular jock.  She fights hard but despite her strength he is more powerful.  Yet, because Patty is so agreeable in general, when the incident is over, he apologizes that it was so rough and then drives her home.

Patty is generally reticent to talk to anyone, but this is so traumatic she wants–no, needs–to talk to someone.  And it’s her coach (not her mother) who notices that something is wrong with her. The coach insists that she go to the police so that this boy never does it again.

And this is where her father’s attitude is so essential to the story.  He tells her that there is no point in her trying to get the rapist in legal trouble.  He is a popular boy from a popular family (whose parents are good friends with them–although the boy is not) and she, let’s face it, is not popular.

The thing is that he is right.  Not right morally but right in reality.  This story is set in the 70s, and the rapist’s family has enough pull to not only remain above the fray but also to drag her name through the mud.  And in this way, he is saving her, and yet none of this is comfort to Patty.  And it’s unclear if her father can offer he comfort at all.

This potentially harrowing story is told in a very matter of fact and almost casual way.  Even Patty is not overtly upset by the incident.  And this is largely because Patty has cut herself off from emotion.  But that makes the story even more upsetting.

Nevertheless, Franzen’s style makes this tragic event compelling, especially having read “Good Neighbors” where we see what has happened to Patty later in life.  Reading both of these makes me really want to read Freedom.