SOUNDTRACK: VOIRVOIR-The Free-P (2016).
I got this Free Ep at a VoirVoir (not Voir Voir) show in Bethlehem. This EP contains four songs.
Two of them are new and two are re-recordings of songs from their debut album.
“Quit It All” is a bit poppier than their debut album. The 90s synth is a nice touch to this song which, make no mistake, still rocks. The middle noise section (skronking guitar solo and great drums) is a highlight as are the catchy verses. The band even submitted a video for the Tiny Desk Contest (I had no idea).
“Sides” is perhaps one of the best catchy alt rock songs I’ve heard in years and I am bummed that they didn’t get recognized for it. It’s got a great 90s alt-rock sound and wonderful harmonies in the backing vocals. There’s a video for this song as well. You can also stream the song on bandcamp.
The other two songs, “Stupid for Now” and “There are No Good Goodbyes” were recorded at WDIY (Lehigh Valley’s Community NPR Station) in a stripped down format. You can stream the songs here. It’s interesting to hear them without the fuzz and drums. The songs are solid and work very well although I do like the originals better. The show also includes an interview with the three members who play the stripped down show. The DJ asks their influences and while main singer guitarist Matt Molchany demurs, April Smith says Built to Spill) and Josh Maskornick says Primus and Superchunk.
And if you can’t get enough (since they haven’t released that much) here’s a live show from Shards.
[READ: January 10, 2016 & January 10, 2018] Goldfish Memory
For some reason, I read this book back in 2016 and then didn’t post about it–I felt like I needed to read it again, and so I waited almost exactly two years and re-read it and enjoyed it even more this second time. Almost like actual goldfish memory.
The back of this book made the stories sound really compelling: “what does it mean to have a connection with someone? This is the question these brilliant short stories try to answer.” The note said that this was the first translation of Monique Schwitter’s form-breaking work. The translation was by Eluned Gramich.
I’m not sure how form-breaking these stories are, but they are certainly interesting. They remind me in some ways of Julie Hecht–a narrator who is connected to people but very distantly. But while Hecht’s narrators are critical and dismissive of everyone, Schwitter’s narrators just seem to be incapable of connecting properly. You can feel the longing in the distance between them. I also like how these missed connections cover all kinds of relationships–familial, sexual, friendship, professional, even passing acquaintances.
Few of the characters seem to be able to tell anyone else how they really feel–even when they are dying. There is sadness at loss, but a kind of c’est la vie about it as well. And all along, Schwitter’s writing is consistently excellent and the stories are really enjoyable.
“Our Story”
This begins the book wonderfully with a very creative story line. It is the story of a woman visiting Charlotte, a girl whose “bald head has shrunk again.” And soon we learn that this visitor is writing down a story that Charlotte is telling. But what’s interesting is the relationship between these two women. Charlotte is dictating to the narrator their own story–how they met, events they shared. The narrator is transcribing their story but interjecting to us her own take on the events–less warm, more analytical. And yet with Charlotte clearly dying, it makes the narrator rethink their past as well.
“Haiku and Horror”
This story is written in third person which gives even more distance. It is about a woman who writes to a writer asking for an interview. He is distant and off-putting from the start. And yet even though he kicks her out, he keeps asking her back. He now writes a haiku every day, but he’s rather talk about horror movies. Is it worth the trouble for her to continue?
“Her Shoes”
This is a story about a waitress who learned how smiling can get you ahead. But first she had to learn to smile. Set in a diner, the waitress says you can tell the Last Customer as easily as you can tell the Regular. How much can you let them get to you? How much power do they hold over you.
“The Pit”
I loved the premise behind this story–an older woman goes back to the house she used to live in–before she got divorced from the man who lives thee and re-visits everything that was once hers. But she doesn’t tell anyone that that’s where she is going and she is missed from her home as well. The story is a bit oddly written and the end is something of a shock, although perhaps not really.
“Goldfish Memory”
This is a story in which the narrator reiterates her thoughts that her father is dead. She said he was dead. She dreamed he was dead, imagined he was dead wished he was dead. But the truth is something else entirely. This was perhaps my least favorite story for some reason.
“Moles”
About a man who is alone and cannot remember what he has read–the one thing that is keeping him busy. He wants to reach out to another person but seems incapable of extending himself beyond his hotel room.
“A Tendency Towards Nothing”
This was my favorite story of the book, probably because it was longer and was felt really complete. It is about a couple who meet once a year to gamble–and nothing else. The story moves back and forth between what they do and how they met. They have been doing this for a year, meeting only one time a month. They know virtually nothing about each other and yet she looks forward to seeing him more than just about anyone else.
“Dizziness”
I enjoyed the way this story opened: “I have a friend whose name I’m not allowed to reveal (a shame because she’s really a remarkable woman) and whose story I’m not allowed to tell (a shame because as far as I know, it’s really a remarkable story).” But the story she tells is somewhat less engaging. It involves a suicide. And while I loved the end of the story–and her connection to the suicide, I found the middle to be a little too vague.
“The Swing”
I found this story very compelling as well. It’s about a daughter who attempts to get her mother and her mother’s sister to reconcile. All of this is done while the daughter is studying aboard and having a crisis of her own. It’s cleverly crafted with lots of deviant lies. And false promises. But learning about how the sisters fell apart in the first place is just as interesting. It involves a dog, a baby, and a cheating husband. How could there be any reconciliation?
“The Nylon Costume”
This story is about coping with death. Just a few months after the boy;s mother has died, he tells his father that the father needs to dress like a dead man for Halloween. He demands that it is customary. But perhaps that’s not what the boy needs right now.
“Andante con Moto”
This is a darkly comic story about a baby’s christening and how the different members of the family cope with the pressure. I especially enjoyment that “the night before the christening, Ines’ pressure cooker exploded” and then in a later paragraph “the night before the christening Sonja got drunk at her in-law’s despite intending it to be a short visit.” Also, “The night before the christening, just before ten, Magdalena arrived at the airport.” But Sonja was too drunk to pick her up. These three stories intertwine as we learn about the relationship s between these women and how they feel about their respective spouses. There’s also some wonderful discomfort about the whole christening–that it was done mostly to try to rein in a wayward husband. And that potentially no one actually wants to be there except the priest–who might just be on to everyone and Magdalena who is photographing the event for posterity. The title refers to the music at the christening. It means “Slowly, but with motion” and it refers to Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonata in D. This is another long story that I rather liked.
“His Daughter Mascha”
A very short story about how the death of a baby twenty-five years ago still resounds in a man’s life–especially as he realizes that his new children are of an age that they could be his own grandchildren.
“White and Black”
This story begins with a discussion of acoustic stimulus and then shifts to visual. She describes a man in her bathtub with whitish skin and blackish hair. She had seen this man many times in her life–always when she was with someone else. Like the time she and her husband were on a motorcycle and they broke down. She was sure that this man–whom they nicknamed Snow White–was there, watching. The relationship, as with many of the stories, it is more ephemeral, even with the more physical component added.
I loved this section which summed up the book so nicely:
When my father refused to shake hands with his fellow human beings, he’d refer to Nikolas Tesla. Apparently, he always maintained a metre distance from other people, because the unfamiliar magnetic fields disturbed him. That my father would, despite this, sometimes touch or embrace me, I took as a sign of love.
in place of an afterword: “Dinner with Dürrenmatt”
The premise of this is that in stories you can write what you want–that perhaps its more interesting than what really happened. Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist and the narrator imagines dining with him.
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