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Archive for the ‘C.P. Boyko’ Category

C.P. Boyko–“Forty-Third C Platoon” [The 2017 Short Story Advent Calendar #2] (2017)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C.P. Boyko, Canadian Content, Christmas Album, Death, Enya, Fears, Nightmares, Regrets, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Violence, War, Yuck! on December 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ENYA-Oiche Chuin (1995).

I bought this 3-song single back in 1995.  A few years later Enya released a Christmas EP with five songs on it.  It contains the first and third songs from this single and then a few songs from her other records.

“Oiche Chuin” is Irish for Silent Night.  Her version of the song is beautiful and haunting.  The melody is the same, but it has all of Enya’s trademark sounds on it which makes it even more ethereal.  Having it in Irish in no way removes the power of the song, unless of you course you just listen for the lyrics.

“Oriel Window” is a pretty piano instrumental–very different from her multi-tracked productions.

‘S Fagaim Mo Bhaile” is a lovely Enya track.  Not Christmassey, but it’s in Irish so it doesn’t really matter what it’s about.  It translates as “And I Leave My Home,” so it is full of sorrow and yearning.

So not a full Christmas album but the version of “Silent Night” is wonderful.

[READ: December 12, 2017] “Souterrain”

Once again, I have ordered The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This year, there are brief interviews with each author posted on the date of their story.

Hello. Welcome. It’s finally here: Short Story Advent Calendar time.

If you’re reading along at home, now’s the time to start cracking those seals, one by one, and discover some truly brilliant writing inside. Then check back here each morning for an exclusive interview with the author of that day’s story.

(Want to join in? It’s not too late. Order your copy here.)

This year I’m pairing each story with a holiday disc from our personal collection.

I didn’t expect that these advent stories would be all sweet and full of Christmas, but I also didn’t expect to read about bodies being torn in half and flattened by tanks.

I have enjoyed a few stories from Boyko in the past.  However, this story is, as you can tell from the title, a military story.

What happens in military stories?  Somebody (sometimes everybody) gets killed.  And the rest of the time everyone else is more or less waiting to get killed.  Either you wipe out the enemy or they kill you.  It is a torturous time where any diversion is welcome.

But these frightening episodes don’t really make for compelling stories–especially if the person you care about is going to die.

So you can only read for the details of each story and hope they are effective..

The one nice change for this story was that most of the soldiers were women.

I guess these are actually five episodes within the story:

“High Ground” is about choosing the safest place from which to attack some one.

“Six Inches” has the soldiers talking about death (if she had been six inches to the left she would be dead.  And then they were all attacked.

“Mail Call” looks at what happens to the package of a dead solider.

“Still Alive” deals with a soldier’s fear of the dead and how to cope with it–by exposing herself to more dead bodies.

“The Cook Up” finally shows some leisure.  The soldiers are allowed to scrounge for something other than the lousy food ratios.  It’s nice to see them enjoying themselves for a few hours before they all die.

Being a soldier really must suck.

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C.P. Boyko–“In the Palace of Cats” (The Walrus, July/August 2017)

Posted in Adventure, Alternate Reality, C.P. Boyko, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cats, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Motels, Pink Floyd, Rheostatics, Short Story, Spies, Surreal, The Tragically Hip, The Walrus, tagged on August 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Le Colisee, Quebec City, QC (November 30, 1996).

This is the same show that the Double Live version of “Saskatchewan” was taken from. It is also the show Dave wrote about in On A Cold Road.

This is also one of only two shows on Rheostatics Live that was recorded in Quebec.  Once again, they are opening for The Tragically Hip.

The show opens with some recording in French–no idea what it is–a hockey game?

The “Saskatchewan” is of course beautiful.  I love the way it gets really heavy near the end.  It’s also fun to hear a different recording of it (you can really hear them chanting “home Caroline, home Caroline.”

Next comes “Fat” one of the few songs they also played in Buffalo.  And then after a very brief “Digital Beach” they segue into “Claire.”  This version of “Claire” is really pretty on all counts.

As the band introduces themselves: “We are the Rheostatics,” you can hear someone in the audience shout slowly and clearly: “Bad. Time. To. Be. Poor.”  Dave asks what’s that man shouting?  “Bad. Time. To. Be. Poor.”  Martin shouts: “WHAT?”  The guy then deliberately shouts: “We came here to see you guys.”  I don’t think the band ever heard it, which is a shame as it’s such a nice sentiment and well executed.

The band plays “Four Little Songs” which is always fun live.  Afterwards, Martin says, “See four songs in one.”

Don (who is not as chatty as Dave Clark but does talk quite a bit) tells everyone “This next song [Bad Time to Be Poor] is the current single from our new record which you can buy here at the venue.”  Dave: “Well said, Donnie.”

The crowd is quite enthusiastic about the band prompting Dave to advise: “Save a bit for The Tragically Hip.”

This version of “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” does not feature Tamara Williamson, but it still sounds good.  Although toward the end of the song things get kind of staticky which is a bummer.  The warpy sound continues for a bit but it clears up near the beginning of “Dope Fiends.”  The song is wonderful.  At the end, Martin repeats “dark side of the moon” first quietly and then a lengthy falsetto on “moooooooooon.”   The guys mutter things during this section: “Pink Floyd,” “Side 2” before launching into the rocking ending.  The roaring song ends with a gentle version of the “You Are Very Star” lullaby, possibly the first version on the site.   There is whistling and falsetto lyrics as the band whispers good night.

It’s like a complete show in miniature.

[READ: June 21, 2017] “In the Palace of Cats”

This is The Walrus‘ Summer Fiction Issue with new fiction & poetry from 6 writers in total.  I won’t be reviewing the poetry, but I’ll be talking about the three short stories.

This story was really fun and weird.  It began as one thing, turned into a few other things and then resolved itself all with bizarre turns without ever losing its internal logic.

The story opens as a teen spy caper with Andrew bringing Hillary a message in secret code.  The message from Andrew is for Hillary so obviously no code is needed,  But they are spies, so everything must be encoded.   She goes off to decipher it–using a dictionary and selecting the word just prior to the word that Andrew wrote.

Greetings Math Princess.  The Candy Ninja is ready to move.

She was amused/dismayed that even copying words out of the dictionary he spelled one wrong: needeled (for needled). (more…)

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