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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Arthur Bradford–various nonfictions (1997-2010)

Posted in Adventure, Alessandro Manzoni, Andrew WK, Another Magazine, Arthur Bradford, Avery Corman, Cathleen Schine, Charles Portis, Cheap Trick, Clive James, Daredevils, Dave Eggers, David Rakoff, Elizabeth Gilbert, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Homelessness, How's Your News?, John Fowles, Luigi Barzini, Maile Meloy, Memoirs, Men's Journal, Miriam Toews, nerve.com, Powder, ReadyMade, Robert James Waller, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Skiing, The Austin Chronicle, The Believer, The New York Times, The Portland Mercury, Travel, Vice, Weezer, Wells Tower on August 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEZER-Raditude (2009).

I didn’t buy this Weezer album when it came out because I had heard really bad things about it (like the “guests”), but when I saw it cheap I decided to check it out.  This has to be the most polarizing Weezer album of them all.  I listened to it twice yesterday.  The first time I thought I had been too harsh on it.  The second time I thought it was godawful.  It’s amazing what a couple of hours can do.

It opens with a wonderful bit of poppy wordplay ala Cheap Trick: “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To.”  It’s catchy as anything and is a wonderful start to the album, even if it is probably their poppiest song ever.  From there though, the album really degenerates.  And mostly it’s because it’s so dumb.  I mean the album title should tell you what you’re in for, but who would have expected the moronic sub-pop-metal of “The Girl Got Hot” or even the reprehensible lyrics of “I’m Your Daddy” “You are my baby tonight And I’m your daddy.”  It’s just creepy.  Or gah, a song about the mall?  “In the Mall.”  It’s not even worth mocking.  And really, try to picture Rivers Cuomo in a mall.  Any mall.

But nothing could prepare anyone for “Can’t Stop Partying.”  Unlike Andrew WK’s ouvre, which is so sincere about partying that you can’t take it seriously, this song really seems to be about the guys partying.  It’s laughable.  The anemic rap but Li’l Wayne certainly doesn’t help.

Even the collaboration with Indian musicians on “Love is the Answer” (yes, seriously) doesn’t really work.  It feels like they wrote the song and then said, “Hey let’s throw some sitar on it.”  It’s not enough to be exciting but too much to ignore.

This is not to say that these songs aren’t catchy.  I mean, geez, I still have “Can’t Stop Partying” in my head while I’m listening to something else.   Rivers knows how to write a pop trifle.  And the more he writes songs like this, it makes me thing that Pinkerton was the fluke.  Which is fine. The music world needs poppy songs, right?

[READ: early August 2011] various nonfictions

I thought about doing individual posts for all of Arthur Bradford’s non-fiction that’s available on his website (that’s right,  yet another author that I have read short uncollected pieces by without having read any of his bigger works–I’m looking at you Wells Tower).  Bradford has links to all of his nonfiction ( I assume) on his website.  There are 12 links in total.  One is to his blog (which I’m not reviewing).  The rest are for articles covering a pretty broad array of topics from a pretty broad variety of sources.  (more…)

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Five Dials Number 17: In Jaipur (23 January 2011)

Posted in Abha Dawesar, Arranged Marriage, Books about writers, Craig Taylor, Culture Shock, Death, Essays, Faiza Sultan Khan, Five Dials, Henning Mankell, James Kelman, Kamila Shamsie, Leila Abouela, Live from the Artist's Den, M.K. Gandhi, Manju Kapur, Namita Devidayal, Patrick French, Robert Johnsson, Roma Tearne, Simon Prosser, Tishani Doshi, Tori Amos on August 13, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-Live from the Artist’s Den (2010).

I think my relationship with Tori Amos has come to an end.  I haven’t enjoyed her more recent albums all that much lately, but I was excited to see that this live and intimate set was on PBS.  After all, it was just her with a piano and what turned out to be a really cheesy organ.

I was pretty thrilled by the setlist, which goes all the way back to her debut album (with “Girl” and “China”).  I was even more excited to hear “Bells for Her” one of my favorite songs by her and even “Concertina” one of her more mellow tracks that worked well for this show which was primarily mellow songs.

There were a lot of newer songs which I don’t know that well, and a few newer songs which I know okay.   I don’t love her newer stuff, but I was even disappointed with the presentation of her older songs.  She has definitely taken on a new technique where she reeeeeaaaaaalllllllllyyyyy streeeeeeeeeeeetches the songs out. And, as I’ve complained on other recent posts, she mis-pronounces or mis-enunciates words that she used to say perfectly fine.  I find it maddening.

It took me two days to watch this 50 minute show because I kept falling asleep.  Gadzooks.

Now I totally respect an artist’s desire to change her songs.  Indeed, there are some live versions of her songs that I have enjoyed more than the originals.  But there’s something about the way these are drawn out that it feels like the life has been sucked from them.  The melody of “Ruby Through the Looking Glass” loses its impact when it is slowed down so much.

I’m also really disappointed with the synth that she chose.  Synthesizers can make any sound in the world, so why did they program this keyboard to play utterly anemic strings?  The conclusion of “Girl” which is so dramatic on record actually sounds worse with the thin washes than it would if it were played on just piano.

And as for the way she sings words now…  “Bells for Her” to give just one example, has her mangling the word “you” so that when she sings “not even you” we get something like “not even yaow” which I don’t understand.  I mean, listen to the awesome live version on To Venus and Back–she didn’t used to do that.  So wha happa?

I used to think that I liked her solo better.  I always enjoyed the little quiet time section of the concerts when she would play a song or two by herself.  But I feel like now, when she’s by herself, she loses any sense of editing.  The band seemed to keep her on pace.  And it’s a shame to see her drift so much.

Because Tori was an important part of my music youth, I’ll give her one more chance–she has a new album due out reasonably soon, but I’m not holding out much hope for it.   I think we may just be on very different planes of existence anymore.

[READ: July 19, 2011] Five Dials Number 17

The brevity of the Christmas issue is followed up by the somewhat longer Five Dials Number 17.  (This issue also has 7 pages of photos at the end of the issue).  I admit I didn’t know where Jaipur was (it’s sort of north west-ish in India, not terribly far from New Delhi).

This is also the first issue of 2011 (I’m nearly caught up!).  So the issue opens with New Year’s Resolutions.  The letter is also from editors, plural, for a change.

CRAIG TAYLOR & SIMON PROSSER-Letter from the Editors
The letter opens with some enjoyably self-deprecating comments about resolutions (and how they made theirs now, instead of at the end of the year).  But what I enjoyed most was the collective list of resolutions that the entire staff made.  They are listed as one person, which makes for wonderfully contradictory resolutions.  I was particularly pleased by: “stop making that face when my brother makes a suggestion.” (more…)

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Robert Coover–“Matinée” (New Yorker, July 25, 2011)

Posted in Funny (strange), Huh?, Meta, New Yorker, Robert Coover, The Skinny Boys, Workaholics on August 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SKINNY BOYS-“Jockbox” (1986).

I didn’t realize that the theme song from Workaholics was from a real song.  I loved the “I’m fresh” bit in the show, but I thought it sounded like it might actually be from something.  Sure enough, the internet led me to this.  The Skinny Boys (evidently a response to The Fat Boys) from the hip hop mecca of Bridgeport, CT put out this beatbox song (with that cool sci-fi keybaord) as a shocase for their member: The Human Jock Box.

This is a pretty bizarre track.  And I’m not even sure what they’re talking about.  But I love the hiccups around the three minute mark.  Note also how by the end of the song, the keyboard plays the riff from Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” and then a little later “America the Beautiful” (with accompanying beatbox).  Wha??

The Workaholics bit is from 1:13 to 1:23.  You gotta be fresh!

[READ: July 25, 2011] “Matinée”

I’m not going to say how I just don’t get Coover.  Every time I read one of his stories I think the same thing: it’s clever but, well, so wha?  I know that Coover is an experimental fiction writer, but I just feel that there’s no emotional resonance to his stories.  Perhaps I like experiemntal art and music but not fiction.

There were some really cool tricks with this story.  All of the (unnamed–don’t get attached to them) characters are watching movies or are in the movies.  And so, in a series of what, infinite regresses? chance encounters? something, new characters are introduced, they watch a film (possibly of the people who were watching them?) they may or may not have sex and then the “camera” shifts to a new couple. (more…)

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Justin Torres–“Reverting to a Wild State” (New Yorker, August 1, 2011)

Posted in Buffalo Tom, Hüsker Dü, Justin Torres, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, The Afghan Whigs on August 11, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BUFFALO TOM-Birdbrain (1990).

If Buffalo Tom’s first album was a kind of punky Hüsker Dü album (which I contend it was), their second album switches gears towards the Afghan Whigs.  In other words, they still have a raw punky feel, but they’ve added more textures and melodies to the proceedings.

And while Janovitz’ voice is still loud and bold, rather than the screamy sound of say Bob Mould, he’s got a more nuanced sound like Greg Dulli (for some of the disc, anyway).  I notice this especially on the second track “Skeleton Key” which sounds like it could be an outtake from an Afghan Whigs session (it’s not as a good as a typical Whigs song, however).  You can hear more of those Dulli-notes on “The Guy Who is Me.”

The songwriting is somewhat more comlex overall.  The title track “Birdbrain” is catchy not only in the verse, but the chorus is a wonderful surpise–really redirecting the momentum of the song.  Despite some variants in texture and pacing, the disc still retains that raw punk sound of the first.

The album feels kind of long to me, though (and not because there are two acoustic songs tacked on at the end).  At almost 5 minutes, “Enemy” is way too long.  And by the end of the album, some of the sameiness that was eveident on the debut has crept into this disc as well.  The last few songs in particualr seem to have a lot of that screaming voice over a fairly simple riff thing going on.

The cover of the Psyhedeclic Furs’ “Heaven” in a live aocustic setting is a nice change, but really should have been laced around track 7 or 8 to minimize redundancy.  The last track is a live acoustic version of the tenth song off their first album.  How odd to resurrect a very deep album cut in this way.  But, again, at almost 5 minutes (two minutes longer than the original), it just doesn’t hold up.

There are signs of change here, but they won’t become fully evident until their next album, Let Me Come Over.

[READ: July 29, 2011] “Reverting to a Wild State”

This story plays around with a timeline, but not in a crazy way–in other words, the story is out of sequence, but it’s not a gimmick.

In Part 3, we see the narrator “cleaning” a rich man’s apartment, in his underwear.  We have no real context for him or what he’s doing, but it’s an amusing little section, and ends with him seeming content.

In Part 2, we see the narrator fighting with Justin, the man who we learn was his boyfiorned.  They broke up, but are in a diner having what seems like a final hash-out. (more…)

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Arthur Bradford–“Wendy Mort & I” (Nerve.com, February 21, 2007)

Posted in Arthur Bradford, Buffalo Tom, Dinosaur Jr., Fears, Hüsker Dü, Humiliation, J. Mascis, nerve.com on August 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BUFFALO TOM-Buffalo Tom (1988).

After listening to the new Buffalo Tom song, I decided to go back and reappraise their back catalog.  This first album was produced by J. Mascis, and a lot of reviews talk about the album sounding very Dino Jr.  But I have to say that rather than Dino Jr, I hear Hüsker Dü.  There’s some big loud choruses and, to me, the vocals sound much more like any of the screamier Hüsker Dü songs than anything Dino did.

There are a couple of songs that have the catchy urgency of Hüsker Dü, but for the most part the disc feels like it’s all urgency, with little in the way of songcraft.  There are elements of something here but it feels underdeveloped, especially compared to their later releases (an unfair comparison, I suppose).

 It’s also a surprise to hear just how punky this is when as recent as their next album, they would be far less abrasive.  I don’t dislike the album, but it didn’t leave a very big impact on me.

[READ: July 18, 2011] “Wendy Mort & I”

Bradford has a second story published by Nerve.com.  This one, while again featuring a rollicking sex scene (more explicit than your average short story) ultimately also went in an unexpected direction.

The narrator is dating an actress named Wendy.  Wendy is not so much an actress as an “actress.”  The narrator first sees her in an experimental play in which she is naked for the entire second act.  He’s pretty psyched to have this naked woman right next to him after their second date.  In fact, sex is the bulk of the beginning of the story,  Their relationship is very physical.  In the beginning, he is expressly forbidden to go without a condom.  But later in the story, there’s an intense scene where they have sex without one.

Now the gun on the wall must go off by the end of the story, right?  And yet this one doesn’t (minor spoiler).  The story does not focus on anything that could go wrong without using a condom–in some ways its nice that the condomless sex is all about pleasure.  (Of course, this is for nerve.com, which is all about sexual pleasure). (more…)

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Colson Whitehead–“Last Night” (Harper’s, July 2011)

Posted in Colson Whitehead, Death, Excerpt, Gambling, Harper's, Primus, Set in New Jersey!, Zombies on August 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PRIMUS-June 2010 Rehearsal (2010).

Just when I was convinced that Primus were a done deal, I learned that they were not only touring but had just released a free downloadable EP of their recent rehearsals.  It’s got 4 songs: two super oldies, 1 pretty oldie and one not terribly old one (these designations are in terms of albums releases, not length of time ago, as they would all be old ones by that reckoning).

The two oldies are my favorites: “Pudding Time” sounds wonderful–a few updates, and slight improv things, but basically that’s the song that introduced me to Primus.  “Harold of the Rocks” is the other one.  I love Harold, because it is such a weird, crazy song (even by Primus standards).  Lyrically, it’s about some guys who meet the fabled Harold of the Rocks.  Sometime later the narrator meets Harold again.  Harold is currently lit up like an old Christmas Tree and he tells the narrator that he doesn’t remember much about what happened that night.  And that’s pretty much it.  It even mentions Schooly D!  Great stuff.

The other two songs are “American Life” which comes from Sailing the Seas of Cheese.  It’s a deep cut as opposed to the more obvious single, “Jerry was a Race Car Driver.”  It’s nice to hear that song again, as it wasn’t very high-profile, although it is surprising to me that it’s 3 minutes longer than the original.  “Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread” is from The Brown Album, an album I don’t know all that well.  It’s got some good stuff in it, including a pretty good solo from Ler.

This EP features the drumming of Jay Lane, who was in Primus even before “Herb” (who I miss very much) and was in Sausage.  “Herb” by the way, was in A Perfect Circle and THE BLUE MAN GROUP!  Holy cowboys!

Primus sucks!

[READ: July 25, 2011] “Last Night”

This is an excerpt from Zone One, a book Colson Whitehead signed for me at BEA (I really must read it one of these days).

The story opens with something happening on Last Night.  It’s a little confusing, and since no context is provided, it doesn’t make all that much sense until the very end of the excerpt which (the end) blew my mind.

The story concerns Mark Spitz–not Mark Spitz the swimmer (or maybe it is Mark Spitz the swimmer–again, no context), –a teenager who goes to Atlantic City with his friend Kyle.  And for the most part, the story is pretty tame, almost dull (but Whitehead is a great writer and he invigorates what could have been a pretty typical Atlantic City gambling weekend).  The boys gamble, get comped and basically don’t leave the casino for the duration of their stay.

What I love about the story is that little things, meaningless sentences like, “They did not watch the news nor receive news from the outside” [when you are on a casino weekend with buddies you do not check the news] seem innocuous–like little details that would fill out any story.  It’s only later that… (more…)

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Scott Thompson–The Hollow Planet (2011) (illustrated by Kyle Morton)

Posted in Adventure, Canadian Content, Demons, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Hollow Earth, Humiliation, Kyle Morton, LGBTQ, Marriage Trouble, Scott Thompson, Sex, Superchunk, Supernatural, The Grid, The Kids in the Hall, The Sound of Young America, Threats, Violence on August 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SUPERCHUNK-Superchunk (1990).

Some time ago, I reviewed all of the Superchunk EPs.  After progresing to their most current music, returning to their first album is a bit of a shock.  Superchunk’s first full length album is incredibly raw, with lots of screaming (two vocalists at once, even) and a very grungy attitude.  It has a DIY aestethic, in keeping with the undeground scene at the time.

The first four songs fly past in a pretty quick blur of adrenaline (the longest is just over 3 minutes).  The fifth song, the aptly named “Slow” slows things down and strecthes things out with a five minute track of slow distorted chords and a long solo.

Of course, the pinnacle comes with the next song “Slack Motherfucker” one of the best grunge anthems of all time. 

The last four tracks speed things up again with the bratty attitude that Superchunk is so good at (see especially “Down the Hall”).  But it’s not all just blistering speed.  The band has some dynamics down and there are a couple of tempo changes as well.

The album is a lot of fun to listen to, especially if you’re lookig for grunge before it became Grunge.  Although there’s very little indication that they would become the indie superstars that they eventually became you can clearly hear proto-Superchunk chunks–Mac’s voice is as it ever was and the noise is present but not overpowering.  There are even hints of melody (although nothing as catchy as later albums).  And yet for all that it sounds like a criticism, the album is really quite solid.

[READ: June 15, 2011] The Hollow Planet

Yes, THAT Scott Thompson, from The Kids in the Hall.  I found out about this comic book from my good friend Jessee Thorne at The Grid.

The backstory is that Scott Thompson had been working on this story for years and years.  He imagined it as a movie (starring him, of course).  When that didn’t pan out, he decided to sell it is a comic book.  And while he was recovering from cancer, he worked on it extensively with Kyle Morton–character likenesses and whatnot.  And now we have a cartoon rendering of Scott Thompson!

This story focuses on Scott’s character Danny Husk…

The book opens with Danny and his wife and kids at a carnival.  After a few moments, Danny’s son gets lost on the merry-go-round.  In the next scene we see just how much his wife is estranged from him (she may even be cheating on him), and how little his daughter thinks of him.  Soon after, Danny goes to work, inserts a disc into his laptop and more or less brings down his company.

So far nothing out of the oridnary for this type of  story–henpecked husband on a quest for revenge that he doesn’t know he wants yet.

Then Danny visits with his old friend Steve.  They talk, they bond over Danny’s concern about his wife.  And Danny feels better.  Until he gets home.  After a scene which I won’t spoil, the story suddenly takes off with a high speed car chase (no kidding) and with Danny entering the titular hollowness of the planet. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Babymouse: Dragonslayer [#11] (2006)

Posted in Barenaked Ladies, Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Dragons, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Short Books on August 7, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BARENAKED LADIES-Live at the NJ Festival of Ballooning, July 30, 2011 (2011).

I ‘ve loved BNL since their first album.  I’ve even seen them live a few times.  And “One Week” was a huge hit, not to mention they did the theme for The Big Bang Theory.  So, imagine my surprise to see that they were playing at the Festival of Ballooning in an airport near my house!

I thought perhaps their star had fallen on hard times.  Ever since Steven Page left, I haven’t been too sure what the band has been up to (their post-Page release is kind of bland).  And maybe they didn’t get very much for their performance (no way of knowing of course).  Nevertheless, the audience was packed with fans and, in what must have been a cool site for the band, hot air balloons filled the field, many of them lighting up their balloons in sync with the music.  It was very cool.

It was great to see that the Ladies were still fun live–one of the best things about their shows is their spontaneity.  They play tight songs and they sound great, bu they also goof around.  Like with this Ballooning Rap

I was also impressed that without Page–their primary lead singer (and one of the best voices in music)–the band was still able to play their old songs that Page sung.  Now lead vocalist Ed Robertson (who does the fast part in “One Week”) manages a remarkable approximation of Page’s voice.  Indeed, a few times, I forgot that he was gone.  Check out “The Old Apartment”, which Page used to sing:

There are some notable differences of course, “If I Had $1,000,000” misses the repartee between Page and Robertson.  But in fairness, drummer Tyler Stewart more than makes up for it (he even does lead vocals on one of the songs).

There were a number of newer songs which I’d never heard (I don’t have the newest album), and they were pretty uniformly mellow.  But they sounded great. And when the band played some of their older tracks (“Falling for the First Time”?!) it was magical. And I’ve had “Brian Wilson” in my head for three days now.

Sarah took a brief video of the balloons lighting up, to “Light Up My Room”.

And here’s mine at the end of “Brain Wilson”, the bass solo! (sorry it’s sideways, I’ll try and fix it).

[READ: March 12, 2011] Babymouse: Dragonslayer

This has been my favorite Babymouse so far.  Perhaps it was because there was more of a “story/plot” than in the other stories–and the other stories were fine without a real plot, but this one was more focused.  Also the fantasies sequences were wonderful referenced to great stories like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Lord of the Rings.

I honestly couldn’t imagine what the title of dragonslayer would refer to.  I mean, aside from the animals, the story is pretty accurate to a middle school life. I assumed there’d be fantasies, but what could ground a dragon story in middle school? W ell, the big surprise for me is that the “drgaon” in the story is actually math.  Babymouse hates math and has just failed a math test with an F-!  The teacher says that she will overlook the test if she joins the mathletes (okay so maybe it’s not ENTIRELY based in reality). (more…)

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Five Dials Number 16: Things We Found in the Snow (20 November 2010)

Posted in 1984, A Clockwork Orange, Anton Chekhov, Canadian Music, Craig Taylor, Damon Albarn, Five Dials, Francesco Pacifico, Heathecote Williams, Holidays, Julie Doucet, Peter McDonald, Pink Floyd, Poetry, Short Story, The Dears on August 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEARS-Degeneration Street (2011).

I’ve loved The Dears for a long time now.  And yet with every new album I feel like I have to prepare myself for what’s to come.  And with every release I’m a little disappointed when I first play it.  Maybe for the next release I’ll realize what my problem is–The Dears do not stand up to cursory, casual listening.  They demand attention.  If you put them on as background music, you miss everything.  So when I finally gave Degeneration Street some attention, I realized how great it is.

The Dears write emotional songs that are fairly straightforward.  But the magic of their music comes in the layers of ideas and sounds that they put on each track.  And of course, there’s Murray Lightburn’s voice.  He sounds like Damon Albarn if Damon Albarn could sustain a note for a long time–could emote with his voice.  Now I happen to like Damon Albarn quite a lot, but Lightburn can really just out-sing him.  It’s wonderful.

“Omega Dog” opens with an electronic drumbeat, eerie keyboards and skittery guitars.  When the vocals come in–falsettoed and earnest, you don’t anticipate the full harmonies in the forthcoming chorus that lead to an almost R&B sound.  Not bad for the first 80 seconds of a song.  That the song is actually 5 minutes long and by minute 3, it sounds like an entirely different song is even more testament to the versatility of The Dears (check out the harpsichord solo that more or less ends the song).

“5 Chords” is a chugging anthem, a song with potential to be a hit (but which of course never will).  I find myself constantly singing the infectious chorus of “Blood”: “Since I was a baby I have always been this way; I could see you coming from a million miles away.”  Or the excellent chorus of “Thrones” “Plucking our eyes out, turning to stone, give up on heaven, give up the throne.”

“Lamentation” mixes things up with a slower pace and backing vocals that come straight out of Pink Floyd (any era really, but probably more of their later albums).  It adds an amazing amount of depth.  “Galactic Tides” has more Floydian stuff–the guitar solo (and the instrumental break) are really out of mid 70s Floyd–more backing vocals again).

Follow all of this intensity with the super poppy “Yesteryear”. It’s got an upbeat swing to it: happy bouncy chords and an inscrutable chorus: “What’s the word I’m looking for; It starts with ‘M’ and ends with ‘Y'”  It’s followed by the more sinister “Stick w/Me Kid,” in which Lightburn shows off his bass range.  There’s an awesome guitar riff in “Tiny Man,” simple and mournful that sticks with you long after it’s over.

The last couple of songs don’t really live up to the excitement of the first ten or so.  But the final song brings back the drama, with a swelling chorus and soaring vocals.  The Dears have managed to do it again, an emotional album that comes really close to being a concept album yet with none of the pretensions that that implies. 

[READ: July 13, 2011] Five Dials Number 16

Five Dials Number 16 is a brief Christmas Present from Five Dials.  The issue even seems longer than it is because the last ten pages are photos from the Five Dials launch party in Montreal.  The photo essay, titled In Montreal, includes local scenery and (unnamed) people photographed by ANNIKA WADDELL and SIMON PROSSER.

That leaves only 7 pages of text: The Editor’s Note, a look at London, a Christmas Poem and a short story from Anton Chekov.  And there’s another cool illustration from JULIE DOUCET

CRAIG TAYLOR-Letter from the Editor
Taylor thanks Montreal for their warm welcome (despite the crash course in what Wind Chill actually means).  He also hopes we enjoy the Christmas offerings contained within: the traditional Christmas poem and the Chekov story. (more…)

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Edward P. Jones–“Shacks” (New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2011)

Posted in AV Club, Books about writers, Coheed & Cambria, Edward P. Jones, Essays, New Yorker, The Smiths on August 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: COHEED AND CAMBRIA-“A Rush and a Push and This Land is Ours” (2010).

This AV Club Undercover is from last year.  Coheed and Cambria came in and covered this Smiths song.

As I mentioned the other day I liked just about every Smiths song.  So when I hear a song by them I pretty much automatically think, “Oh I love this song.”  And that’s true with this one.  This is a more obscure track of theirs, but since I was never one for just the hits, I know it and like it very much.  There’s something about the propulsive beat and the cool way Morrissey sings “oooohrush” that is really compelling.

But Coheed and Cambria covering it?  Coheed are a fascinating band in that they play beautiful acoustic melodies but also heavy fast metal.  Who knows what they’ll do with this song.

Well, they play it surprisingly delicate , and quite beautiful.  It’s actually a pretty straightforward cover as well.  But he brings a wonderful yearning to the vocals that the original is lacking (probably because of the tempo of the song).  This is a great cover.

[READ: July 19, 2011] “Shacks”

I didn’t know who Jones was before I read this.  Of the 5 Starting Out pieces this was the least inspiring.  (I’m not sure if any of them were meant to be inspiring, actually).  I guess what I mean is it focused pretty on one thing and stuck with it.  There wasn’t any “moving forward” feeling.

When he went away to college he wrote letters to the girl he loved who did not love him back.  That’s pretty much it.

The thing I didn’t get om the piece was his use (twice) of the, to my ear, awkward phrase “little shacks of life we can build”. I understand what he means, I just don’t think it really flows very well.  I’m not even sure if it works within the confines of the piece.  Like is a shack a shelter or a compartment? (more…)

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