Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Rivka Galchen–“From the Pencil Zone” (Harper’s, May 2010)

Posted in Book Reviews, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Essays, Harper's, Neurotics, Rivka Galchen, Robert Walser, Short Books, Susan Bernofsky, Translation on August 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Alive III (1993).

Kiss put out Alive! after just three albums.  Alive II also came out after three albums.  Alive III has 14 albums between it and Alive II (if you count the solo albums as 4).  I guess poor sales and poorly attended concerts don’t really suggest live albums.  But Revenge revitalized them somewhat so it was time for a new one–their first with no makeup!  And it’s a pretty good one.

But it’s also like Kiss has forgotten all about being Kiss.  There’s no “You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world…Kiss” (which would have been untrue at the time anyhow, but since when has that stopped Kiss?)  The tracklisting is pretty darn good though.  For Alive II, the band didn’t want to repeat any tracks from Alive! (that’s such an endearing thing to say about the band with 400 repackaged hits records).  Since there are tons of records since Alive II, you’d assume Alive III was all 80s songs.  But that’s not the case.  There are a few inevitable duplicates (how could there not be–all their biggest hits were from the 70s), but I’m surprised they didn’t throw more current stuff on the disc.

It opens with “Creatures of the Night” a great heavy version.  Then they go way back to “Deuce” which is a cool surprise.  Since this was the tour for Revenge, you’d think there might be more songs from it, but there’s only three: “I Just Wanna” “Unholy” and “Domino.”  “I Just Wanna” was perfectly crafted for Paul to banter with the audience and get them to sing “I just wanna fuck” (which was edited from the album I understand).  And in this live setting “Unholy” sounds great.

“Heaven’s on Fire” works well live, even if I don’t really like the song–but the band can really ham it up here.  The big surprise has got to be “Watching You,” a totally unexpected song form the past.  And even if it was on Alive!, this version is quite different (no Peter Criss cowbell).  I don’t think much of “Domino” anyhow (well, the music is great but the lyrics, ick), but in this version Gene just seems kind of bored.

Another surprise comes in “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”  true it’s one of Kiss; biggest hits but they often try to distance themselves from the “disco” era.  Nevertheless this version sounds revitalized.  And since there were no live albums in the 80s, there’s no official live recordings of it.  “I Still Love You” is another great chance for Paul to shine.  “I Love It Loud” sounds great (although the harmonies get a little sketchy at times.  But it’s weird to hear “Rock N Roll All Nite” in the middle of the set instead of at the end.  It’s also odd to start off this song with “It ain’t bullshit when you say rock and roll all nite and party every day.”   The intro to “Detroit Rock City” is also very strange “It doesn’t matter where you’re born ,it doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters where your head is at. This one;s called Detroit Rock City.”  Huh.

There’s not much you can do with a dreadful song like “Lick It Up,” and ad-libbing “I wanna lick you” doesn’t make it any better.  The disc ends with “God Gave Rock n Roll to You II,” which I don’t like, but which sounds good live, a lot of energy.  And it wraps up with a very odd thing–a guitar solo version of the Star Spangled Banner.  It doesn’t compare to Alive! or Alive II, but Alive III is a good live album from a good live band.

[READ: August 15, 2012] “From the Pencil Zone”

This is a review of the microscripts of Robert Walser, an author whom I have never heard of.  Walser was born in Switzerland in 1878 and he published several shorts and several novels (which were admired by Kafka!).

As the market for shorts dried up, so did his career, and he moved into smaller and smaller places.  Accordingly, his handwriting grew smaller and smaller, too.  Eventually he cheeked himself into a series of mental institutions.

Walser’s early novels dealt with everyday life, like the “young boyish man” who wants to become a bookshop proprietor in The Tanners.  The character (whose name we don’t learn for a long time) is effusive, praising the job to the heavens as a divine calling!  And lo he is given the job.  A week later he declares, “the entire book trade is nothing less than ghastly.”  Wasler himself had a multifaceted career: butler, inventor’s assistant, clerk, journalist.  But he was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and is responsible for this quotable quote: “I’m not here to write.  I’m here to be mad.”

After Walser died, people discovered a treasure trove of 526 pages of “microscripts.”  The writing was so small that these 526 pages, when written in book form came to six VOLUMES of books.  They were released as Aus dem Bleistifsebiet (From the Pencil Zone).  Galchen’s review here is for the short one volume New Directions collection called Robert Walser: Microscripts.  Interestingly, most of the stories have no title and some seem unfinished.  New Directions (and Harper’s) include images of this man’s microscopic writings (all done in pencil of course).  He wrote in Kurrent, a widely used script at the time which was a version of medieval shorthand and which dramatically reduced the number of strokes per character.  His letters were often one or two millimeters tall.  He was able to fit six stories on a postcard received from a newspaper editor. (more…)

Read Full Post »

James Breig–“Volumes of Knowledge: How the Enlightenment Perfected the Encyclopedia” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Books about writers, Colonial Williamsburg, Denis Diderot, Essays, Foreign Books, Free Speech, History, James Breig, Phish, Religion on August 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait Vol 3 (2010).

This selection of free Phish songs is notable because of a couple of items.

  1. All of the songs were recorded at the Worcester Centrum in Worcester, MA.  Although the first three songs were recorded in 1993, the fourth song was recorded in 1997 and the final track was recorded in 1991.
  2. The first three songs were recorded on New Year’s Eve–technically on New Year’s Day.  The first track actually counts down the seconds until midnight, when the band bursts into Auld Lang Syne
  3. Probably the biggest deal of all: the band plays a version of “Runaway Jim” that lasts 58 minutes and 48 seconds.  That’s right, nearly an hour on one song.  I think if I went to see them live and they did that I’d be pissed, but it sounds great on this recording.  “Runaway Jim” is not one of my favorite songs, but this extended jam is really good–they break into several different sections and it doesn’t feel like a long version of this song so much as a bunch of different jams thrown together.  At one point it almost seems like the band thought they began with “Weekapaug Groove,” but they push back against that.  I’m very curious to know what happened after that song was over, but the end of the disc takes on an early recording of “Llama, ” a song I like quite a lot.

This is yet another great addition to the free Live Phish pantheon of music–I mean, an hour version of one song, how cool!

[READ: August 1, 2012] “Volumes of Knowledge”

Encyclopedias date back thousands of years–Pliny the elder tried to write everything he knew in Historia Naturalis and a Chinese emperor created a similar book Emperor’s Mirror in 220 A.D.  But the art and craft of creating books that contain all the world’s knowledge flourished in the 1700s.  Increased wealth and education in the French bourgeois, a flood of information and a decline of interest in religion all led to the desire to learn more.  The printing press helped to disseminate the information.

It was Denis Diderot, a French enlightenment polymath who best explained the concept of the encyclopedia:

the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in the future years to come.

But Diderot recognized the limits of a one-author encyclopedia: “I do not believe it is given to a single man to known all that can be known.”   From 1751 to 1772 he and his assistants edited more than 70,000 articles from 140 authors to create his first Encyclopedie.  Of course having many authors had drawbacks–differences in style, length and quality.  But Diderot shied away from nothing and in many locations the book was banned.  Some of the ideas in the book shook the very foundation of accepted ideas.  And many of the authors hoped to change the world.  Diderot himself even hoped to usurp religion with his knowledge: “It is not enough for us to know more than Christians, we must show them we are better.” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Gil Klein–“The Use of Myth in History: Many Myths are Designed to Explain Us as We Wish to See Ourselves” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Abner Doubleday, Baseball, Colonial Williamsburg, Deer Tick, Essays, Field Recordings, Field Recordings, Gil Klein, History, Myths, NPR/PRI/PBS on August 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DEER TICK-“Main Street” (Field Recordings, July 18, 2012).

NPR created a bunch of Field Recordings at Sasquatch Music Festival.  I picked this one [Deer Tick Among the Honey Buckets]  primarily because it featured Deer Tick front man John McCauley singing front of a bunch of porta potties.

I actually don’t know much about Deer Tick, so I don’t know if they normally sound folky or what.  But this song, in its acoustic setting is very good.  John McCauley’s voice works great here.  There’s even a nice shout out to MCA.

There’s not a ton to it, and this alone won’t make me a fan, but I’ll certainly check out more by them.  It’s also a nice video to watch, especially for the amusing encore.

[READ: August 1, 2012] “The Use of Myth in History”

Most of the articles in Colonial Williamsburg have to do with, well, Colonial Williamsburg.  This one, however, talks about myths that we as Americans have created and continue to believe, from colonial times to more days.

The article opens by explaining that Patrick Henry’s famous “give me liberty or give me death” speech was written down forty-two years after the fact by William Wirt.  And he wrote it down from memory, so who knows what words Henry actually spoke.  But no doubt Wird got the gist right.  So the Henry speech is a myth–not necessarily wrong but not exactly true either.

Klein explains that some historians would like to remove the myths from history and focus only on the facts, but stories like Henry’s are so popular, so ingrained in our memories, that removing them would do more damage than the beloved myths do.  Indeed, some historians believe that myths are very important.  Micheal Gerson wrote, “We know that myths are not the same as lies” and John Thorn said “Historians have an obligation to embrace myth as the people’s history”

Klein writes that America’s mythology was largely created by writers from the early 1800s.  Pressure was building towards the War of 1812 and they needed support.  The mythology was designed to get people to forget about the ugly Revolutionary War.  And so stories were created just in time for the birth of public education in America to disseminate the stories.  And so mythological stories like George Washington and the cherry tree or the midnight ride of Paul Revere or Plymouth Rock or even Pocahontas became enshrined in textbooks.  Now, most myths are based on facts, but the truths were embellished and made more romantic and given a moral.  So, yes Patrick Henry did give a speech, the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth and Paul Revere did ride into the countryside to warn of the British invasion. but probably not exactly as we think they did.  So nineteenth century writers made George Washington the symbol of our country–a unifying power to embody a nation. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tony Abbott–Danger Guys series (1994-1996)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, C., Children's Books, Chris Rock, Fantasy, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Mad Scientists, Madagascar, Star Wars, Technology, Tony Abbott, Waffles on August 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “Neverending Afro Circus” (2012).

If you’ve seen the movie Madagascar 3, you’ll recognize this song as the earworm that you will be singing all the way home.  And that your kids will no doubt be singing for days.

I actually want to jump in and say that I saw Madagascar 3 without seeing Madagascar 2 and I was quite lost (and missed a lot of in-jokes, apparently) for the first 20 or so minutes.  Who would have guessed that a kids movie could do that to you?

Anyhow, back to this song.  C. and T. love it.  And it turns out that YouTube loves it too.  There are dozens of different videos of varying lengths (from 10 seconds to 59 minutes!!) repeating this wonderful nonsense.  But for real neverending Afro Circus, please visit AfroCircus.com and see how much you can stand.

For a measly ten minute loop, please enjoy this:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aELcXyjpts%5D

[READ: July 2012] Danger Guys series

We loved Droon so much we had to see what else Tony Abbott had written.

Turns out that he has written a lot of books and a bunch of series.  In addition to Droon he has written four books that are not part of any series, a series called The Haunting of Derek Stone and a brand new series called UnderWorlds.  UnderWorlds looks like a great series for C., although Haunting and the stand alone books seem like they might be a little too old for him.  He also has some older series like Don’t Touch That Remote!, Goofballs, Time Surfers and The Weird Zone.  (I think that’s all of them).

He also has this Danger Guys series, which I believe comprised his first novels.

My major complaint about the series is…why is it out of print?  Why was it so hard for me to find?  I had to do an Inter Library Loan and the copies I received were so beat up that we may wind up being the last people to read them!  This is a real shame because these books were fantastic!  The series is about two boys Noodle (the smart one) and Zeke (the athletic one).  They are best friends and do everything together.  I’m not exactly sure how old they are…I’m guessing middle school?  In each book they get into an escalating series of adventures which can be resolved by logic, brains, strength and sometimes a little luck.  The books are mildly scary (the Halloween one is the most scary but even that…not really), they’re not violent or gross, but they are full of adventure and they’re very funny (an Abbott specialty).  There were several moments that C. was laughing very hard at these.

There are six books in total in the series.  And because the books aren’t radically different from each other, I’m only going to say a few lines about each. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Justin Taylor–“After Ellen” (New Yorker, August 13 & 20, 2012)

Posted in Dogs, Justin Taylor, Kiss, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Travel, Unlikable main character on August 23, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Revenge (1992).

Having not learned from Creatures of the Night, this time when I blew off Kiss for a few years, they came out with Revenge, a very heavy, very aggressive album.  It’s certainly one of their best post-70s albums.  I didn’t pick it up until many years later, so I never got to appreciate it to its fullest extent.  And I really like it.  But in typical Kiss fashion it is marred by a few truly ghastly songs.  Ghastly in and of themselves, but also ghastly because they do not belong anywhere near this album.

The band was having a hard time by 1992.  Eric Carr died in 1991, and that had to be pretty rough (even for the businessmen of Kiss).  Nevertheless, they regrouped with a new drummer, Eric Singer (who is blond, for god’s sake!) and came up with an album that fit in more with the aggressive alt sound of the early 90s.  It opens with “Unholy” a heavy dark song, very much like early Kiss (and interestingly co written with Vinnie Vincent, although he doesn’t play on the record).  This is the kind of aggressive song that Gene is meant to sing.  “Take It Off” is a cheesy song about going to strip clubs.  Kiss seems to live in the world of metaphor, so this very explicit song is quite shocking from them—even if the content is no surprise at all.  And Paul’s voice doesn’t seem to work with the music very well.  Although in a rare twist for Kiss, the slow middle section is actually pretty good.  “Tough Love” sounds like a very different style of Kiss–it’s all minor key and menacing.  This is especially odd for a Paul song.  It’s a respectable change of style.

“Spit” is another really weird Kiss song.  The guitar is very rough and raw—almost industrial.  But having Gene sing “It don’t mean spit to me” seems like a total cop out.  Of course, when the bridge comes in and Paul actually sings “the bigger the cushion the better the pushing” which is literally a Spinal Tap lyric (and given all the groupie photos I’ve ever seen, completely untrue) the song hits rock bottom.  The chorus “I need a whole lotta woman” actually makes it worse.  Although the odd solo section in which Gene scat-sings along with the solo is pretty wild.

“God Gave Rock and Roll to You II” may be an anthem and may have been Kiss’ biggest hit in years, but I think it’s pretty awful.  Kiss doesn’t need yet another song about rock n roll being awesome.  Although they sound very good in the little Beatles-esque breakdown near the end.

“Domino” is a popular song still, and it’s got that old school swagger.  I happen to dislike Gene’s lascivious opening and frankly, the lyrics are really, really gross.  I mean, sure, he wants to sleep with young girls, but you’re 43 and she “ain’t old enough to vote.”  Couldn’t you just make her 22 and make us all feel a lot less queasy?  I mean in “Goin’ Blind,” you were 93 and she was 16, but somehow that doesn’t seem as gross.  “Heart of Chrome” (also co written by Vinnie Vincent) is a fast rocker—another odd one for Paul (this whole album feels like it should be sung by Gene), but Paul works it very well.  “Thou Shalt Not” is mildly blasphemous and kind of interesting (Gene was born in the promised land!).

“Every Time I Look at You” is the obligatory ballad.  It sounds so crazily out of place on this heavy disc.  And it’s a pretty typical metal ballad of the time.  “Paralyzed” is an example of how Kulick’s wild soloing fits with the heavy sound of the album—it’s noisy and rough like the songs themselves. Of course the actual song, a near the end of the album track by gene, is pretty much filler.  But it’s good filler.

The end of the album has the stupid, but fun “I Just Wanna.”  I hate that the vocal melody is ripped straight out of “Summertime Blues.”  And it’s got a “naughty” chorus straight out of 7th grade—”I just wanna Fuh I just wanna Fuh I just wanna Forget you.” Okay, it is kind of fun to sing that part.  “Carr Jam 1981” is an instrumental jam that is dominated by Eric Carr’s drum solo.  It’s nice tribute to Eric (even if they did have Bruce record over Ace’s original guitar work).

I hadn’t really listened to this album all that much, but I found that when I listened to it again recently (aside from those three or four bad songs) it was a really good, rocking album.

[READ: August 13, 2012] “After Ellen”

This is a story about an asshole.  And that is deliberate.

The title is “After Ellen” and the first 8 or so paragraphs are all about what a cowardly shit Scott is.  He doesn’t want to get too serious with Ellen.  They have already picked up stakes from Long Island and moved to Portland together.  But he knew an evil seed was planted when they got there.  And so, on the day after they talked about adopting a dog, he packed all of his things into their shared car and just left.  While she was at work.  Giving her no warning.  And now, leaving her with no ride home.

How is it possible that one would want to read any more about this guy?  Perhaps to see if he gets a comeuppance or to see if he changes his mind (although one hopes that Ellen would never take him back after that).  But Taylor is a good writer and I want to read on.

He heads south to stay with his sister in Los Angeles–unannounced of course.  But he stops in San Francisco to rest for the night.  He checks his phone for the first time in two days.  Ellen called 16 times and has gone from pleading to rage. There’s also messages from his parents (who are going to cut him off if he doesn’t call) and from Andy, a college friend from Portland who says he is a shit for taking the car–how is Ellen supposed to get to work?  He texts Alan who immediate writes back and says to never even think about Ellen again.

After he settles in, he had deliberately avoided checking his past life, but when he finally logs into Facebook he sees that Ellen has not unfriended him (she was always a lazy Facebooker).  And her most recent post is Fffrrryyydddaaayyy (and five people “like It).  But Andy has unfriended him and Andy’s new profile picture is of him and Ellen.

And here’s where I say the asshole part of the story is deliberate.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Skip Horack–“The Cryptozoologist” (Narrative Magazine, Spring 2012)

Posted in Animals, Cryptids, David Bowie, Death, Demons, Funny (strange), Ghosts, Hoax, Kiss, Military, Monkeys, Narrative, Oddities, Short Story, Skip Horack, Van Halen, War on August 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Hot in the Shade (1989).

Before this album came out, Paul Stanley did a little club tour.  My friends Matt and Nick and I got to see him in Wilkes Barre, PA. It was a pretty great show, and intimate in a way that Kiss shows can never be.  So we were pretty psyched for this new album.  And yes, this album holds special memories or me because we used to listen to it a lot after the show.

The biggest problem with this album is bloat.  I don’t have any kind of evidence to back this up, but this was the first Kiss album that took advantage of the compact disc’s length.  And so it’s easily twenty minutes longer than most Kiss albums (and the later albums had some filler on the already).  Plus it’s  almost longer than Kiss’ first two albums combined.     That’s just too much.

Even Kiss’ weaker albums usually start with a good song.  Not so much Hot in the Shade.  “Rise to It” is pretty generic even by mid 80s Kiss standards.  They try to make it fun with the Ri–e i-e-i part, but it doesn’t quite make it.  “Betrayed” is a bit more of a rocker and is quite a good song.  Lyrically it’s not so great (it’s funny to think of Gene Simmons trying o be down with the common man), but it rocks pretty hard.  My friend Matt and I liked “Hide Your Heart” quite a bit when it came out.  The chorus: Ah ah ah ah, hey hey hey do do do do do do do do do” is pretty bad though.  “Prisoner of Love” musically sounds like Kiss of old, until the verses come in.  “Read My Body” is really catchy until you realize it sounds just like “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”  That’s embarrassing.  Although the metaphor is well done, at least.  “Slap in the Face” might as well be “Let’s Put the X in Sex” from Thrashes Smashes and Hits.

Then comes the cheesiest ballad in Kiss’ history—actually written by Michael Bolton, yes Michael Bolton.  And man do I love it.  Paul is in full voice, he sounds great, the harmonies are spot on.  It is the cheesiest metal ballad ever, but I never get tired of it.  It even has an acoustic guitar solo—pre-made for Unplugged!  “Silver Spoon” is a good rocker, with a fun chorus.  Although the gospel singers at the end are a bit overkill—it seems silly to have invited them in for 90 seconds of singing.  “Cadillac Dreams” is just a bit too close to a Beatles song for my liking.  “King of Hearts” is a decent song, and “The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away” (were Kiss really hard up for money?  what’s up with these lyrics?).  We had an in-joke on my dorm floor, so I can never take this song seriously (that may also be because they steal the “Hey man” right out of David Bowie’s mouth).  Love Me to Hate You” is pretty generic although catchy.  “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell” is also a decent song.

“Little Caesar” is the first (and only, really) song that Eric Carr sang lead vocals on.  As a singer he’s a really good drummer.  The song is pretty generic too and is unfortunately given the same name as a bad pizza company.  “Boomerang” has a good fast pace (once again, not unlike a Van Halen song).

[READ: August 11, 2012] “The Cryptozoologist”

This is yet another short story broken down into lots of little sections.  What’s neat about the way that this one is done is that because the narrator is a cryptozoologist, each section is headed by a cryptid (animals whose existence has not been proven).  But in addition to discussing these animals, the sections also describe a history of the narrator’s life.  His life in this field started when his grandfather told him about a snake which latched onto the end of its own tail and rolled away from its pursuers (section title: Hoop Snakes).  His grandfather never lied, so it had to be true.

It proceeds through The Mušhuššu (a serpent dragon spoken of in ancient Babylon), through the Jenny Hanivers (jeunes d’Anvers), into The Wolf of Ansbach (believed to be an old Bürgermeister who was transformed into a werewolf), and on to The Batutut, a monkey man in Laos.  Most of these sections describe the origins of the cryptids (and his lack of success at spotting them), but The Batutut section is also about himself and how he was in the war when this particular cryptid entered his life.

Then we move on to The Altamaha-Ha in Southeastern Georgia, while Giglioli’s Whale, which had two dorsal fins dates to 1867.  The Mongolian Death Worm, said to live in the sands of the Gobi desert is a cryptid that he actually experienced in the American desert.  he didn’t see it, but he could feel its presence.  The Madagascar Tree is a killing tree–it looks like a pineapple and eats sacrifices.  This story was told by two adventurers who saw the tree eat a woman.  The best part of is that there is no proof that the two men who are credited with telling the story actually existed themselves. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Elizabeth Benedict–“Paris in the Twenties” (Narrative Magazine, Spring 2012)

Posted in Annie Hall, Consumerism, Death Wish, Elizabeth Benedict, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kiss, Marriage Trouble, Narrative, Nostalgia, Taxi Driver on August 21, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Smashes, Thrashes + Hits (1988).

This was Kiss’ second greatest hits collection (Double Platinum being the first).  This was before there were literally hundreds of Kiss Greatest Hits collections.  Seriously, look at the list on AllMusic.  This was also the era in which bands would release a greatest hits collection and include one song to sucker fans into buying it.  And we did.

Kiss also re-recorded a bunch of songs for this disc (something they would do many times in the future as well).  I’m not exactly sure what has been re-recorded, although the one obvious change is that Eric Carr sings on “Beth.”  But some of the other songs get tweaks as well.

As for the two new songs, it seems like maybe they were leftovers from the Crazy Nights sessions–they are poppy with keyboards.  “Let’s Put the X in Sex” sounds a lot like Robert Palmer, which is pretty embarrassing.  Although interestingly, the song itself seems to serve as a model for a couple of songs on Hot in the Shade (as if maybe they thought Kiss fans wouldn’t buy the greatest hits?).  “(You Make Me) Rock Hard” is another okay song (which sounds a lot like another song on Hot in the Shade).  Both of these songs are just filled with sex similes, I swear they have more than any other writers in the world.  Both songs would be better without those pesky keyboards.  I rather liked the songs at the time as they are both better than anything on Crazy Nights, although neither one has held up all that well.

And “Beth,”  Kiss’ biggest hit, which may be largely forgotten by the general public by now, has Eric Carr on vocals.  He sounds a bit like Peter Criss, but without Criss’ years of hard living in his voice.  It’s a weird choice, although I understand it from a business standpoint–which is clearly more important than the music, right?

[READ: August 10, 2012] “Paris in the Twenties”

This story starts out with a paragraph that I found very confusingly written.  There’s a very long sentence with several clauses that, after reading the story, make perfect sense, but which up front are more than a little confusing.  The upshot of that paragraph is that in 1972, when the narrator was a senior in high school, a whole bunch of bad things happened to her in a short period of time–just before they were to hear which of the Seven Sisters had accepted them.

The catalyst was that her father threw a tumbler of scotch at the giant window of their penthouse apartment.  The window shattered but did not fall and the glass came back into the room.  The irony of course is that he had chosen the apartment for the gorgeous panoramic views those windows afforded.  Her father had been riled up about the state of the world, and felt that the sexual revolution meant that monogamy was outdated.

Their father was also very conscious of wealth and was very conscious of appearing wealthy–even if “he usually had more credit than money and now had very little of either.”

The narrator escaped into fantasies of Paris in the twenties–she read A Moveable Feast and was determined to move to Paris even if the party was over decades ago. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Mary Miley Theobald–“Putting the Red in Recoats” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, Field Recordings, Field Recordings, Food, History, Mary Miley Theobald, Metric, NPR/PRI/PBS, Pirates, Yuck! on August 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: METRIC-“Synthetica” (Field Recordings, June 20, 2012).

After playing the Sasquatch festival, Emily Haines and James Shaw of Metric went behind the stadium and played a beautiful acoustic rendition of the title song from their latest album.  This Field Recording [Metric In A Non-Synthetic Situation] is just so wide open as to be inconceivable–especially since they’d just played a festival.

Metric make beautiful music which is rocking and usually full of all manner of electronic noises.  To hear Haines’ voice stripped from any effects shows just what a great and interesting voice she has.   It’s always nice to hear the song underneath the song.  This is a great version of the song.  Watch it here.

[READ: July 25, 2012] “Putting the Red in Redcoats”

Have you ever thought about how the redcoats’ coats became red?  No, me either.  Well, amazingly, it came from the Cochineal, the same bug that is still used today to color foods.

Cochineal bugs are pretty bizarre.  The female lives her entire life on a prickly pear cactus.  When she hatches, she clamps onto the prickly pear and starts feeding.  She grows to the size of a head of a pin. but never leaves the spot.  The male flies around, but only lives for a week.  The female lays eggs and the babies continue the process.

Although she is immobile, she is also armed with carminic acid, which predators don’t like.  Carminic acid is a vibrant red colorant.  Aztecs first mined this amazing color, which naturally impressed Spanish conquistadores who wanted to take it for themselves.  And they made a lot of money selling it to Europe.  But the Spanish never told anyone that the color came from bugs–they kept the secret for themselves.

Of course pirates and privateers would often hijack ships (one score captured 27 tons of cochineal!). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ivor Noël Hume–“Mecklenburg’s Declaration of Independence” (Colonial Williamsburg, Summer 2012)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, Field Recordings, Field Recordings, History, Ivor Noël Hume, Now, Now, NPR/PRI/PBS on August 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NOW, NOW-“But I Do” (Field Recordings, August 8, 2012).

This is an NPR Field Recording, [Now Now at Graffiti Park]which means they brought equipment to Graffiti Park in Texas and recorded Now, Now playing this song live.  You can watch the video here.

The video opens with the band lugging their gear into the weird little foundation of space.  (This explains why there are no drums, clearly).  And so the band with two guitars and a xylophone (and a shaker) play their song and sound great doing it.  This is something of a stripped down version of the bands usually more shoegazery sound, but even in this format the band sounds great–the song is catchy, the melody is pretty and their harmonies are great.

I haven’t heard the original of this, but this is now the third Now, Now song that I’ve really enjoyed.

[READ: August 1, 2012] “Mecklenburg’s Declaration of Independence”

The previous issue of Colonial Williamsburg surprised me with several articles that I found really interesting.  Although this issue was filled with a little more about current local happenings (bulldozers and updates) they still managed to pack in a number of interesting articles.

According to this article, in 1775 Captain James Jack delivered a document to the Second Continental Congress.  On May 19, 1775, select officers from North Carolina, seeing the kind of fighting that was happening against the British in Massachusetts made up several resolves.  The fist stated:

We hearby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, or association, with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanely shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.

This “declaration of independence:” preceded Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence by fourteen months.  The document never reached its destination in the intended form and it was almost forgotten.

But then in 1819, the editor of the Raleigh Register and North Carolina Gazette wrote about this “Mecklenburg Declaration.”  The news surprised John Adams who had never heard of the document.  Adams praised the document (Adams didn’t really like Jefferson).  But Jefferson called it questionable: “I believe it spurious.”  This led to an intrastate rivalry with Virginia claiming the Declaration of Independence as the true one and North Carolina claiming the Declaration of Independence a plagiarism!  Jefferson even went as far as to question the patriotism of North Carolinians.

The controversy is complicated by a document from May 31 a facsimile of which seems to show signatures cut from court records and imitations of the designer’s handwriting.

It’s all somewhat moot as the Continental Congress applauded the intention of the letter but felt that adopting the Mecklenburg resolves was premature.  And therefore it was not a usurper of the actual Declaration of Independence.  But in North Carolina, the document is held up as official.  It became a page of official North Carolina history in 1831 and in 1861, the state voted  to add the date to the state flag.

American history caught up in 1954 when President Eisenhower acknowledged the men who signed the “Mecklenburg Declaration.”  Who knew?

Read Full Post »

Amy Parker–“Rainy Season” (Narrative Magazine, Winter 2012)

Posted in Adventure, Amy Parker, Boredom, Drinking, Drugs, Kiss, Narrative, Sex, Short Story, Van Halen on August 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Crazy Nights (1987).

I’m going to make a bold statement here—Crazy Nights is worse than The Elder.  Whereas The Elder was a mistake–weird songs, a bizarre concept, it showed some pretty ballsy moves.  Crazy Nights on the other hand is just a pandering mess.  There’s keyboards.  Keyboards!  The band has always been money makers (Gene Simmons’ face could be on the $100), but at least usually their music would find its own version of poppiness.  But this album sounds like any generic metal album from the late 80s.

“Crazy Crazy Nights” is an obnoxiously poppy sell-out of a song (although it is at least catchy, but man…).  “Fight Hell to Hold You” is the exception to the disc, a solid song from Paul with a good chorus.  But “Bang Bang You” is as dumb as it sounds.  It has cheesy keyboards, a lame riff and even has the audacity to reference “Love Gun.”  It’s hard to fault Bruce Kulick for his wild playing, but it seems so out of place on this disc–as if his crazy solos will make the album heavier.  Much like on Asylum, he gets a song to wail on the opening: “No No No” which is sort of winning by virtue of its non-stop propulsion (like say, “Hot for Teacher”).  But it’s not really a song so much as a series of connected sounds.

  “Come Hell or High Water” is pretty close to being a good song, perhaps the rest of the album taints this one too.  What’s especially crazy about the keyboards on “My Way” is that they sounds straight out of Van Halen’s 1984. [None of this is to imply I don’t like Van Halen, I just don’t want Kiss sounding like them].  “When Your Walls Come Down” feels heavy in comparison to the rest of the disc, especially when followed by the super-ballad “Reason to Live” (which despite myself I kind of like).  “Good Girl Gone Bad” is generic lyrically and musically.  “Turn on the Night” brings more cheese and more keyboards.   And “Thief in the Night” ends the disc on a reasonably high note.  But the problem is that the music is such generic pop metal that it’s hard to be inspired by any of it.

I’m kind of surprised Kulick stuck around during this–two albums in a row!.  Although he did get to show off his squealing chops, so maybe he was happy.

[READ: August 10, 2012] “Rainy Season”

This story came in second place in the Narrative Magazine Fall contest.  I had been putting off reading it because it was quite long and I didn’t really have enough time to devote to it.  When that time finally arrived, I was glad I waited.

This is a story about Jill and Maizie.  Their father works at the Thailand consulate (something to do with drugs).  And so the girls have been living in a gated compound for three months in Chaing Mai, Thailand. They are bored out of their minds.  They are not permitted to leave the compound, they are the only Americans around and all they can really do is watch Gone with the Wind (which they have memorized).  The girls have been trying to make the best of things, although it’s not always easy.  Especially given the way their father is.

Their parents got divorced some time ago and the girls have never lived in the same place for more than two years.  What’s worse is that their father is working all the time.  So when he is around, he’s not really around for them.  He is very strict about arbitrary things but is completely blind to others: “Maizie and Jill aren’t allowed to pierce their ears until they’re sixteen, he says. But he goes on trips to the Golden Triangle and leaves them alone in the house.”

Maizie is younger and she is super cute with comment-worthy blonde hair.  She gets away with a lot.  Jill is older.  She is no longer cute and she is resentful of both her father and her sister.  Of course, they only have each other, which Jill resents a bit too. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »