I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE FEELIES-Crazy Rhythms (bonus downloads) (2010).

The other day when I was playing Crazy Rhythms I noticed a little card that I had never noticed before.  It said that if I went to the label’s website, I could download bonus tracks.  That was pretty cool, so I did.

The are five tracks.  “Fa Cé-La” says it is a single version although it sounds even more spare and underproduced than the album version (and it’s a tad slower). “The Boy with the Perpetual Nervousness” and Moscow Nights” are demos.  “Boy” really sounds like a demo (the wood blocks are almost piercing!).  It’s interesting that the guitar solo, which sounds random on record was planned that way.  On “Moscow” the singer’s channeling Lou Reed pretty intently.

The next two tracks are live from a reunion tour in 2009.  I’m not exactly sure who was in the band, but that’s okay, the songs sound good.   “Crazy Rhythms” has a (simple) drum solo in the middle (more of a beat-keeping than a solo per se), and an extended jam towards the end song.  And the final song is a cover of Jonathan Richman’s “I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms,” at a frenetic two-minute pace.

Not bad for free downloads, eh?

[READ: December 31, 2011] “A Shade Less Perfect”

After reading all of those Max Barry blog posts, getting to read a real story is a real treat.

This is a very simple story of one-upmanship (a common trope of sitcoms–in fact just the other night Up All Night ran the “two brothers who must compete against each other at everything and never admit that they have failed at something” script).  And this story falls into the same general area, but Barry puts a surprising twist on the end.

Jonathan and Elizabeth are going to house of Jonathan’s boss, Dave.  Elizabeth likes Dave’s wife Julie.  They both had babies around the same time and met in birthing classes, so they are excited to catch up (it’s been about ten months since they’ve all seen each other).

Dave tends to lord everything over Jonathan at work.  Jonathan says he’s okay with this at work–Dave is his boss after all, but he doesn’t want to deal with it out side of work, too.  Naturally, Dave has a huge house and a convertible and every other material joy.  Even a nanny.

But it’s not the material things that the men are there to show off about, it’s their boys.  Dave’s boy Sebastian is already walking and eating like a fiend.  Jonathan’s boy Charlie, has a full head of hair and, yes, he walks too (actually Jonathan claims that their Charlie walks, when really he staggers…while holding on to furniture).  Neither guy wants to admit that the other’s boy looks good.

But after some initial gushing, the women open up and admit some less than perfect things.  And then Dave comes clean about Sebastian’s major flaw.  It is utterly unexpected and hilarious.  Upon a second reading, you can tell that the things that Dave says earlier about Sebastian are true, but they also foreshadow the surprise.  The only thing better is the final punch line.

I don’t want  to make too much of this story, it is little and silly, but it is delightfully light and silly.

You can read it (and hear an audio version, too!) here.

For ease of searching, I include: “Fa Ce-La”