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James Joyce–[Week 1] Ulysses (1922) [Telemachus, Nestor, Proteus]

Posted in Big Books, Homer, Infinite Zombies, Irish Writer, James Joyce, Language, Racism, Religion, Set at School, Smarty Pants, The Pogues, Word usage on July 12, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THE POGUES-If I Should Fall From Grace with God (1988).

So the cover of this album has James Joyce on it (and a hilarious pastiche of the rest of the band).  I guess we know what we’re in for, then.  This is the Pogues third album and the one that tamed the wildness of their first shambling discs into a (somewhat) presentable collection of songs.  And, jaysus, it’s fantastic.

The Pogues seamlessly blended punk and traditional Irish music (and on this disc they expanded into latin & middle eastern motifs too).  The first track opens with a fast paced Irish whistle playing what is pretty darn close to a jig.  And then Shane MacGowan (whose teeth are not to be believed–or if you are lucky, not to be seen) sings his slurred, fantastic lyrics.  MacGowan always presented such a contradictory figure for this band of well dressed resctable players.  And it’s often confusing wondering how he became the front man of this band.  But he adds that certain something to make the band unforgettable.

“Fairytale of New York” is one of the most gorgeous, sad Christmas anthems ever.  It’s a duet with the much missed Kirsty MacColl and it’s moving and charming, even with the lyrics: “you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas me arse, I pray God it’s our last.”

Then you get a crazy instrumental, “Metropolis” fast paced, manic energy and a great riff (and of course, let’s not forget the quoted musical passage too).

What’s surprising is when you get a tender ballad like, “Thousands Are Sailing.”  Lyrically it is stunning, and you wonder why is Shane singing it with that slurry voice of his.  And then you realize it works perfectly as a drunken lament.  And then you get to the chorus, and you stop caring and just enjoy the song.

They even throw in a couple of traditional songs, like “South Australia” and “Medley” (which incorporates “Rocky Road to Dublin.”)  But after “Fairytale,” I think my favorite track is “Fiesta” which is a Spanish/Mexican sounding song with loud horns and absurd faux Spanish lyrics.  Ole!

And, just so we know, it’s not all drinking and rollicking, Shane also wrote “Birmingham Six.”  “There were six men in Birmingham / In Guildford there’s four / That were picked up and tortured / And framed by the law / And the filth got promotion / But they’re still doing time / For being Irish in the wrong place /And at the wrong time / In Ireland they’ll put you away in the Maze
In England they’ll keep you for seven long days”

The Pogues would release two more albums before Shane MacGowan took off. And they’re all pretty darn good, but I’ve always been partial to this one.

[READ: Week of July 12, 2010] Ulysses: Episodes 1-3

This is my third time reading Ulysses.  The first time I was a freshman or sophomore in college and I signed up for a James Joyce class because, get this, the Canadian band Triumph had released a CD called Thunder 7 which was supposedly based on the 100-letter words in Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (which I had bought and found impenetrable).  Our teacher was intense and tried to scare everyone off (which worked for some, but not me).  The class was hard (first assignment : read The Odyssey over the weekend for a quiz on Monday).  I enjoyed Dubliners and Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, but I thought Ulysses was pretty daunting.

I read it again when I re-took the class with the same teacher (not for credit this time, but because I wanted to, imagine that).  And that time I learned to really appreciate what Ulysses had going on for it.  I was also inspired by it to try to write challenging fiction, paying careful attention to every single word, and even possibly using different writing styles in the same book.  (The world appreciates that that never panned out).

But so the careful attention thing: Joyce spent seven years working on Ulysses.  Every single word was charged with meaning.  He even made up his own words.  And it’s very apparent that he was the inspiration for countless modern authors (for better or worse).

I’m excited to pick the book up again.  In part, because it was ranked number 1 on the MLA list of books, but also because for twenty-some years I’ve felt the book was fantastic.  And I wanted to see if I would enjoy it without guided instruction.

I was curious about which edition to read.   Since my class, when there was only really one edition available, many many editions have been published.  There’s a great discussion about this at Infinite Zombies, and I considered getting the third one Judd mentions.  But when I consulted with my old professor, he said the Gabler edition is still the best, so I went with that one.  And that edition is littered with all the notes I took from class and from the supplemental resources.

I decided not to read the supplemental resources this time (although I can;t help but look at my notes), to see what I can get from the story AS A STORY.

I remember a bunch from the class, but one thing that I distinctly remember is that to get everything out of Ulysses, you need to understand Catholicism (the mass in particular), The Odyssey, European history–especially Irish history, and popular Irish culture circa 1920.  It also helps to know Latin.  And these are all things that Joyce would have known and his audience probably would have known.  Every year we move away from its publication, means we know less about what he was writing about.  But that’s all the little details and jokes and blasphemies.  I wanted to see (with some background, which certainly gives me an advantage) if I could enjoy the story without all the help.

So… (more…)

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Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)

Posted in Alex Lifeson, Canadian Music, Christopher Hitchens, Concept Albums, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Geddy Lee, Hockey Night in Canada, Les Claypool, Neil Peart, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, South Park, William Faulkner on July 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: July 11, 2010] Beyond the Lighted Stage

I had heard about this film around the time that I read .  I was pretty excited about it, and then evidently everyone I know went to the TriBeCa Film Festival and saw it (except me).  And then everyone saw it on VH1 (except me), so I bought the DVD instead.

This film is really fantastic.  Obviously, it helps if you’re a Rush fan, but Geddy and Alex in particular are funny and interesting (even if they think they are boring).  And the film is expertly edited.  They cover 40 years of Rush’s history in 90 minutes.  This leads to a rather cursory look at their history, so the film doesn’t get mired in details, but there are tidbits of fun for die-hards. (more…)

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Gary Shteyngart–“Lenny Hearts Eunice” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Death Cab For Cutie, Dystopia, Funny (ha ha), Gary Shteyngart, Humiliation, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Technology, The Cardigans, The Salteens on July 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SALTEENS-“Frequency” (2010).

I immediately enjoyed the poppy sensibilities of The Salteens. And I knew I’d want to listen to them on CBC Radio 3 again.  There are quite a few tracks available online there.

This one comes from their new EP, Moths.  A little research shows that they’ve actually been around for quite awhile and even appeared on Yo Gabba Gabba! (early 21st century’s badge of coolness).  It is very poppy, features male/female duet vocals and is immensely catchy.

It’s so catchy, in fact that I played their CBC radio songs over and over.  While I liked some better than others (I wasn’t too keen on “Sunnyside Street”), their twee pop was so joyful that I found myself singing along.  They are definitely twee, but not treacly, and in that respect that are very indie sounding (like a less bummed out Death Cab for Cutie or an early Cardigans).

Their arrangements are always pretty simple, but they range from guitars to keyboard to horns (“Nice Day” is almost all drums with the simplest piano and occasional horns).  And it contains the humorous couplet: “I know you think that I’m gay, but I just play the part”

[READ: July 5, 2010] “Lenny Hearts Eunice”

I’ve really enjoyed Shteyngart’s novels, so I was pleased to see him included in 20 Under 40.  This short story is set in another of his future dystopia, complete with a shlubby main character.

It opens with the obvious (yet very satisfying in this case) technique of a diary entry.  This works really well because the narrator is so strong (not physically) and quirky.  Lenny begins this diary because he is in love with Eunice Park, a young Korean woman with whom he shared a moment (and later an intimacy).  And he intends to win her over.

Lenny is a Research Coordinator of the Post-Human Services Division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, a corporation bent on making everyone (especially its employees) immortal.  Of course, since Lenny is an older, out of shape nebbish, who has just spent a year in Rome gorging on carbs, his future looks bleak.  Rome is where he met Eunice by the way. (more…)

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Fredy Perlman–[Week 5] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Anarchy, Consumerism, Culture Shock, Dead Kennedys, Dystopia, Epistolary Novel, Fredy Perlman, Free Speech, Insurgent Summer, Politicians, Threats, War, Work on July 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DEAD KENNEDYS-Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980).

Punks often marry politics to their music.  And none moreso than the Dead Kennedys.  I found out about them around the Frankenchrist album, but it’s this one that introduced Jello Biafra to the world.

What I loved about the Dead Kennedys is that they set out to offend everyone–unless you actually listened to their lyrics. The first track, “Kill the Poor” seems like it a horrifying encouragement to do just that, but if you read the lyrics: “Efficiency and progress is ours once more/Now that we have the Neutron bomb/It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done/Away with excess enemy/But no less value to property/No sense in war but perfect sense at home.”   As was recently commented, Dick Cheney may have seen the sarcasm there.

“Let’s Lynch the Landlord” is a song that Sophia and Yarostan could get behind: “I tell them ‘turn on the water’/I tell ’em ‘turn on the heat’/Tells me ‘All you ever do is complain’/Then they search the place when I’m not here.”

The biggest track of the disc was “Holiday in Cambodia,” a song so catchy that Dockers actually asked to use it in a commercial (!).  Cause nothing sells jeans like: “Play ethnicky jazz/To parade your snazz/On your five grand stereo/Braggin’ that you know/How the niggers feel cold/And the slums got so much soul.”

The thing that I especially liked about the DKs was that although they played hardcore (some brutally fast and crazily short songs), they didn’t limit themselevs to just that.  They had actual guitar riffs, they tinkered with styles and genres (surf and rockabilly among others), and they even slowed things down from time to time (all the better to hear the lyrics).

Even if the band disintegrated into lawsuits, it’s fair to say that they inspired plenty of kids to take an interest in what was going on around them.

Pol Pot.

[READ: Week of June 25, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Yarostan’s Fifth Letter]

Because Sophia’s letter is very long, this week it’s only Yarostan’s letter for Insurgent Summer.  It opens with Yara annoyed about the tone of Sophia’s letters and her surprise that Yarostan is so quick to want to open the latest one.   But indeed, Yarostan feels compelled to apologize for “the way I treated your earlier letters.  I did treat you as an outsider, as a person with whom I couldn’t communicate about my present situation.  I was wrong” (283).  [It’s very nice of him to admit that he was wrong].  But that doesn’t mean that he is going to lighten up in his discussions with Sophia: “it seems to me that …critical appreciation is not an expression of hostility but is at the very basis of communication and friendship” (285).  Mirna also chimes in (with rather high praise):

Sophia is a born troublemaker, just like Jan and Yara.  She shares Jan’s recklessness as well as his courage.  I’m glad for her sake that she was taken away from here even if her emigration caused her some pain.  There’s no room here for people like that.  If she’d stayed she would have disappeared years ago in a prison or concentration camp (283). (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“The Entire Northern Side was Covered with Fire” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Bishop Morocco, Books about writers, Marriage Trouble, New Order, New Yorker, Prison, Rivka Galchen, Short Story, The Cure on July 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BISHOP MOROCCO-“White City” (2010).

I’d never heard of Bishop Morocco.  Then they played this song on CBC Radio 3.  “White City” is a fascinating confluence of influences.  It sounds somehow late 80s/early 90s yet the the electronic drum sound is decideldy retro, early 80s.

The guitars are heavuily vibratoed.  As are the vocals.  It’s a surpiringly full sound given the limited instrumentation (it’s pretty much guitars and drums).  And it’s quite gloomy (circa The Cure’s Pornography), and yet once the chorus kicks in (still vibratoed, but now major chords) the song perks up (some).

The CBC site has 4 songs by them, and each one confirms that the early New Order/Cure sound is what they’re shooting for.  The cover of their EP “Last  Year’s Disco Guitars” really seems to encapsulate their sound (more so than their album cover does).  I enjoyed the song but after a few listens, I grew kind of bored by it.

[READ: July 4, 2010] “The Entire Northern Side was Covered with Fire”

Rivka Galchen is a completely new author to me.  This was a weird little story that I enjoyed quite a lot, because even though it seemed to be all over the place, narrative-wise, it was actually quite focused.  The narrator is an author who has a burgeoning fan base: male prisoners, who write letters. But of equal importance is that at the time that she sold her movie, her husband had just left her.  Out of the blue.

Although perhaps not out of the blue.  Because in a very humorous (darkly humorous) bit, we learn that all of her friends knew of her husband’s site: i-can’t-stand-my-wife.blogspot.com.   (more…)

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Philipp Meyer–“What You Do Out Here, When You’re Alone” (New Yorker June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Consumerism, Culture Shock, Drugs, Lee "Scratch" Perry, New Yorker, Philip Meyer, Prison, Quicksilver Messenger Service on July 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE-Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968).

For me, QMS have always been mythical–like a unicorn or a gryphon–I had no real proof that they existed, but I have seen glimpses.  I think that this record, along with Steely Dan’s Aja and all of the records of Lee “Scratch” Perry were on every first page of every Columbia House ad and catalog ever.  And yet, I had never heard them or known anyone who listened to them.

Well, thank you vacation house iPod!  The first QMS album was here and I got to listen to it!  All these years I assumed that QMS, with that weird name were some kind of southern rock band like Molly Hatchet or Badfinger.  Boy was I wrong!  They are steeped in the psychedelic sounds of the late 60s (their lead singer even wrote the sixties’ anthem “Get Together”–although he never recorded it).  Much of the story about the band seems to involve the main guy’s drug bust which kept him, well, out of the band.

But anyway, the music sounds not like Jefferson Airplane, and other psychedelic bands of the era.  But I think mostly it’s the recording style more than the music (lots of echo and reverb and very tinny guitars) that keeps that sound together.  It’s a sound that I like in small doses (and in big hits) but one which I don’t enjoy a lot of–it seems like if I’ve heard it on classic rock radio, then I like it, otherwise, not so much.

The disc has a couple of long instrumental sections which are interesting.  The 12 minute “The Fool”, in particular is home to lots of exploration.  But it feels like they didn’t go far enough since none of the songs are fully instrumental.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to finally know what the band sounds like; maybe it would have been a penny well spent.

[READ: July 3, 2010] “What You Do Out Here, When You’re Alone”

This story begins in medias res.  We know that something has happened, that Max calls it the Accident and that his wife doesn’t.  Max’s wife Lilli was disliked by his brothers (they’d even had an intervention, trying to convince him to dump her), but Max was always defending her, so that was no big deal.  She always acted like she didn’t care what anyone thought of her.  Until they moved to the Oaks, when she became Martha Stewart in an attempt to fit in with everyone else.  Max didn’t try to fit in.

But that has nothing to do with the accident.  Rather, the accident concerns their son, Harley.  He did not adjust to the Oaks well at all, and he goes off and gets into trouble and has, well, an accident.  Lilli blames Max, and Max has been stuck in inertia for three weeks since it happened.

The story starts out confusing but intriguing.  The confusion was deliberate, I believe; the reader knows very little of what is going on with this accident, even when all the details are revealed.  And yet it’s the glimpses of the hidden information that keep you riveted.  Especially as more details, more horrible details, come to light. (more…)

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Jonathan Safran Foer–“Here We Aren’t, So Quickly” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Jonathan Safran Foer, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Short Story on July 6, 2010| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: JOHN PRINE-“New Train” & “Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody” (1995).

We’re staying at a beach house for the 4th of July.  There’s John Prine on the iPod.  I’ve never heard him before, although I have of course heard of him.

We listened to several of his tracks and I enjoyed them quite a bit.  Midway through the second or third track I realized that his music is absolutely perfect for hanging around eating brunch at a beach house.  I can’t remember a single thing about these songs, and I probably couldn’t even find them again on the iPod, but they were perfect for the mood.  Okay, they were on a playlist and were easy to find, which is why they are titled now.

I can’t wait to check out Quicksilver Messenger Service!

[READ: July 3, 2010] “Here We Aren’t, So Quickly”

I enjoyed Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close very much, although I haven’t read his first novel (or his nonfiction piece).  This short story is, not gimmicky exactly, it just feels awkward.  It is quite short (two pages), but it resolves itself quite slowly.

The opening paragraph is many sentences that start with I (“I was not good at drawing faces. I was just joking most of the time”).  The second paragraph is many sentences that start with You (You were not able to ignore furniture imperfections.  You were too light to arm the airbag”).  And the story proceeds alternating bits of data from one side to the other, back and forth.  I found it very difficult to read. (more…)

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Joshua Ferris–“The Pilot” (New Yorker, June 14 & 21, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Joshua Ferris, Neurotics, New Yorker, Self, Short Story on July 5, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: SELF-“Trunk Fulla Amps” (2000).

I bought an album by Self many years ago.  They had since released several other discs, but I hadn’t heard any of them.  Then, they came out with this fantastic and very vulgar song.  It reeks of one-hit wonder status and yet it is super catchy (and rather funny).

The lyrics, simply enough: “I got a trunk fulla amps motherfucker.”  But each verse showcases the main guy from Self’s vocal tricks.  “I gotta trunk fulla amps motherfucker, like E.L.O. (Mama!)” or “like Glenn Danzig (Mutherrr!)”.  Plus the song itself rocks like nobody’s business.

I don’t even remember of the rest of the album is any good, but this song will spruce up any mix CD (that’s not afraid of dirty words).

[READ: July 3, 2010] “The Pilot”

What a perfect time to read the New Yorker‘s 20 under 40 stories than a 4th of July holiday at Long Beach Island?

This first story, “The Pilot” is by one of my new favorite authors, Joshua Ferris.  This piece is a simple story about an invitation to a party.  But the twist in the story is that the invitation is sent by email, and the recipient of the email, a neurotic Hollywood guy, spends the bulk of the beginning of the story wondering whether he really should have received the invitation or if it was some kind of mass mailing mistake (since the invite was sent to a large group that was bcc’d).

The party is given by Kate Lovelt.  She’s celebrating the wrapping of the very successful third season of “Death in the Family,” a sitcom with an excellent premise that will no doubt be turned into a show in real life soon enough.   Really, read the story just for the description of “Death” and let’s see how quickly it comes true.  Lawrence is trying to put the wraps on his pilot, but he keeps procrastinating.  He’s also a recovering alcoholic. (more…)

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Wells Tower–“Meltdown” (Outside Magazine, April 2008)

Posted in Adventure, CBC Radio 3, Essays, Sloan, The Guthries, Travel, Wells Tower on July 4, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE GUTHRIES-“Coax Me” (2009).

I don’t know The Guthries, but I’m a huge Sloan fan.  This cover of “Coax Me” comes from a Sloan tribute album that I didn’t know existed called Take It In: A Tribute To Sloan. It turns out The Guthries released two albums in 1999/2000 and then broke up.  They reunited for this tribute.

It’s tough when a band that you’ve never heard of releases a cover of a song you particularly like.  Now, I love cover versions of songs, but I like a band to add something interesting to the cover.  I haven’t listened to any other Guthries songs, but this cover sounds enough like the original that I wouldn’t have really known it was a cover but for a few slight differences   Browsing through The Guthries CBC Radio 3 playlist, lets me know that they are a very country band.  It’s surprising how untwangy their cover is, then.  Even though I don’t like real country, I might have enjoyed the cover more if it had some more twang to it (just to make it interesting).

After listening to samples of other songs, I won’t bother with anything else by The Guthries.  The tribute album is made up of a bunch of up and coming bands so I don’t think I’ll bother with that one either.

[READ: June 25, 2010] “Meltdown”

Before I even begin this review, I have to say that Outdoor Magazine has one of the worst websites for reading articles.  Each “page” is a few inches long, which is fine. However, there is no “view all” page, so you can’t see the whole thing in one long swoop.  Okay that’s not the end of the world, but when you click their printer friendly version, not only does it not print the entire article, it prints the one page–the text is very small and the page includes all the other website ephemera with it.  Then when you click the next page, it opens up the previous main window, where you then have to reclick the Print icon to get it to print just that page.  If you return to the same print window that you already have open, even if it says it has moved to page three, you’re still printing page two. Dreadful!

Hot on the heels of “Own Goal” someone had recommended this Wells Tower piece as a better nonfiction essay.  And I have to agree.  I assume it is because the subject is a) personal to him and b) interesting to me. (more…)

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Wells Tower–“Own Goal” (Harper’s, June 2010)

Posted in CBC Radio 3, David Foster Wallace, Essays, Harper's, Soccer, The Warped 45's, Wells Tower on July 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE WARPED 45’s-“It Takes a Toll” (2010)

The Warped 45’s were being interviewed when I turned on CBC Radio 3.  I couldn’t tell much about them from the interview, so when the DJ played the song, I was somewhat surprised to hear the banjo and alt-country sound.  When coupled with the vocals, they bore an unmistakable resemblance to Cracker.

I’m not a big fan of the alt-country genre.  I like some bands but overall it’s not my preference.  This song was absolutely representative of the genre (as far as I’m concerned).  It did pretty much exactly what I thought it would do.  And for all of  that, it was a good song.  I can’t imagine I’d ever listen to it again, however.

This song comes from the album 10 Day Poem for Saskatchewan, which I mention because I like writing Saskatchewan.

[READ: June 22, 2010] “Own Goal”

The fine folks at the David Foster Wallace listserv were chatting about this piece.  I had started to read it (because I like Wells Tower’s fiction) but I gave up after a paragraph or two.  It just didn’t seem that interesting as a nonfiction story.

And yet, after the discussion, I decided to give it a try.  It is a fascinating story about the Homeless World Cup (in soccer).   The strange thing about the story is that all of the players are homeless and, by their own admissions, pretty much desperate characters. In other words there’s not really any likable characters in this piece.

Even the one guy who makes it to the finals in Melbourne Australia (!) is pretty much of a jerk.  (He, who has gotten kicked out of his house, has the temerity to dis Melbourne as “not being Sydney”). (more…)

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