I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DESTROY TOMORROW 666-“Distortasaur” (2005?).

Destroy Tomorrow 666 is a DJ project from Sloan’s Patrick Pentland.  I had never heard of it until reading about him recently (Sloan has a new album out).  It is Pentland’s Alternative / Electro / Punk outlet that he’s been doing since 2005.

Pentland is known for writing gorgeous pop songs with wonderful harmonies.  But he grew up listening to hardcore punk, so his musical tastes are all over the place.  This track (I love the name) is, like the others here, a distorted fuzzy “dance” song that is all instrumental and not poppy at all.

While I’ll stick with Sloan, I imagine this was a lot of fun to whip together.  And yes, I think it’s very good dark dance music.  Although surely if he was going to use 666 he could have turned Pentland into Pentagram.

You can check it out at ReverbNation.

[READ: June 17, 2014] “Stories”

This year’s Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker was subtitled Love Stories.  In addition to the two graphic stories, we have a series of five personal essays which fall under the heading of “My Old Flame.”  I liked that all five writers have slight variations in how they deal with this topic.

Colm Tóibín is a prolific writer whom I know very little about.

In this essay, Tóibín flashes back to 1978 when he was 23 and living in Barcelona.  He had been there for a few months when he heard about a cheap charter flight back to Ireland.  So he packed up and got out of Barcelona and returned to his home.

He often wonders what would have happened had he stayed in Spain.  He most likely would have stayed with the guy he was seeing, spending days on the beach and nights in the boy’s apartment in the city.  He even thinks he might never have gone home.

After he left, they kept in touch for a time, then inevitably, they lost touch. 

He returned to Barcelona in 2008.  While wandering around, he saw a poster for a gallery.  The man’s name was listed on the poster. He wrote down the address and then lost the name of the place.

Then two years ago he found the man’s email address online and contacted him.  After talking, they agreed to meet the next time Colm Tóibín was in Barcelona.

When they get together, they catch up.  But the most interesting thing is when he asks the man to retell a story that Tóibín has remembered all these years.  In the story the bony had been called up for military service and Tóibín remembered the funny way that the man got out of it.  But in fact the boys says that he has it completed wrong.

Tóibín’s final take about this confusion is fantastic.

For ease of searching, I include: Colm Toibin.