SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Billy Breathes (1996).
Billy Breathes is a much more mellow, acoustic feeling album from Phish.
Although the opener “Free” is a great song, with wonderful riffs. It’s another of my favorites live, although the production sounds a little flat here, but the harmonies are great. “Character Zero” again has a real ZZ Top feel (something many don’t really associate with Phish I’m sure). But once the song proper kicks in, it rocks in a very Phish way. “Waste” is a delicate song about insecurities that turns into a nice love song. “Taste” is a rollicking piano-heavy song that gets played live pretty often and it sounds good here.
“Cars Trucks Buses” is a 2 minute instrumental that has a lot of organ in it, it’s very groovy. “Talk” is an acoustic guitar/folky song. You don’t hear it much live. “Theme from the Bottom” gets us back into often-played territory, with its weird opening riff. I really enjoy the way the bridge goes into a brief minor key, despite the overall happy vibe. I like the harmonies towards the end, although the actual end of the song is a bit dull (the live endings are a bit more fun).
From here the album mellows out a lot. “Train Song” is a pretty acoustic number with nice harmonies. “Bliss” is an acoustic guitar solo. “Billy Breathes” has more delicate harmonies and an acoustic feel. “Sept Away” is another delicate short (90 second) song, with some more great harmonies. “Steep” is a slow, simple song (also 90 seconds) that has a pretty melody but serves more as an introduction to “Prince Caspian.” “Prince Caspian” is a great epic-seeming song (even though it’s only 5 minutes long). The build up is long , with the pretty chords repeating and growing fuller. It’s a great live song and a great ending to this disc.
Although this disc has some great songs on it, it’s definitely not my favorite overall.
[READ: October 4, 2013] The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira
This was another weird and fun book by César Aira (one of about six books he wrote that year). This one was translated by Kathleen Silver. Ever since reading that Aira doesn’t edit his books—that he simply begins writing and lets the story keep coming out–I’ve grown suspicious of the beginnings of his stories. And so I am with this one. In the beginning there’s a whole thing about Dr Aira sleepwalking through a town. He wakes up in various places, unsure where he is, but he’s never lost because he knows the streets so well. This goes on for a few pages and then the plot kicks in.
Dr Aira is picked up by an ambulance—a man is dying right there in the ambulance and only Dr. Aira can save him. Won’t Dr Aira help him? The Dr. refuses point blank. He is convinced that this whole thing is a set up—why else would the ambulance (which he had heard for many blocks going up and down the street) be driving around with a sick man looking just for him instead of going to the hospital? He will not help this man. Disgusted, the ambulance driver pulls over and the Dr gets out.
So what is all this about? Well, Dr Aira has a belief in miracles and in miracle cures. He believes that genius, that masterpieces are never entirely perfect, and so, why shouldn’t a miracle be slightly imperfect as well. If it’s not perfect, then anyone can do one. So he devises a method (which is demonstrated in great detail at the end but which confuses the heck out of me) in which he attempts to save a life of by recreating his life without the part that is killing him. (It seems to be some kind of multidimensional spreadsheet which I can’t tell if it is real or imagined, but it’s quite an elaborate scheme).
But, the whole ambulance thing is because of the sinister Dr. Actyn, chief of medicine at Piñero Hospital. Dr Actyn hates Dr Aira and wants to make a fool of him in public. So he has been planning these attacks and ambushes to make Dr Aira uses his miracle cures and then corrupt his attempts. Of curse at this point, Dr Aira has never tried to cure anyone, nor has he even published anything about it (how Dr Actyn knows about it is a mystery). But the fact is Actyn wants Aira embarrassed and outed. Or perhaps he just wants to see Aira reveal the secret of his Miracle Cure. Either way, Aira is afraid to perform any of his tasks.
But then Aira is finally given a chance to try it out, when a rich patron’s family comes to him as a last resort–nothing else has worked. Won’t he comes and save their family member? Please? He agrees. And he asks for no money (believing that his cure will bring him untold riches in the future). And so he prepares, prepares to show the worlds how easy its to perform miracles.
As with all Aira stories this one was weird and funny. It didn’t always make “sense” and the plot is more than a little odd, but the details are wonderful. It’s very easy to get caught up in his writing—completely absorbed in the convoluted plot–and then come up for air and be a little unsure exactly what is going on. But that’s part of the fun of Aira. And this book is only 80 pages, so it’s certainly not taking up a lot of your time. Aira is an acquired taste but as long as New Directions keeps translating him, I’ll keep reading him.
For ease of searching I include: Cesar Aira.
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