Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Books about writers’ Category

Ed Park–“Eat, Pray, Click” [The 2024 Short Story Advent Calendar #3] (2024)

Posted in Books about writers, Canadian Content, Christmas, Ed Park, Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, Technology, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 3, 2024] “Eat, Pray, Click”

This year my wife ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar–it’s a holiday tradition!  Here’s what H&O says about the calendar this year.

Ten years of stories! Yikes, where does the time go?
When the first Short Story Advent Calendar launched, in 2015, we frankly had no clue we’d still be sitting here today, continuing to offer up batches of tasty stories fresh from the oven. To celebrate this milestone, we’ve packed the 10th SSAC with a mix of new and familiar names—ideal company for those chilly winter nights ahead.

The author of this story was Ed Park.  Each day has an online component with the author with a brief interview. And this one opens:

It’s December 3. Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams, chooses his own adventure.

This is a very brief story set in ten brief sections.

In the first we learn that the Kindle has been hacked many times over.  Animated scorpions run amok across The Corrections.  The Glass Castle turns Swedish in the middle of chapter three.  But his friend Rolph was the first to hack the system. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Sam Ernst–The New Manifesto or The Slow Eroding of Time (2021)

Posted in Arthur B. Johnson, Books about writers, Choose Your Own Adventure, Dreams, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Sam Ernst, Skiing, Unreliable narrator on July 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: June 1, 2022] The New Manifesto

So I received this book at work and it was my job to catalog it (it has yet to be cataloged by anyone else).  But there was a problem.

The cover of the book says The New Manifesto a novel by Sam Ernst.  But you never trust the cover for the actual title of a book, you trust the title page.  And the title page says The New Manifesto or The Slow Eroding of Time Arthur B. Johnson edited by Sam Ernst.

Now the cover also has an about the author of Sam Ernst (with an author photo of the back of his head).  And the list of books by Arthur B. Johnson don’t seem to exist.  So, clearly, the author is Sam Ernest and Arthur B. Johnson is fictional,  But from a cataloging standpoint, Johnson needs to be acknowledged in some way.  Which is a pain.

Anyway, I decided to see if this book was worth all of the trouble.

I’m not quite sure.

It opens with a Foreword by Dr James L. Vanderworthy of Bradford College (also fictional).  He says that The New Manifesto is the novel that resonates with him more than any other.  The editors preface is from Ernst, he says he had a copy editing position at Smith Ralston Excelsior which led him to meet and befriend Arthur B. (“Artie”) Johnson.  It was this that inspired him to edit Artie’s words in the way we see here.  The Publisher says they didn’t really know what to do with the book, but they thank Ernst for his tireless work on it.

The book is presented in nine parts.  Many are short, but some (like part 2 An Assemblage) are nearly 100 pages.

Part 1 the Prelude is a series of 25 numbered paragraphs

1. He sat down to write
4. He was writing a book.  A book he never finished.  This is a story of failure.
18. Given the book’s title, he was finding it surprising how little manifesting was being done.

Part 2 is written in several much longer sections.  Each one is a hilarious account of the narrator’s life as he does remarkable things and then moves on.

He averts a war between two countries. He speaks neither language but found a letter from one kingdom to the other.  Had the message not gotten through, war was inevitable.  But he rowed for days across the sea to bring the message to the beacon he saw.  He walks to a war torn country and is taken for a doctor (he is not).  Because of a book he had just read, he is able to diagnose a seemingly dying patient, and as he leaves the area he inadvertently participates and wins the 1984 Sarajevo Ski Jump Competition.

After a few more adventures, including one aboard a ship, he gets a job at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he uncovers a brilliant scientific schema because of the box elder bugs that swarm his office window. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Collectibles–edited by Lawrence Block (2021)

Posted in Alex Segura, Books about writers, Bookstores, Cars, David Rachels, Dennis Lehane, Dip-in Books, Elaine Kagan, Fleetwood Mac, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Janice Eidus, Joe R. Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Judas Priest, Kasey Lansdale, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lawrence Block, Lee Goldberg, Murder, Otto Penzler, Revenge, Rob Hart, S.A. Cosby, S.J. Rozan, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Violence, Yuck! on November 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

 

SOUNDTRACK: FLEETWOOD MAC-“The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” (1969).

I know this song from Judas Priest, who made a killer cover that they played for years.  Rob Halford’s voice on the song (in their live version from 1976) is incredible.

I didn’t even know there was an “original” until a decade or so ago.  It seemed out of character that Judas Priest would cover a trippy Fleetwood Mac song (of course they also covered Joan Baez, so…).  But wow, this song is a trip.

I mean, the lyrics alone are the stuff of legend at this point.  There’s dozens of places where you can read about the song.  Here’s a few paragraphs from Uncle Stylus.

Peter Green said it’s a song about the corrupting influence of money, which he equated with the devil. In 1969, the huge success of Fleetwood Mac had brought them a considerable income and Green had agreed with the band that they would would give it all to charity. One can imagine that “morning after” moment when he demanded they made good on their idealistic rush of blood. A massive quarrel ensued, and Green never forgave the other bandmembers for reneging on the idea and claimed that this was what inspired the song.

Manalishi is a word that Peter Green made up for the song. The sound of it rolling around the tongue is exotic and menacing, suffused with the mystery of demons and gremlins from a medieval Italian dark night.

Listening now it’s clear that he was really, whether consciously or unconsciously, telling us about his depressive schizophrenia and even the dark persona unleashed within him when he took certain drugs, the “green” of the manalishi being Green himself. It reads like the beginning of a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Judas Priest cover doesn’t really follow the original all that much (the ending wailing is so much cooler the way Halford does it).  But the riff here is pretty spectacular (understandable why they’d want to cover it).  Also, it was a big hit in England when it came out, so it’s not like the band was crate-digging for rarities.  I had just never heard of it.

There is something some sinister about the slow menace of the Fleetwood Mac version.  It’s incredible to think that this is the same band who put out Rumours (although really it isn’t, but whatever).

Check out the live from Boston version for some real heaviness.  And marvel that this weird song was a hit.

[READ: November 2022] Collectibles

Evidently Lawrence Block has created several of these anthologies all loosely based around a theme.  This is the first one I’ve read, although I see another one called Playing Games is on the horizon.

This collection is about collectibles.  Most but not all of the stories are crime or mystery based.  A couple have a touch of the supernatural as well.  The term “collectible” is pretty broadly defined from one story to the next, but it’s a decent prompt to let you know what you’re getting.

Lawrence Block – The Elephant in the Living Room (An Introduction)
This is an essay about the book which includes an amusing story about Lawrence’s Uncle Jerry who ha a collection of giraffes.  There were presently none in the collection because he hadn’t found one up to his standards. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Emily St. John Mandel–Sea of Tranquility (2022)

Posted in Books about writers, Death, Emily St. John Mandel, Marriage (Happy), Pandemic, The Future, The Moon, Threats, Time Travel on June 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: June 2022] Sea of Tranquility

S. brought this book home and said she thought I’d enjoy it.  She knows what she’s talking about, and I did enjoy it.

This is a time-travel/pandemic/end of the world novel.  And for all of the time jumps, it’s still pretty short (just over 250 pages).

The book opens in 1912.  We follow the story of Edwin St. John St. Andrew, and eighteen year old aristocrat who has been sent away from him home in England to the wilds of Canada.  I found his story to be quite interesting.  Being the youngest son, he stood to inherit nothing, so he had to make he way abroad anyhow.  But he also hated the way England had taken over India and colonialism in general.  But his parents were born in India raised by Indian nannies and had nothing but fond memories of the place.  So when he publicly stated his disgust with the system, he was told in no uncertain terms that it was time for him to go.

Edward eventually makes it to Victoria, BC.  He is miserable there, too and really doesn’t know what to do with himself.  He wanders into the forest.  He sees, inexplicably, a priest.  And then when he turns to a giant maple, he is struck by darkness, loud noises, music and chaos.  All for about one second.

The next section jumps to 2020 and follows Mirella and Vincent.

We open on Paul, a composer, who is showing off his latest work–a work that uses video footage that his sister filmed.  The footage looks a lot like what Edward saw in the forest.

Paul’s sister was named Vincent.  Mirella had been a friend of Vincent’s and hadn’t know she was dead.  In fact, she had come to Paul’s performance to try to get in touch with Vincent.  Their friendship ended when Vincent’s husband was involved in a Ponzi scheme that brought down a lot of people.

While she is trying to talk to Paul after the show, they are joined by another man, named Gaspery.  He winds up talking to her and she thinks she recognizes him.  But it’s impossible because she recognizes him as a man who was involved in a shooting in an alley when she was a little girl.

The next section is set in 2203 and is called The Last Book Tour in Earth.  Olive Llewellyn was born on the moon and has written a number of novels–novels that sold well on Earth as well.  She was happy to be on Earth because she could also visit her parents.  Her parents moved back to Earth after she had left for college.

This book, Marienbad, was being made into a film.  So even though it was a few years old, publicity was called for.  She enjoys the trip although she misses her family back on the moon.  Soon though, there is word of a pandemic stretching out across the Earth.  It had been a long time since the Earth had dealt with such a thing, and people didn’t know how to prepare for it anymore.  Emily had written a previous novel about a pandemic and knew, from her research, what she should be doing.  But no one else seemed to be paying any attention.

The last interview she has is with a man who prepares to ask her if she had experienced something strange at the Oklahoma City Airship Terminal.

The story jumps one more time to 2401.  A man named Gaspery.  Gaspery tells us about the first moon colony which was built in the Sea of Tranquility.  There was much interest in immigration and Soon they had moved on from Colony 1 to Colony 2.  The Colonies were meant to replicate Earth as much as possible–including artificial lights that mimicked the Earth cycle.  But when the lights failed and were deemed too expensive to repair, that set in motion the gradual abandonment of Colony 2.

Gaspery grew up living near the house where Olive Llewelyn lived.  It was now occupied by a family with a girl, Talia, who was about his age.  Talia seemed to always want to gaze out of the dome toward Colony 1.  Gaspery’s sister, Zoey, on the other hand, did not ever go near the dome (their mother didn’t like them going there).

When they grew up, Gaspery wound up getting a job at the Grand Luna Hotel in Colony One.  Coincidentally, that’s where Talia has moved and gotten a job (as head of HR).  Zoey, meanwhile had become a super smart scientist working at the Time Institute.  One night in a state of panic, she tells Gaspery that their work has uncovered something. It involves time travel.  It is dangerous.  Gaspery, hating his job and his life, volunteers.  Zoey won’t hear of it, but her coworker, Ephrem, agrees to let Gaspery try out for the job.

A few years later, Gaspery is ready and he is told about the video footage that Paul the composer showed in 2020.  Zoey fears that the glitch in the video, the glitch that Vincent film, the same glitch that Edward saw in 1912, the same glitch that Olive wrote about in Marienbad (which is why the reporter asked her about the airport).  If these glitches are connected…does that mean our world is a simulation (like the Matrix?).

Gaspery is to be dispatched to the above timelines to see what he can learn about this glitch.  The one caveat–the big thing that the Time Institute cares about, is that you don’t mess up the timeline.  Gaspery can’t imagine why anyone would do that.  Then he learns that Olive Llewelyn died on Earth on that book tour.  Because of the new pandemic she was not allowed to go back home to the Moon.  It wouldn’t hurt just to hint that she should end her tour early, would it?

The story unfurls quickly from there with Gaspery leaning a bit more with each time he jumps into.

I enjoyed this story a lot.

S. tells me that Emily St. John Mandel wrote a previous book about a pandemic (Station Eleven).  Interesting, no?

 

Read Full Post »

Jean Hanff Korelitz–Admission (2009)

Posted in Abortion, Adoption, Babies, Books about writers, College, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Parenting, Pregnancy, Princeton, NJ on March 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: March 20, 2022] Admission

I had vaguely heard of this book when it came out.  My understanding of it was that a woman who worked in the Princeton Admissions office tried to get her kid into the school.

That is not what the story is about exactly.  I feel like I’ve conflated this story with the real-life admission scandal that happened in 2019 (because I didn’t really care about it and don’t really know any details thee either).

Rather, what we get is a story of a woman who works at Princeton University’s Admissions and who has a pretty hard time of things in her personal life.

When the book opens we see her on a road trip.  She is canvassing the New England area to drop in at schools who are likely to have Princeton applicants.  We see some of these visits and get a pretty good idea of how her job works–get the kids excited to go there, but don’t raise their hopes too much since acceptance levels are so low.

One of the schools she goes to is a new school–a kind of alternative program.  This year is the first year that someone will be graduating from the school.  She stops in and the school is very different from what she is used to.  The kids aren’t grist for the college mill.  Indeed one of them argues with her about the very point of going to college.

And then there’s the boy, Jeremiah. He is a school nightmare–clearly a genius, and yet nearly failed out of every class he was in because he’d rather read books than do class.  And yet, once he got to this new school, he was able to focus a bit.  He took AP tests without having taken any AP classes and aced them all.  He was a diamond in a very rough package.  And the narrator, Portia, believes that Princeton would be a great environment for him. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Nick Kent–The Unstable Boys (2021)

Posted in Amsterdam Netherlands, Books about music, Books about writers, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Nick Kent, Poo, Pornography, Prostitution, Sex, Sexism, Sexual Assault, The Pretty Things, Violence on March 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE PRETTY BOYS-“Midnight to Six Man,” “Don’t Bring me Down,” “Rosalyn.” (1966, 1964, 1964).

The Pretty Boys are referenced a lot in this novel and I realized I never knew them.

According to Classic Rock History, these are t he band’s top three songs.

I guess as a reference point, I can see what Kent was going for.  The lead singer sounds like a bit of a wild man, with lots of screams.  Each song is a kind of rowdy garage rock. They’ve got a lot of energy, but very mid 60’s energy which really doesn’t appeal to me.

And none of the songs have anything remotely resembling the kind of musical genius that the guitarist in the novel is supposed to have.

So I wasn’t missing anything.

[READ: February 28, 2022] The Unstable Boys

I’m usually a pretty good judge of books when I see them at work.  We get a lot of novels that I would never read, but we occasionally get a gem that I’d never see anywhere else.

I looked at The Unstable Boys and thought I had a gem.  And it started out as one.

The book is about a fictional band from the 60s called The Unstable Boys.

The opening of the book is clippings from various articles about the band.

They were a mix of personalities with two talented members, an array of drummers and a lead singer called The Boy who was a force of nature.  He was, simply, an asshole.  But he was charismatic and unpredictable and people were intrigued by him.  They had a hit, they were poised to do some big stuff and then their second guitarist died.  They were about to go on a major American tour and wanted to postpone.  But the label wouldn’t let them.  The label threw in some new members for the tour and the band imploded.

Guitarist Ral Coombs was a really talented and sensitive musician.  He and The Boy nearly came to blows.  They vowed to never reunite or even speak to each other again.

Then the story begins properly.  We meet Trevor Bourne. He is recently single and, as a freelance writer, not very successful.  He had written a story about The Unstable Boys a while back, but hasn’t had much success lately.

Enter Michael Martindale.  He is a very rich and successful fiction writer.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jean Hanff Korelitz–The Plot (2021)

Posted in Books about writers, Death, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Parenting, Thieves, Threats, Violence on February 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: February 8, 2022] The Plot

I tend not to read books where spoilers are a big deal. I try not to spoil things when I write these posts, but at the same time, usually I can write a lot and not give away anything major.  In fact, I didn’t even know about this book until my supervisor mentioned it and made it sound really interesting.

But holy cow, this story is all about the Plot.  I though the title of the book was pretty lame.  And yet it is not.  It works on the main level but also on a secondary level.  It’s a really great title.

So here’s what I can say as set up without giving too much away.

The story is about Jacob Finch Bonner.  A few years ago he had a debut novel that was quite well received.  He was a new and notable author and although his book didn’t sell a ton, he was seen as a guy with promise.  But he couldn’t think of anything good for a second book.  So his publisher (not the big publisher from the first book, a smaller one) gathered a bunch of short stories together and tried to say that the book was a series of related short stories (even that stretched the truth).  He wrote a third story that was even worse–nobody wanted that one.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ann Patchett–“How to Practice” (New Yorker, March 1, 2021)

Posted in Ann Patchett, Books about writers, Essays, New Yorker, Parenting, The Decemberists, Typewriters on May 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS 20th Anniversary Celebration Streaming Shows (April 11, 2021).

Even though I love live shows, I don’t really like streaming shows.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them, it’s just that I don’t tend to watch live music much at home.  And, most of the time i tend to forget the show until the stream is over.

But since Sarah and I were supposed to see The Decemberists and our shows were cancelled, I though I’d treat her to these shows for her birthday.

The first show was pretty great–a deep dive into lots of old songs.

As they start, Colin says this is the first time we’ve played….ever together as a live band.

They open this set with Don’t Carry It All from The King is Dead.  Colin plays harmonica and I was really surprised to realize that drummer John Moen is singing the higher backing vocals (I’d always assumed it was keyboardist Jenny Conlee).

They stick with King for “All Arise” where you can really see Jenny’s massive keyboard array!

There’s a little extended jam at the end, which Colin calls “a proper honky tonk.”

They move to What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World album for “Wrong Year” which Colin says is emblematic of the previous year.  Colin plays the acoustic 12 string and Chris Funk is on the electric 12 string.

Jenny claps: “since there’s no audience we have to support ourselves.  Should we clap for ourselves?”

Colin says the tour (that was recently cancelled) would have been their 20th anniversary tour.  These song would have made up the set list.

This next song is early mid period that John Moen: he was just laying around being a man about town a the time.  “On the Bus Mall” [from Picaresque] sounds great with Nate Query getting a great deep sound on the upright bass.

Colin has as sip of wine and mentions that someone has made a supercut of every time he drinks a sip of wine and goes mmm.  “It’s normal to go mmm after a drink of wine.  it heightens the experience.”  And yet when you put hem all together….

Up next is a song about dead children and this is the first of many.  “Leslie Anne Levine” (from Castaways and Cutouts) sounds great with the 12 string, the accordion and bowed upright bass.

Colin jokes that it wouldn’t be an authentic Decemberists experience without him forgetting lot of words–so far I’m doing alright.

Up next is a glorious “The Crane Wife Parts 1, 2 & 3,” always fun to heae these together.  Nate’s bowed bass sounds deep and resonant but the song gets even bigger when he switches to electric bass.  Jenny is playing organ and glockenspiel.  There’s a seamless transition to part 2 with Chris Funk on pedal steel.  As they switch to Part 3, Jenny keeps the song going on organ while Colin gets an 8 string acoustic guitar.

It’s followed immediately by “The Island” which sounds so good I really hope to see this song live one day.  I love the intensity of Jenny’s keys and the great riffing and they even switch it up in the middle as John takes over keys, Jenny plays accordion, Chris is on pedal steel and Nate’s on the bowed bass.  The end is magnificent.  As they wrap up Colin jokes, “those were some jazz chords you were playing, there, Johnny.”

Colin states that they went through strict COVID protocol so they could do the next song.  “Raincoat Song” is a deep cut==a pretty acoustic song with both of them singing into the same mic.  (“I haven’t been so close to another man in many months.”  “Only harmonize into one microphone with you pod.”)

As they get ready for the next song, Colin says this is an epic jam set, apologies of epic jams are not your thing.  Jenny says that if they were on stage during this delay they’d either jam out or tell dad jokes: Nate: “How do you make an octopus laugh?  Tentickles.”

As Chris starts warming u his new guitar Colin says “John Carpenter on guitar.”  That’s the biggest complement you can give him.

Then we are off to a mystical land with “Rusalka, Rusalka” a new song I don’t know very well.  I really enjoyed the sound of it and need to check out the later cuts on I’ll be Your Girl.  The song has Chris on mandolin and harp samples from Jenny.

Colin gets a guitar but changes his mind as asks for The Reverend instead.  Jenny plays circus/instrument changing music.

The new guitar sounds great, and indeed the whole of “Make You Better” sounds fantastic.

Before introducing the final song, Colin says “Stay safe out there.  We’re nearing the end of this thing.  If you can get your vaccine, get it; mask up, stay socially distanced.”  “Not a very sexy PSA for a rock n roll show.”

But anyhow, this is about people who drowned, so things could be ….worse.

They end with a rocking “Hazard of Love (Part 4)” with Chris Funk on pedal steel.

It was weird hearing these live, quite rocking songs and there being no audience to cheer. Even if I hate noisy crowds, the silence is worse.

[READ: November 20, 2020] “How to Practice”

This was Ann Patchett’s second long form non-fiction essay in six months in the New Yorker.

This one is all about getting rid of your stuff.

In my family, we treasure heirlooms and even things that have only minor sentimental value.  We’re not hoarders but we have a lot of stuff.

Patchett opens this essay by talking about a friend’s father who died.  He had amassed all kinds of things.  Each new stage of his life brought on a new interest or hobby–and the accoutrement that went with it.  Getting rid of things proved to be a burden to his children.

Because Patchett grew up with them and her friend’s father considered her like a daughter, he wanted her to get something meaningful.   For instance, a particular painting.  She liked it but “either you have a place for that sort of thing or you don’t.”

But after allocating the important stuff there was so much more

How had one man acquired so many extension cords, so many batteries and rosary beads? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Todd Rykaczewski–Joan & The Man (2020)

Posted in Airplanes, Art, Artists, Babies, Books about writers, Coronavirus, Death, Drinking, Huh?, Meta, Quarantine, Short Books, Steady Holiday, SXSW, The Dog Dies, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Todd Rykaczewski on April 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STEADY HOLIDAY-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert Meets SXSW: #187 (April 5, 2021).

Every year, NPR Music participates in the SXSW music festival, whether it’s curating a stage or simply attending hundreds of shows at the annual event in Austin, Texas. Last year, the festival was canceled due to the pandemic, but it returned this March as an online festival. We programmed a ‘stage’ of Tiny Desk (home) concerts and presented them on the final day of the festival. Now, we present to you Tiny Desk Meets SXSW: four videos filmed in various locations, all of them full of surprises.

Steady Holiday is the music of Dre Babinski. This video, filmed for our virtual SXSW showcase, finds her by the fireplace, a dog at her feet, an acoustic guitar in her arms. Steady Holiday is singing “Living Life,” a tune about a favorite topic of mine: the everyday, the mundane, and living in the moment. All the songs in this Tiny Desk (home) concert are from Steady Holiday’s 2021 album Take The Corners Gently, a top record of mine this year.

As “Living Life” opens, Dre Babinski sings the first verse solo, then you can hear other musicians join in and she reveals their secret location (with some very loud shutters).  Derek Howa plays a pretty solo on the keys and by the end of the song drummer Brijesh Pandya is “da da daing” along to really flesh out the song.

Surprise guests aren’t the only surprise.  After the first song, her printer (with googly eyes and an arm) prints out the next song on the setlist.

“Tangerine” is a bouncy song with some heavier ends and an interesting chord progression.  Howa’s keys sound almost like a toy piano (but louder) and add a chiming quality.  It’s wonderfully catchy.  I’m curious how much bigger the proper version of this song sounds. Howa adds some creepy spacey effects in the middle, so I imagine the recorded songs have more going on.

The printer spits out a piece of paper: Your band is overdressed.  Then she tells us why the guys are outside (it’s pretty funny).

Laughing while her dog grabs a chew toy, she performs the album’s opening track, “White Walls,” a song about self-reflection and how doing the same thing over and over (“painting white walls white”) won’t make life better.

This is a slow bouncy song with a really catchy chorus: “painting white walls white just to kill the time.”

Then she shutters out her band and

As her printer cues the last song, (oops, small spoiler), Steady Holiday takes us out on a lovely tune, “Love Me When I Go To Sleep”:

It’s just Bea and her guitar as she delicately sings

“Fragile aren’t we, who would guess / Here today, tomorrow’s taking bets.” Her refrain amplifies that fragility with a reminder to appreciate the gift of life. “Love me when I go to sleep / Love me with no certainty / Love me when I go to sleep.”

Her voice is clear and lovely and the final song feels like a lullaby.

[READ: April 20, 2021] Joan & The Man

This book came in at work and something about it made me want to read it (the shortness helped).

So this is a self-published book (I think–it could use some editing) that we received as a gift (from the author?).  It is Rykaczewski’s fourth novel and it is a wonderfully weird mix of reality and nonsense.

Chapter One focuses on Joan as she tried on some clothes in a mall–she is buying bralettes–imposed propaganda to younger hip girls.  Then it pushes back as she and The Man head to their place–the World Revolt Art Gallery.  But more on that place after a brief excursion to the Riverbend Arts Market.

Joan & The Man are artists living in Florida.  She works in paint and he works in words.  They spend time at the RAM hoping to sell some works, but really it’s a sucker’s market.  They often head down with their dog Duke,  Duke is a nasty dog to everyone but The Man. Then there’s a weird moment where Duke winds up trading places with a movie star dog (to the terminal end of the movie star dog).  But losing Duke frees them. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Amy Tan–“My Mother” (New Yorker, December 24 & 31, 2001)

Posted in Amy Tan, Books about writers, Coronavirus, Essays, Jazmine Sullivan, Memory, New Yorker, Parenting, Quarantine, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on March 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JAZMINE SULLIVAN-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #132 (January 8, 2021).

I know Jazmine Sullivan from a previous NPR set from 2014.  I hadn’t heard anything from her since then.  The blurb says

We don’t see or hear much from Jazmine Sullivan until she has something to get off her chest. She drops a body of work every five years or so, shakes up the world of R&B with each offering, then quietly goes back to minding her own business.

That’s pretty awesome.

Her latest project, Heaux Tales, is a bold and timely conversation piece addressing truths regarding relationships, sex, social norms, self-worth and a myriad of other topics that women grapple with. Each song is masterfully connected to another through unique yet familiar testimonies by women from all walks of life.

Sullivan’s set is five songs in nearly twenty minutes.

The singer-songwriter, draped in a trench coat while her band sports all black, are nestled in the corner of a dimly lit space resembling a cabaret.

She starts her Tiny Desk (home) concert with three extended and reworked selections from Heaux Tales,

“Bodies (Intro)” is jazzy an old-fashioned sounding with prominent piano from Eric Wortham and gently echoed guitars from Simon Martinez.  But it’s got very non-old-fashioned lyrics.  The end even has her scatting and crooning and there’s some wild drum fills from Dave Watson.

“The Other Side” features prominent bass from Jermaine Blandford and piano open this set.  It’s got a really nice catchy chorus.  The backing singers (Alisa Joe, Natalie Curtis and Ayana George vocals arranged according to height) add really nice harmonies and at the end they do a nice vocal fugue.   The song ends with a smooth bass riff.

“Lost One” is the first single from this project although I think the other two songs are much catchier.

“Let It Burn” a blast from the past and

thee fan favorite from 2015’s Reality Show,

For the last song, “Girl Like Me, she invites Tiny Desk alum H.E.R. to the stage to close.  H.E.R. plays a delicate acoustic guitar.  The song is just guitar and bass until about half way through when the rest of the band joins in.  I liked this song least because there was a lot of vocals acrobatics that i did not care for–something that it seems like Sullivan doesn’t do much.  The graphic lyrics with the gentle acoustic guitar was a nice contrast though.

[READ: February 21, 2021] “My Mother”

Like Nadine Gordimer, Amy Tan had a “memory” in this issue as well.

Unlike Nadine, this memory was concrete and very poignant.

She says that when she was sixteen she said some hateful things to her mother, including “I hate you, I wish I were dead.”  Her mother replied, “Okay maybe I die, then I no longer be your mother.”

They would not speak to each other for days after fights like this.

A Couple of years ago when Amy was 47 and she was already a successful writer, she was writing a story about a girl and her mother when the phone rang. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »