I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-“History Never Repeats” (1995).

On December 2, Pearl Jam announced that their fan club holiday singles will be released to streaming services.  Their first holiday single was released back in 1991.  It was “Let Me Sleep (Christmas Time).” They are rolling out the songs one at a time under the banner 12 Days of Pearl Jam.

These releases are coming out as a daily surprise.

I was not aware of this recording at all.  It is, indeed, the Split Enz song.  It was recording during a Pearl Jam show on March 24, 1995 in Auckland, New Zealand.   It must be during a quiet middle section, because it’s just Eddie with Neil Finn & Tim Finn live at the Mount Smart Stadium.

It is a bare-bones version with just voices and one electric guitar.  Neil Finn plays guitar and sings the first verse.  Eddie takes the second verse.  Tim Finn sings the third verse.  All three share  backing vocals and the chorus.

It’s a rare treat to hear an old recording like this, especially one of a song they’ve not played since.

[READ: December 13, 2019] “The Infinite”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fourth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

The Short Story Advent Calendar is back! And to celebrate its fifth anniversary, we’ve decided to make the festivities even more festive, with five different coloured editions to help you ring in the holiday season.

No matter which colour you choose, the insides are the same: it’s another collection of expertly curated, individually bound short stories from some of the best writers in North America and beyond.

(This is a collection of literary, non-religious short stories for adults. For more information, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.)

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check back here to read an exclusive interview with the author.

Want a copy?  Order one here.

I’m pairing music this year with some Christmas songs that I have come across this year.

I really like César Aira’s stories.  He’s a fascinating guy and insanely prolific.

He has written nearly a hundred books.  Most of his novels are quite short, so I’ve never really thought of him as writing actual short stories.  This one comes from his collection The Musical Brain: And Other Stories which was translated by Chris Andrews.

The unnamed narrator says that as a kid he played some extremely strange games.  I love this line, “They sound made up when I explain them, and I did, in fact, make them up myself.”

He says that people have told him on many occasions that he should write down all of these strange games they used to play.  There are many, but he is going to start with this one which he says was mathematical or “pseudomathematical.”  It consisted of simply naming a bigger number than the one just named by your opponent, ” As you can see it was extremely simple.”

Victory in the game was not the point and was usually accidental.

Before getting into details, he wants to set the scene.  He only played this with his neighbor Omar.  They were ten or eleven years old growing up in Coronel Pringles, which was not built up and had many dirt roads. Nothing ever happened and they had no TV or extracurricular activities.

Describing the game he says there were no levels or series or even riles.  You just said numbers.

“Three.”
“A hundred.”
“A hundred and one.”
“A hundred and one point zero one.”
“Eight hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine.”
“Four million.”

They didn’t really know a lot about the higher numbers–like if a billion was more than trillion–and it didn’t matter.  They were attracted to these big numbers anyhow.

The game may have lasted months or years.  It wasn’t played every day and was often forgotten about until someone started it up again.

Then they discovered that word: infinity.  This was an a exciting concept–so hard to grasp.  And it affected their game too.

The game could have ended when someone said infinity, but it didn’t have to.  Because they would just keep going:

“Two infinities.”
“Two infinities and thirty million infinities.”

He speculates that this game had to do with childhood greed.  They had nothing and expected nothing but they wanted things.  For instance eight could be eights cars–one for every day of the week and one extra one with swampy tires for rainy days.  But a billion could only represent money.  Nevertheless, they never talked about that concept.

The last line is an interesting one and doesn’t really spoil the story (which really can’t be spoiled) so much as contextualize the narrator now:

Daydreams are always about concepts, not examples, I wouldn’t want anything I’ve written to be taken as an example.

This is yet another delightfully puzzling story from Aira.

The calendar says, It’s December 13. Please enjoy this interview with César Aira, author of The Musical Brain, from The Believer magazine, responsibly.