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Archive for the ‘Ramona Ausubel’ Category

Ramona Ausubel–“You Can Find Love Now” (New Yorker, June 9 & 16, 2014)

Posted in Essays, Funny (ha ha), History, Homer, Humiliation, John Grant, Late Show with David Letterman, New Yorker, Ramona Ausubel, Romance, Technology on September 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

jun9SOUNDTRACK: JOHN GRANT-“GMF” (live on The Late Show with David Letterman) (2014).

grantI was introduced to John Grant with this song.  And since the G stands for Greatest and the MF stands for what you think it does, I was really surprised to hear that he played this live on Letterman (Grant’s network TV debut, no less).

He sounds great live (his voice is rather gentle for such a song title).  He has a full band but the song is primarily acoustic guitar with swells of keys.  The backing vocals on the later verses really flesh out the song.  And it is immensely catchy.  I’ve been singing it to myself for days.

But the best part of course are the lyrics.

In the first chorus of this version he dares to sing the dreaded MF words, which get silenced (sophisticated recording keeps the music playing though).  The rest of the choruses he changes it to “I am the greatest living creature” which I find funny and possibly even better.  I also love the way the percentage of laughing you could be doing decreasing as the song ends.

They edited down the song (the original over 5 minutes), removing a middle section that adds dimension to the song, but is not missed in this version.

Even Letterman enjoyed it, saying those same bleeped words at the end of the song.  It’s a great live performance

[READ: September 17, 2014] “You Can Find Love Now”

This year’s Summer Fiction issue of the New Yorker was subtitled Love Stories.  In addition to all of the shorter pieces that were included in this issue, there were also four fiction contributions.

Interestingly, this one was very short as well (possibly shorter than some of the essays).

This story actually reads like a Shouts & Murmurs piece.  It is a funny conceit dragged to its logical ends.  In this case, the story pokes fun at online dating.

The story opens with a pitch from the dating company saying that after creating a profile, within 24 hours “you’ll be on your way to eternal happiness.”  The first joke comes when the profile creator writes, “Find me at cyclops15.  Cyclops 1-14 were taken.”  Then in his second typed section we learn that, indeed, he is really a cyclops: “I am eight feel tall and I have one giant eye.” (more…)

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Ramona Ausubel–“Atria” (New Yorker, April 4, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Funny (strange), New Yorker, Ramona Ausubel, Richard Thompson, Sex, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator, Virginity (Loss of) on May 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RICHARD THOMPSON-Tiny Desk Concert #107 (February 1, 2011).

This Tiny Desk concert sees Richard Thompson playing three songs from his most recent disc Dream Attic.  I really enjoyed this album, but because it was recorded live, and there’s lots of instrumentation on it, I wasn’t sure how well these songs would translate to a simple acoustic guitar.

I needn’t have worried.  RT is a master songsmith and even stripped down to just him and his guitar the songs swell where they should and haunt when they ought.  “The Money Shuffle” doesn’t need the horns that accompany the original (he supplies the power with his voice), and “Stumble On,” a gorgeous ballad, works fine solo.  I appreciated the introduction he gives to the final song “Demons in Her Dancing Shoes” as I didn’t realize it was about something specific.  He plays all the fast bits (including a brief solo) wonderfully on that acoustic guitar, too.

This is not to say that I think these songs are better solo than with the band.  It’s just to say that RT can play anything and make it sound great.  It’s an excellent (if not brief) set.

[READ: April 4, 2011] “Atria”

I hated this story as I read it.  I felt like it was deliberately trying to manipulate me.  I felt like it was playing some very obvious cards and leading to an obvious conclusion.  By the end I wanted to scream at it, yet it kept surprising me.

The story is about Hazel, a sophomore in high school.  She has not had any kind of experience with sex until one afternoon when circumstances conspire for her to have sex behind a 7-11.  She doesn’t really enjoy it but she didn’t really protest it either.  She was just sort of there.

Soon afterward, she is raped (I know), by a man who is clearly not all there.  The rape occurs behind the church (I know), and once again, she probably could have gotten away, but she was just sort of there.

Now, of course she’s pregnant (I know).  She doesn’t know who the father is obviously, but now she has a scapegoat.  The man is vilified but never found (the police artist was a joke).  The town puts up a bunch of Hazel-inspired alert phones all over town (fat lot of good they do her now).

She is treated with kid gloves in school.  Even the religious girl doesn’t blame her for being raped (I know).  All the time she is pregnant she imagines the kind of animal that will come out of her.  It’s never a baby, just different kinds of animals: birds with beaks pecking at her and having multiple babies themselves–which are crushing each other, even a four-legged beast.  It’s very trippy, and she seems to be as well.

When the baby is finally born she determines that it is a seal.  And she realizes that it needs to be kept wet.

The ending of the story was very, VERY disturbing and I simply couldn’t believe what I was reading.  And yet for all of the obvious (and by contrast highly disturbing) stuff that happened, I didn’t want to stop.  There’s was something strangely compelling about this story.  I will keep an eye out for her in the future.

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