[READ: December 25, 2022] “A Present for Big Saint Nick”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 25. To officially conclude the 2022 Short Story Advent Calendar, we present a story about presents and surprises from the one and only Kurt Vonnegut. As always, thank you so much for reading. We hope you enjoyed it, and we’ll see you next year.
This story appears in Vonnegut’s collection Bagombo Snuff Box. I read it a long time ago and then again a couple of years ago.
It’s an actual Christmas story, but wow is it dark (and funny). (more…)
[READ: December 24, 2022] “An Exciting Christmas Eve; Or, My Lecture on Dynamite”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 24. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, passed away in 1930. His Holmes story “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” appeared in the 2016 Short Story Advent Calendar, among other places.
This story was so surprising. It was really funny. But it was also technically interesting and rather suspenseful. In short, a great story from the guy who brought s Sherlock Holmes.
Otto von Spee seeks a boring life. He is a scientist and wants nothing more than do his work in peace. He compares his own life to a fellow from his own school Leopold Waldenich, a scientist who professed to be a seeker of adventure.
And yet, while Waldenich studied, seeking excitement, not much happened to him. But during those same years in school, Otto damaged his eyesight studying poisonous gas, got food poisoning, was thrown out a window during a lecture for voicing an opinion that a hotheaded student disagreed with and nearly drowned twice. (more…)
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 23. Lucy Ellmann, author of Ducks, Newburyport, can count beads with the best of them.
I loved Ducks Newburyport, which was huge and hard to read and fun and funny. This story is short and easy to read and very peculiar.
It is a short story about Olive Oyl. Yes, the woman from the Popeye cartoons. (more…)
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 22. Lori Hahnel, author of Vermin, has practiced her scales enough for one day.
This story was utterly relatable.
A woman has moved from her home town to New York City and now her daughter is going to college in her home town. So when she visited her daughter for Family Weekend, she stays in her old house. Her mother has passed away, so she is staying with her father.
Her father wears jeans now. This is new. He has a new phone–his first smartphone–and he doesn’t like it. He deletes texts, doesn’t see the point of the threads.
You borrow your father’s car to drive to campus, but your daughter is in class. So you run an errand and miss everything. (more…)
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 21. Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, died in 1894 and would not return our emails.
Not many stories in this collection are actually Christmas stories, which is probably for the best. Who knows how that would go if you tries to corral them into a theme. But this one is. (more…)
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 20. John Elizabeth Stintzi, author of My Volcano, makes hay while the sun shines.
This was a crazy-on-the-surface story that had some lovely metaphorical reality underneath it.
When the narrator gets to college, her left pinky disappears. At the college ice breaker she says that her second interesting fact is that “I lost my left pinky finger after I moved in.” When her parents came to visit her father had made her a pinky out of wood to strap onto her hand. It fit perfectly.
She went home for holidays abut every time she returned to college a new part was missing–her ear, her foot. (more…)
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 17. Cynan Jones, author of Cove, hears those sleigh bells jingling.
This is the second story I’ve read by Cynan Jones and I seemed to have the same reaction. I didn’t expect to like it, but then really did and wanted it to be longer.
[READ: December 18, 2022] “The Skin of a Teenage Boy Is Not Alive”
This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar. This is my fifth 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
Like we always do at this time: the Short Story Advent Calendar is back for 2022. We had such a great time last year working with our first-ever guest editor, the one and only Alberto Manguel. This year, however, we’re bringing things back to basics. No overarching theme or format, just 25 top-class short stories, selected in-house, by some of the best writers in North America and beyond. It’s December 18. Senaa Ahmad, a Canadian short-fiction writer, has never been that bored.
There was an earlier story in this collection about the Satanic panic of the 1980s. This story about demonic possession in high school (metaphorical or not, I’m not entirely sure).
Parveen is a good Indian girl. There is one other Indian girl in their town, Aisha. The resolutely ignore each other at first but eventually become best friends. (more…)
[DID NOT ATTEND: December 17-18, 2022] Champagne Jam 2022
Every year for quite some time, The Front Bottoms have been doing a Champagne Jam at the close of the calendar year. Brooklyn Vegan talked about in 2019:
The Front Bottoms‘ annual holiday concert Champagne Jam has taken place in NYC and NJ in the past, and this year it moves to Philadelphia. It happens December 21 (the Saturday before Christmas) at The Fillmore Philly Complex.
2022 saw them return to Philly, which has three venues all more or less connected. I don’t know how the set times are structured–if there’s any way to see everyone (probably not). But then again, I dind;t want to see everyone.
I bought my son and I tickets to the Saturday December 17 show figuring it was one last opportunity to see The Front Bottoms (since we kept missing them for one reason or another). Then we wound up scheduling our own holiday jam for the same night.
So we weren’t going to go to the Friday night show anyhow, but here’s the full lineup:
Friday, December 16, 2022 in the Lobby
DJ Spicy Brown
Friday, December 16 2022 at The Foundry
Flycatcher are from New Brunswick, NJ According to The Deli
Flycatcher are a four-piece rock combo hailing from New Brunswick, New Jersey, three of whom have immaculately sculpted facial hair (well ok one of them has a bushy beard but still it’s neatly trimmed and shaped). On the musical side of things Flycatcher carry on in the fine tradition of immaculately sculpted extremely catchy power-pop-that-rocks made in the Tristate Area with oft-witty lyrics and a distinctly que será, será attitude as established by such legendary acts as Fountains of Wayne, The Feelies, The Smithereens, and the ripe-for-revival Cucumbers.
They sound like they are worth checking out–the one song I’ve listened to is pretty slackery.
Sweet Pill is an emo band from New Jersey. The band consists of vocalist Zayna Youssef, guitarist Jayce Williams, guitarist Sean McCall, bassist Ryan Cullen, and drummer Chris Kearney. The video I watched for High Hopes was super catchy (and set in a bowling alley).
Another Michael is a band who have opened for a bunch of shows I haven’t gone to. They play a kind of mellow indie rock with lead Michael’s vocals veering into R&B styles. Not quite my thing. But that’s only one dud in a bill I didn’t even think about going to.
Slothrust are from Boston. In a review from The Revue (in Canada) from 2021, they talk about an evolving band:
In the 8 years we’ve been covering Slothrust, we’ve seen the band change a lot musically. They’ve shifted from the early days of jazz-infused grunge, which eventually grew into much bigger and less easy to classify sounds. Each record feels like a rebirth, from Everyone Else having a fine polish on that distinctive Slothrust sound but expanding on it at the same time. The Pact felt like an even more diverse records, with the band diving more into electronic sounds and even diving into poppier sounds. It set up any future releases nicely to dive even more into the trio’s widening approach. Their latest record, Parallel Timeline, heralds yet another rebirth of the band. “Cranium” kicks off the record and immediately sets the tone. This is a slower Slothrust, as the chugging basslines and heavy drums are nowhere to be found. All the things that make Leah Wellbaum stand out as an artist, however, are on full display. Her voice, her surreal lyrics, and, at about halfway through the song, her guitar work. “Once More For The Ocean” hits a bit harder, kicking of with a ripping guitar solo, but it stays a bit in that pop realm with a bunch of sections that just beg to be sung along with.
Sounds like a really good night and some bands I should be on the look out for.
Friday, December 16, 2022 at Fillmore Philadelphia
Lunar Vacation I saw Lunar Vacation open for The Beths and they were great. I’d happily see them again.
Emperor X is from Louisville, Kentucky (and presumably not the Emperor X from Berlin). He plays a kind of low-fi pop that I see is described as a “bummer jam” which is absolutely not my thing.
Joyce Manor is a punk band from California who I always think are someone else. Their latest album 40 oz to Fresno was described by The New York Times (!!!) as “relentlessly tuneful 17-minute collection of all-killer, no-filler power-pop.” I rather like their clean punk sound.
The Front Bottoms are the stars of the night and the main attraction. They were, no doubt fantastic, and I love that they give a lot of other New Jersey bands a platform.
Saturday, December 17, 2022 at Brooklyn Bowl
Shannen Moser I’ve seen Shannen Moser twice. Her intense folk songs are quite good
Shane Henderson was the singer of Valencia and now does mostly production.
Tom May has “lived the dream” of being a full time, working, self-supporting folk musician. Tom is also the founder and host of the nationally-syndicated live radio program, River City Folk.
Kevin Devine is someone I love and I was really looking forward to seeing his set–and hoping that it didn’t conflict with any of the other headliners.
Saturday, December 17, 2022 at The Foundry
Riverby are from Philly. They are a fun indie rock band with a loose sound (and a cover of “Walk Through the Fire” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Hotline TNT is the shoegaze/indie rock project of singer-songwriter Will Anderson (a.k.a. Flip Sandy). The project began after Anderson moved from Vancouver to Minneapolis. Now based in New York, Anderson still handles the songwriting himself and has played live shows with several different lineups.
Kid Sister is a rapper who has appeared with Sault.
Saturday, December 17, 2022 at Fillmore Philadelphia
Prince Daddy & The Hyena is an American rock band from Albany, New York, formed in 2014 described as indie rock with punk and “slacker” influences
Soul Glo is a band I really want to see. They are an extreme punk band and will probably scare the heck out of me. It would have been safest to see them amid all of these other bands
Titus Andronicus is a band I should probably love, but I just can’t get into them.
The Front Bottoms headlining a second night.
This seems like a really fun festival.
Jordan Norris nicely posted a video of The Front Bottoms from both shows
Friday night:
Saturday night
Also
Also, The Flycatcher review had these two videos (because of a song called sodas in the freezer)
Last year, Modest Mouse was the first concert I saw after the pandemic. This year, Modest Mouse was the last concert I’ll see in 2022 (nothing dramatic about that, I just don’t have any more shows lined up until next year).
As I’ve said before, I wasn’t planning to see them. In fact, I felt like I had seen them even more recently than last year. But this was a special tour–the 25th anniversary tour of their album The Lonesome Crowded West, with a really stripped down band. Last time I saw them, there were six people on stage (there were like nine the previous show). This time it’s just a four piece: Isaac Brock and co-founder Jeremiah Green joined by (regular) bassist Russell Higbee and guitarist Simon O’Connor who played last time I saw them.
This meant a stripped down, really rocking show. Which befits the far more stripped down and rocking sound of this earlier album.
Normally I’m all about seeing the opening band. But I’ve had a few liberating experiences lately where i have deliberately blown off the opening band and been pleased with the decision. I hadn’t heard of the band Mattress. I looked them up before the show and learned that Mattress is the project of Rex Marshall. And that the act is pretty much Marshall wearing a gold lame suit and acting like an abrasive lounge singer.
I listened to a song online and decided that I did not need to stand through that. Sidenote: It reminded me a lot of Wetface the weird, is-it-a-joke band who opened for Built to Spill this summer. I sat through that twice and consider that my penance. (incidentally, I often think of Built to Spill and Modest Mouse in the same breath for some reason, so it’s interesting that they would have similar bands on this year’s tour).
So that mean I got to the Fillmore around 8:45. The evening happened to be one of the rainiest nights in recent memory. It rained hard. All day. I very much considered not going to this show because of the weather. But I decided to go and drove through the terrible lashing rain. I kinda thought that the rain might keep others away and, if I was arriving late, maybe I could get free parking at the the Fillmore lot. Indeed no. In fact, it was full. So I went past the lot and immediately got lost in the bowels of the roads beneath 95. Holy cow. I drove for about 8 minutes in crazy rain knowing where I was but having not idea where I actually was. I finally found my way to the casino for parking and hurries across to the venue only to find a lineup! (more…)
SOUNDTRACK:
I Just Read About That... 