I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS/NICK HORNBY-Lonely Avenue (2010).

As the cover of this album notes: “Ben Folds adds music and melody to Nick Hornby’s words.”  And that is true. The only surprising thing about this combination is that Folds is quite a good lyricist himself, so it’s surprising that he would sacrifice his words.  But regardless, the fit is a good one.

Sometimes it seems like Hornby is challenging Folds to come up with melodies for some of his more difficult lyrics which Folds lives up to).  But they have such similar sensibilities that (aside from occasional references to British things) the words could have come from Folds himself (although, Hornby’s a better writer, so Folds wouldn’t have written exactly the same things).

The big surprise is the diversity of musical styles on the disc.  Folds of course does play lots of different types of music on his previous discs, but I guess since the cohesion is Hornby’s words so Folds can really let loose.

The opener, “A Working Day” is a keyboard pop confection, a surprisingly 80s sounding synth song with some wry lyrics about being a writer/performer (“some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know, he’s got his own blog”).  “Picture Window” is a beautiful downer, a string-filled song that seems like a companion to Folds’ “Brick” (“You know what hope is, hope is a bastard”).  It’s just as sad but the melody is gorgeous.

“Levi Johnson’s Blues” is a strangely topical song (in fact, it took me a minute to remember who he was when I first listened to the song.  Anyhow, it’s a silly song about what happened to the father of Sarah Palin’s grandchild.  And yet, despite the novelty of it, it’s actually a somewhat sympathetic portrait of the guy (sure he’s a redneck, but he’s just a normal guy thrust into a ridiculous spotlight–the liner notes say the chorus came from Levis (redacted) Facebook page).

“Doc Pomus” feels like a classic piano song.  While “Young Dogs: is a fast romper (with great vocals) and more keyboards.  “Practical Amanda” is a slow ballad (and Hornby says it’s not autobiographical at all).  While “Claire’s Ninth” is a story about a young girl of divorced parents who hates having two birthdays.  (With sweeping choruses!) Hornby states that this was his first accepted short story (modified for the song, of course) but the magazine that accepted it stopped publishing before his appeared.  D’oh!

“Password” is a wonderful song which only makes sense when you know the name of it (which I didn’t at first, as I usually don’t look at titles right away).  Throughout the song Ben spells words which leads to a cool conclusion–it’s wonderfully clever writing and it’s done in a fascinating R&B-lite style.

“From Above” is a jaunty rocker about people who never meet, although their paths cross quite often.  “Saskia Hamilton” is the “single” from the record.  It’s another great 80’s keyboard fueled romp.  Since I have a friend named Saskia (hi, Saskia) I’m fond of this song–her name is fun to say.  They have a bunch of fun in the recording too.

The final track, “Belinda” is designed like a classic 70s piano ballad (there’s a lengthy email printed in the notes that explains the construction of the song–reading that makes the song even more impressive).

It’s a great Ben Folds album.  It’s not as tidy as some of his other ones–but all of that experimentation leads to some new avenues of melody. It’s a risk that paid off.

[READ: May 10, 2011] Five Dials Number 7

This issue of Five Dials was primarily about Memoir.  Typically, I don’t like memoirs, but I’m finding (and this coincides with what one of the memoirs below states), that I just don’t like celebrity memoirs.  Or perhaps I just like three page accounts of an incident in someone’s life (which these are).

Each of the writers below is given an introduction in which they summarize WHY they write memoirs.  It’s interesting to see that many of them do, in fact, take other people’s feeling into consideration (not as seriously as Mark Twain who waited 100 years for the publication of his), but they try to do something or other to spare people’s feelings.  I was intrigued also that several of the writers also talk about finding themselves through writing.  One or two of them make the exercise of writing memoir sound obnoxiously solipsistic (which of course it is), but it’s nice to read ones that are interesting and not too self-centered.

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: “On Audio Detective Work and Memoir”
This letter explains the extent of the audio detective work that went into the interview (presented later) between Raymond Chandler and Ian Fleming.  Since I love playing with audio software, this was of especial interest to me.  And it made me really look forward to the interview.

ALI SETH-Currentish Events: ‘Dude, the guy was a secularist’
Although just about everything in this issue is a memoir, this article is different because it is indeed, a currentish event.  Ali Seth reports about government shutdowns in Pakistan.  Not the government shutting down, but the government shutting events down.  It starts with a drummer, an older man who sits in public and drums to a large crowd.  Eventually he is told to stop because the crowd is smoking hash (when really it was likely for political reasons).  This leads to some discussions with the Pakistani youth and their attitudes towards government .

PAUL EWEN-A Fiction: “John Banville’s The Sea”
This story would have been a lot more meaningful (and probably funnier) had I known that John Banville also wrote under the pseudonym Benjamin Black.   I first thought that this was mislabeled as a fiction because the story starts with the narrator going to a book reading by John Banville.  But instead, Benjamin Black shows up and reads a Benjamin Black story. This is obviously pretty funny if you know about the pseudonym business.  Slowly the narrator gets drunk and acts up (I don’ t know if any of the story is connected to Banville’s writing or not).  It’s a weird and funny story. And even if I wasn’t in on the joke, I still enjoyed it.

BERNARDINE EVARISTO-Memoir–Childhood: “My Father’s House”
Evaristo remembers back to her horrible-sounding childhood.  They were the only black family in their area of London, there were several children in her family, and her father was incredibly strict.  She hated every minute of it. But she ends by saying she wouldn’t have changed a thing.

JAMIE BRISICK-Memoir–The Teenage Years: “Whiff”
Brisick revisits the 80s, when he was trying to be a super athlete and a major party animal (he says Iggy Pop & Ivan Lendl–although he is actually a surfer).  Most of the story looks at the time he snorted cocaine all night long and then decided it would be a good time to do wind sprints on the beach.  It’s pretty amazing he’s still alive.

ELNA BAKER-Memoir–The Late Teenage Years: “I’m a Mormon”
This is a cool and funny story about a young woman going from small town England to New York City.  Her family is Mormon, and her mother warns her about the dangers of cigarettes and lesbians.  Amusingly, her roommate at NYU is gay.  But Elna herself is super cool and is not offended by her (although she’s disconcerted by her salmon colored strap on which always seems to be staring at her).  She also finds herself questioning her mormonism.  The only thing about the article that was hard to fathom is that she questions her mormonism but still holds fast to it.  While I’m not a big fan of religion in general, Mormonism is a joke, and even she seems to realize that, but she can’t seem to let it go.

SAÏD SAYRAFIEZADEH-Memoir–Adulthood: “Dark Man at the Airport”
Soon after 9/11, Sayrafiezadeh was traveling from New York to Paris.  Sayrafiezadeh was born in New York but with that name, he was sure he would be given a really hard time at the airport.  The story is a pile up of fears coming from all different directions.  It’s incredibly well written and very moving.

SALLY CHAMBERLAIN-Memoir–The Middle Years: “From Woodstock to Altamont”
Evidently Sally Chamberlain is famous to some degree.  I sort of didn’t like her memoir as it opened because she seems kind of cocky about it (as if she was a person who we SHOULD know), but after I got past that I found this account fascinating.  It’s all about post-Woodstock euphoria.  When she goes to Woodstock (she was given tickets by a friend) she is full of concerns about leaving her children with a sitter for the long weekend (which seems out o character for 1969).  But during the concert, she experiences the full on bliss and potential for changing the world (which I have come to believe was a myth–that it only happened in the movies, but she assures us it was real).  But the rest of the article is about the come down and of what happened to New York City in the 70s.  It’s also full of famous cameos (Allen Ginsburg and her minorly famous painter husband Wynn Chamberlain)

DIANA ATHILL-Memoir–Somewhere Near the End: ‘I quite like boring memoirs’
Athill is a serial memoir.  I have never heard of her, but it sounds like she writes interesting memoir about herself and the way she has lived her life in England these past 92 years.  (She’s the one who likes boring memoirs).  She was a publisher (and refused to publish celebrity memoirs–there’s a funny story about a 22-year-old singer with one hit whose book she just laughed about).  She is also a keen judge of books (didn’t like Clinton’s memoir, thinks Obama’s is the best written by a politician). It almost makes me want to read her memoirs, but at the very least, it will make me look her up to get more details about her.

PAUL FARLEY-Poem: “Adults”
This is my favorite poem published in Five Dials so far.

IAN FLEMING & RAYMOND CHANDLER: In Conversation
Even though I’ve never read Fleming or Chandler, I really enjoyed this conversation. Two masters of their genre talking about what they do best.

ALAIN DE BOTTON-The Agony Uncle
De Botton continues with his wonderful advice.  In this one, a man writes that after grieving when his friend died (in an accident at 35), he and his mates all seemed to use his death as a catalyst to move on to better things.  De Botton, not really offering advice, talks about how death can be a very powerful motivating force.  He cites both fiction Dostoevsky’s The Death of Ilan Ilyich and history King Xerxes of Persia).

TOM HODGKINSON-Sermon: “Love Thy Neighbor”
This sermon was wonderful.  It is all about usury.  And how it was forbidden in olden times and in the bible.  And if people had listened to that prohibition, we wouldn’t have the financial crisis we have now.  It’s interesting that all of the people who like to bring the bible into politics, never mention the prohibition against usury.  Instead of John 3:16, we should be waving signs that read:  Exodus 22:25

If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.

or Leviticus 25:35-7

If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.  Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you.  You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit.

Just a thought.

SOPHIA AUGUSTA PANKENIER-illustrations

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Five Dials continues to surprise and impress me.