I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BOB & DOUG McKENZIE-“The 12 Days of Christmas” (1981).

This is my preferred old school version of “The 12 Days of Christmas.”  It was one of the first parodies of the song that I had heard (and I was big in parodies back in 1981).

I loved how stupid they were (on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…a beer).  I loved trying to figure out what a two-four was, and it cracked me up that they skipped a whole bunch of days.

I also enjoyed how they continued to snipe at each other throughout the song.  Not comedy gold perhaps (that would be “Take Off” recorded with Geddy Lee, but a nice way to start, or end, the season on these “mystery days.”

Evidently, decades after SCTV went off the air, Bob & Doug got an animated TV show (without Rick Moranis).  And they made a video of the song. Hosers.

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2oPio60mK4]

[READ: December 3, 2013] Five Dials #29

Five Dials Number 29 was the first issue I had read in a while.  (I read this before going back to 26-28).  And it really reminded me of how great Five Dials is.  I don’t know why this isn’t Part 2 after Number 28’s Part 1 (there was no 28b either), but that’s irrelevant.  This is an independent collection of great writing.  I was instantly surprised and delighted to see that César Aria was included in this issue (I didn’t even know he had made inroads in England).

CRAIG TAYLOR-Letter from the Editor: In Swedes and Open Letters
Taylor’s usually chipper introduction is saddened by the contents of this one.  The discussion centers on Sweden and the city of Malmo, where integration is proving to be tougher than they’d hoped.  Black skinned people are profiled pretty explicitly.  Taylor talks about meeting the writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri (who they subsequently published in issue 21) who deals with issues of race.  In March of 2013, Khemiri wrote an open letter to Swedish Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask after she brushed off concerns about racial profiling. The letter went viral including getting translated into 15 languages.  So I guess there is some positivity after all.

OUR TOWN
DANIEL SHERBROOKE (Endell Street, WC 2) Daniel Sherbrooke reads the Evening Standard
Sherbrooke talks about how the Evening Standard went from being a 50p newspaper to being free newspaper.  And how this change left some people feeling confused.  But despite the failure of so many free papers, the Evening Standard thrived in this new format.

HASANI (Brixton SW9) A life away from the asylum
England as an asylum.

CÉSAR AIRA- A List: “If a little bird enters into the cafe”  Five essentials you’ll never learn in a creative writing course.
Aira did not write these for Five Dials, rather, they were compiled from various interviews.  I really enjoyed reading this because it not only shows how Aira constructs his stories (if that bird flies into the cafe, it will enter his story), its hows how when he mentions that he doesn’t edit, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about his work.  And also that he doesn’t like books that offer themselves to the reader like a prostitute.

JONNY REID-“Spinal Tap Feedback’ & The Road
A pop culture poem and poem about Las Vegas

DAVID BEZMOZGIS-The life of Grigory Novak (on the trail of the Soviet weight lifting champion)
Bezmozgis explains that his father was a strong man and a sportsman.  And his father’s boyhood hero was Griogory Novak, a professional weightlifter who had set many many records.  This sketch looks at Novak’s complicated life.  His astonishing success in the Olympics, and his subsequent abandonment by his own country.  While looking for more information about Novak, Bezmozgis winds up talking to an old relative of Novak’s.  But the man, amazingly, says the stories will die with him unless he is handsomely remunerated.  He is not paid.

ANNA KELLY-questions for ERIC REINHARDT
An interview about his book The Victoria System, which is both political and quite interesting-sounding.

MARK BELDAN-Five Frames
Beldan talks about his photographs and their interesting style of color bleeds over the top of the whole image, which almost negates the picture.  He says it is designed to make people rethink mundane objects.  Five such photos are included.

JACK UNDERWOOD-“My Sister”
Apoem

The Five Dials Back Section
PATRICK LOUGHRAN A Single Book: The Twelfth Day of July by Joan Lingard.
This book talks about Irish Independence, but it is a kids book.  And Loughran was not prepared to look at it as a lad.  But it became a ritual for the children of  his family to read it

RICHARD FORD-How It Gets Done
This is a discussion with Ford about his book Canada and about writing in general.  Since I have recently grown an interest in Ford, I found this look at his process to be very interesting

JONAS HASSEN KHEMIRI-(translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles) “Dear Beatrice”
The above mentioned letter to Beatrice Ask.  Asking her to get in the skin of  black man for a while.

LEO TOLSTOY-From the Archive: In a ‘Comradely’ Way
This excerpt (from Childhood, Boyhood, Youth)  looks at the childhood of Nikolay who is at school but simply isn’t that interested in it.  Of course, it’s hard to imagine Tolstoy blowing of school, or experiencing these totally natural feeling of smugness and stupidity.  This was an excellent excerpt and shows a very manageable side of Tolstoy that I think many readers don’t know about.

RICHARD GODWIN-Breakfast with Nabokov: (the Most Delicious Meal Known to Man).
Godwin mentions Nabokov’s 1928 novel King, Queen, Knave as introducing us to Nabokov’s love of food.  Specifically “a soft-boiled egg with buttered toast (the most delicious dish known to man).”  This claim is quite strong, but it appears that Nabokov was no stranger when it came to good food.   And a love of eggs.  Godwin offers several examples of Nabokov’s food pursuit.

DEBORAH EISENBERG-Bonus Fiction: “Twilight of the Superheroes”
A story with a flashback to the terrible fear of Y2K.  I was a little put off by the inclusion of the frog boiling story (done to death) but after that the story picked up.  The story ultimately reminded me of a Douglas Coupland story–about several friends all living together in an apartment that isn’t really theirs.  They (Nathaniel, Lyle, Amity and Madison)  are staying in Mr Matsumoto’s loft–subletting from Nathaniel’s Uncle Lucien (for obscenely cheap rent). But Mr Matsumoto is coming back and the four will need to find new places to live.  Interestingly, unlike Coupland, the story is mostly from the point of view of Lucien who has agreed to look after Nathaniel while he is in the city.  But Lucien feels that Nathaniel and his generation are idle slackers.  Indeed, Nathaniel has been working for years on a comic called Passivityman.  The story dives into (briefly) the young people’s lives, but really focuses on Lucien and his wife Charlie and the impact they had on a young Nathaniel.  I really enjoyed this story and would like to read more from Eisenberg.

I do admit to really enjoying the briefer Five Dials issues, but this one was nearly 50 pages and I enjoyed every page of it.  This one collected some great writers (Ford, Aira, Nabokov, Tolstoy) and presented unique aspects of their work.  That’s what I love about Five Dials and that’s what got me excited to read the unread issues.   I found this issue to be strange, though, in that it seemed to include ads.  For the Dave Eggers book (I think–at least it used the cover from the book).  And, in the middle of Eisenberg’s story, a full page, broken into quarters with a list of  Books of this Century (including Dave Eggers, César Aira, Lydia Davis, Javier Marías–I would actually read just about anything on this list).  And then something from Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals (book, LP, film, electronic edition due in May 2014–I can’t wait to see what it is).