SOUNDTRACK: LOS BITCHOS-“Trapdoor” (2018).
The first time I played this song I thought it sounded vaguely familiar. I don’t know that I ever would have guessed that it was a cover. But upon reading that it is a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard song, it absolutely makes sense.
They get the opening guitar sounds perfectly right and the lead guitar even sounds vaguely flute-like.
Of course, since the original is jam packed with words, it’s easy to not realize it’s the same song, but the melody is so great it works perfectly as an instrumental as well.
Los Bitchos keep the psychedelic feel of the song and just slow it down a bit (until the end) to make it even more dreamy.
Incidentally, I found out about Los Bitchos because their song came on right after King Gizzard’s new song on YouTube. Good programming, there!
[READ: July 14, 2020] “My Madeleine”
This issue of the New Yorker has a series of essays called Influences. Since I have read most of these authors and since I like to hear the story behind the story, I figured I’d read these pieces as well.
These later pieces are all about one page long.
Spark starts by saying that Marcel Proust is well-known for his Madeleine fetish. He put the cookie to his lips and is memories flooded back.
Spark’s “Madeleine” is an empty notebook–as soon as she sees one she wants to fill it.
Back in 1951, the London Observer had a short story contest.
Spark bought a new notebook and started writing about her favorite subjects –angelology and Baudelaire. She set it in Africa where she’d lived for a few years.
She called the story “The Seraph, the Zambesi and the Fanfarlo” (it has since been changed to “The Seraph and the Zambesi.”)
She finished it on a Saturday afternoon and then realized she had no typing paper. She really wanted to send it out right away but the shops were closed.
She saw that an art dealer’s shop was open. She asked if he sold paper. He didn’t. She asked if she could have a few pieces of what he must have of his own supply. She promised she would buy a picture if she won.
She won and bought a charcoal drawing for thirteen pounds. She bought a new dress, and gave her mother some money. I’m fascinated by this end: she gave “fifty pounds to another needy author who, strangely enough, began to detest me from that day.”
That sounds like the beginning not the end, to me.
Leave a Reply