I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-“In League with Satan” (1998).

I wasn’t aware of this tribute to Venom, the much reviled/much beloved black metal band.  It is titled In the name of Satan. Voivod has done some covers of Venom songs throughout their career, so it seems natural that they would do one for an official tribute album.

The music is fine.  As anyone who knows Venom knows their music isn’t terribly complicated.  So it’s nothing for Voivod to do.  I’m actually wondering if Piggy wanted to spruce it up a bit.  But no, he plays it straight, as does everyone else.

But man are the vocals awful. They are a kind of high-pitched growl–very strangely affected and sounding really weird both for Venom and for Voivod.  I’m not sure who is singing on this track (I assume E-Force given the date).  It doesn’t really sound like either E-Force or Snake, but I’m siding with E-Force because there’s none of the odd pronunciations that Snake is prone to do.

I didn’t listen to anything else on the album, but even for a Voivod diehard, this one is not worth owning.

[READ: September 19, 2013] “The Challenges and Rewards of Re-entering the Workforce”

Lisa Moore doesn’t deserve to be associated with Satan or a less than stellar cover song.  So apologies to her for pairing this together, but it worked nicely in my Voivod timeline.

I was really intrigued by the title of this short story and I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  What I got was a very interesting and very interestingly structured story.  The first thing of note is the pronoun choice:  “Everybody had a target on his back.  His or her back.”  This specification continues throughout the story.  But before we learn why exactly, we learn about the devastation at this job (which is never specified).  People are let go in waves, then in clumps, and just when it seems safe, one at a time.  Some people are moved around to fill those empty spots.  In other words, resentment is breeding wildly.  Rumors spread—they wouldn’t fire people if you stand up for yourselves—but no one wanted to stand up.  And just when we think Moore can’t give any more examples of the anonymous firing, we get into specifics.

The Downeys (who both worked there) were fired on the same day.  The had just purchased a new house as well.  Of course, that was before the summer when the dump started to stink.  So we can anticipate how much they will get when they try to sell.

Fiona Jamieson knew Marilyn Downey.  Fiona was a teacher of people with severe disabilities.  Like the young girl in her class who was not registered and never spoke.  She smelled bad and never looked up.  She seemed to be pregnant.  There was also a mature student, Glen, who suffered from PTSD.  He frightened everyone at first, but Fiona had slowly grown to understand him..and to even like him a bit.  Their final assignment was that they write an essay with the title of this short story even though she knew that returning to work was something that none of them would ever do.

Joanne Brophy’s supervisor called to tell her that she was to be let go. She received the call while shopping at the supermarket and she dropped her phone in the produce.  Her husband had been laid of just the week before.  Joanne worked the night shift for Better Decisions Better Lives and constantly received phone calls form a 14-year-old pregnant girl who was afraid to come to the clinic (if she came in she would get a social worker which would help, but that would also mean the state would take her baby, so she always said no).  But the girl always called and talk to Joanne for hours and hours.  One time the girl told Joanne that she watched her walk her dog—and gave details that said indicated that the girl clearly did.  She made Joanne promise she would be there when she gave birth.  Joanne was fired on the girl’s due date.

Elizabeth O’Brien was known for her composure. She worked for Environment, managing a colony of Leach’s Storm Petrels.  She was able to get a new job, working for Japanese film company.  It wasn’t ideal.

The end of the story focuses on the pregnant girl and Joanne.

And then we’re told that some of the people who were let go were called a few weeks later and offered their jobs back.  For less pay and more responsibility.

The staggered structure of this story was unsettling and even though some of the connections were tenuous, the overall feeling of the connections was very cool.  I really enjoyed this a lot—especially the “punchline” at the end.  I’m going to have to look for more from Moore.