I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MEGAFAUN-“Get Right” (2011).

I’ve never heard of Megafaun before, but this song is just wonderful.  It’s an 8 minute blast of psychedelia that covers and sometimes obscures a beautiful poppy song.  I hear overtones of Dinosaur Jr (but more for J. Mascis’ seemingly lazy style than for his crazy guitar riffing) and a bit of the Lemonheads in the folky pop feel.  Throw in a dose of My Bloody Valentine for the waves of sound and you get a perfectly lovely track.

The opening is a fairly simple, straightforward melody.  And his voice is so familiar-sounding.  There’s some cool squeaky/feedbacky guitars layered over the top of a hazy distorted sound.  By about four minutes, the song turns into an instrumental, with a guitar solo that comes in an out of the hazy chords.

This is a great song, and although the NPR write-up says this is the longest track, I imagine the rest must be equally as exciting.  Preview it on NPR.

[READ: September 1, 2011] “Asleep in the Lord”

This is a story about Mitchell, a formerly unhelpful person who never changed a diaper or helped a sick friend.  He has decided to change that, so he goes to Calcutta with the intention of joining Mother Teresa’s mission (and just how many stories involve Mother Teresa these days?—she even makes an appearance in the piece!).  He’s reluctant to do anything majorly gross, but he’s happy to hand out medicines (for what good they do).

After a few days, Mitchell is still somewhat surprised by his decision to go to Calcutta at all.  Then he meets Mike and Herb.  Herb is following the Bhagwan, but Mike is less grounded in who he is following here in India .  He came here because the economy tanked back home and he wanted somewhere to hide out for a few years.   As we learn more about Mitchell, we see that his intentions are understandably confused.  For really, like Mike, he also came to India to wait out the recession.   However, unlike Mike, he honestly did come to seek some kind of spiritual guidance.  Mike seems to be here for the easy sex–he has a picture of a young woman from Thailand who wanted “to marry him.”  

They also meet Rüdiger–a 37-year-old German seeker.  He has been reading The Answers of Jesus to Job (a real book!) which he describes as “a doozy, as you Americans say.”  And this leads to some of my favorite quotes from the story:

“We do not say ‘doozy,’” Mitchell said.
Rüdiger raised his eyebrows skeptically, “When I was in American they always said ‘doozy.’”
“When was that, 1940?”
“1973!” Rüdiger objected.  “Benton Harbor, Michigan.”

I also loved this line which sums up Mitchell (and Herb) wonderfully:

If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely.  But it was maybe asking too much to begin with Herb.

And since I’m quoting, I loved this description:

Like the dining room itself, the toast was trying to be British, and failing.  The bread slices were the right shape.  They looked like bread.  But instead of being toasted they’d been grilled over a charcoal fire and tasted of ash.

The amount of detail given in this story leads me to think it is the basis for a novel.  The internal conflicts and background information are simply too much for a short story.  And while the ending works, it ends in a questioning but more spiritual place.  I enjoyed this very much and I hope there’s more coming.

For ease of searching I include: Rudiger