SOUNDTRACK: THE BIRD AND THE BEE-12 Days of Christmas (2008).
I first heard a bit of this song in a Sephora a few years ago. Then they played it on New Girl (in two separate Christmas episodes). But I never knew who the artist was. Then some kind soul pointed me to the band and lo, I found the track.
I don’t know much else about the Bird and the Bee, but this is hands down my favorite rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas. In addition to the great, groovy sound (which reminds me of the Cocteau Twins), I just loved how…different the song sounded. Turns out, according to their soundcloud page, “we changed the song so that every repeat is a completely different progression.” I love it.
The song never gets boring and her voice is simply gorgeous. I only wish it was available for sale or download or something.
[READ: December 16, 2013] Five Dials #27
I was a little harsh on Five Dials Number 26, but overall, it still kept up the greatness that has been Five Dials. And #27 keeps up the excellence. Since Five Dials likes globetrotting, this issue is based in and around Greece, the county that is in tumult.
This one also has letters from Our Glorious Readers. One of the readers sensibly comments that the Berlin issue would keep her busy throughout the winter. Wish I had doled mine out better. I feel that Toronto gets a little knock from the editors who seem to think it is not as cool as Berlin. I also enjoyed the reader’s description of Peter Stamm’s writing as being like skiing.
CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Timelines and Greek Photographs
Taylor talks about the timelines that tend to appear in newspapers, most of which seem to talk about the collapse of something or other (like the Greek economy). After visiting Athens, Five Dials felt it was time to bring some Greek writing to English readers. The letter talks about the contents within and gives good context to Dimitris Tsoumblekas’ photos which are quite good but are even better when you know what they are doing–especially the one about his father. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: BOB DYLAN-Christmas in the Heart (2009).
I have been a dabbler in Dylan over the years. I like his hits, I like some of his albums, but I’ve never been a huge huge fan. So the biggest surprise to me was that Bob Dylan now sounds like Tom Waits. His voice is so crazily gravelly, it’s almost (almost) unrecognizable as Dylan.
That said, on some of the tracks it works very well–like he’s had too much to drink and is enjoying the revelry of these traditional songs. I imagine him as a benevolent uncle trying to get the family to sing along. And sing along they do. He has a group of backing singers who sound like they are straight out of the forties and fifties (on some songs the women sing incredibly high especially compared to Dylan’s growl). I’m not always sure it works, but when it does it’s quite something.
The first three songs are a lot of fun. However, when he gets to “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” it really sounds like he has hurt himself. He seems to really strain on some of those notes–note the way he pronounces “herald” (heeerald).
The more secular songs fare better with “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” sounding especially Waitsian and being all the better for it. Although I feel that perhaps he made up some lyrics–“presents on the tree?” It’s interesting that in “O Come, All Ye Faithful” he sings the first verse in Latin (I don’t know that I’ve heard any other pop singers do that) and it works quite well.
A less successful song is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in which the music just seems to be too slow for him. His verses end early and it seems like the backing singers are just out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the best song is “Must Be Santa.” I love this arrangement (by Brave Combo) and Dylan has a ton of fun with it (and the video is weirdly wonderful too).
“Christmas Blues” is a bit of a downer (as the title might suggest). I’d never heard this song before and Dylan is well suited to it. Dylan’s version of “The Little Drummer Boy” is also very good–he croons gently and his voice sounds really good. I was surprised to hear him do “Christmas Island,” a song I have come to love this year–his version is quite fun as well, with the backing singer doing Aloha-ays.
Finally, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is pitched a wee bit high for him (and the Waits voice is more scary than avuncular here).
So overall it’s a weird collection (to say nothing of the artwork–both the cover and the inside cover), but I think it’s well suited to the day after the festivities.
[READ: December 15, 2013] Five Dials #26
I was shocked to realize who many Five Dials issued I had put off reading (and that this one came out over a year ago!). I knew 26 was a large issue, so I put it off. And then put it off. And then put it off, until Issue 29 came out. (I read 29 before this one, which got me to jump back and tackle this large one).
I have to admit I did not enjoy this one as much as previous Five Dials. The bulk of the issue was taken up with German short stories, and I don’t know if it was the choices of the editors, but (a few) of the stories just didn’t grab me at all. Having said that, there were one or two that I thought were very good. But with this being such a large issue, perhaps it deserved to be spaced out a little better–Weltanschauung fatigue, no doubt.
This issue starts with Letters from Our Glorious readers and other sources.
I feel like this is a new feature for Five Dials (although again, it has been a while). There is applause for the Bears (From Issue #24) and the acknowledgement of Zsuzsi Gartner’s first adoptees of her story ideas (Issue #25 Pt 1). There’s also the amusing story of a guy who got nailed at work for printing the color issue (something I used to do at my old job as well) and a refraining of answering spam.
CRAIG TAYLOR-On Ewen and German
Taylor doesn’t say much in this intro, since the “heavy lifting” is done by Anna Kelly. He does mention Paul Ewen (and his food writing) and the first Five Dials questionnaire (which I assume it is too late (and too far away) for me to submit for that free HH book).
ANNA KELLY
She explains about wanting to know secrets, and how when she was little, learning Pig Latin was a such a huge boon to her secretive life. Then her sister started studying German, and Anna herself was hooked. She says that reading German works in German is like flying. And she wants to share German language writers with us. Of course, we won’t be reading them in German, so there will be no flying. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“Silent Night/Lord Can You Hear Me” (2008).
The last Flaming Lips Christmas song I heard was their rendition of “White Christmas” which is creepy and just awful. For this one, they picked a much prettier song (“Silent Night”) and they don’t mess with it at all. They keep it very simple–echoed keyboards and some backing vocals with Wayne Coyne’s autotuned voice singing properly. It is certainly not the best version of the song I’ve heard, but it is at least pretty.
The song segues into “Lord, Can You Hear Me” which follows the same simple instrumentation as “Silent Night” and nearly keeps the same melody. It’s not so much a song as a coda to “Silent Night.”
This single came out around the time of Christmas on Mars and includes as the B-side “It’s Christmas Time Again.”
[READ: December 6, 2013] Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Speckled Band
Since I’m going to write about a few of these, I’ll keep up this little intro bit so I don’t have to re-write the general ideas/criticisms.
These are indeed the actual Arthur Conan Doyle stories just severely edited and truncated. In other words, a lot of the story is cut out and yet the original language is still in place (at least I hope it is, I hope contemporary writers didn’t write the dialogue), so for young kids I think the wording is a little confusing. The drawings are a little too simple for my liking as well. They do effectively convey the story, but I didn’t like the very basicness of them. I feel they make the stories seems a little more childlike than they actually are.
Having said all that however, I found the graphic novels to be a compelling introduction to Sherlock Holmes’ shorter stories (although not for my 8-year-old apparently).
This is the last book of the series that I have read–there are apparently 14 as of this writing. I don’t think I’ll be reading any more as I feel like I am getting such a small amount of the story that it would be more worthwhile to simply read the actual stories (which I had planned to do anyhow). Reading these feels like I’m getting the answer to the puzzle ahead of time. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: BOB AND ROBIN’S EXCELLENT HOLIDAY ADVENTURE, NPR, December 19, 2013 (2013).
Every year NPR airs a holiday music special (I’ve been posting from them for the last few days). Initially, they were like any of the episodes, with descriptions of the songs. Then they became a music only playlist (which was kind of nice). Then they added some guests. Last year they did a very enjoyable story of Bob and Robin together having a party that no one came to. This year, today, they have released the 2013 edition.
In this story, Bob and Robin are driving to Kansas in a huge snowstorm. They listen to some carols on the radio. And then when the snow gets too bad they pull over into a small hotel. Then Bob falls asleep and is visited in his dream by Annie Clark (St. Vincent), John Vanderslice, Wayne Coyne (Flaming Lips), Josh Ritter and Jess Wolf (Lucius) who tell some great memories of Christmas.
The songs they play are wonderfully diverse as usual (although there’s no Hanukkah songs this year, as Hanukkah was last month). They range from standard favorites (Burl Ives’ “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”) to very traditional songs (“Coventry Carol” an instrumental “sleigh Ride”) to funny songs (“Christmastime for the Jews”) to a brand new one: The Flaming Lips playing “Silent Night/Lord Can You Hear Me” (which completely makes up for their dreadful “White Christmas” from several years ago).
This is a wonderfully enjoyable story/holiday special. Listen and enjoy.
[READ: December 7, 2013] Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Dancing Men
Since I’m going to write about a few of these, I’ll keep up this little intro bit so I don’t have to re-write the general ideas/criticisms.
These are indeed the actual Arthur Conan Doyle stories just severely edited and truncated. In other words, a lot of the story is cut out and yet the original language is still in place (at least I hope it is, I hope contemporary writers didn’t write the dialogue), so for young kids I think the wording is a little confusing. The drawings are a little too simple for my liking as well. They do effectively convey the story, but I didn’t like the very basicness of them. I feel they make the stories seems a little more childlike than they actually are.
Having said all that however, I found the graphic novels to be a compelling introduction to Sherlock Holmes’ shorter stories (although not for my 8-year-old apparently).
This story features the fascinating name of Hilton Cubitt. He comes to Holmes with a confounding problem. He has discovered a slip of paper with stick figured men drawn on it. When he showed it to his wife, she absolutely freaked out. But she won’t tell him why. So he brings the paper to Holmes to figure out what the heck is going on.
Since I haven’t read the original of this story, I feel like the graphic novel is a better medium for this story because of the titular dancing men. Perhaps the original has drawings in it, but if not, the graphic novel’s version which contains the stick figures corresponding to letters is a very successful way of quickly showing the trick. (Even if, again, I don’t love the illustrations).
Holmes can’t do much with one slip of paper–he can’t even decode the pattern because there’s so little to go on. But then more dancing men appear, and Cubitt brings more evidence to Holmes. Holmes is able to crack the code (I couldn’t, but I wonder if there was more information given in the real story?). Anyhow, Holmes has cracked the code, but that still doesn’t really solve the problem, which is the message within the code.
This may have been another case where more information would have made the story a bit more compelling. It seems a little too easy that the “bad guy” is spotted, giving Holmes a pretty easy capture. Nevertheless, I do love a good puzzle and I’m curious to read how well the dancing men are described in the original.
In 2006, Stephen Thompson from NPR made a list of the Best, Worst and Weirdest Holiday Albums. One of the weirdest is Christmas is 4-Ever by Bootsy Collins. Starting with the wonderfully weird cover art.
Bootsy starts out by thanking Mrs Claus and then calls himself Booty Claus. He tells us also that he named his weird reindeer Chucky coz he’s funky.
Once the song itself starts, the verse is pretty straightforward, but it’s interspersed with Bootsy’s peculiar sultry talking. About 2 minutes in (the song is 6 minutes long) a new singer introduces some new lyrics, although it quickly gets back on track. The song also features a crazy fiddle solo from Charlie Daniels.
What I find so weird about this song is the presumed funk doesn’t really seem to be in the music. Bootsy’s speaking is certainly funky, but the music itself doesn’t have a lot of funk. And yet, by around 4 and a half minutes I was starting to feel it (perhaps it was the bow wow wows).
Experience it yourself
[READ: December 7, 2013] Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Blue Gem
Since I’m going to write about a few of these, I’ll keep up this little intro bit so I don’t have to re-write the general ideas/criticisms.
These are indeed the actual Arthur Conan Doyle stories just severely edited and truncated. In other words, a lot of the story is cut out and yet the original language is still in place (at least I hope it is, I hope contemporary writers didn’t write the dialogue), so for young kids I think the wording is a little confusing. The drawings are a little too simple for my liking as well. They do effectively convey the story, but I didn’t like the very basicness of them. I feel they make the stories seems a little more childlike than they actually are.
Having said all that however, I found the graphic novels to be a compelling introduction to Sherlock Holmes’ shorter stories (although not for my 8-year-old apparently).
This was one of my favorite of the five stories I read because of the humorous (in my opinion) way that the titular blue gem was hidden–and ultimately found. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: JULIAN KOSTER-“Frosty the Snowman” (2008).
The name of this track doesn’t prepare you for what lies inside. For that, you need the album title: Singing Saw at Christmas. Julian Koster (who is part of the Elephant 6 collective) and has a love it or hate it voice, also plays the singing saw (another love it or hate it sound).
And so, in 2008 he released an album of Singing Saw Christmas Carols. And NPR played it on their Holiday Show. The version is simultaneously beautiful and terribly unsettling. It’s hard to even know what it is if you aren’t aware that it is a saw (I at first guessed theremin).
I enjoy hearing it (and it is very short), but I don’t think I could bring myself to listen to a whole album.
Koster released a short holiday video in which he plays a song and tells a story. To watch him play the saw (with a fellow saw player, tune in around 3:50).
[READ: December 6, 2013] Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure at the Abbey Grange
Since I’m going to write about a few of these, I’ll keep up this little intro bit so I don’t have to re-write the general ideas/criticisms.
These are indeed the actual Arthur Conan Doyle stories just severely edited and truncated. In other words, a lot of the story is cut out and yet the original language is still in place (at least I hope it is, I hope contemporary writers didn’t write the dialogue), so for young kids I think the wording is a little confusing. The drawings are a little too simple for my liking as well. They do effectively convey the story, but I didn’t like the very basicness of them. I feel they make the stories seems a little more childlike than they actually are.
Having said all that however, I found the graphic novels to be a compelling introduction to Sherlock Holmes’ shorter stories (although not for my 8-year-old apparently).
This story also struck me as unusual (perhaps I just have certain expectations of Holmes’ that are not quite right). Holmes usually comes across as cocky (and frankly, obnoxious) when he finds a clue. In this case he seemed almost deferential to the police (maybe the modern interpretations of Holmes show him to be more obnoxious). Even though he felt things were not right about the clues, he didn’t insist upon correcting them immediately. He even took the police’s word for things (unheard of!). Although perhaps that was all planned out because of what happens at the end. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: JAMES BROWN-“Soulful Christmas” (1968).
I enjoy the funk. And I enjoy funking up The Christmas. So this seemed like a song or album I should have been familiar with already. And yet I wasn’t. I fear I know too much of Brown’s less than stellar 80s work rather than his awesome 60s and 70s work.
So NPR played this song in the 2010 Holiday Show, and I was immediately grabbed by the funky bass of the song. The song is all about how much Brown loves us and wants to wish us a Happy Christmas and New Year.
The song doesn’t really deviate from the funky bass line (and indeed why should it?) and it turns more or less into an improv.
The song gets a little weird around 2 and a half minutes when he starts telling us how much he loves his fans, well, because they buy his records and come to see his shows (that’s why he loves us so). It’s a weirdly worded sentiment, but I’m sure it’s heartfelt. Next year there may have to be more funk at Chritsmastime.
[READ: December 5, 2013] Sherlock Holmes and a Scandal in Bohemia
I’m always looking for interesting graphic novels for the kids, so I was pretty excited to see this Sherlock Holmes collection (although maybe more for myself than them). In fact, C. didn’t seem that interested in them. I was a little surprised as he enjoys detective stuff but when I read this first one I felt the language was a little stilted (for a comic book). These are indeed the actual Arthur Conan Doyle stories just severely edited and truncated. In other words, a lot of the story is cut out and yet the original language is still in place (at least I hope it is, I hope contemporary writers didn’t write the dialogue), so for young kids I think the wording is a little confusing.
The drawings are a little too simple for my liking as well. They do effectively convey the story, but I didn’t like the very basicness of them. I feel they make the stories seems a little more childlike than they actually are.
Having said all that however, I found the graphic novels to be a compelling introduction to Sherlock Holmes’ shorter stories (although not for my 8-year-old apparently).
This story introduces us to the infamous (in Holmes’ circle) Irene Adler, the woman who was able to best Holmes. It seems like a really odd place to start this series of books if you are new to Holmes, because Holmes more or less admits that Adler has outsmarted him, which seems to undermine his skills somewhat. This story was the first short story to feature Holmes, but he had already appeared in two novels. So readers were familiar with his skills, whereas contemporary readers might wonder what the fuss is about., which you don;t get to read here. (more…)
The single opens with “Rafmagnið búið” a kind of brass introductory piece. There’s lots of horns building slowly, growing louder but not really playing a melody. By the end of five minutes, it segues into “Ný batterí” which opens with horns as well. Then the bass comes in, a slow, deep rumble of simple melody. After 4 and a half minutes, the drums are a powerful counterpoint to the sweet melody.
“Bíum bíum bambaló” is a slow piece (aren’t they all) that is mostly percussion. Apparently it is an Icelandic lullaby. The final track, “Dánarfregnir og jarðarfarir” was a theme used for death announcements on Icelandic radio. I love the way it builds from a simple melody into a full rock band version and then back again. It’s very dramatic.
Both tracks were used in the film Angels of the Universe (and appear on the soundtrack).
That certainly makes this single less interesting than the first one (although I’m not sure that the soundtrack was readily available at the time).
[READ: December 1, 2013] Breakfast on Mars
This is a collection of 38 essays (and an introduction by Margaret Cho). It also includes an introduction geared toward teachers–an appeal that essays do not need to be dull or, worse yet, scary. The editors encourage teachers to share these essays with students so they get a feel for what it’s like to write compelling personal nonfiction. The introduction proper gives a brief history of the essay and then talks about the kind of fun and funny (and serious) essays that are included here.
This was a largely fun and largely interesting collection of essays. When I grabbed it from the library I didn’t realize it was essays (I was intrigued by the title and then looked at the author list and immediately brought it home). I know it says essays on the cover, but I chose to ignore that apparently. When Sarah saw the authors (she knows more of them than I do) she had to read it first. This proved to be a great counterpoint to the very large novel that I was reading at the same time.
The essays each take on different topics. And what I liked was that before each essay, they include the question that inspired the essay. I have included the questions here. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: NEIL HALSTED-“Wittgenstein’s Arm” (2012).
Halsted was a founder of the band Slowdive, who I knew somewhat. I don’t know anything of his solo work, although his name rang a little familiar.
This is a very pretty, slow acoustic ballad. Halsted’s voice is whispery and with proper folk inflections. The chorus has a very catchy melody. And yet the lyrics are really dark and sad.
And while there is a mention of an arm in the song, there’s no mention of Wittgenstein.
You can check out the video here:
[READ: November 3, 2013] Wittgenstein’s Mistress p. 181-end
This peculiar book draws to a close in much the same way that it started. There are a few interesting revelations or, if not revelations, then perhaps ponderables as to the nature of just what our narrator (who is apparently named Helen) is doing.
As this last section opens, she is revisiting some more of the things that have been on her mind for the book—the waterlogged atlas that lies flat on the shelf and that blasted arthritic should/ankle .
I have been wondering about her constant references to her period. In addition to simply being something that happens to her which she is recording, I have to wonder if it is a nod to her fertility and the fact that since she is the last person alive she will never bear children. On a slightly related note, I also have to wonder if her focus on rape means she was once raped. It’s not necessarily the case of course, but there is a lot of it in the book, like this next mention: (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: PANIC-Requiem for Martin Heidegger (1978).
Panic was a Dutch punk band. Their album 13 came out in 1978 and “Requiem for Martin Heidegger” was the final track. I love the album cover (and no I had never heard of this band either).
The lyrics are wonderfully simple (and no you won’t learn a thing about the man) with the completely singable chorus of “Hi-Degger, Hi-Degger, Hi-Degger, Hi-Degger, Hi!”
There are some other lyrics (including ein, zwei, drei, vier) and “Is he in heaven, is he in hell, where has he gone? no one can tell.”
There’s some introductory chatter which I think is in German, but may be in Dutch. But that’s all irrelevant, because this is three minutes of classic 70s punk. And the video is a hoot too.
[READ: October 30, 2013] Wittgenstein’s Mistress p. 120-180
Although I read the first half of this book rather quickly, I took some time off before reading this section. The good news is that this book does not require constant attention. The bad news is that because there are so many details in the book (whether “relevant” or not) it’s easy to forget if she has talked about the different pieces before. And that is kind of the point from her a well, since she constantly questions whether she has talked about something or not.
I’m breaking from my normal summary for a minute because I wanted to bring up something that struck me as I was reading this. Several times throughout the book I found myself searching the web for ideas and facts that she mentions. And it struck me that, while yes, in her world, the internet wouldn’t be working anyhow—there’s no electricity even—but she would not even have the concept of being able answer her questions with a few clicks. This book wasn’t written that long ago, but when it was, the internet as we know it didn’t exist. So our narrator does not know that she could have answered all of her questions in just seconds. If this book was written now, it might even be seen as a “point” that the world no longer has such easy access to information. But that is not an issue in this book. Rather, our narrator simply knows that unless she is willing to dig through boxes or really wrack her brain to be able to remember where she found the information (and we know that’s not going to be successful), she simply won’t “know” what she knows. And it’s interesting to imagine what it was like to read this book back in the 1980s without being able to quickly confirm that indeed Wittgenstein said this or Heidegger said that or even that any of the artists she mentions really did what she says. And I find that really fascinating.
Vaguely connected to this idea is her wondering about some details of the Savona soccer jerseys and then saying “One is scarcely about to return to Savona to check on this, however.” (122). (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE BIRD AND THE BEE-12 Days of Christmas (2008).
I first heard a bit of this song in a Sephora a few years ago. Then they played it on New Girl (in two separate Christmas episodes). But I never knew who the artist was. Then some kind soul pointed me to the band and lo, I found the track.
I Just Read About That... 