I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE AFGHAN WHIGS-“I’m Her Slave” (Live at the Bowery Ballroom 2012).

 I really liked some of The Afghan Whigs’s songs back in the 90s.  There was other stuff I didn’t love by them–when they were on, they were amazing.  Of course, I feel like the Whigs were pretty much all the work of Greg Dulli–charismatic frontman with the intriguing voice.

When they disbanded or broke up or whatever, I didn’t mind so much.  But they have reunited recently and my friend Joe posted this video from last year’s tour.  I don’t really know this song that well (although I do have the Congregation album i was more of a Gentlemen fan), but it sounds great.  And apparently this is one of the songs they were trotting out (they played it on Fallon, but the video has been taken down).

Dulli’s voice still has that wonderful quality and the band sounds tight and loud here.  Seems like a good reunion.

[READ: March 19, 2013] “Limhansfältet”

This excerpt comes from Knausgaard’s (also spelled Knausgård’s) second volume of his six-volume autobiographical novel (wow!).  I have no idea who the guy is or why we’d want to read it.  Evidently Knausgård is quite famous in his native Norway.  Don Bartlett translated this from the Norwegian.

So this excerpt shows a very short time in the writer’s life (knowing it’ autobiographical makes it different somehow).  The writer is married, a father of four three (although evidently now, he is divorced and his first wife is mad to her portrayal in the books).  The first few paragraphs just kind of talk about what’s going on around him (but it is more compelling than that sounds somehow).  I liked the scene where he is sitting so still in the garden that a hedgehog crept past him (but then I like hedgehogs).  But the crux of the action occurs at Limhansfältet, a grassy area outside of town where men gather every Sunday to play football.  They have gathered since the 60s and the men range from 18 to 80.

On this one occasion his family came with him. They watched for a bit but then wandered off.  And they missed him get injured.  Injured so badly that he had to go to the hospital.

As any detailed account of a day should do, this follows him to the hospital where he waits (for 30 minutes–but heck it is free!).  He’s seen by the nurses who determine (after much screaming on his part) not that his shoulder is dislocated but that he has broken his collar bone.

The rest of the excerpt talks about living with this injury–his wife freaks out that he is not to lift anything for two months and forbids him from playing soccer again.  (She later says she overreacted).  But it’s mostly a reflective section where he tries to make do, realizing how much power he has lost (in his family and his existence).  And the scene of his taking a bath is filled with a lot of pathos.  His kids are wonderful during this recovery time.

The story also talks about how hard it is to write in these circumstances and it actually seems like he may be writing this very book, which doesn’t make any sense.  Whatever the case, I really enjoyed this bit of hyper-realism.  I had no intention of reading the six volumes of it, although after looking the guy up on Wikipedia and Amazon, this book sounds strangely compelling.  Volume 2 is only 250 pages, maybe I should check it out after all.

For ease of searching, I include: Limhansfaltet.