SOUNDTRACK: GUSTER-Easy Wonderful (2010).
This Guster album is confusing. It’s rather short (compared to their other discs). Combined with the (kind of flimsy) cardboard packaging, it feels almost like an EP. It also seems to be kind of religious (although I don’t think it is)–like a themed EP. And yet it isn’t off-putting or anything (a few mentions of Jesus is all, although that’s a lot more than usual).
But, like most of Guster’s releases, it’s super catchy kind of alternative jangly pop. After one or two listens the songs are instantly recognizable. There isn’t a bad song in the bunch. However, they’re also mildly underwhelming compared to their previous releases. The songs feel a bit more subtle, but really it seems like they might be just a little too smooth. The dynamics aren’t quite as exciting as they have been.
Having said all that, the disc is still pretty great and I find myself humming a lot of these songs all day long.
[READ: June 18, 2011] Five Dials Number 12
Five Dials Number 12 has a theme explicitly stated on the cover. The premise of the theme is that the Conservative Party of Britain had been claiming (in their TV ads and billboards) that Britain was broken. This idea was relentlessly pushed across Britain. And Five Dials wondered if people thought that that was true in general. So they asked 42 citizens (no idea what kind of random sample it may have been, realistically) and they recorded the results.
The rest of the issue has some of the standard Five Dials material we’ve come to expect: essays and fiction, advice and lists. The theme gives an interesting tone to the proceedings.
CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Broken Britain and Nick Dewar
Taylor addresses much of what is said above. David Cameron (I still can’t get used to him being Prime Minister, it’s still Gordon Brown in my head–I guess Cameron hasn’t done much yet) is the man who keeps trying to “mend our broken society.” Even though (and statistics are similar in the U.S.):
They found that violent crime had almost halved since 1995, while crime generally fell by an extraordinary 45%. The figures for teenage pregnancies – a favourite of those talking about social decay – remain constant since Labour came to power in 1997; so too do those for teenage abortions.
The rest of the letter is devoted to the passing of Nick Dewar. Dewar drew the illustrations for Five Dials Number One. I really liked Dewar’s style, and his absurdist sensibilities. Taylor says that Dewar’s color work was even better. And I think he’s right.
DAN HANCOX-Currentish Events: The Fight for Broken Britain
Hancox travels to some of the areas of Britain that you might think were most broken (specifically the dock areas). And the citizens pretty universally seem offended at the idea that their country is broken. This is an area that is typically full of immigrants. A recent cover story in The Walrus showed that a large immigrant population is actually beneficial to an area to help reduce crime and to help bolster a community. And that appears to be what is happening here.
BRENDA WALKER-A Single Book: The Line of Beauty
Walker is ostensibly talking about Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty. But really this essay is a moving one about trying to fight cancer. She describes the book as “a novel strong enough to hold the attention of a person sitting upright in a hospital bed, waiting for a difficult night to fall.” The fascinating thing is that I cared more about her and her story than about the novel in question, which I’d never heard of.
SIMON PROSSER-Thirty-Eight Typewriters
Prosser is turning into my favorite listmaker. This list is, as the title states, thirty-eight models of typewriters. I am fond of “The Imperial Good Companion.”
A NATION SPEAKS
“We travelled around the UK, did a little doorstepping, made a few calls, and asked Britons the following three questions.
- Do you think that Britain is a) broken, b) slightly cracked or c) not broken at all?
- What could Britain be compared to right now?
- What could be done to fix it?”
The answers are interesting and fascinating and surprisingly diverse. Some of the answers to b) are quite poetic: “A beautiful, intricately woven rug, with people’s dirty shoe-prints all over it.” “A saucer which has had the indented area (the bit that holds the cup) knocked out.” “A game of Tetris where you have put a crucial piece in the wrong way and you can’t stop the next piece coming.” And everyone’s favorite: “Sloth with a briefcase full of oil.”
There’s also two pages of amusing illustrations.
COLIN ELFORD-The Stream
This is a beautiful pastoral about a stream that builds slowly into a much bigger river until it once again returns to a tiny trickle.
STEPHEN VIZINCZEY-Q&A
Vizinczey wrote In Praise of Older Women in 1965. It was a controversial best seller. But even more amazing than the story (which he says is based on his life–he had a 40-year-old lover when he was 14), is his life: he was an exiled Hungarian who was shipped to Italy and then Canada after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The Q&A is quite funny–Vizinczey makes for a great interview. And his dismissal of morons (those who are easily swayed by the media) is right on.
JAMES ROBERTSON-Poem: TOD
Robertson took Joni Mitchell’s song “Coyote” and re-imagined it as a Scottish poem (in dialect). It’s a challenge to read, but it’s a cool poem.
JEREMY GAVRON-Memoir: Living in Snip
This story is pretty unusual for Five Dials. It is all about a parent’s decision to circumcise his son. I know many parents who have gone through this debate. But this is made more challenging because he is Jewish. He gets advice and criticisms from all sides. Life allows him to not have to make the decision, but it’s still a great read.
ALAIN DE BOTON-The Agony Uncle
A man, driven to rage by what random men were saying about his girlfriend, acted on his impulses and wound up in the hospital. He wants to know what should one do when pride is on the line? De Botton discusses the history of duels (and their surprising mortality rate) and cultural feelings of machsimo and honor. But mostly he says that you should listen to what the criticisms are:
Instead of taking all negative opinions about him equally seriously, [Marcus Aurelius] would first ask himself if there was any truth behind them. ‘When people blame or hate you, go to their inward selves, pass in and see what kind of men they are; are they right or wrong?’ If they are the latter, then we should never listen – and certainly never end up in hospital with a broken lip because of their words.
ALAN WYKES-The HH Archive: Snake Man
In 1960, Wykes traveled to Africa to meet C.J. Ionides. Ionides had been living in Africa for 35 years as a snake handler. In the one instance that Wykes reports, Ionides was bitten by a snake and asked his servant only to write down whatever happened to him (as his finger turned black and swelled). In another, he managed to trap a snake that was in his bathroom. It’s a fascinating (if not a little scary) account.
ILLUSTRATIONS-PAUL DAVIS & SOPHIA AUGUSTA & EMILY ROBERTSON & STUART WHITE & SOCIAL COMMONTATING
The final four pages of the issue are full-page illustrations. Three are from Paul Davis–a kind of sloppy pen and ink drawing style. The final one is by Sophia Augusta: the beloved sloth with a briefcase full of oil!
The rest of the issue has illustrations throughout. Most of them are pictures of the descriptions of broken Britain (a vase held together with tape). It’s fun to see them in visual form, I’m just not sure who did what.
This was a really enjoyable issue of Five Dials. It had a feeling of optimism, despite the theme.
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