SOUNDTRACK: MATT HAIMOVITZ & CHRISTOPHER O’RILEY-Tiny Desk Concert #426 (March 14, 2015).
There’s no introduction or fanfare for cellist Matt Haimovitz and pianist Christopher O’Riley’s Tiny Desk set. They just start right in with a romping Beethoven piece. I don’t know these two, but the notes say the duo has a new album out called Shuffle.Play.Listen., in which music by Stravinsky and Astor Piazzolla mingles with Cocteau Twins and Arcade Fire. There’s no contemporary music in this set, but it’s very cool nonetheless.
The Beethoven piece sounds alive and wild and very modern. The Glass piece is slow and beautiful The final piece is lively and playful (with hints of darkness). It introduced as reminding O’Riley of a scene in The Unbearable Lightness of Being when Daniel Day-Lewis gets a quickie.
It’s especially fun to watch how animated Haimovitz is. The set list:
- Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 4 in C – IV. Allegro vivace
- Philip Glass/Foday Musa Suso: The Orchard
- Leoš Janáček: Pohádka – II. Con moto
[READ: April 6, 2015] Five Dials 33 Part II
After several themed issues of Five Dials we get back to the ones that I really like–random things thrown together under a tenuous idea. It’s got some great authors and a surprising amount of large scale doodles–full page scribbles and some drawings that go from one page to the next (which works better online than in print). Some of the giant illustrations also are fun–they are of jokey images like a memory stick that states I have only memories. The art was done by JODY BARTON.
As with a previous issue there is a page of contributors and “The Unable to Contribute Page.” These are journalists unfairly imprisoned (see more at cpr.org). The Table of Contents is back, along with the FAQ:
My copy of Alien vs. Predator is so dog-eared I can’t even read the thing. Any suggestions for a new book? Michael Robbins The Second Sex.
Here are some of my favorite tempests. 1. The Tempest. 2. A violent storm 3. The expression ‘tempest in a teapot.’ Any suggestions? Kate Tempest.
Are there such things as grown-up fairy tales? Greta and the Dark by Eliza Granville.
Where can I get some Jamaican patties? A video I can’t get to load.
I’m sick of being an author. Got anything better? This link to The Nowness is down.
Caribou? A video that I can’t get to work.
Who’s Lorenzo Vitturi? The artist’s site.
And then it’s on to the main articles.
SUNITA SOLAIR-“Out of Windows” How should we react when people fall?
This distributing essay talks about how Solair was coming home for Halloween excited to give out treats when as she arrived she found that a neighbor had been thrown from her 4th floor window and was still being attended to on the sidewalk. She wonders how people reacted the way they did and just what “community” actually means.
This distributing essay talks about how Solair was coming home for Halloween excited to give out treats when as she arrived she found that a neighbor had been thrown from her 4th floor window and was still being attended to on the sidewalk. She wonders how people reacted the way they did and just what “community” actually means.
There is a questionnaire wondering whether it is too soon to laugh at certain things: Like the death of Abraham Lincoln, Robin Williams, Teletubbies, polio, Lifeguarding, Pauly Shore. Some boxes are checked, most are not.
TOM BASDEN-More excerpts from Hot Moon
Back in Five Dials #28, Basden had included excerpts from his unfinished book Hot Moon. He has gotten some feedback from a person named M*rk Sm*th and now has written these new chapters: 214: In which Owen does some torture (which is quite amusing). Chapter 57: (In which I give some background on Owen) mostly has him sitting on the toilet while the author talks a bit about him. And Chapter 223 (In which there are Celebs). Th entire thing has been redacted and is promised to be published in Number 36.
KIT BUCHAN-“The Man Whom I Bitterly hate”
I really liked this poem and it was long, too There is something about a rhyme scheme that really grounds a poem for me. The long lines with their own internal rhyme made this very song-like and made it even more fun to read. It was a dark and amusing tale of avoiding the one you hate.
I really liked this poem and it was long, too There is something about a rhyme scheme that really grounds a poem for me. The long lines with their own internal rhyme made this very song-like and made it even more fun to read. It was a dark and amusing tale of avoiding the one you hate.
Then there;’s three items about Karl Ove Knausgaard
KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD-How it gets done. An interview about how he wrote what he wrote, why he doesn’t write in third person and how much he hates to reread his books.
DON BARTLETT-talks about translating the massive work that is My Struggle–how much he likes it but just how much work it is for him.
STUART EVERS-“Some Days I Trusted Him”
Ever thinks of My Struggle as “somewhere between monotonous and momentous.” He read Karl Ove as a new father. And Evers admires the way Karl Ove is able to look at the reality of a situation when it comes to parenting–you remember the torturous party but maybe not the actual birth. He says he read and reread and marked up his copy of the books and couldn’t believe some of the things he said and yet believed they were entirely accurate.
ADS THAT LOOK LIKE ADS Ali Smith’s How to be Both.
ADS THAT DON”t LOOK LIKE ADS another cartoon named Weak Wood.
COLIN BARRETT-“Bait”
This story had lots of interesting elements and then ended rather darkly. Matteen was lucky enough to start dating Sarah, a beautiful tall woman who was out of everyone’s league (including his). Then she broke up with him. A year later he still pines for her. So he and his friend Teddy (the narrator of the story) set out for the bars. They see Sarah and her friend Jenny (who doesn’t stand a chance next to the beauty of Sarah but is pretty herself) walking to the bar. Jenny says they are “trawling for cock.” The boys offer them a ride. Sarah refuses to sit next to Matteen and sits next to Teddy who is “harmless.”
This story had lots of interesting elements and then ended rather darkly. Matteen was lucky enough to start dating Sarah, a beautiful tall woman who was out of everyone’s league (including his). Then she broke up with him. A year later he still pines for her. So he and his friend Teddy (the narrator of the story) set out for the bars. They see Sarah and her friend Jenny (who doesn’t stand a chance next to the beauty of Sarah but is pretty herself) walking to the bar. Jenny says they are “trawling for cock.” The boys offer them a ride. Sarah refuses to sit next to Matteen and sits next to Teddy who is “harmless.”
They drive to the pub where Matteen plays pool (and wins big all the time). Sarah doesn’t want to go but he’s their ride so she goes along. Matteen has won big until a thug, Nubbin, comes in. He stirs some shit and causes the ladies to leave. Matteen tells Tommy to follow the ladies, which he does. Out in to the woods–the normal site of making out and hooking up. Are the girls luring harmless Teddy into the woods for sex?
MARGAUX WILLIAMSON-“The Slow Walk”
Painter Margaux Williamson’s new book, I Could See Everything, is a catalogue for an exhibit that never existed.
In this brief interview we learn why she created a book full of torsos and that she wanted her art to be bound together in a book rather than seen in a gallery. Then there’s five pages of full color paintings which are interesting in how much impact she makes from torsos.
NICK HORNBY-“How It Gets Done” on the challenge of reading stuff.
This interview is primarily about Hornby’s book Stuff I’ve Been Reading from The Believer. He talks about how the column freed him up to only read things he wanted to–he had to write about a few books a month so what was the point laboring over something he didn’t like. He also says he doesn’t like to reread because things that were impactful when he was a kid may not be as a an adult. I enjoyed his liberated attitude about reading.
EMILY BERRY-“A Clear Mirror to the Rays of Things” What books teach us about breakfast.
Berry talks about breakfast in various books. How there really isn’t one in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Breakfast of Champions. How in most books, breakfast is kind of blown off unless it is an exceptional breakfast (like the one in Gravity’s Rainbow) Poets, on the other hand, do love to talk about breakfast and she gives many examples.
Berry talks about breakfast in various books. How there really isn’t one in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Breakfast of Champions. How in most books, breakfast is kind of blown off unless it is an exceptional breakfast (like the one in Gravity’s Rainbow) Poets, on the other hand, do love to talk about breakfast and she gives many examples.
BENJAMIN RACHLIN-“After the Setback” Can we make our pets better?
This was a fascinating essay about pet rehabilitation. There are two schools in America that teach pet physical therapy. They offer ways to use various contraptions like treadmills in pools to get animals to walk after accidents. There are some lovely success stories but (beware sensitive readers) some real heartbreakers too.
This was a fascinating essay about pet rehabilitation. There are two schools in America that teach pet physical therapy. They offer ways to use various contraptions like treadmills in pools to get animals to walk after accidents. There are some lovely success stories but (beware sensitive readers) some real heartbreakers too.
SIGMUND FREUD-Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. “Passed on Like the News of the Latest Victory”
In this segment Freud talks primarily about bawdy jokes and how they are used by men (mostly) to get into the pants of women. It’s exceedingly dull but right on target.
In this segment Freud talks primarily about bawdy jokes and how they are used by men (mostly) to get into the pants of women. It’s exceedingly dull but right on target.
GILLIAN MEARS-Alive in Ant and Bee (a memoir)
Mears was diagnosed with MS and given a very bleak prognosis. She tried everything she could–nearly every alternative medicine out there–including moving in with a guy who was practically like a cult leader enforcing a macrobiotic diet. This nearly killed her. She finally went to the emergency room and after a surgery, she decided to sell her apartment and buy an ambulance. This must be a special kind of ambulance. She had it retrofitted with a kitchen and a small sleeping area and she lived in it. She became a nomad, driving around, making her own food (she milled her own flour) and getting on as best she could. The story is harrowing and disturbing but also inspirational. Three years on, she is doing better than she has in years.
Mears was diagnosed with MS and given a very bleak prognosis. She tried everything she could–nearly every alternative medicine out there–including moving in with a guy who was practically like a cult leader enforcing a macrobiotic diet. This nearly killed her. She finally went to the emergency room and after a surgery, she decided to sell her apartment and buy an ambulance. This must be a special kind of ambulance. She had it retrofitted with a kitchen and a small sleeping area and she lived in it. She became a nomad, driving around, making her own food (she milled her own flour) and getting on as best she could. The story is harrowing and disturbing but also inspirational. Three years on, she is doing better than she has in years.
FIVE DIALS NOIR A new segment teaming up with Akashic Books to “add some darkness to a magazine that sometimes seems too optimistic and unaware of the dishonourable and moonless corners of life.” Drawing from the sixty volumes of Akashic Book’s Noir Series. First up:
CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN”Reel”
If I didn’t know this story was a noir story I think I would have been really surprised by what happened. The tone of the story is not all that dark, although the end (as befits a noir) certainly is. The story is set in Singapore. The protagonist Ah Meng is a fisherman. His brother Ah Long is away at school, but he, of course, is stuck doing the fishing and supporting the family. We learn a bit about Ah Meng’s life and his dependency on his mother and how much he just wants something different. Then something different happens. Two young girls come up to his boat and ask for a ride. He thinks that maybe he can hook up with one of them, but he is so nervous he doesn’t know how to do anything useful. The story progresses and the three are drawn together and since you know it’s a noir, you know something bad is going to happen…but what?
CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN”Reel”
If I didn’t know this story was a noir story I think I would have been really surprised by what happened. The tone of the story is not all that dark, although the end (as befits a noir) certainly is. The story is set in Singapore. The protagonist Ah Meng is a fisherman. His brother Ah Long is away at school, but he, of course, is stuck doing the fishing and supporting the family. We learn a bit about Ah Meng’s life and his dependency on his mother and how much he just wants something different. Then something different happens. Two young girls come up to his boat and ask for a ride. He thinks that maybe he can hook up with one of them, but he is so nervous he doesn’t know how to do anything useful. The story progresses and the three are drawn together and since you know it’s a noir, you know something bad is going to happen…but what?
I really enjoyed this issue a lot, and I always regret putting off reading them.
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