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Archive for April, 2013

The Mays XX (2013)

Posted in Ada Gafter-O'Higgins, Alexander Freer, Alice Blackhurst, Alice Zoo, Betty Liou, Chloe Spiby Loh, Christina Farley, Claudia Stocker, Clemmy Pleming, Crystal Ding, Death, Emily Marchant, Emma Levinkind, Emma Woodward, Enrico Cioni, Fears, Felix Bazalgette, Funny (ha ha), Georgia R. Wagstaff, Huh?, J. Kwong, Jack Shackleton, James McKnight, Jamie Patton, Jim Kitchen, Joanna Mavron, John Darnielle, Jonas Leonhard Tinius, Lawrence Dunn, Lewis Wynn, Louise Benson, Maria Dimitrova, NASA, Phoebe Dickerson, Poetry, Queens of the Stone Age, Richard O'Brien, Robyn Lowe, Rowan Evans, Sara Ahmad, Scot Annett, Sex, Short Books, Short Story, Susie Cronin, The Mays, Tim Waters, Toby Lloyd on April 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

xxSOUNDTRACK: QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE-“My God is the Sun” (2013)

qotsaAfter a six-year hiatus, QotSA is back with this slinky song.  It has the sleazy feel that Homme does so well (how does he do that?).  This song feels a little more guitar based (meaning it is a bit more trebly–with interesting echoes on the guitars).  It’s not as immediately catchy as their bigger hits, but it’s got all the elements you look for from QotSA.

It opens with some slashing sounds and then the riff kicks in.  The song is propulsive but somehow doesn’t feel as fast as some of their earlier tracks.  Which is not to say it’s mellow at all.  And once Homme starts singing, well, it’s like they never went away.  There’s a lengthy middle instrumental section which is quite interesting and otherworldly, but it never gives up the propulsion, especially as the end gets faster and faster.

[READ: April 8, 2013] The Mays XX

This is another book that I saw at work and wanted to read (this job is wrecking my already long list of books to read).  I had some difficulty cataloging it (for various reasons), which meant I had to pour over contents.  And the more I looked it over the more I realized that I wanted to read it.

So The Mays Anthology publishes the best new student writing and art from Cambridge and Oxford Universities.  Read more about it at their website.  I’d never heard of The Mays before, but when I saw that John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats was a guest editor, I thought it might be a fun collection tread through.

Issue 20 features poetry, a graphic novel, photography and prose.  The other editors are Andrew Griffin (general), Sebastiano Barassi (Visual Arts), Tao Lin and Toby Litt (Prose) and of course, Darnielle (Poetry).

I was really delighted with the prose in this issue.  None of the stories are more than 1,000 words, which I decided is a wonderful length for a story.  I’m going to talk about the stories, but not so much about the poetry or art.

Darnielle’s introduction to the poetry section was excellent and really resonated with me because of my ideas and fears about poetry (how we feel stupid if we don’t get poetry).  He then explained the things that he looked for in this poetry and I imagined that i would love every piece here.  I didn’t, but on the whole I really liked the poetry. (more…)

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Theresa Rebeck–Seminar: A Comedy (2011)

Posted in Blue Öyster Cult, Bobtown, Books about writers, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, New Adventures of Old Christine, Play (Drama), Set at School, Sex, Short Books, Smarty Pants, Theresa Rebeck on April 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

seminarbookSOUNDTRACK: BOBTOWN-“Don’t Fear the Reaper” (2012).

bobtownI heard this song on the radio today.  When it started I didn’t think much of it–a nice acoustic guitar which… suddenly sounded familiar.  And then, no doubt, it was “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”  With banjo!  A good song can be played in any genre, and while I never would have guessed that this song would work in this genre, man, Bobtown knock it out of the park.

Bobtown has five members–two men, on bass and banjo, and three women who sing in gorgeous harmony.  And if you know “Don’t Fear the Reaper” you know that there are various vocal parts, which these woman tackle beautifully.  Their version gave me chills.

Now, befitting a bluegrass band, they did not play the super fast part (in fact they ignored that entire section of the song–the didn’t use cowbell either).  I was initially a little disappointed because I wanted to hear what they would do with it.  But it was truer to their version to leave it out and by removing it, they made the song a little different–more sombre, less wild.  And it was really good.

This version below is not the studio version, it was recorded in a stairwell.  But the band sounds great in this unlikely location.

[READ:April 7, 2013] Seminar

I grabbed this book at work (just like Cousin K).  This book was also short, which was a plus since I knew nothing about it.  It was also a play and it listed the cast from the opening on Broadway.  And I was rather surprised.  Hamish Linklater (the brother on New Adventures of Old Christine), Jerry O’Connell and..Alan Rickman!  I hadn’t heard of either of the women (Lily Rave–she’s been in nothing I’ve seen and Hetienne Park–her first role).

The story is a one act play about four college-aged writing students taking a seminar with a former great writer and current old man.

The four students are Douglas, a cocky writer who has connections and talent and who has been published in Tin House and is soon to be published in The New Yorker.  Martin, a shy writer who is rather insecure, although he proves to be very talented.  Kate is a girl who Martin knew from high school.  She has been writing the same story for six years and is outraged at the way her fellow students and their teacher behave.  And Izzy (who I thought was a man for a few pages) is a sexually adventurous woman who seems to be willing to do anything to succeed. (more…)

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Yasmina Khadra–Cousin K (2003) [translated 2013]

Posted in Africa, Alyson Waters, Death, Donald Nicholson-Smith, Foals, Foreign Books, Funny (strange), Military, Short Books, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Yasmina Khadra on April 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

cousinkSOUNDTRACK: FOALS-“Inhaler” (2013).

foalsinhalerI really really liked Foals debut album.  It was weird and off-kilter and was one of my favorite albums of that year.  I had heard that their follow-up was very different, less weird, more conventional, and I have yet to hear it (narrow-minded, I know).  But then I heard that their new album was really great.  “Inhaler” was the first song I heard.

Man, do I love it. The song opens kind of funky with some noisy echoed guitars.  After a few verses the bridge comes in and the big excitement of the song comes when he gets to the chorus, “I can’t get enough SPACE!”  It’s not so much that he yells “space,” which he does, it’s more the way the whole song explodes with a new exciting riff and it just seems to get bigger and bigger. It blows me away every time.

After the first chorus we drop right back to that falsettoed slow verse delivery.  And the song slowly builds back up again.  The length of the bridge as you anticipate the big chorus is just excruciatingly wonderful.

[READ: April 5, 2013] Cousin K

I found this book when I was cataloging it at my job.  I don’t know what grabbed me about it (there’s nothing special about the cover).  I think it may have been the French Voices label in the corner (and its brevity).  I thought, hey why not read a contemporary French novella for something different.

Well, to my surprise, that is not what I got.  Indeed, nothing in this book is as it seems.

Yasminia Khadra is a pseudonym for Mohammed Moulesshoul.  He chose the name to avoid military censorship (that’s all the book says, I don’t really understand what that means).  Moulesshoul was born in the Algerian Sahara.  He is now retired from the military and is living in France.

But so, instead of this being a story from a French woman, the story is actually from a Male Algerian.  Which doesn’t really matter in the long run, but I assumed that the narrator was a girl (based on the “author = narrator” theory that is an easy shortcut in fiction.  This was really only confusing because the narrator is unnamed for quite a while in the book.

But what a book.  In just 80 some pages, Khadra turns in a  fascinating psychological picture of neglect and psychological abuse.  But it is such an elliptical book that there are almost as many questions as there are answers.  It is this elliptical style which provides some of the confusion, but a lot of the interesting structure of the story. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Extreme Babymouse [#17] (2013)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Set at School, Short Books, Snowboarding, They Might Be Giants on April 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

exbabySOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“Amish Paradise (single)1996).

amishAl took some time off between Alalpalooza and Bad Hair Day and he roared back on the scene with “Amish Paradise,” a wonderful parody of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.”  There’s a funny saga about how Coolio didn’t appreciate the joke and Al (who always asks permission even if he doesn’t need to) was really upset because he thought he had the green light.  For awhile there was an unpleasant scene between the two (not like they were in the same circle or anything) but when they finally patched things up Al admitted he could stop wearing a bulletproof vest.

The song is a spot-on recreation, (Al has totally upped his game in the studio bu this point) and while the Amish jokes are easy, they’re still funny   This single (yes, I was buying singles at the time) contains three other songs, “Everything You Know is Wrong” a great style parody of They Might be Giants and very funny song in it own right.

It also includes “The Night Santa Went Crazy (Extra Gory Version).”  I recall thinking it was very funny but now that I have kids I’d hate for them to hear it.  The extra gory part is actually the original final verse which the record company asked to tone down a bit.  So he released it here.  The last song is a very strange  an instrumental version of “Dare to Be Stupid.”  What a random song to strip words from.  Although granted, the music is pretty cool.  But still…weird.

[READ: April 7, 2013] Extreme Babymouse

I was excited to see that book 17 of the Babymouse series had come out.  This one is called Extreme Babymouse and, as you can tell from the cover, it is about extreme sports, specifically snowboarding.

What was fun about this one is that Babymouse’s fantasy dream sequence involved Sean White (for who else would you have in a snowboarding book?)  She even has crazy hair under a toque.  But what is all this extreme talk all about?  Well, everyone in her class is headed to the mountain to go snowboarding this weekend (including her locker!) and (naturally) Babymouse wants to, needs to, simply must go!  (Even if she has never been snowboarding before).

After dying inside because she can’t go, the fates align and Babymouse is able to go (her family is given a cabin for the weekend–which sounds great except that everyone else is staying at the beautiful chalet!). (more…)

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Dav Pilkey–Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot vs the Uranium Unicorns from Uranus (2005)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Boredom, Children's Books, Dav Pilkey, Funny (ha ha), Mad Scientists, Martin Ontiveros, Peter Gabriel, Queen, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Robots, Short Books, The Flaming Lips, Yo Gabba Gabba on April 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

ricky1.2SOUNDTRACK:  “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-Alapalooza (1993).

Weird_Al_Yankovic_-_AlapaloozaAlapalooza came out hot on the heels of Off the Deep End.  I was in college, the perfect time for a “Weird Al” rebirth.  And the fact that “Jurassic Park” and “Bedrock Anthem” had a great videos (and my college cafe played MTV), meant I got to see these videos quite a bit.  (So I was surprised to read recently that this album didn’t sell like gangbusters (it went gold whereas Off the Deep End went platinum)).

“Jurassic Park” is a crazy wonderful parody–a spoof on the crazy song “MacArthur Park,” a song that I like a lot because it is over the top and absurd, although truth be told, I like “Jurassic Park” better.

“Young Dumb and Ugly” is a heavy metal song this is certainly dumb.  This is one that parodies a style so well that it’s actually not a very fun song to listen to.  “Bedrock Anthem” is a Red Hot Chili Peppers mashup/parody with the intro from “Under the Bridge” melding into a rocking parody of “Give It Away.”  I’m not exactly sure that it works as a parody (the Yabba Dabba part is a wee bit forced) but the song rocks well and Al and co. do a great job with it.

I never much liked “Frank’s 2000″ TV.”  I’m surprised to read (Wikipedia) that it’s a style parody of early R.E.M.  I can kind of hear it but compared to some of his other style parodies, I don’t think it really works.  “Achy Breaky Song” is the most apt song, lyrically, ever: “Don’t play that song, that achy breaky song, the most annoying song I know.”  It’s surprisingly mean about the song it is parodying and it turns out the proceeds from the track were donated to United Cerebral Palsy, as both Cyrus and Yankovic felt that the song was “a little bit, well, mean-spirited.”  “Traffic Jam” is a synthy number that sounds like it’s from the 80s.

“Talk Soup” was commissioned as a new theme for the show Talk Soup.  Although the producers approved the lyrics and enjoyed the final result, they decided against using it.  Which I can understand as it would make a terrible TV theme song.  It sounds a bit like Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer.

“Livin’ in the Fridge” is a fun parody of Aerosmith and it really sounds like them.  This parody works both as a twist on the original and lyrically–it’s very funny.  “She Never Told Me She was a Mime” is a weird original.  It doesn’t sound like any other bands, and is kind of a classic rock type of song.  The lyrics are pretty funny, but not all that funny.  And there’s not all that much to enjoy musically.

“Harvey the Wonder Hamster” is an awesome anthem which at 21 seconds, can be enjoyed again and again and again.  It’s funny that I felt that “Talk Soup” sounded like Peter Gabriel because “Waffle King” is actually a style parody of Gabriel.  This is a weird song because the verses are good, but the chorus falls kind of flat.  But the final song is a wonderful twist on Al’s usual polka medley.  This is a polka version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”  I read complaints that it sounds too much like the original (which it doesn’t) but it’s a testament to Al’s skill as a mimic that he can make his crazy polka version (which is much faster and with lots of his silliness thrown in) sounds so much like queen.  It’s certainly an Al highlight.

After this release, Al put out Al in the Box a 4 CD box set and then a series of greatest hits type albums–an actual Greatest Hits and then a collection of Food Songs and TV Songs.  I would never have bought the Food album except that I got to meet him after a show and I wanted something for him to autograph (which he did).  He was super duper nice and very cool.

[READ: February 22, 2013] Ricky Ricotta Books 7

Dav Pilkey planned to do nine books in this series (with Martin Ontiveros adding pictures).  According to Wikipedia, he had serious family emergencies for a while, which is why such a prolific author had literally no output for a number of years (from 2007-2010).  It also explains why book 7 is the last book that Pilkey has written in the series.  But the good news is that he’s back writing and that the eighth book is due out in December.

Of 2014.  Oh.

Well, in the meantime we have this book to enjoy.  Ricky and the Mighty Robot are learning what is fun and what is not fun (most of the things that Ricky likes to do are too small  for the robot to do and are consequently not fun for him).  Meanwhile, Uncle Unicorn lives on Uranus.  And he has turned it into a universe-wide dumping ground for toxic waste. I really liked seeing that all of the other bad guys from the series had a cameo dumping their stuff on Uranus.

But then Uncle Unicorn has had enough of the trash and he wants to leave.  He plans on going to Earth, but he knows that Mighty Robot is his major enemy.  So he sends Mighty Robot a gift–a Ladybot who immediately hypnotizes him and chains him up.  And now Ricky is alone. (more…)

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Jason Planer–“Arach niD (to be one thing)” [updated] (unpublished, 2013)

Posted in Fears, Film & TV, Jason Planer, Justin Timberlake, Modest Mouse, Short Story, Violence, Yuck! on April 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE-“SexyBack” (2006).

Isexy don’t know much of Justin Timberlake (he’s not my jam).  Although I have found him very enjoyable in the last few years when he’s been acting.  His comedy skills are great.  And Of course, I love him with Lonely Island (the guy can sing).

This story mentions this song as the main character’s favorite song so I gave it a listen.  It strikes me as an extremely unlikely single.  The music is really erratic and mechanical.  There’s just bursts of sound that keep the beat going.  Although the music is very visceral..

Indeed, the main melody seems to be his voice, which doesn’t let up a lot.  The first time I heard it I thought there was no way it could have been a hit, which shows what I know about popular as it was #1 for 7 weeks. It’s such an unusual song, and musically I find it very odd, which I like quite a bit.

I’m surprised by how much I enjoyed the song (maybe I’m a dance diva at heart).

Take ’em to the story.

[READ: March 25, 2012] Arach nID (to be one thing)

Almost nine months ago, Planer asked me to read this short story.  He has since revised it and expanded it, making it about 16,000 words.

It’s funny to read something that has been revised and which now makes you think that the original wasn’t nearly as good.  I enjoyed the first version a lot, but the revisions improved the story so much it makes the first draft seem pale.  This is obviously good news for the revision, but it means that when referencing the original it makes it seem less than it was.

The same story is in place–the main character is a sentient spider who grows to human size and believes, because of his sentience, that he may indeed be human.  After leaving the web and his (dangerous) mother and sisters, he seeks his fortune in the human world.  Luckily for him he lives in the 2000s, where he can do most things remotely and virtually.  But he manages to pass in the human world (especially on Halloween, a great scene indeed).  He even manages to meet someone interesting (who is almost as smart as him).  Ultimately he must decide is he is really human or arachnid. (more…)

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Dean Young–Embryoyo (2007)

Posted in Dean Young, Eddie Vedder, Funny (strange), Language, McSweeney's, Paul McCartney, Poetry, Poets, Queens of the Stone Age, Short Books, Super Furry Animals, Word usage on April 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

embryoyoSOUNDTRACK: QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE with EDDIE VEDDER-“Little Sister” (live) (2013).

qotsavedderThis is a live song from Chile (from what I gather it’s a Lollapalooza show–is that even still around?).  I have no idea if Pearl Jam were in Chile at the time, but what a strange thing to bring Eddie Vedder out on stage and then have him only sing backup vocals and play the cowbell.

The song sounds very much like the record, although a little sloppier.  I’m a bit surprised at that as I think of Homme as running a tight ship (but the sloppiness comes from him, so he has no one to blame but himself).  You’d never know Vedder was even there.  It’s one of the strangest guest appearances since Paul McCartney munched carrots and celery for the Super Furry Animals song “Receptacle for the Respectable.”

[READ: April 3, 2013] Embryoyo

Embryoyo is the final book of poetry I’m going to read for a while.  This book came out a few years ago but McSweeney’s had a garage sale version that I found for cheap.  I’ve always been intrigued by the title (so silly and odd) that I decided to give it a ago.  The blurbs on the back (and I know, no one should read blurbs) are telling: “Dean Young’s work will delight only two kinds of people: those who generally read poetry and those who generally don’t”  And, “No one is unsure if they’ve read a poem by Dean Young.”

I probably concur with the first but I definitely do with the second.  Because Young’s poetry is quite unusual.  And Embryoyo proves to be a demonstrative title.  Not that it means anything specifically, but in the way Young creates portmanteau words, which Young uses liberally.  Like the title “Empheroptera.”

I’m going to give some examples of his poetry that I found really enjoyable: (more…)

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Rebecca Lindenberg–Love, An Index (2012)

Posted in Alice Cooper, All Songs Considered, Craig Arnold, Death, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), House of Love, Kurt Vile, McSweeney's, Meat Puppets, Neil Young, Poetry, Rebecca Lindenberg, Short Books on April 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

loveindeSOUNDTRACK: KURT VILE-“Wakin on a Pretty Day” (2013).

Kurt Vile_CVR-31981badf76ce6680de293138b7fbf1807fe323f-s1I don’t really know that much about Kurt Vile.  I’ve been hearing about him for a while. I assumed his name was a kind of joke–like he was a comical metal guy, maybe like Alice Cooper.   That appears to be far from the truth.  I also wasn’t sure if he was well-known outside of the Philly area, but I do know that NPR has championed him for a while.

Well, he has a new album out and since NPR was streaming it, what better time to hear what the long- haired dude is all about.

There is much talk bout his voice (NPR says: There’s something about Kurt Vile’s voice that transcends whatever comes out of his mouth.).  But the whole time I listened to this song (which was a while, as it is over 9 minutes long), I kept thinking that he sounds just like the guy from House of Love, an underrated band here in the States. (He sounds even more like him in Kv Crimes”) It’s not necessarily a bad thing to sound like someone else (often times it can’t be helped I suppose), but it is a little distracting to me.

So this song is kind of groovy.  I like it musically more than vocally (there’s so many “Yeah…yeah yeah yeahs” that I lost the point of the song).  But the music is really good, including Vile’s lengthy guitar solos.  Interestingly, I was kind of bored by the song after about 45 seconds, but by 8 minutes I was really grooving it.  Subsequent listens have made me like it more, it has a kind of Neil Young or maybe Meat Puppets vibe.

My head says there’s really nothing special about this guy and yet after more and more listens, there’s something that draws me to him.  Weird.

[READ: April 2, 2013] Love, An Index

The back of Lindenberg’s book explains that the man she loved, poet Craig Arnold, disappeared in a volcano while traveling in Japan.  For such a very specific kind of event, I don’t think I would have gotten anything quite like that from these poems.  Indeed, for a book that is so specifically created about this man, there’s very little sense of the exact nature of the loss.  In some ways that’s good, it could have been a very maudlin, ungraceful collection of poems if she explicitly talked about volcanoes, but at the same time, the feeling of loss that comes across is less about death and more about abandonment (I would have presumed that the guy had left her).

I really enjoyed these poems even though I have a  really hard time accepting the bulk of these, in particular the thirty-four page title poem, as poetry.

“Love, An Index” is thirty-four pages and it is an index.  Literally, she lists words alphabetically and writes a little “definition” for each one.  There are arbitrary line breaks in the definitions but in no way does it feel like a poem.  Even the individual entries are not very poetic.  Like “Compromise, I will get up early with you/so long as you’ve made coffee.”  Okay, so that’s funny/sweet, but it’s not a poem.  But then what it is?  Yes, it is part of a greater whole and removing part of it diminishes that whole.  But again, what is the whole?  Genre defying I suppose.  Which is cool.  And despite my criticism, I really enjoyed this index.  There were personal notes that I would have no idea about, there were commonplace ideas that are familiar to all.  There’s also a ton of quotes from other poets.  And it all works together to create a beautiful portrait of a relationship. (more…)

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Allan Peterson–Fragile Acts (2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Allan Peterson, Atoms for Peace, Flea, McSweeney's, Poetry, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Short Books, Thom Yorke on April 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

fragile SOUNDTRACK: ATOMS FOR PEACE-“What the Eyeballs Did” (2013)

afpThis is a secret track that you can download from the Atoms for Peace website (well some people can, I don’t seem to be able to) or you can listen to it on NPR.

Atoms for Peace is Thom York’s band (with Flea from RHCP on bass). This song sounds a lot like Radiohead.  So much so that it could easily be a Radiohead song (one of those newer more electronic ones).  The bass is cool and while Flea does a great job playing it, it sees like it should be a little dull for him to play a rather repetitive bit over and over.

And yet the song works very well in the electronic, claustrophobic way that Yorke has.

I love just about anything that Yorke and Co do, and I like this as well, it just doesn’t seem all that much different–why not use Flea for all of his manic intensity?

[READ: April 1, 2013] Fragile Acts

After yesterday’s poetry book, I wasn’t quite prepared for this one.  Zubair Ahmed is a young writer (a wunderkind as he is described).  Allan Peterson is a much older writer.  He is retired and has clearly had a lot more experiences from which to draw.  I also found his poems to be much more profound and lyrical, much more beautiful and evocative.

Yes, it could be because his poems are longer (that’s a terrible quality to judge a poem by, and it’s certainly not always true, but those shorty ones do tend to lack a bit of substance).  Of course, the poems that were really long (he had three that were multi-part and multi-page) didn’t hold together all that well for me.  So length doesn’t have much to do with it.

Many of these poems were amazing and they really reminded me of what good poetry can do.  Poetry that is not just a sentence with line breaks, poetry that doesn’t call out to be read in a sing-song voice.  To the point: poetry that sings on its own. (more…)

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Zubair Ahmed–City of Rivers (2012)

Posted in Death, John Keats, McSweeney's, Poetry, Poets, Short Books, Sigur Rós, Zubair Ahmed on April 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

cityofrivers_cover_FINALstickerSOUNDTRACK: SIGUR RÓS-“Brennisteinn” (2013).

Wsigurhat is that sound?  Low end electronic…noise?  Coming from a Sigur Rós song?  Typically you get a band in the ether, but here’s the band with loud pounding drums and almost glitchy music.  Of course, Jonsi’s voice tells you you’ve got Sigur Rós.  And yet, he’s not singing in his otherworldly falsetto–it seems like an almost human voice.

There’s a very distinctive chorus which is actually catchy in an almost poppy way.  And then, after four minutes, the Sigur Rós of old comes in–Jonsi’s voice soars, and the music reaches for the heavens (but with drums and some crazy sound effects) added in.

And then it grows haunting as the song slows down and distant horns come swelling in, keeping that soundtrack feel that the band does so well.  The video is creepy/cool interspersed with the band playing live.  I love watching them make the sounds they make (there’s a bowed guitar at some point).  I really like this a lot, and can’t wait for the rest of the album.

[READ: March 30, 2013] City of Rivers

I have said before that I don’t really like poetry.  It makes me feel stupid.  This is mostly because I have taken poetry classes and I know what good poetry should be, and yet I see so much poetry published which I think is not very good.  And yet, if it has been published, doesn’t that mean it’s good?  Have I missed something?

I’m not a total old school poetry boor, I don’t need my poetry to be in iambic pentameter, nor does it even need to rhyme, and yet sometimes a lot of contemporary poetry seems like a sentence, not really a poem.  I also suspect that the ascendance of flash fiction has made the ascendance of this flash poetry acceptable too.  Don’t get me wrong, I know a haiku is short as well, but there are lots of constrictions to haiku, whereas some free verse short poems really lack in the substance department.

I am also nonobjective about poetry because of all of the poetry slams that I have witnessed in college and since, in which basically anything is  poem if you e-nun-ci-ate it interestingly (something I doubt Keats was doing).

In an attempt to appreciate new poetry more, I decided to get a few books from the McSweeney’s poetry series. (more…)

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