SOUNDTRACK: QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE-…Like Clockwork (2013).
I have loved the earlier QOTSA albums, but I just couldn’t get into this one when it came out. Perhaps it was too…subtle? I put it aside, heard everyone rave about it and kind of forgot about it. Well, I recently rediscovered it and now I get it. It is just as good and complex as everyone said–I think I was just missing the subtleties, yes.
It’s still very QOTSA–Josh Homme is Josh Homme after all, but there are added elements–pianos, strings (!) and slower sections that add depth and bring really interesting sonic textures to their sound that make this album far more complex but no less sleazy fun.
The roaring sounds that are the guitars of “Keep Your Eyes Peeled” (accompanied by that bottom heavy bass are just fantastic. “I Sat By the Ocean” has a chorus that goes from good to great when it builds to a second set of chords–it’s really irresistible. I recall being surprised by the ballad “The Vampyre of Time and Memory.” Okay not a ballad exactly but a piano intro that turns into a classic rocker (complete with lengthy guitar solo).
“If I Had a Tail” is a wonderfully sleazy track with a great riff and a great sound. It’s also got some of the more unusual lyrics I’ve heard–“If I had a tail, I’d own the place. If I had a tail I’d swat the flies.” It’s followed by “My God is the Sun” another great riff-based song where Homme’s falsetto is just another catchy element of the song. It also has another great chorus (why didn’t I like this album last year?).
“Kalopsia” slows the disc down quite a lot–it’s a pretty, gentle song. Until you get used to it being a mellow song and then it turns into a real rocker (and back again). “Fairweather Friends” has another great riff and a funny ending with Homme cutting off his chorus and saying “I don’t give a shit about them anyway.” “Smooth Sailing” reintroduces that sleazy falsetto. It has a (another) great chorus and an amazing guitar riff that is slowly manipulated into sounding really alien. It’s very cool.
Most of the songs are pretty standard length, but the final two songs really stretch out. “I Appear Missing” pushes 6 minutes and has some slower elements, and a great guitar section that connects them all. The five and a half-minute “Like Clockwork” also starts with a lengthy piano intro and then morphs into another classic rock soloing type song.
It’s one of the best albums of 2013 that I didn’t realize until 2014. I do wish they lyrics sheet was included as I’m not really sure what he’s saying half the time, and I’m not sure if my guesses make any more or less sense than the actual words.
[READ: September 2014] The Extreme Life of the Sea
I saw this book when I took a tour of the Princeton University Press building. I loved the cover and thought it seemed like a really interesting topic. I was later pretty delighted to see it on display in my local library, where I grabbed this copy.
The book is small, but I was a little daunted by the tiny print size (old age or laziness?). Nevertheless, I was quite interested in the subject, so I pressed on.
Interestingly, a lot of the information that I read in the book, my nine-year old son also knew about–he loves this kind of scary undersea information. The difference here is that the Palumbis (a father and son team–Stephen is a Professor of Biology, Anthony is a science writer and novelist) write for adults and include a lot of the scientific information to support and explain all the stuff that my son knows–although he knew a surprising amount of detail as well.
And the writing was really enjoyable too. Anthony knows how to tell a story. The Prologue itself–about the battle between sperm whale and giant squid–is quite compellingly told. And whenever an actual creature is involved–he engages us with the creature’s life cycle.
The book is broken into chapters based on a specific focus of each creature in the ocean (an area of the world that we have explored very little of). We see The Earliest, which shows the improbable way that life developed from an inhospitable rock into what we know today. This is probably the driest chapter because there’s no specific relatable species that we can imagine. And yet there’s plenty of interesting information about the Burgess Shale’s surprising diversity. The transitions nicely into The Most Archaic, which is about creatures that have barely evolved since those days. (Think horseshoe crabs and the amazing chambered nautilus and, as the subheading says, “Sharks at last”). Then we move to the smallest which is primarily about microbes.
The next chapter goes into The Deepest, which begins with William Beebe and his bathysphere, then looks at giant cephalopods (in one of many pop culture references, he calls this section cephalopods of unusual size), and of course, undersea bioluminescence. From the deepest, which I think we all imagine when talking about extreme life in the sea, he moves to The Shallowest, something I don’t often think about. But they discuss the really dangerous life of living in the shallows–go too high and you could be stranded when the tide goes out, stay too low and get eaten by crabs and fish. And of course–birds. This chapter looks at urchins (and clown fish), starfish and the fascinating mudskipper.
The Oldest takes a surprising look at the age of some individual creatures. Through a process called carbon aging they are able to determine as best they can the age of whales. They also used simple techniques like discovering a harpoon that was plunged into an animal over 100 years earlier. Sea turtles can live 50 years or more. But perhaps the most interesting are the jellyfish who, upon injury, reverts into its larval state and then rebirths itself.
The Fastest Sprints and Longest Journeys give some wonderful mind-boggling data: a Wahoo can hit 48 MPH; a sailfin can streak 80 MPH and hunt prey at 30MPH. The describe this as “like driving at 40MPH on a busy street while trying to snatch a coffee mug off the asphalt.” There’s information about flying fish and a very cool photo of one “in flight” in the plates section.
When discussing lobsters and other curtains, he mentions David Foster Wallace: “Consider, as David Foster Wallace once, did, the lobster.” (103). And then of course he talks about whales and their long travels. And perhaps more amazingly the incredible duration and gliding abilities of the albatross (nice Monty Python shout out there)..
The Hottest talks about species that live very close to their heat tolerance–especially corals, which can easily be destroyed if their water temperature rises by few degrees (which we all know it is doing). There’s a section of the mysterious Vaquita porpoise and Pompeii worms. These contrast nicely with The Coldest, which includes the adorable otter (whose pelt nearly caused its extinction) and the bizarre ice fish whose blood has an antifreeze component to it. This chapter also looks at the awesome narwhal and speaks of it as the likely origin for the unicorn myth.
The Strangest Family Lives looks at creatures who defy expectation about caring for young. Most of us know that seahorse males carry the babies, but I didn’t know that male anglerfish attach themselves to their female counterpart and eventually get absorbed into them.
Chapter 11–Future Extremes is the bad news chapter. It talks about the devastating effect that we are wreaking on the ocean–which is bad for everyone. He cites many examples of how overfishing has ruined an entire ecology–not just the fish, but the predator/prey cycle that those fish are part of. By removing one element it allows another element to take over, thereby destroying the entire ecology of the region. It is a very depressing chapter because of how little we really can do, especially against all of the people who simply do not care.
The Epilogue, on the other hand, offers some hope–don’t give up before reading it. It discusses places where bargains have been made and a little bit of protection has caused great results in repopulating the ocean.
This book proved to be very interesting although it took me awhile to read it–all that data was a little overwhelming at times. I would have loved to see more pictures (the plates in the middle are gorgeous, but there’s so many species mentioned where photos would have done better than some of the line drawings in illustrating what they were talking about. I also loved the amusing pop culture jokes, (including Doctor Who, Finding Nemo (of course), The Princess Bride and even Morrissey–“They arrive on wintering grounds, rest, nurse their young, and sing their melancholy songs that attract mates (whales are big into Morrissey” (107)) which kept the text from being (yes, I’ll say it) too dry.
The one real mistake in terms of printing came in that their endnotes are almost entirely dry data and links to their information. However, but sprinkled throughout were rather funny ones–ones that few people would bother to read–perhaps these should have been footnotes. Like Chapter Three, Number 7, which begins “You probably need proof of this, too. We certainly did.” This one gives an interesting look at the amount of bacteria in the ocean. Or the outstanding Chapter 7, Number 35: “Of course, if your Burgato can only accelerate for a second, like the lobster does, then you should consider returning it to the dealer.” Or the practical and informative Chapter 8, Number 13: “Next time you are near a comfortable campfire or fireplace, take a minute to feel the warmth on your face. Place an empty glass in front of your face-the warmth drops but is still there. Now fill the glass with water–the warmth is gone, absorbed by the water in the glass.” Or the most fun of the bunch, Chapter 8, Number 19:
Reviewers and friends have sparked a philosophical discussion about this point far larger than the shrimp. Are these shrimp really blind? Sort of, through they see light. Do they have eyes? Well, yes but not on their heads. Do they see well? Yes but they do not see images. If you close your eyes and try to navigate by the feeling of heat you can get from the back of your neck, will you be said to be stumbling around blindly? Readers are encouraged to decide for themselves whether the rift-shrimp without eyes is misnamed.
This was a fun book that was filled with all kinds of information. As I said, a lot of the information is well-known to anyone with young boys or adults who love shark week, but the data and insights as well as the historical and future perspectives were really quite interesting and elevated the book beyond common knowledge.
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