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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Jeremy Denk–“Piano Man” (New Yorker, October 14, 2013)

Posted in Essays, Jeremy Denk, New Yorker, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Jones, Work on January 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_10_14_13McCall.inddSOUNDTRACK: TOM JONES-Tiny Desk Concert #13 (March 2, 2009).

tomjI never gave a thought about Tom Jones until I worked a warehouse job in Cambridge, MA. My boss used to play Tom Jones all the time and all of us young’uns (I was 22) would get into it.  And soon I was singing Tom Jones songs to myself.  I have his Greatest Hits and it certainly scratches an unexpected itch.

It’s also funny to think of Tom Jones at at Tiny Desk Concert since his voice is so big.  And also because I think of shows as being spectacles.  But here he is, with just a guy on guitar and no microphone to hold on to or anything else.  He stands there sweating and just belting out these songs.

His voice sounds incredible—he can hold those notes like nobody else I know. Although I have to wonder if he has a bit of a cold (he still sounds amazing, but he’s coughing a bit).  The first and third songs, “If He Should Ever Leave You,” and “We Got Love” are from his then new album 24 Hours, so I didn’t know them.  But with the simple electric guitar accompaniment the songs sound clean and energetic (I imagine that with a  full band they’re much bigger, and there must be a horn section, right?).

“Green Green Grass of Home” is wonderful older song that I know from his Greatest Hits.  It sounds wonderful here–it’s all about his voice.  And the final song is a Jerry Lee Lewis song called “The End of the Road.”  I didn’t imagine him fitting this style but he jumps in perfectly and totally manhandles the song.  It’s great.

It never occurred to me to want to see him live (women throwing their underpants and all) but I’ll bet he puts on a great show.  It’s also amazing to see how crowded the offices are for him (they even turned down the lights for extra ambiance).

[READ: January 7, 2014] “Piano Man”

This New Yorker has several small essays about work.  They are primarily from people who I wasn’t familiar with–only Amy Poehler saved the five from being unread.  When after reading all of them I enjoyed them enough to include them all here.

The pieces are labelled under “Work for Hire” and each talks about a humiliating job.

Jeremy Denk is a well-regarded pianist (he won a McArthur Genius Grant).  He talks about his initial success very casually.  He says he had about $4,500 of debt when he won a piano contest in London.  I admit I didn’t know who he was when I read this and I wondered how it was that some guy randomly won a piano contest–are there many piano contests in London?  That cleared away his debt (and apparently must have covered the cost to fly to London, since he is from the Midwest). (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Desmond Pucket Makes Monster Magic (2013)

Posted in C., Children's Books, Dav Pilkey, Funny (ha ha), Kids Corner, Mark Tatulli, Short Books, Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Decemberists, The Plants on January 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

desmond SOUNDTRACK: THE PLANTS-“Aziphrale” (2013).

plantsThe Plants are Kids Corner favorites. And why not they are Philadelphia locals.  I have enjoyed several of their songs but I wasn’t familiar with this one.  And so I was surprised that it made the Top ten Kids Corner Countdown.

This song is another story song. It’s about a Chinese dragon called Aziphrale.  It has a cool horn sound, reminding me of some mellow ska or like the Squirrel Nut Zippers.  The song is bouncy and jaunty and has a kind of moral to it, which is always nice.

It even features a lengthy pirate section with people sailing a ship across the sea–(perhaps making future Decemberists fans?).

It’s an engaging story and a good song–a sea shanty about gold and dragons, what could be better?  And I actually thought it was quite different from their other song that I reviewed–Monster Under My Bed, but that song is also a story and features prominent horns and is bouncy and jaunty.  I bet they’d be fun to see live.

[READ: January 5, 2014] Desmond Pucket Makes Monster Magic

Although this book is about a sixth grader, C. loved it and encouraged me to read it.  Which I did.  And it is quite enjoyable.  It reminds me of Captain Underpants in spirit. But it’s very different in execution.

Desmond Pucket is a kid who loves horror movies and special effects.  And he is a great artist and creator.  Which doesn’t always fly in school.  So he gets an F on his math test but he draws a cool picture on the back.  The teacher tells him that if he spent as much time on his math as on his drawing, he’d get straight A’s.  Sigh. (more…)

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Mark Haddon–Boom (or 70,000 light years) (2009)

Posted in Children's Books, Fantasy, Kids Corner, Mark Haddon, Ratboy Jr., Set at School, Short Books, Technology, UFOs on January 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »

boomSOUNDTRACK: RATBOY JR.-“Champion of the Universe” (2013).

ratboyRatboy Jr was also in the Top Ten of WXPNs 2013 Kids Corner countdown (and was also on the Kids Corner CD).  This is a fun song told in a story.  It opens slowly with acoustic guitars and tells the story of a young boy with a very big head who wants to be a luchador.

When the chorus comes around, it kicks into full Mexican style swing with horns and flamenco style guitars.  Young Santos goes to a store where he gets a beautiful red wrestling mask.  And we all sing “La Cabeza Grande, champion of the universe!” in full chanting chorus (complete with yips and yee hees!).

I actually wish the songs was about five minutes longer.  But at just under 4 minutes it tells a good story and is super catchy.

[READ: January 2, 2014] Boom

I’ve read one adult book by Mark Haddon (but not his famous Curious Incident…).  I didn’t know that he wrote kids books at all.  But when this came out I learned that this was originally published in 1992 under the title Gridzbi Spudvetch! (and yes it was in English).  He says in the Foreword that kids and teachers loved it, if they were able to pronounce it (and that with a title like that he was lucky that 23 people bought it).

So it went out of print.  But fans said he should get it back in print.  So he decided to rename it a more reasonable name.  He also says the technology in the book was horribly out of date (which shouldn’t really matter, but if you’re going to update it, you might as well do it all).  And as since he was updating, he decided to rewrite, as he puts it, “every sentence.”  So I gather the story is the same, but it’s a very different book (and me being me, I’m very curious to read the original).

But now with the simple name of Boom, we get this fast paced and very enjoyable story.  (And yes, gridzbi spudvetch is still in the book). (more…)

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Thomas McGuane–“Weight Watchers” (New Yorker, November 4, 2013″)

Posted in Chulo, Food, Gripe, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Parenting, Sex, Short Story, Thomas McGuane, Yuck! on January 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_11_04_13Brunetti.inddSOUNDTRACK: GRIPE-“Man vs Cop” CHULO-“Hombre vs Tombo” Split Single (2012).

chuloI downloaded the Gripe album yesterday and then saw this split single.  It has two songs which total 59 seconds.

Gripe has like a typical grindcore sound–pummeling and tinny.  All 32 seconds of “Man vs Cop” contain a pummeling riff, screamed vocals and even a ride cymbal at some point.

I was more intrigued by Chulo because I was surprised at how different a band could sound within the same limited soundscape of grindcore.  The big difference for me was the real presence of a bass guitar.  As “Hombre vs Tombo” opens, there’s a few seconds of pummeling sound (although their snare drum sounds more like a bongo) and then the sound drops out and there’s a cool heavy bass sound (for two notes).  Then the pummeling resumes, although again, much more bass heavy.  The other big difference is that they sing in Spanish.  I’m curious to know if that slightly different sound is a Latin American sound for grindcore or if it is just their own.

If you have a minute you can listen (or download for free) the single here.

[READ: January 7, 2014] “Weight Watchers”

This story began in a very weird way.  In it, an adult’s father has been kicked out of his house because his wife is mad that he now weighs more than 250 pounds.  Something that she has done on multiple occasions.  I find this reason/excuse so incomprehensible that it really impacted the rest of my reading this story.  This “problem” did put things in motion but was more or less ignored through the story and it seems that there were other more pressing issues that they needed to worry about.

When we meet the father, he has come to stay with his son. He believed that anything “done for pleasure was escapism.”  So we learn he has no tolerance for pleasure, except “when it came to seducing his secretaries and most of my mother’s friends.” Then we learn that his mother got pregnant as soon as she could when his father got back from the war because she figured that would get him to settle down.  his father basically resented him for his whole life.  So I guess the whole family is screwed up.

Especially when we find out that the son has witnessed all manner of “disturbances,” meaning his parents’ infidelities, in their house.  One of them was a very weird scene of food and eroticism.  Ew. (more…)

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Lara Vapnyar–“Katania” (New Yorker, October 14, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boredom, Gripe, Jealousy, Lara Vapnyar, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Reunion, Short Story, The New York Times on January 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_10_14_13McCall.inddSOUNDTRACK: GRIPE-In His Image (2014).

gripeinhisimageWith the new year, I was excited to see what albums NPR would be streaming.  Imagine my surprise when the prominent album was by a grindcore band called Gripe.  I’d never heard of Gripe before.  But Lars, the guy who posted the album, said that they’ve released two albums and two singles (most of which you can download for free at Grindcore Karaoke).

I downloaded their album Pig Servant and their split single with Chulo (all 15 songs fit in under 13 minutes).  And now I’m giving this one a listen.

So grindcore is a fair name for the sound of the music–take hardcore but make it sound like it is grinding against something.  On Pig Servant, the longest song was 1:47, and that included a lengthy sample.  I have to assume it took longer to draw the elaborate cover than to record the album.  It sounds fast and noisy and chaotic and like it was recorded on a boombox.  I was surprised that there was a liner note with the download because I didn’t believe that the noise he was making was actually lyrics, but if you follow along you can kind of tell that he’s screaming actual words.

In his Image is a more sophisticated sound.  The drums don’t sound like tin plates, there’s an actual bass sound and one of the songs is over 3 minutes long.  You still can’t understand any words. But song titles like “7 Billion Reasons Not to Reproduce,” “Assisted Genocide” “Stuff Your Wretched Face” and “Nothing Left But Hate” give you some idea of what you’re in for.  I was surprised by how articulate the words from  Pig Servant were–not poetry mind you, but articulate at least.  There’s no lyrics sheet for this so I have no idea what to make of the words here.

This album is 23 minutes, which is a bit long for grindcore (and may be longer than all of their existent recorded output).  I just like the idea that you can listen to this on NPR.  If you dare, check it out.

By the way, this recording has literally nothing t do with this story.  Nothing.

[READ: January 8, 2014] “Katania”

Wow, I really liked this story a lot. It is fairly simple and the end may be a bit obvious and/or gimmicky, but Vapnyar earned it.

It opens with the narrator, Katya,  reflecting back to when she was a little girl living in Russia.  She did not have a lot but compared to some, her family was comfortable (they had a three room apartment).  But the thing that held her interest and love was her doll family.  They lived in a shoebox.  It was painted to look like a house.  It also had furniture and even some animals–a cow, a pig and a very large chicken.

As for the doll people there were only girls.  One became a mother, one became the daughter (or herself) and a hedgehog head on a human body was the grandma.  But there was no father.

Katya suggests that this was not uncommon for the time and location–there seemed to be no fathers around.  Her own father had died, but many other fathers had simply run off.  Like the neighbor’s father who shouted “I’m sick of all of you” and then left.

Then her uncle brought her a father doll.  He was perfect–he fit in with the family and had a beautiful smile.  He did have a disjointed leg, but the narrator didn’t mind.  Until Tania made fun of it. (more…)

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Adam Rex–The True Meaning of Smekday (2007)

Posted in Adam Rex, Aliens, Big Books, Cats, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Happy Smekday!, Home, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Super XX Man, Technology, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel on January 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

smekdaySOUNDTRACK: SUPER XX MAN-Tiny Desk Concert #12 (January 27, 2009, recorded Oct. 22, 2008).

superxxI included the recording date because this is the first one that actually mentions the recording date.  I had always known that the shows were recorded before they were posted, but i had no idea they were so far apart.

Super XX Man is another “band” that I only know about because of NPR.  Scott Garred is Super XX Man (pronounced Super Double X Man), and he has recorded most of his albums at home.  Interestingly, he is also a music therapist in the maximum-security wing of the Oregon State Hospital—the location where they filmed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  His job is helping psychiatric patients cope with drug addiction, severe mental illness and other assorted disorders.

I’m not sure exactly what his recorded output is like (he has been recording for 15 years and had recently recorded with a band for Volume XII: There’ll Be Diamonds), but this solo venture is just him with a guitar.  He has a very nice voice and his melodies are simple and catchy.

“There’ll Be Diamonds” is a very nice catchy song—very positive.  The second song, “Big Balloon,” is for the newly admitted patients at the hospital.  It is a very tender look at people who are dealing with something quite traumatic.

“Collecting Rocks” comes from Volume VI, and is based on a story his grandfather told him a while ago.  It’s an incredibly sweet song about two people in love.  But it’s also fun how he gets the room to sing along at the end.  I imagine that NPR employees are more docile than his usual audience.

[READ: January 5, 2014] The True Meaning of Smekday

I have known Adam Rex first as an illustrator.  Then I knew him as a children’s picture book author.  And now, the other day, I saw that he also wrote larger children’s books.  In the library I saw Unlucky Charms. I was going to grab it but then I saw that he was “the author of” other books.  So, being the kind of person I am, I decided to read his first novel first, which was this one.

This novel combines art (photographs—which are drawn by Rex), comics (as drawn by an alien) and a school story written for a time capsule (as such, the font is in a weird sans-serif that I found bothersome to read (man I am really getting old)).

Anyhow, I thought this book was very very funny on so many level.  There were pop culture jokes, there was great dialogue and there were fun internal jokes.  There were some sophisticated jokes and some really juvenile jokes.  And they all combined to make for a very good read.

The only problem with the book was that it was so damned long.  No one needs to write a 422 page book about an alien invasion.  The story could easily have lost 100 pages and not been harmed at all.  And I say that because I loved the beginning and I devoured the end, but I felt rather adrift in the middle. (more…)

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Joshua Ferris–“The Breeze” (New Yorker, September 30, 2013)

Posted in 16 Horsepower, Babies, Beer, Bob Dylan, Boredom, Drinking, Joshua Ferris, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Woven Hand on January 7, 2014| 2 Comments »

CV1_TNY_09_30_13Blitt.inddSOUNDTRACK:WOVEN HAND-Tiny Desk Concert #11 (January 9, 2009).

wovenWoven Hand is yet another band that I hadn’t heard of until this Tiny Desk concert (and I thought I knew a lot of bands).  They are a band, but for this Tiny Desk Concert David Eugene Edwards plays solo.  He has a cool baritone voice that has a nice ponderous quality.  This suits his chosen instrument–a mandolin-banjo hybrid made in 1887 by the Pullman Train Company (!)–perfectly.  Turns out that Edwards was the voice behind 16 Horsepower, so that explains some of the sound he’s going for.

The opener “Whistling Girl” and the closer “Kingdom of Ice” (which is practically a mini-epic) are beautiful slices of Americana made slightly more esoteric by the instrumentation and his voice.  I like them a lot.  The middle song he plays is a Bob Dylan song “As I Went Out One Morning.”  I know that I’m not a big Dylan fan, but I just can’t get over how many songs he has written that people cover.  I’d never heard this one, which with this instrumentation takes on a kind of fairy tale quality (which I assume the original doesn’t).

This makes me want to bust out my 16 Horsepower CD and to check out more from Woven Hand.  I enjoyed his solo performance so much I can’t imagine what a full band version would sound like.

[READ: January 7, 2014] “The Breeze”

I have really enjoyed Joshua Ferris’ work, so I was excited to read this.  But I was ultimately disappointed by this story.

The construction is interesting, so of.  It looks at multiple possible outcomes of a situation.  But I felt like even that was done a little too vaguely to be really effective.

It also features one of my most hated scenarios in real life and one which I guess I have no patience for in fiction.  It concerns a person who is bored, existentially bored.  So when she wants to do something, she proceeds to ask her partner what he wants to do.  Thus, Sarah asks her husband to come home from work early.  She is sitting on the balcony of their apartment enjoying a perfect spring breeze.  When he gets home, she is excited to have a wonderful excursion with him.  So she asks him “What do you want to do?”  And naturally he hasn’t thought of this at all, so he has no opinion.  But this makes her mad.  She asks if he doesn’t want to do anything.  He says he does. And then she asks him what.  I don’t know if this is a gender-specific scenario, but I have been in it many times in many different relationships and I know my parents went through it as well—my mother always complained about my father’s lack of wanting to do things and he would always say all she had to do was say what she wanted to do and he would do it.  So, I guess Ferris has tapped into something, but I hated reading about it. (more…)

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Paul Theroux—“I’m the Meat, You’re the Knife” (New Yorker, October 7, 2013)

Posted in Books about writers, Conor Oberst, David Dondero, Death, New Yorker, Paul Theroux, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on January 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_10_07_13Kalman.inddSOUNDTRACK: DAVID DONDERO-Tiny Desk Concert #10 (December 5, 2008).

donderoBob and Robin at NPR love David Dondero.  I have never heard of him outside of their show (where they play his new songs when they come out).  Apparently he has some kind of connection to Conor Oberst (their voices sound similar—although I gather that Dondero came first).  I don’t care for Oberst in general, although I find that Dondero’s voice is more palatable to me.

He plays four songs on acoustic guitar.  And they’re all enjoyable.  They are simple folks songs “We’re All Just Babies in Our Mama’s Eyes,” is a little fast.  While “Rothko Chapel” is probably my favorite of the four.  I was really intrigued by the Chapel (which is real and which I’d never heard of) and which sounds cool—his song is an interesting look at it. “In Love With the Living and the Dead” and “It’s Peaceful Here” round out the set.

I feel that more than his music (which is good but not especially memorable), it’s his lyrics that Dondero is known for.  his songs are thoughtful and interesting and look at a variety of subjects.

[READ: January 6, 2014] “I’m the Meat, You’re the Knife”

This is an interesting story constructed in a way that lets you know that something big has happened between two people.  But we are never told exactly what happened, we are simply given a lot of stories with which to construct the event ourselves.

Jay is walking home—his father has just died—and he is greeted by an old friend, Ed Hankey.  Jay doesn’t feel like talking to Ed about his father, especially when Ed tells him that Murray Cutler is currently in hospice.  Murray was their English teacher–Jay has become a writer—with Ed emphasizing how important Murray was to them.

The story bounces back and forth between the preparations for Jay’s father’s funeral and his visits to Murray in hospice.  The differences are pronounced but not emphasized: Jay’s family is there to make arrangements, to plan for all of the details.  Meanwhile, Murray has no family, no one to visit him in hospice.  Indeed, when Jay visits him, a volunteer is reading to him. (more…)

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Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck [#8] (2013)

Posted in Babies, Children's Books, Death Cab For Cutie, Dogs, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Jeff Kinney, Kids Corner, Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band, Parenting, Poo, Set at School, Short Books, Yuck! on January 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

hardluckSOUNDTRACK: LUCKY DIAZ AND THE FAMILY JAM BAND-“Thingamajig” (2013).

luckyThis song made the XPN Kid’s Corner Top ten.   When the played it on the radio, I was surprised at how ..quiet it was.  Even now listening to it, it just seems like all of the sounds are at the same level, it all kind of blends together, which is a shame because the song is really kind of fun.

Now that I’ve listened a few times I like it more.  It actually has a kind of Death Cab for Cutie feel.  The bass is particularly nice, but of course the fun part is the lyrics (a thingamajig, a whatchamacallit, who what where why).

So a couple of listens and I’m won over by the song.  I wish it was a bit more dynamic in the production, but it’s a catchy little number.  And I’m curious to hear what the rest of the album sounds like.

[READ: December 27, 2013] Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck

Clark was so excited for this book!  This is the first one that he knew about before I did.  We decided to save it for a Christmas present, and man was he chomping at the bit.  He even borrowed it from a friend (because there were 100 people on the waiting list a the library).  And yet, even though he had already read it, when it arrived on Christmas, he was still really excited.  And has already read it four times.

And what was sweeter was that he really wanted me to read it.  He thought it was the best one yet.

I was surprised by this as the whole first section is about how lost Greg feels now that Rowley has a girlfriend, Abigail.  I can’t really imagine how he related to that as it’s not an issue for an 8-year-old (in fact the whole series is skewed a little old for an 8-year-old, but he still loves it).  Mostly Greg isn’t so much jealous that Rowley has a girlfriend so much as he is jealous that she is keeping Rowley from being Greg’s slave, I mean, friend.  Normally, Rowley walks in front of Greg to look out for the (newly added, I think) Mingo kids who threaten anyone who comes close to their wood (which is on their way to school) or for dog land mines–the scene where the dog figures out how the electric fence works is so funny.  And speaking of dogs, Clark absolutely cracked up about the joke with the little dog Sweetie who sniffs herself if you make a raspberry sound near her. (more…)

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Maxwell Eaton III–The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies (2013)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Allan Sherman, Children's Books, Dan Zanes, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Kids Corner, Maxwell Eaton III, Ratboy Jr., Sara Hickman, Short Books, The Board of Education, The Doubleclicks, The Plants, Trout Fishing in America on January 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

bbbSOUNDTRACK: KIDS CORNER Top Ten of 2013 (2014).

kidsEvery year I’m curious to see what the kids who vote for Kids Corner music will pick as their top ten.  It is usually reliably silly.  But this year I have to say I was a bit disappointed in their selections.  Here’s the Top um, Eleven (two were tied of tenth) from 11 to 1.

  • Allan Sherman – You Went The Wrong Way Old King Louie
  • Dan Zanes – Turn Turn Turn
  • The Plants – Aziphrale
  • Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band – Thingamajig
  • Shine And The Moonbeams – Bully Bully
  • Trout Fishing In America – My Sister Kissed Her Boyfriend
  • Weird Al Yankovic – The Saga Begins
  • The Doubleclicks – Worst Superpower Ever
  • Ratboy Jr. – Champion Of The Universe
  • Sara Hickman – Radiation Man
  • The Board Of Education – Why Is Dad So Mad?

I am especially surprised by Allan Sherman as I can’t imagine that too many kids would enjoy that song (which is funny if you know your history, but not really otherwise) and while I love Dan Zanes, “Turn Turn Turn” is not exactly a rollicking fun Top Ten song.  I actually dislike “Bully Bully” and while I love Trout Fishing in America and like “My Sister,” it’s certainly not their best song (and this list isn’t just new songs obviously).  The rest of the list is quite good, though.

And it’s a great choice for number one.  But next year, kids, more silliness!

[READ: January 1, 2014] The Flying Beaver Brothers: Birds vs. Bunnies

We were unreasonably excited to see that there was a new Flying Beaver Brothers book out!  We loved the first two quite a lot, so any return of Ace and Bub is a good thing.  But to also have the return of a nasty villain is quite nice too.

Yet it’s not all the same faces, because this time there are birds and bunnies causing havoc with our heroes.

Bob and Bob (the penguins who get a brief cameo) are rebuilding Beaver Island and Bub and Ace are heading there in a boat.  But a storm rages and makes them crash.  They walk around an island where they are quickly captured by an angry bunch of bunnies who accuse them of being bird spies (those are real?).  Indeed, the birds have been playing a  very loud sound that hurts the bunnies ears and makes them go underground.  So the bunnies are fighting back with a wind machine that makes the birds leave the sky.  Both of these machines were funded by a mysterious fellow named Wally (unbeknownst to the others). (more…)

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