I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK MOUNTAIN-Live at Sasquatch, May 30, 2011 (2011).

The previous Black Mountain live show I downloaded from NPR was a real disappointment.  For me the major problem was Amanda Webber’s voice–she applied a really harsh vibrato to the end of every single line.  It was so pronounced it sounded almost like a stutter.  I found it very distracting.

She doesn’t do that here, which automatically makes this set 100 times better (she has a minor vibrato on a few places, which is totally fine).  This Sasquatch concert covers songs from all three of their albums, which really showcases the diversity they explore within their trippy, space-rock, metal sound.  It works like a (brief) greatest hits for the band.

And the band sounds comfortable and fresh in this live setting (the guitars are fantastic and the keyboards add a wonderful spacey feel to the mix).  The two tracks of “Wucan” and “Tyrants” is particularly amazing; it’s interesting that they play four songs from their middle album and only three from their most recent.

Regardless, this release has won back my faith in Black Mountain live.

[READ: July 13, 2011] “The Gourmet Club”

I’d never heard of Tanizaki before and I haven’t really read that much Japanese fiction.  This translation by Paul McCarthy was really fantastic, and I never felt like I was reading a translation.

When I started this story (the first fiction from Lucky Peach), I was concerned that it was going to be the same kind of story as Neil Gaiman’s “Sunbird” (I realize “Sunbird” was published much later than “The Gourmet Club” originally written in 1919), but I’m glad it didn’t.

Essentially, this story focuses on five Japanese men who live to eat.  They are Epicurean to the highest degree, eating only the best at least once a day and often to bursting.  They go through all of the restaurants in Japan, traveling across the island to find new foods.  But they soon reach the end of their new food options.

Then one day one of the five stumbles upon a Chinese club from which the most mouth-watering smells emanate.  He stands there, drooling, trying to raise the courage to enter this exclusively Chinese establishment.  A little background: the story tells us that everyone knows the best food is Chinese food, but the Chinese food they serve in Japan is really a pale imitation of real Chinese food (that sounds familiar).  This club, which is not a restaurant at all, it’s a private hall, is exclusively for Chinese men.  There is no real entrance evident and no way of even knocking (the party is on the third floor).

Eventually, a drunken Chinese man comes down the stairs and encounters our man.  Through much negotiation, the Japanese gourmand is brought into the hall where he meets the President of the club.  The president sneers at this outsider and denies him access to the delights within.

After much cajoling, one of the partygoers allows him a glance at the food they are served.  We are not told what he sees.  But he is so inspired by the delights that he brings these new techniques back to his fellow gourmands who are blown away by what he serves them.

That sounds like a spoiler, but it’s not.  The secrets that are revealed at the end are too bizarre and wonderful to reveal, and this little summary will in no way make you feel like know what to expect.

The story felt long to me with a lot of strange little detours and authorial asides, as if he was teasing us before giving us the final product–the whole introduction of the story is the narrator telling us that the introduction is here just to prepare us for the story itself.  And yet, one of the points of the story is the excitement of delayed gratification.  So, in many ways the story shows us that as well.

Before I knew when the story was written, I thought it was strange that these wealthy gourmands, who can have whatever food they want, hadn’t traveled around the world much, or simply gone to China themselves.  But the 1919 release date explains that a lot more.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. It’s certainly bizarre, and more than a little disgusting, but it was still a  very cool and sensuous story.  I admit that the very end was lost on me somewhat, which was kind of a bummer.  The ending lists the final menu that the man served with this sentence following: “I trust that among my wise readers there will be those who can infer what kind of content is implied by the names of these dishes.”  I feel that I couldn’t infer as well as I’d have liked.  Which is a shame, but in no way spoiled the story for me.

For ease of searching I include: Junichiro Tanizaki