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Archive for the ‘Salman Rushdie’ Category

Salman Rushdie–“Summer of Solanka” (New Yorker, July 16, 2001)

Posted in Al Gore, Coronavirus, Excerpt, George W. Bush, India, Marriage Trouble, New York City, New Yorker, Politicians, Protoje, Quarantine, Salman Rushdie, Sevana, Short Story, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on March 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SEVANA-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #159 (January 26, 2021).

I had not heard of Sevana, although she is a member of Protoje’s In.Digg.Nation collective

“If You Only Knew” is a pretty pop song.  I enjoyed the way the music dropped out and there wa s quiet drum fill Mark Reid.

This concert was filmed at the Kingston Creative Hub back in September 2020 (the interludes you’ll hear about the pandemic are reflective of that time).

The second song “Blessed” opens with gently picked guitars from and Nicolas Groskoef and Almando ‘Mundo Don’ Douglas who also both play solos throughout Almando first, Nicolas later in the song.  It sounds like a Santana song and is an example of her

jumping delicately between traditional R&B, Caribbean gospel and soul, with touches of reggae interspersed.   On “Blessed,” an infectious ode about the miracle of life and faith, she welcomes us with open arms into her church and demonstrates the wide range of her multi-octave voice.

“Be Somebody” has some interesting sound effects and vocal samples from Jean-Andre Lawrence and washes of keys from Rhoan Johnson.

She closes out the four-song set with her most recognizable tune, “Mango,” a dancehall-influenced love song.

I would have thought this dancehall song would be more of a banger, but aside for some quietly pulsing bass from Kawain Williamson, the song is pretty mellow.

[READ: June 3, 2019] “A Dream of Glorious Return”

This is an excerpt from Rushdie’s novel Fury which I have not read.  The thesis sentence comes fairly early though.

Life is fury, he’d thought.  Fury–sexual, Oedipal, political, magical, brutal–drives us to out finest heights and coarsest depths

It concerns professor Malik Solanka, a fifty-five year old retired historian of ideas.  He is presently living in Manhattan, although that is a recent change in his life.

He seemed to mostly want to be a solitary man–celibate by choice–ignoring those around him.  Like his neighbor, that damn Mark Skywalker who asked if the slogan “The sun never Sets on American Express International” would seem offensive to Britons.

The novel really sets the time and place quite well–current movies, the election (“unlovable presidential candidates (Gush, Bore))” and the talk of Cuban refugee Elian Gonzales.

The phone rings and it is his wife Eleanor in England.  She complains that their son is ill and he doesn’t seem to care.   But more importantly

without a scrap of credible explanation you walked out on us, you went off across the ocean and betrayed all those who need and love you most.

He thinks back to how they met and how he had fallen in love with her voice.  Fifteen years ago when he phoned a publishing friend, Eleanor had answered and he was smitten with her voice–asking her out for dinner that evening.

So how could he leave her and his child?  One night

he sat in the kitchen, in the middle of the night, with murder on the brain: actual murder, not the metaphorical kind.  He’d even brought a carving knife upstairs and stood for a terrible, dumb minute over the body of his sleeping wife.  Then he turned away, slept in the spare bedroom, and in the morning had packed his bags and caught the first flight to New York

He had left his first wife Sara earlier in a less dramatic fashion.  They married too quickly and felt trapped almost immediately.

He reflected back to his childhood in Bombay when Mr Venkat, the big-deal banker whose son Chandra was the ten year old Malik’s best friend

became a sannyasi on his sixtieth birthday, and abandoned his family forever, wearing no more than a hand-hewn loincloth, with a long wooden staff in one hand and begging bowl in the other.

He would never return.

This story could go in many directions from here.

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Saman Rushdie–“The Old Man in the Piazza” (New Yorker, November 16, 2020)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Felt, Language, Lou Reed, New Yorker, Salman Rushdie, Short Story, Stuart David, Stuart Murdoch, The Velvet Underground on January 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FELT-“Hours of Darkness Have changed My Mind” (1985).

In Stuart David’s book, In The All-Night Café, he lists the songs on a mixtape that Stuart Murdoch gave to him when they first met.

Although I’ve been a fan of Belle & Sebastian for a long time, I knew almost none of the songs on this mixtape.  So, much like Stuart David, I’m listening to them for the first time trying to see how they inspire Stuart Murdoch.

In the book, David writes how much he does not like “rock,” especially music based around bluesy rock.  Most of these songs, accordingly, do not do that.  In fact, most of these songs are (unsurprisingly) soft and delicate.

Felt is another band I’ve never heard of.  This is especially surprising since they were together for over ten years.  Much like with The Blue Aeroplanes, this song has a kind of spoken vocal delivery–although it’s more akin to Lou Reed’s sing-speaking than say a spoken delivery.

The band emphasized jangly guitars and this song has a very old fashioned organ solo (which must have been especially jarring in the 1980s indie rock scene.

The mixture of organ and guitar and lead singer (the mononymed) Lawrence’s very British delivery really make this band stand out.  This song has a chorus melody that is quite subtle and you need to listen a few times before it grabs you.  In fact, the first song on the album Forever Breathes the Lonely Word, “Rain of Crystal Spires” is much more immediate and catchy and relishes that VU feel.

[READ: January 21, 2021] “The Old Man in the Piazza”

I enjoyed the way this story seemed to be about one thing but turned into something much bigger, much grander.

Every day at four o’clock an old man goes to the piazza.  He sits at the cafe and orders a coffee.  At 6PM he orders a beer and a sandwich.  At 8PM he shuffles home–no one knows where he lives.

During those four hours he watches the piazza as it gets busier and nouisier and people start to argue very intensely.

The arguments are varied and loud.  They range from the teleological, to the eschatological to the mundane.  Anything that there is to argue about, the people in the piazza will argue about it.  They will honk horns and rev engines just to prove their points.

The piazza has been like this–“ever since the end of the so called time of the ‘yes.'”

About forty years ago it was made illegal to argue.  Everyone was obliged to agree all the time–regardless of the proposition, one was to nod and agree.  The language itself was altered.  The word no was no longer permitted only “yes” or “for sure” or “absolutely.”

Then things get more abstract. (more…)

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Salman Rushdie–“The Little King” (New Yorker, July 29, 2019)

Posted in Anne Bourne, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Don Kerr, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Lawrence Howarth, Loreena McKennitt, Ron Sexsmith, Salman Rushdie, Short Story, Sloan on July 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ANNE BOURNE-“Evangeline” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

This is one of my favorite songs on this record (that’s not the Rheostatics song).  The song is deep and low with a cool rumbling bass and drum pattern.  Anne Bourne’s voice is deep and intense and generates a wonderful slow burn.

Maybe I like it because Don Kerr, a future Rheostatic, plays cello on it.

Interestingly, there is an Anne Bourne who is a Canadian cello player. I have to assume it’s the same person, but it’s very hard to tell.  If it is, she has played on a huge number of great Canadian albums by Cowboy Junkies, Ron Sexsmith, Sloan, Jane Siberry and Loreena McKennit.

[READ: July 29, 2019] “The Little King”

Salman Rushdie obviously has a reputation as being a cryptic writer who is hard to read–deserved from The Satanic Verses, but otherwise rather unfounded.  Especially when you read a story like this.

This two-pronged story is about two men, distantly related, who couldn’t be more different.  The first man that we meet is obsessed (like really obsessed) with the Indian talk show host Salma R.  The other man is Dr. R.K. Smile, the world-renowned creator of a tremendous pain reliever called InSmile.

The first man had no real friends.  The only thing he wanted to do was obsess over Salma R.  He had never met her but he characterized what they had as love.  He even christened himself Quichotte for Don Quichotte and resolved to be her beloved knight-errant.  Everyone who heard of his plans tried to dissuade him–even people he friended on Facebook told him it was terrible idea.   And this is where Rushdie proves that he is not a snobby writer

In response to his posts there were frown emojis and Bitmojis wagging fingers at him reprovingly and there were GIFs of Salma R. herself crossing her eyes, sticking out her tongue and rotating a finger by her right temple all of which added up to the universally recognized set of gestures meaning “cray cray.”

Quichotte worked in pharmaceutical sales for his wealthy cousin, the very R. K. Smile mentioned above.  Dr. Smile was hugely successful and although he knew that Quichotte was a terrible employee, he felt that it was his duty to protect this layabout–lest he turn into a Willy Loman character.  Since R.K. Smile’s business had recently taken off in a massive way–he was now officially a billionaire–he could easily afford to have an unproductive relative as an employee. (more…)

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Salman Rushdie–“A Dream of Glorious Return” (New Yorker, June 19 & 26, 2000)

Posted in Aquarium Drunkard, Essays, Hindus, India, Jay Farrar, John Doe, Muslims, New Yorker, NonComm, Politicians, Religion, Salman Rushdie, Son Volt, The Boot, The Intercept, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco on June 7, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JAY FARRAR-NonComm (May 17, 2019).

I didn’t like Uncle Tupelo back in the day. So when they broke up I didn’t really care.  I was supposed to care about the alt-country movement, but I didn’t. So I wasn’t interested in Sun Volt or Wilco.

Years later I have really gotten into Wilco and I feel like I’m supposed to dislike Jay Farrar because of the acrimonous split back in the day. But heck without the split, there’d be no Wilco.

I’ve never given Jay Farrar or Son Volt much thought.  So here’s my first real listen to him.

In this setting I find that he sounds a lot like John Doe, a deep soulful voice with acoustic guitar and electric accompaniment.

Jay Farrar‘s soulful folk sound graced the NPR Music stage Friday afternoon for the last day of NonCOMM. While he softly strummed his acoustic guitar, his Son Volt bandmate Mark Spencer backed him up on electric.

This set was made up of Son Volt songs.

He started with “The Reason” a thoughtful song and an indicator of what the rest of the set would sound like.  Calm music, lovely harmonies and pretty backing guitars.

Up next was “Reality Winner” which he introduced as saying “she was put in jail for sharing the truth.”  It’s a powerful song about a real incident that made news at the time but, like so many other things, it was eclipsed by the daily insanity of our government.  From The Boot:

Reality Winner, born in the South Texas town of Alice, is a veteran of the United States Air Force. On June 3, 2017, Winner was arrested after leaking a confidential document to an online news site, The Intercept.  “It’s a really unjust situation where Reality Winner leaked information for the right reason,” Farrar tells The Boot. “She proved that there was Russian interference in the 2016 [presidential] election.”

The lyrics:

What have you done, Reality Winner?
Reality Winner, what have you done?
This jail is a stone-cold answer
The biggest mistake of a Texas lifetime
In this ballad of the commander-in-chief
Is there any mercy for this standing belief?
Felt like gaslighting, not something to just accept
Proud to serve, just not this president
Those that seek the truth will find the answers

Up next was “Devil May Care”

Spencer harmonized with Farrar on a few songs; their vocals joined beautifully together for the chorus of “Devil May Care.”

There isn’t a lot of diversity in these songs.  Farrar’s voice is great but doesn’t change all that much.  They are good folk/country songs.  But I think it might be his presence that makes these song work so well:

The crowd was singing along to Farrar’s set and there was a feeling of mutual respect flowing between the performer and his audience. He has a stage presence that’s just plain cool. Not everyone can wear sunglasses inside without looking like a total jerk.

He introduced the next song saying that these songs are on the new Son Volt album of protest songs.  You may say “What is there to protest and I’d say Just about everything.”

Before singing “Union,” Farrar made a statement about there being protests about everything lately. He continued to tell this story through song while Spencer killed it on steel guitar.

This is a simple song that lays out our country’s divide and recounts Farrar’s father’s belief about the need for something to bind the country together: “He said national service/ Will keep the union together.”

“The 99” is also straightforward.  It may not be timely in the title (I don’t think people use that phrase as much anymore), but the sentiment is spot on:

Journalists in jail covering the scenes
The profit columns rise for the corporate machines
Take the stand now, protest and holler
Desecration of the land for the almighty dollar
Ninety-nine percent
Ninety-nine percent
It’s a trickle-down world
Like you’re stuck in cement

All of the songs were from the new album Union, but he ends the set with an old song.

The mood was brought back up as the set concluded with “Windfall”, a two-decade-old Son Volt song [from Trace].

It is certainly more positive, I guess from back when things were a bit better (the 90s).

[READ: June 3, 2019] “A Dream of Glorious Return”

It’s not often that people intentionally read twenty-year old news.  Maybe for historical reasons or, in my case, because you want to read a piece by a particular author.

So here is a twenty-year old essay from Salman Rushdie about the first time he returned to India after the fatwa had been put on his head twelve years earlier.

He returned to India in April 2000 (I guess the 90s weren’t great for Rushdie).

But first he talks about the many times he left India.  First when he was thirteen and went to boarding school in Rugby, England.  While he was away his father sold their family home in Bombay.  Salman was devastated and is still angry about it.  He believes he would be living there today if they still owned it. (more…)

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Karl Ove Knausgaard [Knausgård]–My Struggle: Book Six [The End] (2010) [translated 2018] (total pages for books 1-6: 3645 [British edition 3488])

Posted in Anne Karin Elstad, Bayerische Vaterland, Big Books, Bildungsroman, Bill Bryson, Biography, Bolibompa, Books about writers, Carl-Johan Vallgren, Charles Darwin, Christian Kjellvander, Culture Shock, Daniel Sjölin, Danielle Steel, Don Bartlett, Elie Wiesel, Ernst Junger, Eyvind Johnson, Felice Vinci, Food, Foreign Books, Frankfurter Zeitung, Harold Bloom, Hermann Broch, Hitler, Holocaust, James Joyce, Järvinen , Jealousy, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Karl Ove Knausgård, Kerstin Ekman, Knut Hamsun, Lars Mikael Raattamaa, Midlake, My Bloody Valentine, Nazis, Parenting, Paul Celan, Peter Englund, Radio Dept., Rainer Maria Rilke, Salman Rushdie, Shoah, Sigmund Freud, Swedish Music, Thåström, The Stone Roses, Thomas Mann, Translation, Unlikable main character, V.S. Naipaul, Wilco, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, Yuck! on November 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

  SOUNDTRACK: THE RADIO DEPT.-Clinging to a Scheme (2010).

In this final book, Karl Ove mentions buying a record on a whim by The Radio Dept.  Given the timing of the book, I assume it’s this record.  So I’m going to give it a listen too.

I really enjoyed this record which has a feeling of a delicate My Bloody Valentine fronted by The Stone Roses.  The key word in all of this is delicate.  It’s a very soft and gentle record (except for one song).  It hits all the buttons of 90s Britpop and to me is just infectious.

“Domestic Scene” opens the disc with pretty guitars intertwining with an electronic thumping.  After the first listen I was sure the whole record was synthy, but this track has no synths at all, just like five or six guitar lines overdubbing–each opener just as pretty as the others.  The voice sound a lot the guys from The Stone Roses on the more delicate tracks.

“Heaven’s on Fire” opens with bouncy synths and a sampled (from where?) exchange:

People see rock n roll as youth culture.  When youth culture becomes monopolized by big business what are the youth to do.  Do you have any idea?
I think we should destroy the bogus capitalist process that is destroying youth culture.

Then come the jangling guitars and the introduction of synths.

“This Time Around” has a cool high bass line (and what sounds like a second bass line). I love the overlapping instruments on this record.  I couldn’t decide if it was a solo album or a huge group, so I was surprised to find it’s a trio.

“Never Follow Suit” continues this style but in the middle it adds a recorded voice of someone speaking about writing.

“A Token of Gratitude” has some lovely guitars swirling around and a percussion that sounds like a ping-pong ball or a tap dancer.   The last half of the song is a soothing gentle My Bloody Valentine-sque series of washes and melody.

“The Video Dept.” is full of jangly guitars and gentle blurry vocals while “Memory Loss” has some muted guitar notes pizzicatoing along and then what sounds like a muted melodica.

David is the one song that sounds different from the rest.  It has strings and synth stabs and drums that are way too loud.  Most of the songs don’t have drums at all, but these are deliberately recorded too loud and are almost painful.

The final two songs include “Four Months in the Shade” which is an instrumental.  It is just under 2 minutes of pulsing electronics that segues into the delicate album closer “You Stopped Making Sense.”  This song continues with the melody and gentleness of the previous songs and concludes the album perfectly.

I really enjoyed this record a lot.  It’s not groundbreaking at all, but it melds some genres and styles into a remarkably enjoyable collection.

[READ: September and October 2018] My Struggle Book Six

Here is the final book in this massive series.  It was funny to think that it was anticlimactic because it’s not like anything else was climactic in the series either.  But just like the other books, I absolutely could not put this down (possibly because I knew it was due back at the library soon).

I found this book to be very much like the others in that I really loved when he was talking conversationally, but I found his philosophical musings to be a bit slower going–and sometimes quite dull.

But the inexplicable center of this book is a 400 plus page musing on Hitler.  I’ll mention that more later, but I found the whole section absolutely fascinating because he dared to actually read Mein Kampf and to talk about it at length.  I’m sure this is because he named his series the same name in Norwegian.  He tangentially compares Hitler to himself as well–but only in the way that a failed person could do unspeakable things.

But in this essay, he humanizes Hitler without making him any less of an evil man.  His whole point is that in order to fully appreciate/understand Hitler’s evil, you have to realize that he was once an ordinary person.  A teenager who had dreams about becoming an artist, a boy who was afraid of sex and germs.  If you try to make him the inherent embodiment of evil, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that he was a child, a teen, a young man who was not always evil.

Why Karl Ove does this is a bit of a mystery especially contextually, but it was still a fascinating read especially when you see how many things gibe with trump and how he acts and behaves–especially his use of propaganda.  It’s easy to see how people could be swayed by evil ideas (and this was written before trump was even a candidate). (more…)

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The The: Comeback Special (Beacon Theatre, New York, NY, September 17, 2018)

Posted in Andy Dog Johnson, Beacon Theatre, Hank Williams Sr., Matt Johnson, New York City, Salman Rushdie, The The on September 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: September 17, 2018] The The

I feel like I have always loved The The.  I’d never say they were my favorite band, but they’ve always been a part of my playlists and lyrics from the songs are constantly running through my head.

From the dancey early stuff off of Infected (the first album I’d heard), to the cool “band” stuff with Johnny Marr on guitar (The The was always and forever shall be the project of Matt Johnson with a rotating cast of others) and finally to the beautiful Dusk, which I couldn’t stop playing all through college.   There were other albums, but these three (and, strangely enough the Hank Williams cover album) were staples for me.

Matt Johnson has this voice, the deep resonating voice, that gets right into my head.  Especially with headphones, especially on the beginning of Dusk.  That album is so pristinely recorded it feels like the guitars are in whatever room you are currently in.

I had the fortune of seeing them in May of 2000, the last time The The played the States (and almost anywhere else).  The setlist below I found online.  They apparently played almost all of the then new album and nearly nothing else.  That seems incomplete (and short).

When he (they) announced that The The had released a new song and were doing some shows in England and Europe, I held out hope that they would come across the pond.  I wondered if they’d play Philly, but they didn’t (and that was probably wise as even the Beacon didn’t sell out).  So I got tickets as soon as I could and scored 11th row.  For yes, I was willing to brave the Lincoln Tunnel and an expensive parking garage to see this show.  And having it only in a few locations made it that much more special. (more…)

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Salman Rushdie–“The Duniazát” (New Yorker, June 1, 2015)

Posted in Bachman Turner Overdrive, Bidiniband, Jane Siberry, Marriage Trouble, Myths, New Yorker, Old Age, Religion, Rheostatics, Salman Rushdie, Short Story, Talking Heads, The Buttless Chaps, The Who, WNYE 91.5--Radio, New York, tagged on August 14, 2015| Leave a Comment »

june1SOUNDTRACK:  RHEOSTATICS–The Media Club, Vancouver, BC, (October 21, 2004).

media clubEvery year, the Rheostatics would perform what they called Green Sprouts Week in Toronto.  In 2004 they did a West Coast version. Five nights in a row at The Media Club (with each show being crazier than the last).  There aren’t always recording available for these shows, but on this leg there are recordings from the third, fourth and fifth nights.

This recording is about 90 minutes and I assume is edited (most of their GSMW shows are quite long and there’s no banter).  There’s also crazy static on a certain instrument, which mars the quality somewhat.

The band has added keyboards, although I’m not sure who is playing them.  Morgan from The Buttless Chaps guests on a nice rendition of “Claire.”  They play a great version of “Jesus Was Once a teenager Too” with a folky breakdown in the middle.  “Take Me in Your Hand” is slow but really good.

There’s goofing on “Song of Flight” with them ending the song quickly and booing and yelling “stinky” I wonder what happened).  “Marginalized” is blistering and “Record Body Count” is a little goofy.  Perhaps the highlight of the night is “Horses” which is an amazing rendition and ends with a few lines and acoustic guitars from “When Winter Comes”

The encore starts with “Pornography” a song later recorded by Bidiniband.  Then there’s some great harmonies on “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds.”

They do a rocking version of Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime” which is musically spot on, even though no one really knows the words.  The last few songs are more covers.  A very fast version of Jane Siberry’s “One More Colour,” and then a perfect version of “Takin’ Care of Business” (the guitar and vocals sound right on) which segues into a sloppy/fun “My Generation.”

The Green Sprouts shows often allow the band to mess around a bit which is great for fans.

[READ: July 21, 2015] “The Duniazát”

I generally like Rushdie’s work.  This story is told in the style of a 1001 Arabian Nights tale and consequently I didn’t enjoy it that much.  Although I was interested to find out some details about those stories.  There was originally a Persian book called “One Thousand Stories” which had been translated into Arabic.  In the Arabic version there were fewer than a thousand stories but the action was spread over a thousand nights, or, because round numbers are considered ugly, a thousand nights and one night more.  Huh.

The stories featured a beautiful storyteller knows as Sheherazade, who told her tales to a murderous husband in order to keep him from executing her.

Anyone, in this story, Rushdie tells a similar type tale.

Set in the year 1195, the great philosopher Ibn Rushd (I enjoyed the play on his own name there) was a physician to the Caliph.  But when he started espousing liberal views, he was discredited (sound familiar?).  He wound up living in a village where Jews were forced to convert to Islam and could not speak of Judaism.  So he felt right at home as an outcast. (more…)

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D.T. Max–Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (2012)

Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Books about writers, Boredom, Broken Social Scene, Colin McEnroe, D.T. Max, David Foster Wallace, Death, Decadence, Dictionary, Don DeLillo, Drinking, Drugs, Essays, Jens Lekman, Keith Richards, Macy Gray, Marriage (Happy), Mary Margaret O'Hara, Michael Gira, Nick Cave, Norman Mailer, Ra Ra Riot, Richard Thompson, Rivka Galchen, Salman Rushdie, Scholarship, Sex, Shane MacGowan, Smarty Pants, Tennis, The New York Times, Tom Waits, Unlikable main character on January 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

dtmaxSOUNDTRACK: TOM WAITS & KEITH RICHARDS-“Shenandoah” (2013).

roguesgallery-f8be47f3887d51de57ea842a129f0a722e53ef74-s1This tune comes from the album Son Of Rogues Gallery.  The album is, of all things, a sequel to the album Rogues Gallery.  The full title is Son Of Rogues Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys.  The first album was a kind of novelty–I can’t even say novelty hit as I don;t know if it was.  But it must have had some success because here’s a second one (and there’s no Pirates of the Caribbean movie to tie it to).

The album has 36 songs (!) by a delightful collection of artists, including: Shane MacGowan, Nick Cave, Macy Gray, Broken Social Scene, Richard Thompson, Michael Gira and Mary Margaret O’Hara (among many others).  I enjoyed the first one, but I think the line up on this one is even better.

“Shenandoah” is not a song that I particulalry like.  Because it is traditional, I have a few people doing versions of it, but I don’t gravitate twoards it–it’s a little slow and meandering (like the river I guess) for me. And this version is not much different.  What it does have going for it is Waits’ crazed warbling along with even crazier backing viclas from Keith Richards (there;s no guitar on the track).

[READ: January 7, 2012] Every Love Story is a Ghost Story

I had mixed feelings about reading this biography.  I’m a huge fan of David Foster Wallace, but I often find it simply disappointing to read about people you like.  And yet, DFW was such an interesting mind, that it seemed worthwhile to find out more about him. Plus, I’ve read everything by the guy, and a lot of things about him…realistically it’s not like I wasn’t going to read this.  I think I was afraid of being seriously bummed out.  So Sarah got me this for Christmas and I really really enjoyed reading it.

Now I didn’t know a ton about DFW going into this book–I knew basics and I had read a ton of interviews, but he never talked a lot about himself, it was predominantly about his work.  So if I say that Max is correct and did his research, I say it from the point of someone full of ignorance and because it seems comprehensive.  I’m not claiming that he was right just that he was convincing.  And Max is very convincing.  And he really did his research.

It’s also convenient that DFW wrote a lot of letters–Max has a ton of letters to quote from.  And DFW wrote to all kinds of people–friends, fellow authors  girlfriends, colleagues….  Aside from old friends, his two main correspondents were Don DeLillo, whom he thought of as a kind of mentor, and Jonathan Franzen, whom he considered one of his best friends and rivals.  I guess we can also be thankful that these recipients held on to the letters. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #33: The San Francisco Panorama (2009)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Airlines, Alia Malek, Andrew Sean Greer, Art, Art Spiegelman, Big Star, Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Brent Hoff, Caddyshack, Canadian Music, Cars, Carson Ellis, Children's Books, China Miéville, Chip Kidd, Chris Adrian, Chris Ware, Comic Strips, Constellation Records, Daniel Handler, Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, Dicky Murphy, Dip-in Books, Do Make Say Think, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edna O'Brien, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Flash Fiction, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Geoff Nicholson, George Saunders, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Greed, Harper's, J. Malcolm Garcia, J.G. Ballard, James Franco, Jessica Abel, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kara Walker, KPOO 89.5--San Francisco, CA, LGBTQ, Mary Williams, Matthew Klam, McSweeney's, Meatballs, Michael Chabon, Miranda July, Mogwai, New Yorker, Newspapers, Nicholson Baker, Prospect, Rachel Maddow, Roddy Doyle, Salman Rushdie, Seth, Seth Fried, Short Story, Sports, Stephen King, The Blues Brothers, The New York Times, The Onion, The Walrus, Tom Bissell, Travel, Universities, Violence, Wajahat Ali, War, Wholphin, William T. Vollmann on January 16, 2010| 8 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DO MAKE SAY THINK-Other Truths [CST062] (2009).

I’ve always enjoyed Do Make Say Think’s CDs.  They play instrumentals that are always intriguing and which never get dull.

But this CD far exceeds anything they have done so far (and  they’ve done some great work).   There are only four tracks, and they range from 8 to 12 minutes long.  Each track is named for a word in the band’s name: Do, Make, Say, Think.  And each one is a fully realized mini epic.

“Do” sounds like a gorgeous Mogwai track.  While “Make” has wonderfully diverse elements: a cool percussion midsection and a horn-fueled end section that works perfectly with the maniacal drumming.  “Say” is another Mogwai-like exploration, although it is nicely complemented by horns.  It also ends with a slow jazzy section that works in context but is somewhat unexpected. Finally, “Think” closes the disc with a delightful denouement.  It’s the slowest (and shortest) track, and it shows that even slowing down their instrumentals doesn’t make them dull.

It’s a fantastic record from start to finish.  This is hands down my favorite Constellation release in quite some time.

[READ: December 2009 – January 13, 2010] McSweeney’s #33.

The ever-evolving McSweeney’s has set out to do the unlikely: they printed Issue #33 as a Sunday Newspaper.  It is called The San Francisco Panorama and, indeed, it is just like a huge Sunday newspaper. It has real news in (it is meant to be current as of December 7, 2009).  As well as a Sports section, a magazine section and even comics!

[DIGRESSION] I stopped reading newspapers quite some time ago.  I worked for one in college and have long been aware that the news is just something to fill the space between ads.  I do like newspapers in theory, and certainly hope they don’t all go away but print issues are a dying breed.  When I think about the waste that accompanies a newspaper, I’m horrified.  Sarah and I even did a Sunday New York Times subscription for a while, but there were half a dozen sections that we would simply discard unopened.  And, realistically that’s understandable.  Given how long it took me  to read all of the Panorama, if you actually tried to read the whole Sunday paper, you’d be finished the following Sunday (or even two Sundays later).

Their lofty goal here was to show what print journalism can still do. And with that I concur heartily.  Even if I don’t read the newspaper, the newspapers as entities are worth saving.  Because it is pretty much only print journalism that finds real, honest to God, worthy news stories.  TV news is a joke.  There is virtually nothing of value on network TV.  Fox News is beyond a joke.  CNBC is sad (although Rachel Maddow is awesome!) and even CNN, the originator of all of this 24 hour news nonsense still can’t fill their airtime with non-sensationalized news.

Obviously, there are some decent internet sites, but for the most part they don’t have the budget to support real news investigation.  You either get sensationalized crap like Drudge or rebroadcasts of real news.

So, print is the last bastion of news.  And you can see that in journalistic pieces in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Walrus, Prospect and, yes, in newspapers.

But enough.  What about THIS newspaper?  Oh and unlike other McSweeney’s reviews I’ve done, there is NO WAY that I am writing a thorough comment on everything in here.  There’s just way too much.  Plus, there are many sections that are just news blurbs.  Larger articles and familiar authors will be addressed, however.  [UPDATE: January 18]: If, however, like Alia Malek below, you bring it to my attention that I’ve left you out (or gotten something wrong!) drop me a line, and I’ll correct things.

There is in fact a Panorama Information Pamphlet which answers a lot of basic questions, like why, how and how often (just this once, they promise!). There’s also a Numbers section which details the size, scope and cost of making this (it shows that with an initial start up, anyone could make a newspaper if they talked enough about what the readers were interested in). (more…)

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Periodical: New Yorker

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, A.M. Homes, Adam Gopnik, Airlines, Alice Munro, Annie Proulx, Barack Obama, Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Chris Ware, Colm Tóibín, Consumerism, Daniel Clowes, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, David Sedaris, Deb Olin Unferth, Ernest Hemingway, Essays, Fables, Fantasy, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), George Saunders, Haruki Murakami, Heidi Julavits, Ian Frazier, Jeffrey Eugenides, Joshua Ferris, Joyce Carol Oates, LGBTQ, Lorrie Moore, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Mary Gaitskill, Memoirs, Music, New Yorker, Noir, Paul Theroux, Political Humor, Puzzles, Racism, Rick Moody, Robert Coover, Roberto Bolaño, Roddy Doyle, Russia, Salman Rushdie, Sasha Frere-Jones, Sex, Sherman Alexie, Short Story, Simon Rich, Smarty Pants, Sports, Supernatural, T.C. Boyle, Technology, The Believer, The Future, Threats, Ui, Universities, Violence, War, WMDs, Woody Allen, Zadie Smith on August 25, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ny1It took me going to Seattle to learn about The New Yorker magazine.  I was visiting my friend Rob and he was really surprised that I didn’t read the magazine all the time (my reading always seems to surprise people, see The Believer.)

Upon my first read of the magazine, I was surprised to see that the first twenty pages or so are taken up with upcoming shows: films, concerts, sports, everything.  I actually wondered how much content would be left after all that small print.

Since then I have learned that Sasha Frere-Jones writes columns in here quite ofuiten.  For reasons known only to my head, I was convinced that Sasha was a black woman.  Little did I realize that he is not.  And that he was in a band that I have a CD of called Ui.  He is an excellent resource for all things music, whether I like the artist he’s talking about or not.  Some entries are here.  This audio entry about Auto-Tune is simply fantastic.

But of course, there’s a lot of content.  And the first thing you get are letters.  I don’t think I have EVER looked at the letters section. (more…)

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