I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: REGINA SPEKTOR-Soviet Kitsch (2004).

After the poppy, polished joy of Far, I went back and decided to check out the one other Regina Spektor album I knew of–Soviet Kitsch.  This album has always stuck with me as an interesting title.  I ordered it from Amazon and was bummed to get a little cardboard sleeve rather than an entire disc (her artwork is really nice).  So I was a little biased against this disc from the start.  The music also doesn’t have any of the polish and sleekness of Far.  So it took a while for me to see the beauty within.

This album is largely simple piano (with strings and other addition), but it’s a much more raw album (akin to something like Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes).

“Ode to Divorce” is a quiet piano song with some catchy moments.  “Poor Little Rich Boy” has some interesting percussion to accompany the piano.  And in this song you know that she’s in a slightly different territory than Tori Amos, which is good–the feeling is similar but the end result is unique.  Lyrically the album explores different ideas and on this song the repeated refrain of “you’re so young you’re so god damn young” is a little unsettling.  “Carbon Monoxide” introduces a more full sound (bass and drums).  And Regina shows off yet another side of her personality–playful, flirtatious and now almost childish (“C’mon, daddy.”)

“The Flowers” introduces another new aspect to the disc–more aggressive/borderline classical piano playing (rapid, loud notes).  It suits her style quite well and this song is  a definite highlight.  The end of the song has a very Russian-style nonsense syllable sing along which is very fun.   “Us” adds strings to the song and some great sing along parts.  “Sailor Song” is a funny song from a sailors perspective with the sing-along shanty chorus “Mary Anne’s a bitch” (complete with broken glass sounds).

The next song “****” is a whispered little conversation in which a young girl asks Regina when the next song is coming.  It makes the next song, “Your Honor” even more loud.  It really stands out on this disc because it is a full on punk song with screamed vocals and band work from Kill Kenada (who I don’t know anything about).  The song is about getting in a fight to defend a woman’s honor.  The slow piano middle section features the amusing question “gargle with peroxide a steak for your eye but I’m a vegetarian so it’s a frozen pizza pie…you fight for my honor but I just don’t know why.:”

“Ghost of Corporate Future” has a kind of lullaby feel and some amusing lyrics, ” When he gets to the crowded subway platform/He takes off both of his shoes/He steps right into somebody’s fat loogie/And everyone who sees him says “ew”/Everyone who sees him says “ew”/But he doesn’t care/Cause last night he got a visit/From the ghost of corporate future/The ghost said take off both your shoes/Whatever chances you get/Especially when they’re wet.”  It’s all sung in a manic style over a quiet piano melody.

“Chemo Limo” is certainly the highlight of the disc.  It’s 6 minutes long and is quite dramatic.  The basic premise is that dying from cancer sucks, so she’s going to live instead: “I couldn’t afford chemo like I couldn’t afford a limo/And on any given day I’d rather ride a limousine.”  There are several sections in the song–allowing Regina to show off her dynamic and dramatic vocal range (serious falsettos) and very impassioned sections, “Oh my God Barbara she looks just like my mom”  She even does some (very mild) beatboxing at the end of the song.  “Somedays” is a pretty, simple ballad, with some great vocals although it kind of gets lost at the end of the disc.  Although I was not that into this record when I first got it, repeated listens revealed wonderful surprises inside.

[READ: July 15, 2012] Canary in a Cat House

This is Kurt Vonnegut’s first collection of short stories.  It is currently out of print.  That’s not a big deal because almost all of the stories were later collected in Welcome to the Monkeyhouse.  But I thought it would be fun to read them in the original book.  When it came in from the library I was surprised at how tiny it was.  But what was really surprising was how small the print and how small the margins were.  They really crammed stories into collections back then!

These stories were all written in the 1950s and what was also surprising to me was how serious and unfunny some of those first stories were.  I realize that these were some of his first works, but the Vonnegut voice is so distinctive–a misanthropy tempered by jokes and absurdity, that I was surprised that some of these stories were not only serious but seriously emotional as well.  It’s been clear from all of his stories that WWII impacted his life tremendously (as one would expect), but in these early stories he talks very deliberately about violence and the cold war and the aftermath of WWII.  It’s pretty intense.  By the end of the book the more typical Vonnegut voice surfaces–sci-fi kinds of stories with dark humor involved.  It’s quite a collection.

• “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” (1950)

This story is written as a letter from a student of Mr Barnhouse.  Barnhouse is able to move objects with his mind.  He starts slowly (moving dice) and learns over time to move things very far away.  He is terribly afraid of what this discovery might mean to humanity. And sure enough, when he contacts the Secretary of State to alert him about his ability, they immediately send out the military to exploit this skill.  Barnhouse can’t handle the idea of this violence, so he hides, using his ability to protect himself.  This was a really good and surprisingly dark story.

• “All The King’s Horses” (1953)

Everyone has heard of playing chess against the grim reaper.  Ingmar Bergman’s classic The Seventh Seal is one of the most prominent examples.  Even if you haven’t seen it, you must have seen this photo.  Well, this story predates the movie by 6 years.  And there’s a difference.  This has also been shown many times since then (and was practiced in olde times as well I believe)–that the chess pieces are people.  The major twist here is that the chess players are prisoners.  The prisoners are an American general and his team and his family (they were on a post-war trip but were captured by a Chinese soldier and a Russian associate).  The Chinese General tells the Americans he will kill them all unless they play live chess.  The other part of the deal is that each person/piece that the American loses will be taken out and executed on the spot.

The American looks to play a far game of chess (and to save his family), but the Chinese general is just out for pure sport.  He does not care about the game and just sets out to capture and kill the people.  It’s a pretty harrowing story and the resolution is really great.

• “D.P.” (1953)

This is a surprising story and one of Vonnegut’s earliest example of his empathy with black people (something that surfaces in all of his stories).  In a German orphanage, a black boy resides.  He speaks German but everyone believes that his father is a random American soldier.  And he sets out to find that soldier.  It’s quite moving.

• “The Manned Missiles” (1958)

This story is comprised of two letters–one from a Russian man to an American man and the second is the American man’s reply.  The Russian is writing to the American because both of their sons were sent up in satellite to orbit the planet and both of the sons were killed.  The letters demonstrate an intense feeling of humanity towards each other and show that the sons are very much alike.  Their respective governments are trying to make something more out of it, and the letters try to emphasize family.  It is very moving.

• “The Euphio Question” (1951)

A weird title that houses a wonderful story.  A scientist has discovered the sound waves that come from deep space.  He goes on the radio to broadcast the sounds so everyone can hear them.  It turns out that this sound is so amazing that it creates incredible euphoria.  The radio man wants to market this and make a ton of money.  They demonstrate it and the effects are stunning–and dangerous.  The end is a bit twisted and wonderful.

• “More Stately Mansions” (1951)

These stories drift away from the military and into the human world.  In this story a man’s wife is obsessed with fixing up her house.  And the houses of everyone else.  She spends her whole day looking at samples and imagining what this or that room will look like.  She has filing cabinets full of samples and catalogs.  The story seems to be heading in a Gift of the Magi direction when Vonnegut totally pulls the rug out from under everyone.  This was wonderful too.

• “The Foster Portfolio” (1951)

Told from the point of view of an accountant, the Foster portfolio is a shocking thing to behold–a man working three jobs and living paycheck to paycheck actually has inherited close to a million dollars, but he wants nothing to do with the money.  He’s going to keep it but doesn’t want to hear about it.  The accountant is baffled until the secret comes out.   It was funny to read this while reading JR, as the money aspect is quite relevant

• “Deer in the Works” (1955)

This was probably my least favorite story of the book.  I did like that it was set in Ilium, NY (the first of Vonnegut’s works set there).  In this one, a young man who owns a small paper gets a job at a large firm writing their PR.  The corporate world overwhelms him (that part I liked) but I felt a bit overwhelmed too–like we just weren’t supposed to know what was going on.  I enjoyed the middle but not so much the rest.

• “Hal Irwin’s Magic Lamp”

I am told that this story was rewritten for the release of Bagombo Snuff Box.  I wonder what’s different.  Anyhow, in this version, Hal Irwin creates a magic lamp from which he will wish the most expensive things in the world.  Turns out that Hal Irwin and his wife are living modestly but he gets a sudden windfall. He doesn’t tell his wife, but rather he buys a huge house and all the fixings and then surprises her by pretending the lamp will grant his wishes.  Underneath the story is the heart–his wife doesn’t care about that at all and actually misses the man she thought she married.  The ending is quite sweet.

• “Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog” (1953)

Yes, THAT Thomas Edison.  This story is a funny science fiction type story.  In it Thomas Edison creates an IQ reading machine.  He sets the red line at the end as his own intellect.  The man who is relating the story tested very poorly on the machine (the set up of why this man is talking is completely unrelated to the rest and is very funny indeed).  It turns out that Edison’s dog did quite well.  This sets off a lengthy expiation about the true nature of dogs.  The story is surprisingly light and quite funny.

• “Unready to Wear” (1953)

Far more science fiction based, this story is about people who have become amphibian, but not in the conventional sense.  Rather, they can leave their body at any moment and reside in a bodiless sphere.  Whenever they want they can use bodies and walk around and interact with people who don’t want to learn these ways.  The story is certainly a metaphor for people who try to change the conventional ways of things, although the stake are much higher.  The non-amphibians start a war with the amphibians–but since they have no bodies, the amphibians don’t care.  Finally  an amphibious pair is captured and prevented from leaving.  The solution is surprisingly elegant.  This story was quite good but I feel like it needed a punch at the end, it just kind of faded out (although the pay-toilet joke is a good one).

• “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” (1953)

This was  a very dark and quite funny story about the year 2158.  In 2158, you can ingest a drug called anti-gerasone which prevents you from getting older.  It is very common for people to be 150 years old.  Which is great, except that if the population reaches 12 billion and nobody dies, where is everyone going to go?  Vonnegut anticipates a lot of potential crises (ones that are getting a lot of traction now) and has people eating food based out of seaweed and grains (flavored and chemicalled) but he also has the funny (not really) situation of six generations of people living in a one room apartment.  The patriarch controls the bedroom and everything else and his will is much coveted.   So the family is at his mercy.  He promises he’ll stop taking the medicine after the 500 Mile Speedway Race but he’s said that before, and besides there’s always another big event coming up to keep him interested.  The family’s solution is accidental but elegant.  Until it all goes wrong.  The ending is very funny indeed.

Overall this was a really enjoyable collection of stories.  very different from his novels.  Since it was his early work I don’t know if he was just trying out different voices, but he certainly acheived a lot of diversity.