SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD: Rrröööaaarrr (1986).
I have always loved this album because of its name (preposterous and complete with umlauts). It also has the classic Voivod song “Fuck Off and Die.” Interestingly, a band that Voivod liked, Venom, released a song “F.O.A.D.” the previous year.
But man, is this album hard to listen to. The production seems even worse than on their debut. And the songs seem faster and a bit harder to understand. Perhaps it was my mood when I re-listened, but songs like “Ripping Headaches” seemed more portentous than fun. And “Slaughter in the Grave” is just light years behind the kind of songs they would write as soon as the next album.
I like to think of these first two Voivod albums as part of a pair. The cover art is kind of similar. But starting with the next album, the cover art would jump ahead in detail and quality. All of Voivod’s art (and apparently the entire concept of The Voivod (you’ll have to look that up) was by Away. He has released a coffee table book (which you can’t get anymore) but a lot of his art is online at his website.
Not many people think too highly of Rrröööaaarrr, and it is safe to say that compared to their next several albums, this one might be best ignored.
[READ: August 29, 2013] Hi, This is Conchita
This is another book that crossed my desk. I recognized…the translator of all people (Hi, Edith Grossman) but not the author. I couldn’t remember why I recognized her name and then I realized she had translated Don Quixote, which is supposed to be an excellent version.
I also liked the cover and the packaging of the book (sometimes that’s all it takes) and since I left the book I was reading back at home, I brought this with me to lunch.
Imagine my surprise when the first story opens with a man calling a phone sex line (in graphic detail). I flipped through the story (which I thought was a bunch of short stories) but is actually a very long story called “Hi, this is Conchita.” In this story, each “chapter” is a phone call and each chapter title is the phone number and time of the call.
As I say, the first call is to Conchita, who works as a phone sex operator. Although the caller seems like he has other things on his mind than the sexual activities Conchita is doing to him. As his story progresses we see that he is an unhappy man working in a boring office.
The next location of calls is to a customer service line. The caller gets nothing but frustration (in a hilariously literal way). This particular thread is probably the most funny.
Next we hear from Don and Mary. Don is married but has been having an affair with Mary and Mary wants him to be exclusive to her. Their call sounds like many other annoyed mistress calls.
The next line is a call to Esmerelda. Or more specifically, to her answering machine. The first time the caller is just mad to get the machine, but in later calls he leaves lengthy diatribes about how much of a whore she is for dumping him.
The final series is from Don to a man named Rodrigo. Don asks Rodrigo to kill Mary. Rodrigo says that for a fee he will. Although as the story goes on it seems that Rodrigo is maybe falling for Mary.
As the calls continue, you start to see connections between the stories. They start small, but soon they become more and more apparent. I really enjoyed this piece even with the violence. The ideas themselves weren’t all that original, but the way he put them together was great.
After that 135 page story, the other three are quite short. “Despoiler” is 20 pages and is all about a 40-year-old woman named Carmen. Well, it is her fortieth birthday. And her co-workers are planning something exciting. She works with four others in a small office and they all like each other. So five times a year they make a big deal about their birthdays.
We learn that Carmen has never really enjoyed parties–she’s much more of a stay at home person. Even as a child she would rather talk to stuffed animals than real people. Until her mother threw them all away and forced her to join the real world.
Carmen is not looking forward to the party except that if she doesn’t go out with her coworkers she knows she’ll be spending her birthday with her mother. And she’d rather do anything but that.
Her birthday coincides with a costume party and soon Carmen is dressed like a prostitute and being eyed up by a wolf. The end was quite a surprise.
“Butterflies Fastened with Pins” is but 14 pages. And it is all about suicide, specifically how bummed the narrator is that he knows so many people who have killed themselves. It’s a strange little story with no real narrative arc, but it builds an interesting world around which the narrator lives.
“The Passenger Beside You” is five pages. It’s a strange story in which a man admires a woman who gets into the cab he is in. And then she reveals that she is dead. (Roncagliolo seems to like death at least in his stories). His details (not gross at all) are wonderful, and the twist at the end is very cool.
Roncagliolo has a few other books out. His novel Red April won the Independent Foreign Language Prize. So I’m going to keep him on my radar. And I think I’m going to have to track down Grossman’s Don Quixote (all 1,000 pages of it).
Contents:
- Hi, This is Conchita
- Despoiler
- Butterflies Fastened with Pins
- The Passenger Beside You
For ease of searching, I include: Rrroooaaarrr.
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