SOUNDTRACK: LEMONHEADS-Varshons (2009).
This is a Lemonheads covers album. The amazing thing about this covers album is that mot of the originals are quite unknown (heck I didn’t even recognize some of the artists). But he manages to put a good Lemonheads spin on most of them (the later country/folk Lemonheads style) and it makes for an enjoyable listen. ALthough truth be told, most of the songs aren’t as catchy as a good Lemonheads song.
“I Just Cant Take it Anymore” and “Fragile” are folky/country songs, not too far out of line with the Lemonheads sound. “Living with Linda” is a strange choice on the disc. It’s a cover of a song by G.G, Allen, a performer who I know a lot about (he’s infamous) but who I have never heard. I assume that the original is a brutal punk song (it’s about killing an ex girlfriend, after all) but Dando turns it into something of a Johnny Cash type song (using his best deep voice).
“Waiting Around to Die” is a dark song, another good country ballad. “Green Fuz” has a cool backwards guitar solo. “Yesterlove” is a long, slow builder of a song that, intriguingly seems to move seamlessly from one section to another. I really like it. “Dandelion Seeds” is a trippy weird song that works quite well in the Lemonheads universe.
“Dirty Robot” is the really big surprise on the disc. After all of the folky country music, this song is a totally electronic song (and a very simple one at that). In addition to the electronic surprise is the fact that the lead vocals are supplied by Kate Moss (Dando has a robot-processed spoken verse).
The only song I knew here was the cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye.” This is a fine but very quiet version which features a duet by Liv Tyler (!?). (It would be impossible to screw up this song). The final song is probably my favorite. It’s a cover of Christina Aguilara’s “Beautiful.” I’ve always liked the song (it’s quite touching) but I must say I like Dando’s version better. It’s very understated (and he changes the words to “I am Beautiful” instead of “You are beautiful”–interesting change or egotism?).
So this is a strange covers album, quite atypical for the world of covers. It’s not often that a covers record introduces yo to a whole bunch of new material.
[READ: December 30, 2011] “Succeeding in Business Through Marketing Fads”
I am running dangerously close to not having anything to post about in 2012. Not for the entire year, but on a daily basis. I have effectively caught up to all of the posts that I had planned to write. I have read all of the New Yorker and Harper’s stories that I had lying around and because of my new job it’s taking me considerably longer to read books.
I was seriously planning on having this post be about how I wouldn’t be able to have any more daily posts in 2012.
Enter Max Barry.
I’ve read all three of Barry’s previous books (indeed I read his first book years and years ago and didn’t even tie it into his other ones until his bio did it for me). I’ve enjoyed them all. He has a new book out that I am currently enjoying called Machine Man. Anyhow, reading this book made me want to see about his short stories and the like. Well, his website has a few short pieces on it. Enough to get me through the next week anyhow.
For you, dear reader, that means you’ll get a whole week’s worth of Max Barry before you can get to whatever else I manage to finish next year.
This first piece was written in 2000. I’m not sure if it was for his blog (did they have blogs in 2000?) or just for his website, but either way, it’s available here.
So Barry is funny, let’s get that out of the way. But he is also tech savvy (wait till we get to the Windows vs Linux post). And, as his work has shown, he’s quite anticorporate. Which is what makes this little article so funny.
As the home page notes, this article is 700 words long (ie, very short). And it can be summed up in the first sentence: “The key to creating a marketing fad is to state the blindingly obvious in an appealing way.” What I loved about this article is how blatantly he lays out the bullshit behind such trends as Total Quality Management (something which I had to go to a seminar on) and other fake useful things.
Barry clever dissects these trends with his own concept of “metamarketing.” And how you just take an idea that everyone knows and paraphrase it. After all Total Quality Management was basically “do stuff better.”
I don’t know if this attitude was original in 2000, but it’s still relevant and quite fun to read.
Thanks, Max.
I Just Read About That... 
If you need suggestions of short stories to read and post about, I’d be happy to help. 😉
Sure Karen, what have you got??
Really? Cool! But the music is from my era, and I’m not actually listening to it, just thinking it’d work, like pairing food and wine. Because I can’t read and listen to music at the same time, unless it’s really generic string-quartet-type stuff.
Let’s start with my favorite collection of the year, Seth Fried’s The Great Frustration. These are offbeat, funny-sad modern morality tales. My favorites include “Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre” (which I found in Pushcart XXXV) and “Those Of Us In Plaid.” I see you’ve already read that, and weren’t blown away. Sigh. Maybe we’re not literarily compatible. Only one story, “Loeka Discovered,” is available in full online.
I was also crazy about Miranda July’s collection No One Belongs Here More Than You but that’s from 2007. I see you’re ambivalent about her. Yeah. It’s the kind of stuff I could easily be a depressed high school kid writing, except it really works. I have the same worry about her being so cooler-than-me. But what can I say, I love her stories.
I also read and blogged four prize anthologies this year (more or less this year; I started one of them last fall). But let’s start with one, and if you want more, I’ll be happy to come back with my take on PEN/O.Henry 2011 and BASS 2010 and 2011. Or, if you’re more about looking forward than back, I’m starting the Pushcart XXXVI (2012) very soon. If you like flash, that opens up a whole new line of possibilities. I’m a big fan on One Story, can’t recommend it highly enough if you’re in the mood to subscribe to another litmag. And if we’re on totally different wavelengths, well, that’s ok too.
Pushcart XXXV (2011). Just about every story left me amazed. My favorites, besides the abovementioned “FMPM,” I think: “Sheep May Safely Graze” by Jess Row (comes with its own soundtrack), or “Pet” by Deb Olin Unferth (70s Melanie). A few other stories, also awfully good, are available online:
Linda McCullough Moore, “Final Dispositions” from her linked-story collection This Road Will Take Us Closer To the Moon, available online in The Sun, Feb. 2009. A little sentimental, but well done. Try it with S&G’s “Bookends” or Janis Ian’s “Hymn.”
Marc Watkins, “Two Midnights In A Jug,” from Boulevard, Spring 2009. Because it’s a grim, tough read, it might take a second read to get past the oppressive weight and find the delicate art. And it doesn’t hurt to look into the background of the writer a bit; he isn’t writing about these people by accident. A little Willie Nelson might work.
Anthony Marra, “Chechnya” from Narrative, Fall 2009. I didn’t think I’d like this, but it grew on me, and by the end it had me in the palm of its… well, if a story had a hand, it would’ve had me there.
Elliott Holt, “Fem Care” from Kenyon Review Online, Summer 2009. As much fun as you can have with menstruation. Literary fiction doesn’t often look at professional women at work. This could be a little chick-lit for a guy. Somehow I’m thinking Carly Simon would be good here.
Sorry you asked yet?
I’m very psyched actually. Browsing the selections (and your site) I think there’s some great stuff here. Thank you!
[…] story recommended to me by Karen Carlson (see all of her recommendations in the comments to this post). Of this one she writes: “from her linked-story collection This Road Will Take Us Closer […]