SOUNDTRACK: WILD BELLE-“Love Like This” (Field Recordings, June 26, 2013).
This Field Recording [Wild Belle: Reggae-Tinged Romance Amid The Big Bikes] is set in the El Segundo-based South Bay Customs motorcycle shop.
It doesn’t seem totally appropriate for the keyboard driven pop of Wild Belle, but there’s something about singer Natalie Bergman’s voice–a little gravelly, a hushed kind of whisper that seems apt.
Wild Belle singer Natalie Bergman seemed a bit confused upon the band’s arrival. … But once we walked past the front doors, we quickly realized that this wasn’t your everyday L.A. bike shop. South Bay’s walls are lined with eccentric oddities, and the facility also houses an art gallery and a performance space for local musicians.
So it was fitting that in a coincidental twist, she told us that she’d be embarking on a motorcycle ride across the Midwest with a close friend in the next month.
“Love Like This” certainly has a reggae-tinged vibe. I especially like the interesting echoing guitar sounds. It’s got a catchy chorus, but the whole song seems to have such a relaxed vibe that it makes me laugh to here her nonchalantly sing
My heart’s on fire
You light me up, and I can’t cool down
Your love is wild
You’re dangerous
The song picks up and is certainly catchy. And while I do actually like her voice, I can’t imagine more than one song from them.
[READ: February 6, 2018] “A New Paradise, or a New Hell”
This is an excerpt from the novel Death with Interruptions. It was translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa.
It is a fascinating story with existential implications. Although I cannot imagine how this could be stretched into a novel.
On the first day of the new year, no one died. In the whole country, not a single person died the whole day. It was unprecedented. There were many accidents, several life-threatening, bit no one actually died. It was especially noticeable because the venerable queen mother who was known to be on the verge of her last breathe also did not die.
Rumors began to circulate that no one had died and then finally at the end of the day the prime minister made an official statement confirming the news. (with suitable pseudo-scientific flim-flam).
He concluded his signing off by saying we will accept the challenge of the body’s immortality …if that is the will of god.
Not half an hour had passed when the Cardinal called. And he was shocked.
The cornerstone of religion is death. Without death there is no resurrection without resurrection there is no church. What you have said is pure sacrilege. He wants to know if the king also blasphemed by agreeing to this statement.
The rest of the excerpt is basically the Cardinal and the prime minister wondering how they can deal with this teleologically and politically–would people move there to avoid dying?
Late that night the Cardinal had an attack of appendicitis–should he ask to die to keep god’s word alive?
How can you make a full novel out of this premise? I can’t imagine. But I’m certainly curious.
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