I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK:  RHEOSTATICS–The Media Club, Vancouver, BC, (October 23, 2004).

Every year, the Rheostatics would perform what they called Green Sprouts Week in Toronto.  In 2004 they did a West Coast version. Five nights in a row at The Media Club (with each show being crazier than the last).  There aren’t always recording available for these shows, but on this leg there are recordings from the third, fourth and fifth nights.

This recording is the best of the 3 available shows.  Although in the notes, Tyson reveals that he had technical difficulties and was only able to record about an hour of the show.  In addition to the songs he missed for technical difficulties, there were also some quieter acoustic songs “Don’t Say Goodnight and “Joey” which he couldn’t get.

And yet, this is an amazing set of music–outstanding by any barometer, with great sound quality (aside from a few drop outs) and an amazing collection of songs. The final night of a run is usually really long, so it’s fun to imagine how much more they would have thrown into this set.

The 7 songs included are “Shaved Head” which is slow and amazing.  A raw and raging “Feed Yourself” with a dash of The Jam’s “Eton Rifles” and The Tragically Hip’s “Bobcaygeon” thown in.  “Saskatchewan” is broody but also great.  “Horses” is intense and goofy at the same time, with someone on the voice modulator doing a computerized “Play that funky music, white boy” recitation.

Torben Wilson from the Buttless Chaps plays drums on “Claire.”  “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” is one of those rare songs that the band throws out once in a while, and it sounds great here.  They invited the crowd on stage to sit around campfire style.

And “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson” is great here too.

It’s a fantastic collection of songs, leading me to think the entire show must have been amazing.

[READ: May 11, 2015] The Strange Library

I saw this book when we were in a bookstore in Denver.  I mentioned it to Sarah and she clearly bought it then and gave it to me for my birthday.

It wasn’t exactly risky because it is by Murakami with art direction and design by Chip Kidd (how could you go wrong?) but the book was shrink wrapped in the store, so you couldn’t flip through it.

Imagine my surprise when the slipcase proved to be not a slipcase at all, but a double flip cover that does not get removed but opens up like a secret document.  And every (or every other) page is chock full of art from Kidd.  My guess is that all of the art is found (rather than created) by Kidd as it appears to be old Japanese pictures and designs.  And they reflect (more or less) the action of the story.

The story itself is one of Murakami’s more surreal ones.

A boy enters the library to return his books.  When he asks for help finding a new book, the librarian offers no help (I bristle that Murakami or at least the translator (Ted Goossen) call this woman a librarian, for a librarian would not just stamp a book and then not offer any help).  Rather, she sends him to room 107, down a long flight of stairs.  The boy and knocks on the door.

A man invites him in.  The boy is intimidated by him but eventually blurts out that he wants some books on the Ottoman empire. The man runs off and finds three gigantic books about the subject.  He tells the boy that he must read them in this room–they cannot possibly leave.

The boy is reluctant (even more nervous) and says that his mother will be waiting for him.  But the man gets even more angry and says he must read them all before he leaves.

The boy (clearly not comfortable with conflict agrees to read them there–just for 30 minutes).  The man walks him down lengthy winding corridors (which reminded me a bit of House of Leaves) impossible corridors that can’t possibly be under this building (I loved the comment that “public libraries like this one were always short of money, so building even the tiniest of labyrinth had to be beyond their means”).

The man opens a dark room and tells the boy he can read in there.  Then he locks him in and says he will be released in one month after he has memorized all three books.

Then a man in a sheep skin (a real sheep skin) approaches him and tells him the truth. He says that the old man is mean–he regularly beats the sheep skin man–and he intends to suck out the boy’s brains once he has read all the books–the smarter the brain, the tastier it is.

The boy is very upset–about himself obviously but also his mother who will be very worried about him.  He doesn’t know what to do and he hopes she will be okay.  Then a pretty woman enters his cell and gives him delicious food and a little bit of hope.

He decides that he will try to escape.  And the pretty woman tells him that the sheep man could escape with him–they can be allies.

They plan their escape for that night and it all goes pretty easily–perhaps too easily?

This story was certainly peculiar, but it was also a lot of fun.  It shows Murakami’s love (and dislike?) for libraries and study.  Kidd’s illustrations are suitably weird and really add a fun if not exactly connected tie in to the text.

I enjoyed this book a lot.