I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SIGUR RÓS-() (2003).
After a staggeringly successful tour, Sigur Rós took some time off. They returned about four years after their successful album with ().  I like to think they were trying to make it easier for English speakers to not have to pronounce their Icelandic words, but perhaps they were just being more difficult.  For they have made an album title that is hard to search for and hard to say.  To make it worse, there are no song titles on the record either.  (Although the band did have I guess unofficial titles for them):

• 1.”-” (“Vaka”) 6:38
• 2.”-” (“Fyrsta”) 7:33
• 3.”-” (“Samskeyti”) 6:33
• 4.”-” (“Njósnavélin”) 6:57
• 5. “-” (“Álafoss”) 9:57
• 6. “-” (“E-Bow”) 8:48
• 7. “-” (“Dauðalagið”) 12:52
• 8. “-” (“Popplagið”) 11:43

While looking for these song tracks, I learned that a lot of people think this album is mopey and depressing.  And I couldn’t disagree more.  I find the songs to be wonderful builders of drama.  Track 1 opens with lovely piano and vocals.  It’s a pretty melody that is punctuated with odd, squeaky voices.   Track 2 is slower, with a nice guitar melody instead of pianos. Track 3 opens with organs and more lovely pianos.  The pianos are slow which I usually don’t like, but there’s something about the simplicity and solitariness of their pianos that I find really captivating.  I love that it is repetitive and building, edging towards a dramatic conclusion.  Track 4 has low drumming that propels the echoing song.

Each of these 4 songs is around 7 minutes long.  And while they are not vastly different from Ágætis byrjun, they show the band experimenting within the form.  Also, Ágætis byrjun contained several different styles mixed between their epics, whereas this album is all epic.

After the 4th song there is 30 seconds of silence.  Which signifies something of a change for the second half of the album.

Track 5 is the slowest, saddest music on the album.  But it builds slowly, growing out of that sadness with a cathartic explosion at the end.  Track 6 opens with very loud drums (the percussion is spectacular on this album) and drones.  It builds and builds with more catharsis at the end.  Track 7 is the 12 minute epic that opens with organs and washes of guitars.  The opening is slow but you get the sense that it is building towards something–there is tension in the music, especially when it shifts to a minor key around 3:30.  It takes over 4 minutes to get to the chorus.  And then the song repeats and builds again.  The end is an unholy racket until Jonsi is left singing by himself.  It’s incredibly satisfying.  The final track is 11 minutes long and opens with an upbeat guitar sound.  It’s a good song and then the drums kick in around 6:20 and the song gets even better.

So yes, this is a long album full of long songs.  And none of it is in English.  Not exactly a pop seller, and yet there is something magical about the music on it.

[READ: October 10, 2013] A Hologram for the King

I had been putting off reading this book because I didn’t really like or get the title.  Sarah laughed at me when I said this, because the title is very explicit, but I honestly didn’t know what it was supposed to mean.  My mind reeled with the metaphorical possibilities.  So imagine my surprise when the title is indeed very literal.

The book is about a man named Alan Clay who is an IT sales person.  He will be doing a presentation–which will include an interactive hologram–to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.  So, a hologram for the king.  Simple.

And indeed, the story is quite simple.  I had read an excerpt from it in McSweeney’s 38 and enjoyed it quite a bit–not realizing that it was from this book, of course.  The excerpt has been changed since then but most of the elements have been incorporated.  About the excerpt I said:

a man named Alan is on a flight to Saudi Arabia for business.  We learn through the course of the chapter that he has very little money left, that he is divorced and that his daughter is now fighting with her mother (his ex-wife).  He composes letters in his head to her trying to figure out the best way to placate the scenario.  But he also knows how important this deal is, both for him and for his daughter who needs money for school.  So he tries to put everything out of his mind so he can sleep.  There’s a lot of wonderful details in this chapter.

None of those details have changed, except we don’t really see as much of the flight.

Alan has landed in Saudi Arabia after not sleeping for 60 hours.  He misses the shuttle bust to KAEC (pronounce cake) the King Abdullah Economic Center.  So he calls for a taxi.  Instead, he gets a young man name Yousef who drives him the 60 or so miles to KAEC.  Along the way, Alan and Yousef talk a lot and they hit it off. Yousef has been to America (he studied for a year there) so he understands Americans.  He also has no hope for the future of the KAEC.  Alan likes Yousef and is dismayed by his attitude about KAEC, but finds him to be enjoyable company (Yousef enjoys jokes and, as a salesman, Alan is full of them).

When Alan finally arrives at KAEC he sees that it is barely underway, the plans were very impressive but the actuality is lacking.  And he is dismayed by this.  What he doesn’t understand is that King Abdullah has enough money to make this happen overnight so why is he putting it off to others?  (It is suggested that he needs external contributors to validate the enterprise).

Then Alan finds his team, who are in a tent (not in the beautiful Black Box of a building which is intimidating and clearly air-conditioned).  Rather they are in this silly tent with minimal air conditioning, no Wi-fi, no food and no way to communicate with anyone.  There are three of them, each one a decade younger than he.  And while they hope for the best from him, a few minutes of discussion lets them know he is as hopeless as they imagined he’d be.

So Alan goes into the big black box and talks to the receptionist.  Not only is the King not in the country (his schedule is varied and very protected), but the man he is supposed to meet–the man who is conducting the interviews for the IT company–is not around either).  She anticipates that this team will be out in the tent for a few weeks just waiting for the King to show up.  Alan is bummed and even forgets to ask about Wi-fi and air conditioning.

And wait, they do.  Alan takes the opportunity to explore the area a little bit, but the team mostly hangs around in the tent.

On another visit to the big black box, Alan meets Hanne.  Hanne was sent to the same location and has been waiting for an audience with the King for 18 months.  Luckily for her she is in the big black box and not in a tent.  Hanne sees in Alan a kindred spirit and offers him so alcohol (strictly forbidden there) in an olive oil container.  That night he drinks a bunch and gets really drunk and sleeps well for the first time in weeks.

Alan likes Hanne and it becomes clear that Hanne kinda likes him too.  But the problem for Alan is that he has been more or less impotent (sexually as well as personally) for years.  And nothing that Hanne does to him helps.  This impotence ties back to the other plot line in the story–that of his ex-wife and his daughter.  His daughter, Kit, is currently in college.  He promised to pay for her college but he is really hurting financially.  This trip with the King is supposed to be the windfall that he needs. But he’s unsure exactly how it will play out and he keeps composing letters to her in his head.  He doesn’t know how to talk to her about her mother.  Alan and his ex-wife ended on very bad terms and he pretty much hates her now.  But he doesn’t want his daughter to feel that way, so he keeps trying to smooth things out between them.  Not an easy thing to do. And so he is incapable of saying anything meaningful to his daughter, whom he loves very much.

And why is Alan so broke?  Because he was a salesperson at Schwinn and they tried to do the right thing–keep jobs in America.  Which cost them a fortune because all of the other bike companies were manufacturing for much cheaper in China.  Then Alan had a brainstorm–make an exclusive kind of bike for America–the plan collapsed under him and he was considered by all a failure.  Scwhinn’s takeover by another company was the nail in his coffin.  And Alan has been trying to make it up ever since.

So there are existential quandaries afoot here–the question of national pride versus selling out.  The question of work as self.  The question of fidelity.

More immediately, as the team stays in KAEC for a few weeks, alliances form.  And indeed, Alan finally meets the man who is supposed to be guiding his program there.  And that man offers him many fine things–Wi-fi, A/C for the team and for him…a chance to pilot a yacht and a look at some of the fancy apartments being built for future tenants.  (That whole scene is surreal and wonderful).

And so Alan begins to wonder what it would be like to live here–to be one of the first people in a new place, a pioneer.  A chance to start free.  he even spends some time with Yousef at Yousef’s father’s house.  i also really enjoyed the subplot with the doctor.

This was a fairly simple story, but thee was a lot of thought=provoking ideas behind it.  As I said, I really had no idea what to expect and I enjoyed it very much.  Eggers’ style is relaxed and very effective–it was a fun and somewhat casual read.  It has my excited for Eggers’ new novel, and has me itching to go back and re-read his first couple again.

For ease of searching, I include: Sigur Ros