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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Tessa Hadley–“The Bunty Club” (New Yorker, October 28, 2019)

Posted in New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Summer Walker, Tessa Hadley, Tiny Desk Concert on October 28, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SUMMER WALKER-Tiny Desk Concert #903 (October 18, 2019).

I have never heard of Summer Walker.  This is who she is:

A 23-year old singer-songwriter with an uncensored pen and brown-liquor vocals, Walker has become something of a patron saint for colored girls who’ve considered bossing up when heartbreak is too much. With the release of her official studio debut Over It, she made history last week by racking up the biggest streaming week of any female R&B artist ever. Meanwhile, the first lady of upstart label Love Renaissance (LVRN) is lowkey leading a sonic revolution in Atlanta that’s turning the trap capital back into an R&B town. Her team was equally insistent on tricking out the Tiny Desk space by hanging lights that brought a diffuse glow to Walker’s creative set.

It’s funny to read this blurb and all of the glowing praise and “fan favorites” for a person I’ve never heard of and whose debut album came out the week before.  And yet, apparently she is in high demand.

For an artist who rarely grants interviews and admittedly dreads the public spotlight — despite an Instagram feed that clearly shows off her humorous, exhibitionist flair — Walker’s Tiny Desk is revealing. In the span of 15 minutes, she performs fan favorites (“Session 32,” “Wasted,” “Riot”) and the song that made Drake hop in her DMs, “Girls Need Love,” before ending with current single “Playing Games.” Even behind the bright lights and oversized eyeglass frames, her unadorned soul shines through.

I’m quite delighted with how restrained this entire performance is.  I don’t know if her recorded songs are similarity stripped bare (I assume not) but I really like how understated and chill this is.

For the first song, “Session 32” Summer plays guitar along with Elijah “Jah” Whittingham as she sings quietly.

Seconds before the cameras started to roll, Summer Walker showed just how much she was willing to sacrifice for her day at the Tiny Desk: She clipped her nails. It wasn’t an aesthetic choice but a pragmatic one. Not even her love for a fresh set of bedazzled acrylics would get in the way of her strumming the soul out of her six-string Fender electric.

The songs fills out nicely with a gentle bass from Stox and simple drums from Remey Williams.  By the end of the song there some twinkly keyboards from Slim.wav and in 2 and a half minutes, the song is over.

Summer puts the guitar away for the rest of the set (was it worth cutting her nails for less than 3 minute of strumming?) and just sings.

“Wasted” is a bit more slinky and sultry, with a groovy bass and some piercing electric guitar lines.  This is probably the fullest song complete with her backing vocalists.  And yes it makes me smile that her name is Summer and one of the backing vocalists is named Autumn (with the unlikely last name: Autumn Tuesdae) while the other is Angel White.

The third song, “Girls Need Love” is the one that made “Drake hop in her DMs” (whatever that means).  It doesn’t sound all that different from the other songs until you listen closely to the lyrics.  Never has a verse like this sounded so gentle and sweet:

I just need some dick
I just need some love
Tired of fucking with these lame niggas baby
I just need a thug

Girls can’t never say they want it
Girls can’t never say how
Girls can’t never say they need it
Girls can’t never say now

It’s hard to believe that the woman who sings this is actually quite shy

“Look, I’m really freaking excited to be here but I have social anxiety like a mother******,” Walker told the NPR crowd at the end of her set, barely mumbling the expletive in an attempt to censor herself. “I’m freaked the hell out, I’m sweating, but this is so exciting for me.”

After band introductions, she introduces “Friend”

The guitar wasn’t the only thing she’d brought with her from Atlanta. In her lap sat “Friend,” the pink stuffed animal who no doubt provided a bit of emotional support during a five-song set that forced the shy enigma out of her creative shell.

I really enjoy that “Riot” is just her and Jah’s electric guitar.  Similarly her singing is understated.  There’s no over-the-top R&B caterwauling–she just sings really nicely.  I hope that her singing style will inspires more singers to sing like her–dial it back, huh?

And it’s less than two minutes long.  Amazingly, all of the songs are short.  The first three songs were finished in 8 minutes.

The final song “Playing Games” fills out the sound again.  Even though everyone seems to kick it up a notch, it is still understated.

I found that I really liked Summer Walker quite a lot.

Out of curiosity, I listened to the recorded version of “Riot” and was delighted to find that it is indeed 2 minutes long and is just her voice and one guitar.

Understated beauty.

[READ: October 23, 2019] “The Bunty Club”

I continue to really enjoy Tessa Hadley’s stories.  Even though nothing ever really “happens,” I love the depth she gives her characters.

This story was a little different because the narrator inhabits all three sisters at one point or another and we see through all of their eyes for a time.  Although it is really Serena’s story.

The story opens on Serena, the youngest sister.  She is awake before the other two and is enjoying the garden which is “much more lovely now than when it had been scrupulously cared for.”  The house they were in is a stolid Victorian villa.  They had all grown up in this house but had outgrown it.

The eldest sister Pippa and the middle sister Gillian were in the house, reliving some childhood incidents.

All three sisters were back in Fern Hall because their windowed mother was recently hospitalized. They were taking turns to drive the forty five minutes to the hospital. (more…)

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Sleater-Kinney (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, October 27, 2019)

Posted in Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, Janet Weiss, Philadelphia, PA, Sleater-Kinney, The Fillmore Philadelphia on October 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 27, 2019] Sleater-Kinney

I saw Sleater-Kinney in New York City in 1999 and 2000.

Back in those days I didn’t try to get up close to the stage and I have one or two pictures of them from far away.

When S-K made their reunion album in 2015, I didn’t feel compelled to see the tour because I had seen them twice already.  I now regret it because it was at Union Transfer and that would have been an amazing place to see them.  Although looking at that setlist, aside from songs of that new album, I didn’t miss a whole lot that wasn’t played at my show, so my regret is now low.

There were some weird things going on with this tour before it even began.  People didn’t like the new record.  Then, amazing drummer Janet Weiss abruptly quit a few weeks before the tour started (I saw that people actually asked online about getting a refund (!)).  And my show had the weird detail of being listed at two venues.  Was it at the main room of the Fillmore?  Or was it in the tiny Foundry (as their site listed).  Now The Foundry would have been an insanely wonderful place to see them, and I wondered if the new album wasn’t selling or that without Janet, maybe they could only fill The Foundry.

But clearly that was a mistake because the Fillmore was well crowded (but not packed).  I have been really down on the Fillmore as of late because super crowded shows there really suck.  But I managed to get a good spot around nicer people and was close enough that I wasn’t in the halo of the bar, so it was all good.  And the sound in the Fillmore is outstanding, of course. (more…)

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David J. Schow–“Last Call for the Sons of Shock” (published 1991) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Abbott & Costello, Bauhaus, David J. Schow, Dracula, Esquire, Frankenstein's Monster, Goths, Halloween, Hingston & Olsen, Patton Oswalt, The Blair Witch Project, The Cramps, The Ghost Box, The Real Wolf Man, Wolfman, Wrestling on October 27, 2019| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ANTONIO CORA-“The Cellar” (from The Blair Witch Project) (1999).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

I was getting bored of the Esquire list so I found this fun little tidbit of spookiness.

The Blair Witch Project was a low budget, DIY-looking movie.  The soundtrack is a compilation with songs on it (Josh Blair’s Witch Mix), but this track is from the actual movie soundtrack.  I couldn’t exactly tell if there was a release of the actual movie soundtrack, but the last track on the disc is similar to a video I found online for the “end credits theme.”

Excluding the intro, which has 30 seconds of dialogue from the film (“Heather’s Apology”), this track is a five-minute nightmarish ambient score.

It is largely quiet with rattling, echoing sounds.  An online thread (therefore of dubious truth) says that the score was made with the sound of sticks breaking and being thrown into a culvert (or some such) and slowed down dramatically.  There’s also some kind of droning sound throughout (maybe a synth, but who knows).  It seems to slowly percolate while things scrape and bang.  There’s a few louder noises that really stand out, but there’s no momentum or narrative to the soundtrack.  It’s just a sort of endless low grade scare.

Don’t listen at bedtime.

[READ: October 27, 2019] “Last Call for the Sons of Shock”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

I feel foolish that I didn’t “get” this story right away.  When I see that it was originally published in The Ultimate Frankenstein, I guess the Blank Frank name would have been a bit more obviously Frankenstein’s monster.  I did figure it out before the end, but on a second read it was much clearer. (more…)

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Saki–“Sredni Vashtar” (published 1912) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Chickens, Death, Ferrets, Funny (ha ha), Halloween, Hector Hugh Munro, Hingston & Olsen, Patton Oswalt, Religion, Saki, Short Story, The Flaming Lips, The Ghost Box on October 26, 2019| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-“Halloween on the Barbary Coast” (1992).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

Clearly this Esquire list is not meant to be scary or Halloween-appropriate songs.  Many of them might have a Halloween-type word in the title or chorus, but since they are songs you might want to listen to all year, the’re not really holiday specific.

There are songs that have Halloween in the title, like this one.  Although this song really has nothing whatsoever to do with Halloween.  Nor is it scary in any way.  It’s just weird trippy, pre-radio-friendly Flaming Lips.

Wayne Coyne’s voice is high and the main guitar riff is fluid and kind of catchy.  After a minute, the song shifts to a kind of acoustic stomping song.

The lyric does include the line “boy you still got shit for brains/it’s Halloween on the coast again.”  Of course it also references a Christmas tree, so I guess it could be a Christmas song too?

There’s a vaguely Middle Eastern feel to the middle portion of the song, but mostly it’s just a fun, shambolic Lips song.

[READ: October 24, 2019] “Sredni Vashtar”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

This has been quite possibly my favorite story in any of the Ghost Boxes.

Saki is the pen name of British author Hector Hugh Munro.  I could not get over that this story was written in 1912, as it was timeless and darkly amusing. (more…)

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Richard Matheson–“The Distributor” (published 1958) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Delusions, Halloween, Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Kate Bush, Patton Oswalt, Racism, Relationships, Religion, Revenge, Richard Matheson, Sci-fi, Sex, The Dog Dies, The Ghost Box, The Twilight Zone on October 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-“Under Ice/Waking the Witch” (1982).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

Esquire didn’t pick this song, but the inclusion of Kate Bush yesterday reminded me of this pairing of songs which I find incredibly creepy–especially late at night wit headphones.

This comes from side two of the Hounds of Love album.  Side Two is a suite or a story called The Ninth Wave.  Kate makes full use of sound effects and vocal panning so that you can hear the voices all around your head as they whisper, call or threaten.

The side begins with the gentle “And Dream of Sheep” which shows a young woman falling asleep (later we find it’s not as innocent as it seems).  This segues into “Under Ice” which begins with slow string notes that sound like someone skating.

Kate’s voice is deep, slow and echoey as she sings about skating on the ice.  You can hear a voices calling, but she doesn’t heed them:

I’m speeding past trees
Leaving little lines in the ice
Cutting out, little lines in the ice
Splitting, splitting sound
Silver heels spitting, spitting snow

and then in a more tremulous voice (with great watery sound effects) followed by a chorus of voices:

There’s something moving under
Under the ice moving
Under ice through water
Trying to
It’s me
Get out of the cold water
It’s me
Something
It’s me
Someone, help them

The two minute song segues into “Waking the Witch” which opens with a whispered “Wake up!” and an early morning wake up call while voices from all over the headphones try to get you to wake up–some more gently than others.

After a minute or so of this the song becomes an intensely scary four minutes.  A voice of someone, pleading, but garbled and cut up–perhaps under water? It is a nightmarish attempt at communication when a deep scary male voice states (with Kate singing the parenthetical)

You won’t burn (red, red roses)
You won’t bleed (pinks and posies)
Confess to me, girl (red, red roses, go down)

With a pretty melody, a voice whispers Spiritus Sanctus in nomine.  It cuts to another chopped up and manipulated voice praying “Bless me, father, bless me father, for I have sinned.”

The deep voice returns in accusation:

I question your innocence
She’s a witch
(Help this blackbird, there’s a stone around my leg)
Ha, damn you, woman
(Help this blackbird, there’s a stone around my leg)
What say you, good people
(Guilty, guilty, guilty)
Well, are you responsible for your actions?
(This blackbird)
Not guilty (help this blackbird)
Wake up the witch

As the four minutes fades off, we hear a helicopter flying through the air and a man shouting

Get out of the waves!
Get out of the water!

The story continues from there and gets a bit more positive, but man, the cinematic detail of this is staggering. Apparently she was finally able to stage this suite when in 2014, she performed her first concerts since 1979.  I would have loved to have seen that.

[READ: October 23, 2019] “The Distributor”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

This has been quite possibly my favorite story in any of the Ghost Boxes.

Richard Matheson wrote I am Legend and many episodes of The Twilight Zone and this story was the epitome of dark suburban paranoia come to life.  It is also scarily timeless and, aside from some of the words used in the story, could easily have been written today. (more…)

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Livia Llewellyn–“It Feels Better Biting Down” (published 2014) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Halloween, Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Huh?, Kate Bush, Livia Llewellyn, Mules, Patton Oswalt, Sci-fi, Short Story, Sisters, The Ghost Box, Twins, Yuck! on October 24, 2019| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-“Get Out of My House” (1982).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

Most people who know Kate Bush know her songs that have broken the Top Ten.  But if you dig deeper into her catalog, Kate has some really intense and really creepy songs.

I was pretty delighted to see this on Esquire’s list because it’s a pretty deep cut, it seems like a surprising choice and because it gives me chills.

It starts with thumping drums, a plucked string melody (dulcimer?) and a guy making a kind of hee-hawing sound in the distance.

And then the lyrics.  Good old gothic horror:

When you left, the door was
(slamming)
You paused in the doorway
(slamming)
As though a thought stole you away
(slamming)
I watched the world pull you away
(Lock it)
So I run into the hall
(Lock it)
Into the corridor
(Lock it)
There’s a door in the house
(slamming)
I hear the lift descending
(slamming)
I hear it hit the landing
(slamming)
See the hackles on the cat
(standing)
With my key I
(lock it)
With my key I
(lock it up)

The next part has Kate speaking in a funny voice (and in French) in your left ear before the “chorus” (such as it is) features Kate singing the main lyrics quietly and slowly while the recurring refrain is her shrieking and gasping at he top of her lungs (but recorded so it sounds far away) “Get Out of My House!”

The middle of the song gets more frantic.

This house is full of m-m-my mess
(Slamming)
This house is full of m-m-mistakes
(Slamming)
This house is full of m-m-madness
(Slamming)
This house is full of, full of, full of fight
(Slam it)

Midway through the song, while repeating “Get Out of my House!” the dulcimer returns playing a bouncy melody while a man’s voice whispers creepily in your right ear:

“Woman let me in!
Let me bring in the memories!
Woman let me in!
Let me bring in the Devil Dreams!”

Kate replies:

I will not let you in!
Don’t you bring back the reveries
I turn into a bird
Carry further than the word is heard

The man counters:

“Woman let me in!
I turn into the wind.
I blow you a cold kiss,
Stronger than the song’s hit.”

Kate concludes:

I will not let you in
I face towards the wind
I change into the Mule
“I change into the Mule.”

She turns into the Mule and starts braying and hee-hawing, which then transforms into the man who did it at the beginning of the song.

That’s not quite the end, but I’m not even sure what’s going on as the song ends–voices keep muttering something over and over.

It’s five and a half minutes of confusion and creepiness.  Perfect Kate Bush.

[READ: October 23, 2019] “It Feels Better Biting Down”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

I don’t know Livia Llewellyn, but if her other stories are anything like this, she must have a wonderfully bizarre body of writing.

This story starts off fairly conventionally.  Twin sisters wake up to the sound of a lawnmower. (more…)

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Fritz Leiber–“A Defense of Werewolves” (published 1948) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Canadian Content, Death, Fantasy, Fritz Leiber, Halloween, Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Huh?, Patton Oswalt, Pet Sematary, Ramones, Sci-fi, Science, The Ghost Box, Vampires, Werewolves on October 23, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RAMONES-“Pet Sematary” (1977).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

Ramones are the least punk punk band ever.  Sure they are essential to the history of American punk, but they were basically playing fast rock n roll songs. They were awesome sure, but compared to the viciousness of British punk, Ramones were just guys in leather jackets singing harmonies.

By the time they released “Pet Sematary” in 1989 they were more of a pop metal band.  This song is stupidly catchy.

It’s got a complex (for them) opening guitar riff and quickly moves into power chords.

The chorus (with all kinds of backing vocals) is one of the poppiest things around.  If it weren’t for the lyrics

I don’t want to be buried in a pet cemetery
I don’t want to live my life again

it could easily be a radio friendly pop hit (and I think it was anyhow).

This song actually works very well for Halloween, even if it isn’t particularly scary, because of the lyrics.

Under the arc of a weather stain boards
Ancient goblins, and warlords
Come out the ground, not making a sound
The smell of death is all around

The moon is full, the air is still
All of the sudden I feel a chill.

I never realized that the song was literally about the book/movie.  I knew it was for the movie but the lyrics reference Victor the main character, which I never knew).

I suppose if you were a fan of the first four Ramones album and then never heard another song until this one, you might find it frightening how far they’d traveled from their origins.

[READ: October 22, 2019] “A Defense of Werewolves”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

This story was first published in 1948 and wow, did I dislike this.   The first time I read it.

It’s pretty short so I read it twice.  This story is written like a treatise.  It is high language and rousing, I guess.  But honestly it really has nothing to do with werewolves and is actually more about the fantasy genre and keeping it safe from “the querulous, muttering voices of the plain.” (more…)

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Dennis Etchison–“It Only Comes Out At Night” (published 1976) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Cars, Dennis Etchison, Desert, Halloween, Hingston & Olsen, Horror, Patton Oswalt, Short Story, Talking Heads, The Ghost Box on October 22, 2019| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: TALKING HEADS-“Psycho Killer” (1977).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

Of all the songs on this list, this is possibly the one that most people are familiar with.  I mean, it’s been played on the radio for over thirty years.

Musically the song is not scary at all.  The bass is pretty straightforward and instantly recognizable.  It’s really catchy too.  The guitars are cool jagged/new wave licks.

Really it comes down to the lyrics and vocal delivery.

David Byrne has a unique delivery style to be sure, although somehow I find his delivery doesn’t really sell the “psycho killer” nature of this song all that well.  Perhaps it’s deceptively psycho.

Indeed, everything in this song is implied rather than explicit.

Lyrically the song could be pretty creepy.  Except that really the lyrics are just good manners

You start a conversation you can’t even finish it
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?

…

We are vain and we are blind
I hate people when they’re not polite

Perhaps that’s what creates a psycho killer after all.

There’s an acoustic version (available as a B-side and now on the 2005 bonus tracks) which features slightly different lyrics and a cello that is rather menacing at times.  It’s slightly more creepy.

Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi

[READ: October 21, 2019] “It Only Comes Out At Night”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

Dennis Etchison also had a story in the first Ghost Box.

I rather enjoyed the timelessness of this story.  I didn’t read when it was written before reading it and aside from one or two small details at the end of the story it could have been written at any time in the last sixty years.

The story starts with an explanation of how to get from San Bernadino to points east.  You must cross the Mojave Desert.  But there is no relief–it is relentlessly hot: (more…)

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David Means–“Are You Experienced?” (New Yorker, October 21, 2019)

Posted in Civil War, David Means, Drugs, Farming, Jimi Hendrix, Mandolin Orange, New Yorker, Robbery, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Vietnam War on October 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MANDOLIN ORANGE-Tiny Desk Concert #883 (August 23, 2019).

Mandolin Orange is one of my favorite new band names.  It’s funny and clever and tells you a lot about the band.

I so wish I liked them more.

In fact, their music is really lovely.  I guess it comes down to Andrew Marlin’s voice.  It really don’t like it.  Indeed, Emily Frantz’ backing vocals are delightful and if she sang lead I’d like them a lot more.

But clearly I am no judge, because their recent album (their sixth) was #1 on the following Billboard charts:

Heatseekers, Current Country, Bluegrass and Folk / Americana with Top 10 Entries on 5 Additional Charts.

So don’t listen to me.

Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz made everything seem so easy, pulling a few acoustic instruments out of their car and, in no time, huddling around a single microphone behind the Tiny Desk. With that, Mandolin Orange was ready.

Interestingly, “Golden Embers,” the first song that Mandolin Orange plays, doesn’t actually have a mandolin in it.  Rather, Frantz plays the violin while Marlin plays guitar.  I couldn’t get past his voice so I didn’t really hear the words beyond “it’s like an old friend,” but apparently he

sang about his mom being carried away in a hearse.

Yikes.

It’s the second song, “The Wolves” that features Marlin on mandolin and Frantz on guitar.  I liked this one a bit more perhaps because he seems to be speaking more than singing and that’s more palatable to me.  This song

 is a story song that … tells a tale on an older woman’s life, the “hard road” she’s taken and that feeling of wanting to howl at the moon when all is finally right.

The last track, “Wildfire” comes from their 2016 album Blindfaller.  He sticks with the mandolin as he sings about Civil War.

The lyrics to this song are pretty great

 It’s a song with a wish that the Civil War would have left racism to rot on the battlefield, and yet it still rages like “wildfire.” It’s a sobering message presented with a gentle tone.

And so I love their name, their music and their lyrics.  I just can’t get past his voice.  But what do I know.

[READ: October 14, 2019] “Are You Experienced?”

The title of this naturally made me think of Jimi Hendrix.  And I was correct to think this.  For this story concerns hippies about to shipped off to war.

Although Billy doesn’t know he is soon to be shipped of to Vietnam.  In fact, as the story opens, he is dropping acid with his girlfriend Meg near Lake Michigan.  Billy had hung a “Keep On Truckin'” poster on the wall.  The poster eventually started dancing, trying to lure her in.

Billy was always full of schemes.  He told her about his Uncle Rex and Aunt Minerva who had been farmers but had moved to Lansing.  He knew that Rex had a box of cash in his attic.  Rex doesn’t have the heart to spend the money because it came from the soil and “he lost his farm a few years back and he’s still not over it.” (more…)

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Poppy Z. Brite–“Bayou de la Mère” (published 19) [Ghost Box III] (2019)

Posted in Churches, Halloween, Hingston & Olsen, LGBTQ, Patton Oswalt, Poppy Z. Brite, Relationships, Religion, Sex, Suspiria, The Ghost Box, Thom Yorke on October 20, 2019| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THOM YORKE-“Volk” (2018).

A lot of the music I listen to is weird and probably creepy to other people, but I don’t necessarily think of songs as appropriate for Halloween or not.  So for this year’s Ghost Box stories, I consulted an “expert”: The Esquire list of Halloween songs you’ll play all year long.  The list has 45 songs–most of which I do not like.  So I picked 11 of them to post about.

I knew that Thom Yorke had scored the soundtrack to the film Suspirira.  I didn’t know that the film was a remake, or that the band Goblin scored the original or even what the film is about.

Esquire said that Yorke’s “Suspirium” was the creepy Halloween song from the record, but I don’t find it any more creepy than any Radiohead song–his vocals are so unmistakable that it’s all Radiohead to me.  However, this instrumental later in the soundtrack is definitely a creepy piece of music.

It opens with synthy twinkling that sounds more like scraping metal. Then a thin echoing synth melody takes off.  The sound of that melody morphs and shifts, growing louder and quieter and changing shape before returning to that original sound again.  After two minutes splashes of discordant keyboard sounds pop in and turn into various other sounds.

The song continues to move forward with a slow bass and atmospheric sounds.  It starts to get more tense around the four minute mark as more jagged sounds stab the air.  At nearly five minutes, drums come out of nowhere.  They lend a beat to the sounds, but the beat is frenetic and as unsettling as anything else and it just adds to the cacophony.

Then at around 5:45 everything abruptly gets turned off and sharply fades out except for some echoing sounds.

It seems over but for the last 30 seconds a pulsing wall of loud grunting seems to slowly creep out of the silence.

Shudder.

[READ: October 18, 2019] “Bayou de la Mère”

Just in time for Halloween, from the people who brought me The Short Story Advent Calendar and The Ghost Box. and Ghost Box II. comes Ghost Box III.

This is once again a nifty little box (with a magnetic opening and a ribbon) which contains 11 stories for Halloween.  It is lovingly described thusly:

Oh god, it’s right behind me, isn’t it? There’s no use trying to run from Ghost Box III, the terrifying conclusion to our series of limited-edition horror box sets edited and introduced by Patton Oswalt.

There is no explicit “order” to these books; however, I’m going to read in the order they were stacked.

I am familiar with Poppy Z. Brite, although I’m not sure exactly how.  Perhaps I am just familiar with the name because it is so unusual.  (It’s a pseudonym of course).

I always assumed Poppy was a woman, but indeed, Poppy is a man.

This story is also not particularly scary.  It is more of a story about the relentless hands of religion–which can indeed be scary. (more…)

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