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Archive for the ‘Audiobooks’ Category

[LISTENED TO: November 2021] Girl in a Band

I didn’t really have that much interest in this book when it came out.  I love Sonic Youth, but I didn’t really think I cared all that much about their origin stories.  Then I saw that there was an audio book read by Kim and that sounded pretty cool.

I realized that I had no idea anything about Kim Gordon’s life and it was fascinating to learn just how much of a bohemian artist she was before she joined the band.

The memoir starts with the final Sonic Youth show.  Kim and Thurston’s divorce was already going to happen.  They simply wanted to finish out their final shows.  So Kim played while watching her disappointment of a husband absorb all the adulation.

But Kim’s book isn’t a salacious tell-all. It’s the story of her life and how she wound up where she did.  In fact, there’s very little about Sonic Youth (a lot more about the earliest records and then bits and pieces about the later records).  And, while she’s obviously pissed at Thurston for what he did, she’s restrained in her need to thrash the guy.

Perhaps the biggest take away from the book is that after thirty years of being in a rock band, she doesn’t consider herself a musician or a Rock Star (maybe a small letter rock star).  That eye opening statement is a kind of lead in to the fact that she has been an artist for most of her life–just not necessarily in music.

She moved to New York from California in 1980.  It’s crazy thinking that Kim was a California girl.

It’s even crazier thinking about her older brother Keller who was manipulative and mean and ultimate institutionalized. Kim idolized him and he abused her terribly (more than an older brother might normally do).  All of this made Kim into the shy and sensitive woman who you would never think was responsible for some of the most iconoclastic and then iconic music of the 20th century. (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: November 2021] A Natural History of Dragons

This book sounded interesting. I knew nothing about it (aside from the title) and had no idea it would unfold the way it did.

Turns out that Kate Reading, whom I didn’t know, was an outstanding reader. She did male voices so compellingly that I forgot it was just one reader.

The book is a memoir.  The book feels like a Victorian novel (where a woman is not allowed to have the kind of adventures she ultimately does).  Reading reads Lady Trent in a kind of slow, deliberate, older, upper class lady voice.  It felt a wee bit slow at first, although I couldn’t imagine her doing it any other way.

Lady Isabella Tent is the leading scholar on dragons.  Indeed, the book starts:

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth into the clear light of modern science.

Each chapter even has an olde-fashioned style in which the chapter heading summarizes what’s to be found within.  Lady Trent is an old woman now, finished with the excitement of her life and all that she has accomplished and she has decided that rather than answering all of the letters she gets all the time, that she would set the record straight and write her memoirs.

She starts from her early childhood and her tone is at one approving and occasionally disbelieving in the kind of person she was.

When Lady Trent was young Isabella, she had a unladylike desire to be scientific.  When she first captured a “sparkling” (this book is written as if we would know what she’s talking about since it is a memoir of a famous person’s exploits.  If you don’t know what a sparkling is, well, where have you been?).

Her mother was horrified by her behavior.  I mean what kind of girl dissects a bird to see how it can fly?  A scientific genius, that’s what kind. (more…)

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[READ: Summer 2021] The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

I loved the name of this book.  The fact that it was put out by Quirk Books was a major plus.

This book was read by Bahni Turpin and she was magnificent.  I was hooked right from the start.  I loved her Southern accents and the way she made each character unique and easily recognizable.

In the preface to the book, Hendrix explains that this novel is a kind of apology for his earlier novel My Best Friend’s Exorcism.   In that novel teenagers were the protagonists and parents were cast as trouble for them.  He felt the need to address the concerns of the parents this time around.

I love the way the characters clearly love their children but are also realistic about them:  “Being a teenager isn’t a number,” says Maryellen. “It’s the age when you stop liking them.”

The story opens in a hilarious way.

It’s 1988 and Grace Cavanaugh had started a book club,  She wanted all of the women in her circle to read the classics.  This month’s book was Cry, The Beloved Country.  Grace was the quintessential Southern woman.  Her house was perfect.  Her thick pile carpets were white and immaculate (the way she inwardly cringes as cheese straws land on the carpet is hilarious).  She did not allow for anything improper.  She expected people to do what was proper.  Like finish the book club book.

The story zooms in on Patricia Campbell.  She needed the book club,  But she did not read the book.

She was given twenty minutes to talk about the book.  And the way she tries to stretch it out is hilarious.  Eventually Grace calls her out on it.  And is very disappointed in her.  Soon enough, though, the other women reveal that they didn’t read it either.

On her way to her car Patricia is stopped by Kitty Scruggs, another book club woman.  She invites Patricia to join the book club that she has just started.  It’s going to be her and Slick Paley, a conservative Christian (with an amazing accent, thank you Bahni) who seems dumb but is far from dumb, and Maryellen, a Yankee transplant (who has a very different accent which is nice to hear).  Eventually, even Grace joins because they are going to be reading the most salacious true crime books they can find.

Each of the women is married and their families are very different.  Patricia’s husband is straight-laced.  Her daughter is just old enough to be sarcastic to her and her son, Blue (that name is explained about 3/4 of the way through the book) has suddenly become obsessed with Nazis.  Basically, she needs these women.

Five years later, the book club is still going and the women feel closer to each other than ever (although Patricia doesn’t feel super close to Grace, because who could, really).  Then one night, a night that Blue didn’t take out the garbage, Patricia walks to where the cans are stored and is attacked.  The assailant is an old woman.  She acts crazy and even though Patricia knows her, she can’t talk sense into her. The old woman bites off part of her ear (which becomes quite a conversation piece, obviously). (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: October 2021] Three Hearts and Three Lions

Every since I signed up for Chirp audio books, I’ve been able to really indulge my love of Bronson Pinchot as a reader.

I bought this book without knowing much about it.  I basically make sure that the books aren’t war books, because I don’t care about that subject, and if it’s not, then I’m on board.

This book was a cool sci-fi fantasy story by an author whom I had heard of but didn’t know anything about.  Imagine my surprise to find out that book was initially written in 1953 as a novella and expanded into a novel for 1961!  I was especially surprised because there is some serious science a the book opens which seemed far more contemporary.

Holger Carlsen is an engineer.  The prologue of the story shows him working in an engineering department and talking about science-y stuff.  The story is about Carlsen, but told from a different point of view.  Pinchot gets to use a Danish accent for all of his speaking parts.

The narrator talks about what happens as if it is not believable but that he is going to relate the story anyway: “Holger’s tale does not seem altogether impossible to me. Not that I claim it’s true.”  He says that Carlsen was generally well-liked and respected.  And this is his story.

Carlsen decided to join the Danish resistance in fighting Nazis in WWII.  The fighting is going well, and the American forces are known to be coming.  But Holger is shot.  He wakes up naked in an unfamiliar place.

He looks around.  Things seem normal, although he can’t explain his nakedness.  He wanders around and finds a horse who is not afraid of him.  He also finds a cottage that has clothes which fit him,  Things seem off somehow, though, and he genuinely can’t get his bearings.

Soon enough he meets an old woman who claims to be a witch. She speaks a language he doesn’t know and yet he understands her.  Through a drawn out discussion and some revelations, he realizes that he is kind of a medieval knight and he sees a shield emblazoned with three hearts and three lions. (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: Summer 2021] How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge

The only thing better than finishing an awesome book is discovering that there’s a sequel and the quality and integrity of the sequel is just as strong as the original story.

Everything from the first story is in place here: the characters, the narrator, the tone, and, delightfully, Nicole Poole to read it.

Obviously, there are massive spoilers in this book for the first story.  So make sure you read that one first.

But to sum up, Rory successfully avoid an arranged marriage (while not upsetting her arranged husband).  She is able to shut down a coup on Urse and ultimately kick-starts a revolution.  Not bad for an under age Princess.

But she is done with being a Princess.  She rescinds her life and goes off to become a space pirate.  She has taken her former royal bodyguards, Thorsdottir and Zhang (so yes, there’s even more time given to these two great characters!) with her.  They pledge to protect Rory so they guess they just go with her?  And Jaed has come along with them too, mostly because he has nowhere else to go (literally) and he crushes on Rory, too.

So Rory’s team aren’t so much space pirates as do-gooders.  They are more like salvagers who might intercept smugglers (this is the equivalent of her telling her mom she’s going to follow Phish and make jewelry).

And for all concerned, Grytt is still in the story although as it starts, she is on Lanscott farming sheep (!) with Rory’s former betrothed Ivar (!!) former crow prince of the Free Worlds of Tadesh {No they are not “together” Grytt is mostly just minding the poor boy while she is “relaxing”).  Grytt by the way needed more implants after the last book and is probably 3/5 mecha to human.  Which she seems to prefer, honestly. (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: Summer 2021] How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

This book title appealed to me immediately.  And I loved it.  The story is convoluted in the best way and Nicole Poole is an excellent reader.

The one bad thing about an audio book as opposed to reading the book yourself is that you don’t get to see how certain words are spelled (although it saves all the trouble of trying to figure out how to pronounce them).

The book is set in a futuristic world where space travel is common and war is far more common.

Rory was born into the Thorne family as something of a surprise.  There hadn’t been a female offspring in the Thorne family for ten generations.  The name Rory was reserved for first born males.  But it was determined that the name was gender-neutral enough that the girl could also have the name, no matter how unsettled it made people.

Then Eason sets about establishing this world–with great detail and thoroughness.  Some of which I’ll try to capture. The story is set on the Thorne Consortium, the planet where Rory’s father is King.

Rory’s mother is the Consort.  She was from Kreshti, “a small independent and allied planet on which skill with combat training was considered both a plain necessity.”

Incidentally, the narrator is telling the story as a history lesson and she is far from neutral.

They are both served by the Vizier, a man gifted in arithmancy and scholarship.  “Finding quaint, forgotten, and neglected customs was his second favorite pastime in the multiverse. Explaining to others the relevance of those ancient customs was the first.”

The Vizier discovered that it was customary to invite the faeries to bestow blessings on each new born girl.  The King is annoyed by this–it never happened for any of the boys (and they had invented void-flight with no magic needed). (more…)

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[LISTENED TO: August 2020] Furthermore

The pandemic pretty much nixed our summer plans.  But we decided to look for someplace close by, in a low-infection rate area, for a short getaway.  It only amounted to a two night trip, but it was well appreciated.  We traveled to the Lake George region and that meant we needed an audio book.

I absolutely love Bronson Pinchot as a narrator.  I will listen to literally anything he reads.  He tends to read darker materials, so the only trick is trying to find something family-friendly.  Fortunately, he reads a lot of those as well.  I’d never heard of this book before (although I was vaguely aware of Mafi’s other series “Shatter Me”).  But as soon as I saw that Pinchot was reading it, I checked it out.

The only bad thing about Pinchot’s narration in this story is that there aren’t all that many characters in it.  Pinchot has an astonishing range of voices at his disposal.  So, to only show off 8 or so means you can’t fully appreciate how great he is.  But the voices he chose were outstanding.

And the story was really interesting.  Mafi has taken a fairly common idea–travelling to another world–and has infused it with all kinds of novel ideas and conceits.

First off, the original world that the characters start in is not our own.  Alice Alexis Queensmeadow lives in Ferenwood, a land full of magic.  Magic is so integral to Ferenwood, that it is a part of everything–including the people who live there.  And that magic is displayed through color.  Color that is abundant and vibrant and breathtaking.

Except for Alice.  Alice was born without color.  She is pale as anything.  Her hair is white, her skin is white–she is unlike anyone else in Ferenwood and she hates that about herself. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: WIRE-Tiny Desk Concert #976 (May 27, 2020).

I feel that it is something of a failure on my part that I never really got into Wire.

Although I don’t know why, I will never forget that their 1988 album is called A Bell is a Cup … Until It is Struck (I was working at a radio station when it came out and “Kidney Bingos” was a minor hit).  But I never really followed through with them.

Bob Boilen, on the other hand, is a huge fan.

For me, it was beyond surreal to watch Wire performing at my desk, in broad daylight, in 2020. I spent many an evening over the past 40 years, listening to their original, artful bursts of noise and imagery, seeing them in dark clubs in the ’80s and beyond. From the time I first heard them in 1977, few bands have encapsulated my musical aesthetics like Wire.

There have been some hiatuses for Wire since their debut in 1977 (from 1981-1985 and 1993-1999) but each time they reunited, it was the original four person lineup.

It was only ten years ago that guitarist Bruce Gilbert officially left the band.  But at the Tiny Desk,

there they were, with three original bandmates: Colin Newman, singing his enigmatic poetry, and those driving rhythms of Graham Lewis on bass and Robert Grey (aka Robert Gotobed) on drums. Matthew Simms was the “new” bandmate, having now played with the band for the past 10 years.

Thankfully, Wire plays four songs (they still only play for 15 minutes and they are Bob’s favorite band).

What’s most remarkable is how the sound of songs such as “Cactused” from their 17th album, Mind Hive, sit so well next to “French Film Blurred” from their 1978 album — and one of my favorite records ever made — Chairs Missing.

“Cactused” has a cool chugging rhythm and bass.  Newman sings in his deadpan, almost spoken delivery.  Newman plays the little guitar leads while.  It stops on a dime.  This band is tight.

“Be Like Them” is also new.  I love this song.  It’s got a slinky guitar riff which is  accompanied by three loud thumps (drums and bass) to accent the verses.  Simms plays a really cool noise-filled “solo” (really just some noisy chords) in the middle of the song.  Newman is once again kind of deadpan reciting his lyrics.

“French Film Blurred” is from 1978. It’s got an unusual riff and Newman sings a bit more than speaks, although he is still restrained.  They make great use of the two guitars with Simms adding all kinds of sounds while Newman plays the main melody.

Everyone tunes and then Newman says they’re going to play “an obscurity from the 80s that we revived into the current set.”  “The Offer” is from 1989’s ITABA.  It’s slower and rather quiet.  There’s even some gently picked guitar parts from Simms. But as it nears the end the song gets louder and louder with Sims adding a distorted and a flanging guitar.   The songs seems like it’s over, but while everything is ringing out, Newman pays a few ending chords.

Try and imagine your favorite artist today, playing a concert in someone’s office in 2062 and still having an emotional impact with extraordinary new songs. As I said, it’s beyond surreal and genuinely thrilling.

Wire played their Washington DC show on March 9, so that’s probably when this concert occurred (and therefore MUST have been the final Tiny Desk Concert before the quarantine].  Wire were playing Philly on March 10.  I had considered going but I had a lot of other shows to see in March so I didn’t want to overload.

This set was so good, I wish I had gone to see them. Maybe they’ll be back in 2021.

[READ: May 20, 2020] Five Years #10

This is the final issue of Five Years (I think).

It was supposed to be released during the Coronavirus epidemic.  But Abstract Studios offered a special cover (so I don’t know what the proper cover looks like yet).

NEWS: We’re going to release a tiny print run of Five Years #10 for subscribers, & anyone who wants one really. This is for those reading the single issues who don’t want to wait months to read the final chapter. If not a subscriber, you can pre-order a copy in our store now. Just CLICK HERE.

The rumor is Diamond Comics will reopen this summer and we will be able to stagger release issue 9 and 10 to the general public then. 9 is sitting in their warehouse, waiting like a rodeo bull. For the small number hooked on the single issues, we feel you deserve 10 now, because without your monthly support the series couldn’t have happened at all.

So I bought the limited edition cover because I wanted to finish the series.  I didn’t think he could possibly end the series with this issue as it seemed like there was too much up in the air. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: MICHAEL McDONALD-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #4 (March 26, 2020).

I was never a fan of the Doobie Brothers, although I do like a few of their songs.  To me, especially now, Michael McDonald’s voice has the quintessential mockable tone and style.  If I were to sing in a voice that I thought was funny, it would sound like him.

Now, he sang on the Thundercat album “Drunk” so that gives him some cred for me, but it’s hard for me to listen to this Tiny Desk Home Concert.

Shows what I know, though, since he is hugely popular and is a “five-time Grammy winner and 2020 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.

After Michael McDonald finished “Matters Of The Heart,” the opening song in his Tiny Desk (home) concert, there was a brief pause. The bewilderment on his face was unmistakable. It’s a look I believe we all can relate to in this moment of uncertainty. He sat in his home studio, complete with an illustration of the Tiny Desk drawn by Mr. McDonald himself. That pause, usually reserved for the anticipated applause, was replaced by complete silence.

“Matters” is slow and ponderous.  It lasts nearly 6 minutes and sounds like a ballad I would have hated in the 90s.

I hate to be so mean to him, because he seems like a nice enough guy.  But my comments surely won’t affect him too much.

He then proceeded to play two 1978 Doobie Brothers classics that showcase his still-golden voice: “Minute By Minute” and “What A Fool Believes.”

He jokes: “If you know the words, sing along with me at home,” he said. “I won’t know if you’re singing well or not because I can’t hear you here.”

I enjoy these two Doobie Brothers songs, although  don’t really know the words–I had no idea that the song was called “What a Fool Believes” until about twenty years after I first heard it.  I much prefer the full band to these rather stripped down versions.

[READ: March 10, 2020] The Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy

It’s amusing to me that this book by Paul Myers, has an introduction by Seth Meyers and mentions Mike Myers.

Seth says that he was interning at Comedy Central and was doing a great job.  Then he found The Kids in The Hall (which he had never seen before). He became so obsessed with it that he started slacking off.  His boss at Comedy Central said that initially he was planing on offering Seth a job but after all the slacking off he wouldn’t do it.  When Seth told his boss he had been side-tracked by The Kids in the Hall, his boss sais, “There are worse things to throw an opportunity away for.”

So this is an authorized biography of the five Kids in the Hall.  Myers tells the story in a really compelling way. One where, as you read it, you think, gosh I hope everything works out for these guys.  Even though you know they did because well, this book wouldn’t be written about them if it didn’t and because you’re a huge fan of the Kids and you know it all worked out. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: Out of this World: Atmospheric Sounds and Effects from The BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1976).

Neil Gaiman mentions a recording like this in the story.  he says that at a party, the music is like a mix of Kraftwerk and music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

This album came out in 1976.  it was evidently issues on CD in 1991 as Essential Science Fiction Sound Effects Vol. 2.

The album was divided into four sections (two on each side), each representing a different theme: “Outer Space”, “Magic and Fantasy”, “Suspense and the Supernatural” and “The Elements”.

It’s pretty amazing the sounds these people were creating back in the 1970s with the technology that was available.  Some of it sounds a little cheesy and yet most of it is either right-on spooky or has become such a staple of our subconscious that it calls up memories of things like this being very spooky.

I really like that the record credits the men and women who created these sounds.

  • Dick Mills
  • Peter Howell
  • Brian Hodgson
  • Paddy Kingsland
  • Richard Yeoman-Clark
  • Roger Limb
  • John Baker
  • Malcolm Clarke
  • Delia Derbyshire
  • Glynis Jones
  • David Cain

This isn’t something that you would really sit down and listen to (well, I might) but it is fun to pick and choose and to imagine what the creators pictures as they made these sounds.  And I can totally imagine the party music that was  across between this and Kraftwerk,  Cool, man.

Outer Space
A1 –Dick Mills Sea Of Mercury 1:07
A2 –Peter Howell Galactic Travel 0:49
A3 –Brian Hodgson Tardis Take-Off 0:55
A4 –Brian Hodgson Tardis Land 0:22
A5 –Dick Mills Space Rocket Take-Off 0:27
A6 –Dick Mills Space Rocket Land 0:27
A7 –Paddy Kingsland Flying Saucer Land 0:17
A8 –Paddy Kingsland Flying Saucer Take-Off 0:17
A9 –Richard Yeoman-Clark Flying Saucer Interior Constant Run 0:37
A10 –Brian Hodgson Space Ship Control Room Atmosphere 1:00
A11 –Brian Hodgson Space Ship Interior Atmosphere 1:03
A12 –Dick Mills Electric Door Open 0:02
A13 –Dick Mills Electric Door Shut 0:03
A14 –Brian Hodgson Laser Gun, Five Bursts 0:12
A15 –Brian Hodgson “Computer” 0:43
A16 –Brian Hodgson Gravity Generator 0:34
A17 –Roger Limb Time Warp Start, Run, Stop 0:24
A18 –John Baker Venusian Space Lab. 0:50
A19 –Malcolm Clarke Andromeda War Machine 1:10
A20 –Dick Mills Space-battle 0:42

Magic And Fantasy
A21 –Malcolm Clarke Dance Of Fire-Flies 0:43
A22 –Delia Derbyshire Dreaming 1:11
A23 –Glynis Jones Crystal City 1:00
A24 –Dick Mills Enchanted Forest 0:49
A25 –Malcolm Clarke Goblins Lair 0:45
A26 –Glynis Jones Magic Carpet Take-Off 0:14
A27 –Glynis Jones Magic Carpet Flight 0:22
A28 –Glynis Jones Magic Carpet Land 0:12
A29 –Brian Hodgson Magic Flower Grows And Buds 0:12
A30 –Roger Limb Magic Beanstalk Grows 0:09
A31 –Dick Mills Star Fairies 0:38
A32 –Malcolm Clarke Midsummer Elves 0:29
A33 –Malcolm Clarke Fairy Appears 0:05
A34 –Malcolm Clarke Fairy Disappears 0:05
A35 –David Cain Wizard Flies Off 0:09
A36 –Malcolm Clarke Casting A Spell 0:11
A37 –Malcolm Clarke Magic Mushroom 0:03
A38 –Glynis Jones Magic Bird Song 0:30

Suspense And The Supernatural
B1 –Delia Derbyshire Phantoms Of Darkness 1:05
B2 –Dick Mills Uncanny Expectation 0:48
B3 –David Cain Spectres In The Wind 1:02
B4 –Malcolm Clarke Evil Rises Up 1:05
B4 –Malcolm Clarke – “Threatening shadow”
B4 –Dick Mills – “Moments of terror”
B4 –Malcolm Clarke – “Passing shade”
B4 –Glynis Jones – “Psychic fears”
B4 –Glynis Jones – “Two terror twangs”
B4 –Glynis Jones – “Three terror bangs”
B4 –David Cain – “Terror zing”
B4 –Malcolm Clarke – “Terror glissando”
B4 –Malcolm Clarke – “‘Thing’ approaches”
B4 –Brian Hodgson – “Roaring monster”
B4 –Peter Howell – “Firespitting monster”
B4 –Dick Mills – “Nightmare forest”
B4 –Dick Mills – “Fiendish shrieks”

The Elements
B4 –Delia Derbyshire – “Heat haze”
B4 –Roger Limb – “Desert sands”
B4 –Delia Derbyshire – “Frozen waste”
B4 –Delia Derbyshire – “Icy peak”
B4 –David Cain – “Snow swirls”
B4 –Roger Limb – “Passing clouds”
B4 –Glynis Jones – “Starry skies”
B4 –John Baker – “Electric storm”
B4 –John Baker – “Watery depths”
B4 –John Baker – “Rising bubbles”
B4 –Glynis Jones – “Spring tide”

[READ: February 1,2020] How to Talk to Girls at Parties

This graphic novel is an adaptation of a short story that Gaiman had published in 2006.

The illustrators are twin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá and they are magnificent–they perfectly complement this story both in style and color choice.

Two boys, a studly blond fellow and a smaller, dark-haired fellow are heading off to a party.  The blond guy, Vic is very excited about it because there will be girls there! The other boy Enn, is more realistic and says that Vic will go off with a girl and he’ll be in the kitchen listening to somebody’s mum going on about politics or poetry or something.

But Vic will not be deterred.

He doesn’t actually know the address.  He wrote it down but forget the paper  at home. However, they’ll just hear the party when they get close.

Enn demurs more but Vic says you just have to talk to girls, they’re just girls, they’re not from another planet. (more…)

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