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Archive for December, 2010

Jonathan Franzen–“The Way of the Puffin” (New Yorker, April 21, 2008)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Birds, Consumerism, Culture Shock, Essays, Futility, History, Jonathan Franzen, Nature, New Yorker, Travel on December 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:BELLE AND SEBASTIAN-Live in Glasgow, TODAY! December 21 at 4PM eastern: NPR simulcast (2010).

It’s very rare that I have news before it happens, especially on this blog. But I do. Today at 4PM Eastern time, NPR is simulcasting Belle and Sebastian’s live show from Glasgow.

I don’t know if it will be downloadable (I do know that I am at work…boo!).  But I have to assume it will be pretty great.

Get details here.

[READ: December 6, 2010] “The Way of the Puffin”

After a few years away from lengthy New Yorker articles, Franzen returns with this 13 page (!) article about China.  The last article that we saw from Franzen was about his birding passion.  That passion has not subsided at all, and his co-passion of environmentalism is what sends him across the globe to the Yangtze Delta.

Franzen receives a Puffin-shaped golf club head cover, which he finds quite adorable.  But when he sees that it’s made in China, he wonders about the environmental impact of this adorable item.  He calls the company that makes the puffins (Daphne’s Headcovers), and is told that they use environmentally conscientious Chinese labor.  She also tells a (heartwarming) story about karma and how a good deed will get repaid manifold.  She tells Franzen about the workers in China and invites him to go check them out.  This leads to Franzen’s most “reporter”-like piece, and probably his least personal.

At first I wasn’t that interested in the piece.  I feared it was going to be a long slog through environmental degradation and depression.  And while it was that, Franzen also humanizes the story through the efforts of that rarest of birds: the Chinese environmentalist. (more…)

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Wells Tower–“The Kids Are Far-Right” (Harper’s, November 2006)

Posted in Al Gore, Communists, Consumerism, Death, Depression, End of the World, Essays, Faith No More, Fears, Fishbone, Harper's, Violence, Wells Tower, Yuck! on December 20, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BAD BRAINS-I Against I (1983).

I don’t remember buying this album, but I remember getting it because of the connection to SST records (not because Bad Brains were an amazing hardcore band–I didn’t know that yet).

All of these years later, this album is still pretty astonishing.  The heavy punk blends so well with the reggae-inspired jams.  Perhaps the biggest band where Bad Brains influence is evident is Fishbone (especially their later metal songs).  But you can hear t hem in Faith No More and many other mid 90’s bands as well.

The disc opens with a great off-beat instrumental (“Intro”) which leads into the amazing yell-along “I Against I.”  “House of Suffering” follows with some more speedy hardcore.  Then it all slows down with “Re-Ignition,” the first indication that this is an album unafraid to take risks.  Although the thumpy riff and heavy beats are still there, the vocals are more of a reggae style (especially towards the end).  “Secret 77” follows with a kind of funk experiment (but those drums are still loud and stark–Earl is a maniac!).

Darryl’s bass work is tremendous throughout the disc, and Dr. Know’s guitar is amazing–speeding fast soloing, heavy punk riffs and delicate intricate reggae sections intermingle with ease.  And, of course, we can’t forget about H.R.’s vocals.  He has several different delivery styles from the speedy punk to the reggae deliveries and the all over the place (including high-pitched shrieks on “Return to Heaven”).

The second half of the disc experiments with more diversity, and it is somewhat less punk sounding (although not by much).

Historically, it’s hard (for me) to place exactly how influential they were.  Listening to  the disc today (which doesn’t sound dated in any way) it sounds utterly contemporary in stylistic choices.  Did they come up with the mosh break?  They certainly are the first punk band the embrace Jah (that’s a trend that never really took off though, eh?), but their funk metal sound predates the popular Faith No More style by over a decade.

[READ: November 21, 2010] “The Kids Are Far-Right”

I know I subscribed to Harper’s when this article was published (I distinctly remember the jelly bean portraits of Reagan), but I’m pretty sure I didn’t read it then because the whole idea of it sounded depressing (the subtitle: “Hippie hunting, bunny bashing, and the new conservatism”) was just too much for me in 2006 (and was almost too much for me in 2010).

And so our correspondent (not long after his trip through the Bush/Cheney volunteer minefield) heads out to the twenty-eighth National Conservative Student Conference.  He meets exactly what you would expect: right-wing campus types (several from ultra-religious schools) who are there to learn to hate liberals even more than they already do (and boy do they).

Wells’ article is full of details about all of the speeches and programs, as well as biographical information about some of the attendees.  Most of them just want to get rid of liberals on campus, but some want to go into politics themselves someday (they are viewed with suspicion here).  Many also hate George W. Bush because he raised taxes.  In hindsight what we have here is the origins of the tea party.

The only comforting news to come from the article is that only 400 people attended (but they were willing to spend a few hundred dollars and give up a week of their summer vacation, so it’s still a pretty high number). (more…)

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Richard Powers–“To The Measures Fall” (New Yorker, October 18, 2010)

Posted in Funny (strange), History, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Richard Powers, Short Story, Swans on December 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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. (more…)

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William T. Vollmann–“A Good Death: Exit Strategies” (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in Death, Drugs, Essays, Fears, Harper's, Religion, Stereolab, Suicide, William T. Vollmann on December 18, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB-“Everybody’s Weird Except Me” (2010).

I was able to listen to another track from the upcoming Stereolab album Not Music.  This song is just fantastic.  It’s a faster, uptempo track.   Laetitia’s voice is backed by some other female singers (I wonder who they are, is it just Laetitia multitracked?).  And the propulsive beat is infectious.  The backing track of the music sounds like their earlier experiments with “space age” sounds.  Yet the guitar over the top is warm and inviting.

The song drops out at about the 90 second mark and offers a very cool respite from the bopping around that the song is doing.  After the break, the song seems to jump back and forth between this new mellow bit and the bouncy earlier part.  It’s a great track and a welcome opening to their last CD before going on hiatus.  Because, yes, according to the information on the NPR page, Stereolab is going on hiatus.

This CD is full of songs that were created around the time of their previous disc Chemical Chords, and it’s also packed with mixes, remixes and seemingly alternate version of some of those songs.  I haven’t heard the whole disc but it sounds like they’re going out with a winner.

[READ: November 15, 2010] “A Good Death: Exit Strategies”

I’ve mentioned before about my reader-relationship with Vollmann–I feel that I ought to read a lot more of him, yet I haven’t brought myself to do it (those books are huge!).  Nevertheless, I’ll keep reading the new pieces that I stumble upon.

So this piece is a nonfiction essay.  I’m tempted to say it’s more personal than the other pieces that I’ve read because it concerns the death of his father.  Yet from the little Vollmann I have read, it feels like he takes all of his writings very personally and invests himself pretty much bodily into them.

So, this piece, as I said, is sort of about the death of his father.  He died just a few months ago and Vollmann wants to find out a number of answers about death: should he be afraid of it, will he suffer, what should he expect?  So he interviews several “experts” in different fields:  coroners, funeral directors and many religious people of different faiths (Vollmann and his companion/translator are agnostic).  He’s given a vast array of answers, some of which are comforting to him and others just kind of piss him off. (more…)

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Barry Hannah–“Rangoon Green” (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in Barry Hannah, Esquivel, Funny (strange), Harper's, Huh?, Short Story, Stereolab on December 17, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB: “So is Cardboard Clouds” (2010).

I’ve been listening to Stereolab for something like 15 years now.  They are definitely a “have to been in the mood” kind of band.  Their music is a blend of electronica, especially krautrock, but with an Esquivel/bachelor pad twist.  And, of course half of the songs are sung in French (and are often about politics).

Aside from a few stylistic decisions over the years, the band hasn’t changed very much in style (or substance).  And yet, each new disc is a cause for curiosity.  Will it be long and meandering electronic booping music or short and catchy electronic booping music.

NPR had a preview of their new CD Not Music until basically the day before I clicked on the link (I must subscribe to these new release streams).  But I was able to listen to a couple of songs.  The first I chose was “So is Cardboard Clouds”.

It’s almost four minutes and opens simply and quietly with a repeated motif under Laetitia Sadier’s vocals.  (One of the fun things about Stereolab is never knowing if Laetitia is singing in French or English.  Her enunciation of English words is so peculiar that it’s not always evident that she’s actually speaking/singing English until you read the liner notes.

At about the two-minute mark, the song jumps into a far more rocking style.  It sounds like horn blasts repeated over and over at a fairly fast clip.  And this sets the tone for the speedier second half of the song.  Then the rocking part and the bubbly beats merge until the end which is all instrumental.

Musically, there’s nothing as much fun as a song that catches you off guard, and the tone shift one certainly does.  Even after a couple of listens, that switch to the faster section comes as a surprise.  Each parts of the song highlights the different aspects of  Stereolab’s styles and they’re throwing in enough newness to keep it interesting.

[READ: November 14, 2010] “Rangoon Green”

I’ve never heard of Barry Hannah before; he evidently died in March.  This story will come from his final collection of stories.  And I wanted to like it.  I really did.

The epigram was quite enticing: “Rangoon Green, trophy holder third place in the national storyteller telloff.  Murfreesboro, Tennessee 2011”

The story then begins with Rangoon himself telling how pissed he is that he came in third.  Again.  Obviously, he explains, the first place winner slept with a judge and the second place winner was a local so of course there was cheating there.

I was really getting into this idea of a storyteller telling a story about losing a storytelling contest.  But then it want pear- shaped, with talk of arson and fireworks and all kinds of things and man it went on for a long time. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“My Bird Problem” (New Yorker, August 8 & 15, 2005)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, All Songs Considered, Birds, Death, Essays, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Phoenix, Public Image Ltd, Radiohead, Sharon Van Etten, Superchunk, The New Pornographers, Tom Waits, Unlikable main character on December 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered (Podcasts).

For a couple of months now I have been exploring the All Songs Considered Podcasts.  I recently stumbled upon a link to a whole slew of Live Recordings that are available for free.  All of them are available for listening and most of them are available for downloading.

Some of the recordings seem to be acoustic in-studio sessions that last about 15 minutes (called the Tiny Desk Concerts), but there are many which are full concerts recorded from the soundboard.  I happened upon this site because of a 2008 Radiohead show which runs just over 2 hours.  Some other full concerts (most of which are recorded at the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. include: Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., New Pornographers, Public Image Ltd., Tom Waits, and a whole bunch of shows from SXSW.  The Tiny Desk shows include “Weird Al” Yankovic, Phoenix and my new discovery Sharon Van Etten.  And there’s even videos of many of the shows, too.

I’m pretty excited to have discovered this, as there are a surprising number of great shows available here (as I’m scrolling to the bottom of the list, I keep finding more and more bands that I like).  And all you need is to download iTunes to hear them (and if you’re a geek like me, you download Audacity and insert track numbers for ease of cataloging).

[READ: November 21, 2010] “My Bird Problem”

Of all of the Franzen non-fiction pieces that I’ve read, this one has been my least favorite.  And one of the reasons for that is that it made me feel kind of uncomfortable.   Not because of the main content of the article (bird watching) but because of some of the personal information that he (as per usual) included in the article.

The first uncomfortable part concerns his at-the-time-wife.  It feels the like he is including information that seems like he would have needed her permission to write (especially since we know who he is and therefore know who she is,  I can’t believe she would give it).

The second thing was just how misanthropic Franzen is.  When he goes out into the woods to look for birds, he finds that the mere awareness of other people sends him into a fury.  (“Oh no, were those human voices coming up behind us?”).  And while I’ve certainly felt like that, to see it in print and to see it so often is more than a little unsettling. (more…)

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Téa Obreht–”Twilight of the Vampires” (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Built to Spill, Essays, Gustav Flaubert, Harper's, Leptirica, Lydia Davis, Téa Obreht, Vampires, Violence, William T. Vollmann on December 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BUILT TO SPILL-There is No Ememy (2009).

I’ve liked Built to Spill for quite a few years (I first encountered them on Perfect from Now On), but they always hang just below my radar when I think about great albums.  Nevertheless, many of their songs have landed on compilations I’ve made.

I listened to this disc a few times when it came out and when I popped it in again today I couldn’t believe how well I knew the whole album and how much I really, really liked everything on it.

This may in fact turn out to be my favorite BtS disc.  It isn’t radically different from other releases of theirs, but there’s some ineffable quality that seems to raise the whole disc above the fray.  The total package is fantastic.  The first few songs are quite short, just over three minutes each (which is surprising after the release of the live album which had so many extended songs and solos (a 20 minute cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer”).

Of course there are a few extended jams as well.  Four songs are over six minutes long (and three of them make up the last four tracks, so the disc does to tend feel a little heavy at the end–although “Things Fall Apart” has a horn solo (!) and “Tomorrow” has some unexpected time changes).  But the first long song, “Good Ol’ Boredom” has a great chugging riff that hold ups to the six minutes very well.  The nearly seven minute “Done” has a wonderfully effects-laden end section. The solo is pretty lengthy, but the backing music/sounds keep the whole thing interesting.  Of course, there’s also “Pat” a two and a half-minute blast of punk abandon.

Doug Marsch has a pretty high voice, but it never grows whiny or annoying, and in fact, it has a kind of gravitas to it.  And it is more than matched by the full band sound on the disc.  Martsch’s lyrics are also wonderfully unexpected [“Is the grass just greener because it’s fake?”].

BTS has made a great album and I’m going to have to revisit their back catalog too.

[READ: November 14, 2010] “Twilight of the Vampires”

This was a banner issue of Harper’s (I’ve felt kind of down on the magazine lately, but it made up for itself this month).  We have the Lydia Davis/Flaubert stories, a lengthy piece by William T. Vollmann and the cover story about Rupert Murdoch (which I won’t be posting about).  In fact, normally I don’t post too much about non-fiction (recent obsessions notwithstanding), but this particular piece was by Téa Obreht, one of this year’s New Yorker 20 Under 40.  Obreht had barely had anything published when they selected her, and so I figured it would be easy to keep tabs on her.  So here’s a nonfiction to add to her two stories.  (And it’s about vampires!)

Obreht is originally from Russia (her family is apparently still there).  As the essay opens, she is going to meet her mother in Belgrade for their trip to Serbia.  Their ostensible reason to travel to the Balkans is to find out about vampires.   (But when her mother injuries herself before the trip is about to commence, it convinces her mother that the whole trip is possessed by devils).

But why travel to the Balkans in search of vampires when her adopted homeland of America is overrun by vampires right now?  Because as she relates, our vampires are rather different from theirs. (more…)

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Lydia Davis–Five Stories from Flaubert (Harper’s, November 2010)

Posted in Death, Fears, Flash Fiction, Funny (strange), Gustav Flaubert, Harper's, Lydia Davis, Prefab Sprout, Record Labels on December 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PREFAB SPROUT-Let’s Change the World with Music (2009).

This album was unreleased back in 1992 (it was supposed to be the follow-up to the wonderful Jordan: The Comeback).  Record label confusion left it shelved for many years.  It’s been released now because lead Sprout Paddy McAloon has been having health issues and won’t be releasing any new Sprout music anytime soon.  So he has released this album in what is essentially demo form.

Unlike many demos, though, this one is pretty fully realized.  It’s full of keyboards (where there might be strings for instance) and there are no backing vocals (or any other musicians), and yet for all of that, it doesn’t sound like a scratched out demo or a home-recorded cassette (and Paddy sings his heart out).  There are certainly moments (most evident in the drums at the beginning and end of songs) that sound kind of sparse, but the bulk of the disc is fully formed and quite well realized.

The opening is pretty odd, with Paddy (who normally has a soaring tenor voice) speaking a deep almost rap over a funky beat.  In fact, as the song continues, with Paddy’s voice returning to “normal,” that funky beat continues.  Nevertheless, but the time the sweeping dreamy chorus kicks in we’re back to less funky, more smooth sounding Sprout that I know and love.

Like Steely Dan, Prefab Sprout is not really meant to be enjoyed by the young.  It’s borderline treacly, it’s very sweet and earnest, an my high school self would have scoffed at my enjoying them at all.  And yet for all of that, the songwriting is really magical.  There is religious imagery all over the disc, but it’s there to convey the magical power of music.  And it’s entirely authentic.

And when you combine that with Paddy’s voice its adult contemporary music that is still interesting (certainly too interesting to be played on pop radio).  I think the real key to the success of the disc is the unpretentious, unforced and completely unironic joy that Paddy gets from music.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.

[READ: November 14, 2010] “Five Stories from Flaubert”

I really enjoyed Madame Bovary many many years ago when I read it.  Recently, writer Lydia Davis translated Madame Bovary and her translation is supposed to be exceptional, light years above the translation that I read.  One of these days I plan to read her version.  In the meantime, I’ve got these little short short stories.

I had a hard time deciphering what these little stories were, exactly.  The introduction says that they are “adapted from letters Flaubert wrote to his lover.”  So I guess Flaubert gets a co-writing credit?  There’s a couple more stories online at The Paris Review (but you need to buy the issue to get all ten). (more…)

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More Things Like This: 289 Drawings with Funny Words Also on the Same Drawing (2009)

Posted in Amy Jean Porter, Andy Warhol, Art, Big Books, Dada, Dave Eggers, Edward Gorey, Frank Zappa, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Jean-Michel Basquiat, Man Ray, McSweeney's, Peter Saul, Raymond Pettibon, René Magritte, Salvador Dali, Shel Silverstein on December 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FRANK ZAPPA-Does Humor Belong in Music? (1995).

Frank Zappa made money and found fame by writing dirty, funny songs.  Yet he was really a great guitarist and a serious composer.  But hey, when you need the money to make your studio, you write songs about “Penguins in Bondage.”  When I was in high school my friend Al introduced me to Shiek Yerbouti, and I was hooked.  I’d never heard songs that were so intentionally funny.

So, this live collection is kind of an odd assortment, given the title.  I mean the first song is an instrumental (ie. not funny at all except for the title “Zoot Allures”).  “Tinseltown Rebellion” however is pretty darn funny.  The mockery that goes on (and the call-outs range from The Scorpions to Culture Club and The Tonight Show) is nasty and offensive, but never really wrong.  And this is when you find out how good a Zappa stage show was.  The band was tight, they could play all kinds of crazy things and, as in this song, they were always in sync even when improvising.

This disc is a collection of songs from a 1984 tour.  I rather like this incarnation of the Zappa band (Ike Willis is pretty amazing at any time).  And they play tracks from across Zappa’s output.  Although there’s times when the disc sounds really abrasive (some of the solos–like on “Bondage”–are really piercing and not very smooth, and the drums can be very electronic sounding).

Of course, that’s the kind of music that Zappa wrote (“What’s new in Baltimore” is very electronic sounding–beautiful but mechanical–which is why it’s so amazing to hear it live–even if it doesn’t sound human, exactly).

And just so you know it’s not only Zappa showing off (although he kind of is since he hired all the musicians) in “Let’s Move to Cleveland,” everyone gets a solo…keybaords, drums…everyone.  And the final track “Whipping Post” sees his son Dweezil taking the lead guitar solo (which feels really human and rocks the dickens off the place).

For many of Zappa’s later “live” records, he compiled songs from all over the place (a very common practice for live records).  On some of the collections he even mixed a tour from the 70s with one from the 80s.   Now the thing that I just recently realized (even though it’s spelled out in the liner notes) is that these songs are cribbed together from different songs (!) (on “Cleveland” the piano solo is from St. Petersburg, the drum solo is from Vancouver, and the guitar solo is from Amherst College…weird, eh?  And what about the backing music, where does that come from while the solos are spliced in?)).  So, they’re not really live, except they kind of are.  And, heck that’s kind of funny too.  If you care about things like that it kind of ruins the “authenticity” of the recording.   But if you don’t, they sound pretty darn good anyway.

So this is not his funniest stuff, but it’s still an interesting live collection.

[READ: November 12, 2010] More Things Like This

I don’t know where I learned about this book, but I recently found it used for about $4 and I was pretty psyched to both find it and to pay a pittance for it.

As the subtitle indicates, this book is a collection of drawings that have words on them and are funny (but which are not “cartoons” (although some kind of are)).  The impetus for the book was a show at apexart of exactly this sort of thing.  The book expands on the show and includes many artists who were not in the show (including several very famous artists).

The Foreword by Dave Eggers offer the rationale behind the show & the book: Image + Text (usually referring to the image) + Humor = Good enough for us.  And it also asks pertinent questions: Why is it that so many of these artists can’t spell?  And why is it that when they screw up a word, instead of starting over, they just cross the word out and write it again?  Why is it important to some of the artists that the drawings appear casual, even sloppy?

And more. (more…)

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Dave Eggers–It is Right to Draw Their Fur (2010)

Posted in Animals, Arrested Development, Big Books, Corporate skewering, Dave Eggers, David Cross, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), McSweeney's, Mr Show, Religion, Running Wilde, Yuck! on December 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAVID CROSS-Bigger and Blackerer (2010).

I’ve liked David Cross for years, both in Mr. Show and everywhere else he’s been (I love comparing his nebbish character in Arrested Development to his obnoxious hippie in Running Wilde). And his standup is just fantastic.

This new(ish) CD (which has the same name but different content as the DVD) is wonderfully obscene and profane and all around hilarious.  What’s particularly fun is the nonsensical “titles” he gives to his bits (although these are more accurate than on his previous disc): “REALLY Silly Religious Crazies, I mean, Double, Triple Crazy!!” and “Random Goofabouts”

The disc opens with a song(!), a swinging song ala Tom Jones which Cross sings (his voice isn’t very good, but he’s never off key, which is something) which actually features some cool time changes and a bit of pathos.  But the jokes are very funny.  He opens with an extended bit about drugs (mostly about drugs he has taken).  It’s a bit long, but the details are hilarious and the payoffs at the end are wonderful.  I also enjoyed that the drug bits are a cautionary tale, yet he never turns preachy, in fact, he inverts expectations throughout.

The race jokes are really great too, especially the MLK license plate bit.  But indeed, Cross really shines when it comes to religion.  I’ve never really heard a riff on Orthodox Jews before, and his dismissal of Catholicism is brutal and short, but it’s the Mormons who get the bulk of his abuse (mostly because of the awesome power they wield), especially since the religion is a sham.

He’s also not afraid to make observations that will offend some (although no one who listens to him) but are spot on.  There’s an excellent bit about Obama haters who bemoan the state of the country but who will immediately fight any “elitist” who bemoans other aspects of the country.  And it very funny, indeed.

Cross has spent some time in England (filming The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret) and his British accent is quite good now (it’s used to excellent effect in heaven).  He also has great rapport with the crowd, who are exuberantly noisy.

This CD is an excellent introduction to Cross’ standup.  The jokes aren’t really timely (although the health care yelling bit will date it somewhat, except that the debate itself will go one for years to come, so maybe it won’t), so even if it’s five years from now, the jokes will still be funny.

Cross is not a delicate comedian and his jokes are not for the faint of heart, but, man, is he funny.

[READ: November 9, 2010] It is Right to Draw Their Fur

Polymath Dave Eggers is back with another fascinating (and fascinatingly bound) title.  This time, the collection contains a series of drawings.  Most of the drawings are of animals and they all feature words on them.  (This sort of thing: Picture + words + humor (from many different artists) is presented in a book that I am currently enjoying called More Things Like This).  Similar items also appeared in McSweeney’s 27 (you can see my Post about that issue here)).

Eggers explains in the introduction that he went to art school.  He was an aspiring painter and then a cartoonist and illustrator.  And in his down time, he spent a lot of time drawing animals.  And they are quite good.  Eggers’ art has an odd quality to it that I can’t quite put my finger on.  All of his pictures seem off in a small way.  It doesn’t make them bad at all, in fact, it actually makes you want to look at them more to see what is off about them.  (I think some people call that “compelling”).

The project comes in a hugely oversized cardboard sleeve (14 inches x 19 inches).  There are 26 large sized posters (they are folded and their unfolded size reaches something like 27″ x 37″).  There’s also a booklet which features even more of these drawings.  The booklet has an appendix with some drawings that are not animals (well, they are humans, so yes, they are animals).  And, the most peculiar part, there’s a bibliography.  The bibliography goes on for four pages and includes all manner of things from Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear to Gara’s The Presidency of Franklin Pierce to The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams to Saint-Saens’ Le carnaval des animaux.

You can see two examples here.  In my opinion these are not the best combination art/words in the book (although the drawings are very good).  There are some other ones where the juxtaposition appealed to me much more.

The package is quite expensive (and justified–it is a lot of stuff and beautifully put together), but I have a hard time believing someone would spend $42 on it.  (I received mine as part of the McSweeney’s book club, so that’s nice.)

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