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Ben Schott–Schott’s Miscellany 2009: An Almanac (2008)

Posted in Aesop Rock, Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Ben Schott, Bible, Bill Fox, Bob Dylan, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Collecting, Comedians, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Dip-in Books, Drinking, Drugs, Explosions in the Sky, Film & TV, Food, Foreign Books, Games (Non Video), Grizzly Bear, History, Holidays, I'm from Barcelona, Language, LGBTQ, Lightning Bolt, Magik Markers, Military, Morality, Nature, Nico, Of Montreal, Oxford Collapse, Poetry, Prison, Racism, Religion, Reykjavik!, Roger Federer, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sports, Sufjan Stevens, Technology, The Future, Travel, TSA, Violence, War, Word usage on December 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer June/July 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD: Cue the Bugle Turbulent (2007).

The 2007 Believer disc smashes the mold of folkie songs that they have established with the previous discs in the series.  The theme for this disc is that there’s no theme, although the liner notes give this amusing story:

one decaffeinated copy editor (“the new guy”) made a suggestion: “The Believer CD should be composed of eight a.m. music/breakfast-substitute jams, like that commercial from a while back with the guy who gets out of bed over and over again while ELO plays over his morning routine. You should tell all of the bands to write/contribute songs worth listening to within three minutes of waking up.”

So, without a theme, they just asked artists for some great songs.  There’s one or two tracks written especially for the disc (Sufjan Stevens, Lightning Bolt).  There’s a couple B-sides.  There are some wildly noisy raucous songs: and three of them come from duos!  No Age offers a very noisy blast of feedback.  Magik Markers play a super-fast distortion-fueled rocker, and Lightning Bolt play 5 minutes of noise noise noise.  Oh, and there’s even a rap (Aesop Rock)!

Tracks 3-7 are just about the 5 best songs in a row on any compilation.  Oxford Collapse plays a catchy and wonderfully angular song with “Please Visit Your National Parks.”  It’s followed by a song from Sufjan Stevens that sounds NOTHING like Sufjan Stevens, it’s a noisy distorted guitar blast of indie punk.  I’m from Barcelona follows with a supremely catchy horn driven song that would be huge on any college campus.  Aesop Rock comes next with a fantastic song.  I’d heard a lot about Aesop Rock but had never heard him before, and he raps the kind of rap that I like: cerebral and bouncy.  This is followed by Reykjavik! with a crazy, noisy surf-guitar type of song.  It reminds me of some great college rock from the early 90s.

Of Montreal, a band I’ve been hearing about a lot but who I’ve never heard (and didn’t think sounded like this) plays a wonderfully catchy two minute love song that sounds ironic, but which likely isn’t.  The melody is straight out of the Moody Blues’ “Wildest Dreams,” and yet it is still fun and quirky.

There’s a couple instrumentals as well: The Clogs do a cool, mellow instrumental and Explosions in the Sky do one of their typically fantastic emotional tracks.  Also on the disc, The Blow contribute a delightfully witty song and Bill Fox, a singer I’d never heard of (but who has a great article about him in the magazine), really impressed me with his Bob Dylan meets Nico delivery.  The disc ends with an alternate version of a song by Grizzly Bear.

This is definitely my favorite Believer disc thus far.  See the full track listing here.

[READ: Throughout 2009] Schott’s Miscellany 2008

This year’s edition of Schott’s Miscellany is very much like last year’s edition (see that review here).  I mean, it is an almanac after all.  However, it is a wondrous testament to Schott that even though I read every word of the 2008 edition, I was able to read every word of the 2009 edition and not feel like I was duplicating myself very much.

Obviously the news, facts and events of 2008-09 are different from last year.  And since Schott’s writing style is breezy and fun with a hint of sarcasm and amusement thrown in, you don’t get just a list of facts, you get sentences with subtle commentary on the facts.  And it’s a fun way to re-live the past year.  Plus, the Sci, Tech, Net section discusses science stories that sounded really impressive and important which I can’t believe I didn’t hear about at the time. (more…)

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Captain Adam Seaborn [pseudonym of John Cleves Symmes]–Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery (1820)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Chef, Consumerism, Hollow Earth, Humiliation, John Cleves Symmes, John Uri Lloyd, Kate Bush, Lenny Henry, McSweeney's, Short Books, Supernatural, Technology, Travel, Unlikable main character, Utopia on November 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-The Red Shoes (1993).

The Red Shoes is something of a disappointment. While I enjoyed The Sensual World, it was definitely moving in a more adult contemporary vein.  The Red Shoes proceeds even further in this direction.  Since Kate is getting older, it makes sense that her music would change as well.

But there are some really fun tracks on here as well.  And Kate’s initial experiments with world music (the Bulgarian Choir) has really expanded into a more global palette (the island feel of “Eat the Music,” for instance).

The first four songs of the disc are really great.  They show an amazing diversity.  The first single “Rubberband Girl” is quite fun and bouncey.  It has a rather silly middle section where she makes rubberband-like sounds.   “And So is Love” sounds like classic Kate, with some wonderful vocals.  “Eat the Music” is a crazy, up beat horn fueled island track (with wonderfully suggestive lyrics).  And  “Moments of Pleasure” is a delightfully romantic song.

However, beginning with “Song of Salomon” with its awkward chorus of “don’t want no bullshit, just want your sexuality” the album trails off a little bit.  The rest of the songs feel kind of hurried and unspecific; there’s nothing really grabby about them.  They’re not bad, but they’re not all that memorable.  In fact, “Constellation of the Heart” is one of those rare aspects of a Kate disc: a song that sounds really dated.

The one exception to this decline is “Top of the City,” a really nice ballad that features some classic Kate vocals.

Of the remainder, “Big Stripey Lie” has some cool sound effects and lots of weirdness floating around it (and I do quite like it) although it’s really not as substantial as her previous experimental pieces.

Probably the most controversial song on the disc is “Why Should I Love You?” a duet with Prince.  While the main chorus is pretty cool (and uncannily Prince-like) the rest of the track sounds (again) very dated.  The track also features the great comedian Lenny Henry on vocals.  However, since Henry is responsible for what may be the worst sitcom theme song ever in the history of music (it may actually make you want to not watch the rather funny Chef, it is so awful) his inclusion isn’t really all that wonderful.  The disc ends with “You’re the One” a weird (in a good way) track that features The Bulgarian Chorus again.  They seem to do a great job of keeping Kate’s songs focused, so the disc ends on a high note.

This disc is pretty soundly dismissed by even diehard Kate fans.  And it is definitely her least satisfying overall. But if you look deeper into the disc, there are some unfairly overlooked gems.

[READ: November 20, 2009] Symzonia

After reading Etidorhpa, I started looking around at other Hollow Earth books.  And thankfully, someone has done most of the work already. So, for an absurdly long list of Hollow Earth books, check out this link.  I was delighted to see that so many of them are quite short!

When I saw this book, and realized that it was about the world mentioned in “Symmes Hole” (from McSweeney‘s) and that it was very likely written by Symmes himself (there is still debate, but it is convincing that he wrote it) I decided to check it out.

Sadly, this book was considerably duller than Etidorhpa.  It was 250 pages and the first 100 were details of his journey to the South Pole.  Which would be fine except that since the author is a sailor he gives excruciating details about not only sailing, but even shipbuilding (including how smart he was for making the ship as strong as he did,) and the directions of the wind and speculation about longitude and all that great seafaring stuff.  That’s not my thing, so I found it rather tedious. (more…)

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Periodical: American Libraries

Posted in American Libraries, Art, Authors, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Comedians, Essays, Free Speech, Graphic Novel, Mystery, Research, Technology on October 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »

al1You get American Libraries magazine if you’re a member of the American Library Association.  So you can see that the audience is rather specific.

A lot of the magazine is advocating for librarians (and for librarians to attend the annual ALA conference).  (The word advocacy appears about 200 times in each issue).

The magazine opens with letters from the editor and the president as well as letters from the readers.  Librarian letters are usually pretty enjoyable because those who write are usually pretty passionate.

alaAnd then there’s news about ALA, the organization (like their endorsement of the Public option in the Health Care debate).  As the news items continue there’s a lot of items for librarians, but there’ also a lot of news about books and media in general.  So, here we learn that J.D. Salinger won his lawsuit against Frederick Colting who wrote an unauthroized sequel to Catcher in the Rye. (more…)

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Periodical: The Week

Posted in Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Comedians, Comic Strips, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Esquire, Essays, Film & TV, Free Speech, History, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Morality, Music, Natural Disasters, Neurotics, New Yorker, Oddities, Outer Space, Political Humor, Prison, Racism, Radar, Religion, Research, Robots, Russia, Salon.com, Sex, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, The Week, Violence, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, War, WMDs on September 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

weekI’m not sure how I first learned about The Week. I think I received a trial issue in the mail. But after just one or two issues we were hooked.  The Week is a comprehensive newsweekly, although it offers virtually no original reporting.  It collates news stories and offers opinions from a variety of sources: newspapers, online magazines, political journals etc. And it provides opinions from across the political spectrum.

Each issue has the same set up (although they recently had an image makeover: a new cover design and some unexpected font changes in a few sections, which I suppose does lend to an easier read).

Each issue starts with The main stories… …and how they were covered. The first article is a look at whatever major story captivated the editorials that week.  (The growing gloom in Afghanistan).  And in a general sense of what you get for long articles (the long articles are about 3/4 of a page) You get WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE EDITORIALS SAID, and WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAID.  The What Happened section is a paragraph or two summary of the story.  The editorials offer a one or two sentence summary from sources like USA Today, L.A. Times and The Financial Times, while The Columnists are from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time.com, for example. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 8] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Boston, MA, Canadian Content, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Garbage, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Paul F. Tompkins, Prison, Set at School, Sonic Youth, Sports, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, The Sound of Young America, Violence, Yuck! on August 15, 2009| 5 Comments »

ij8SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star (1994).

ejstns“Bull in the Heather” is one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs.  I love everything about it (even if I haven’t got a clue what it’s about): the simple opening, the switch to harmonics, and, my favorite part, the drum break that leads to the chorus (who ever heard of getting a drum break stuck in your head?).

There’s a lot to speak for this disc even though it seems to be overlooked (as the empty spot between Dirty and Washing Machine).  Take the absolute variety of textures, and the almost surreal mixtures of styles within (short) songs (like “Bone” which opens with super fast paced drumming and howls from Kim and then breaks into a very mellow (and catchy) chorus).

For sheer variety: the disc opens with an acoustic guitar strummer by Thurston (“Winner’s Blues”), and then, after the single “Bull in the Heather,” there’s the 2 minute noise-fest “Starfield Road.”  This is followed by the cool and catchy “Skink,” which is like Kim’s version of the slinky and cool “Self-Obsessed and Sexxee.”  This is definitely Kim’s disc, she sings about half of the songs, and shows a great variety of styles here.

“Androgynous Mind” is one of those weird songs that has a wonderfully catchy vocal line but where the music is pretty much abstract nonsense.  And speaking of catchy, this disc continues with SY’s notion of sing along choruses (even if what you’re singing doesn’t make a lot of sense (“Screaming Skull” fits that bill perfectly)).  And then “Quest for the Cup” does a 90 degree turn after the intro.  All of these shifts and changes occur in less than half an hour.

The last 20 minutes or so settle the disc down somewhat (except for the brief “In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader,” but the 7 minute closer “Sweet Shine” ends the disc on a mellow note.

This is also the last SY disc produced by Butch Vig.  Vig’s production is often described as clean. But Vig doesn’t clean up the noise that SY makes, he just makes it, I guess, crisper would be a better word.  Compare the way that Garbage’s “Vow” opens with a big grand noise and then stops dead after a few seconds.  Vig seems to be a master of controlling noise to make it stand out more.  And in that respect, his technique really shines through on this disc…it feels almost mechanical in its precision.

From this point forward, Sonic Youth would break away from this style of music into a freer and looser almost jazz feel, so even if the album title doesn’t make literal sense, it describes the disc quite well.

[READ: Week of August 10] Infinite Jest (to page 589)

Last week, showed Gately’s car speeding through Cambridge.  He runs over a discarded cup which we follow as it sails down the street and hits the Antitoi’s door.  It was very cinematic.  Discussions abound about whether IJ could (or should) be filmed.  I’m not going to add to that discussion but I did want to mention what I see as the filmic way the book written.

In many movies you are introduced almost casually to many of the protagonists, seeing them in their most typical place of employment or hang-out spot or some such thing.  And in films, it doesn’t seem that weird to get a two minute or even 30 second establishing shot of character A before jump cutting to character B.

And that’s how IJ starts, with all of these jump cuts, establishing shots, of characters.  Clenette’s scene is hard to read, but if you saw it in a movie, you’d say, okay that’s her character.  And, for the most part you would expect her to reappear later in the movie. I’m not sure what anyone expects to happen in IJ, so who knows what we think the Clenette scene is about, but realistically, the character has to come back, even if what she said didn’t make any sense at the time.

And as movies go, so does the book, cutting back and forth between scenes building the stories along as they inevitably intertwine.

It’s also not unheard of to have what seems like it may be the end of the chronological story appear first (we haven’t seen any return to the Year of Glad yet).

And so, yes I will say a thing about the filmic possibilities of  this book.  Sure the book is long, and yet so much of the book is description, stuff that in a movie can be done with an establishing shot, even a slow one.  The whole Joelle/overdose scene which covers so many pages could be filmed rather quickly.  So could Eschaton. The question of course is how much would be lost in translation.  And that I can’t answer (although I expect quite a lot).

Be a hell of a film, though.

ijdot

So, in a few places, especially on Infinite Tasks, people have been mentioning some crucial information that happens on Page 17.   I felt bad that I didn’t recall anything that happened on page 17, so I went back and re-read this section (and how weird is it to re-read parts of a book that you haven’t even finished yet?)

And so Page 17 feels like a major spoiler!  It feels like so much is given away!  It feels like such an essential part of the story that it’s amazing how it’s sort of tossed off in a hallucinatory sequence.

I think of John N.R. Wayne who would have won this year’s WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father’s head.  There’s very little doubt that Wayne would have won.

Wow.  So much packed into those two sentences!  Holy cow.

And, the end of that sequence has an orderly ask Hal, “so, yo, then man what’s your story?”

Is that the device that sets up that Hal is telling this whole book?  I just blew my mind.

ijdot

This week’s reading begins with the aftermath of The Escahton debacle.  Or the precursor to the aftermath, anyway.  And it features the color blue. A lot.

It also gets to a question I’ve been puzzling about for sometime: why isclouds every IJ book jacket/promotional material designed in a sort of cloud motif. Well, in the section we lean that Uncle Charles’ office is decked out in an unsettling cloud wallpaper (which is coincidentally the same wallpaper as Hal’s dentist).  It has only appeared briefly so far, so it seems odd that it would take on such an iconic feel.  But we’ll see if it comes back.

(more…)

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Periodical: Rolling Stone

Posted in Books about music, Canadian Music, Comedians, Concept Albums, Consumerism, Essays, Film & TV, Music, Political Humor, Religion, Rolling Stone, Technology, War, WMDs on June 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

rsI began my Rolling Stone subscription a few years ago when I bought something at Best Buy. The subscription was a bonus gift of some sort. The choices were pretty lousy and I didn’t even want Rolling Stone, but I figured what the heck.
I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed the magazine.

I suppose no one has to be told what Rolling Stone is like. Or so I thought, because here was me, being surprised by this most mainstream of magazines.  I mean, I’ve seen the covers for years, and I knew they liked sex, drugs and rock and roll, but there’s more under the covers.

I have quickly learned my favorite sections and the ones I don’t even bother looking at.

Skim the letters. Maybe there’s a worthwhile addition.

The first main section is the “news” of the last two weeks…usually a concert or a new album or some such. This one happens to focus on American Idol, so, I skipped right past that nonsense.

The Hot List is 5 things that impress them since last issue. I usually like 1 of the 5.

I never read the Smoking Section, but Breaking is usually about an indie band that I heard about a few months earlier.  RS finally catches up and I can read a bit more about them. The In the Studio section is worth browsing to see who’s due for a new disc.

The Random Notes I feel is meant to be a big deal, with “insider” photos and blah blah. I skim it but little more than that.

And then the issue proper starts. (more…)

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30,000

Posted in Against Me!, Alex Stone, Art Spiegelman, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Chynna Clugston-Major, David Goldberg, Deb Olin Unferth, Dropkick Murphys, Evan Goldberg, Flight of the Conchords, Gordon Korman, Gordon Lightfoot, Harper's, Jeff Kinney, Jens Lekman, Magic, Magicians, Marisha Pessl, McSweeney's, Paul F. Tompkins, Pseudonymous Bosch, Richard Thompson, Roddy Doyle, Seth Rogen, Stephen King, Supernatural, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Weakerthans, Wells Tower, YA Books on March 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »

3000030,000 views may not be a milestone for many blogs. But, for a blog like this which was intended mostly as a record of what I’ve read, the fact that I’ve had 30,000 views is pretty exciting. And it seems appropriate to let you, the readers know what you the other readers have been reading here. So, here is the top ten most read posts on I Just Read About That… with a director’s commentary tacked on.

1. 819 views
Gordon Korman–Son of the Mob (2002)
SOUNDTRACK: GORDON LIGHTFOOT-The Complete Greatest Hits
I’m pretty much 100% certain that Gordon Lightfoot is NOT the attraction that made this post my highest one. Son of the Mob is usually a summer reading book. However, I get hits on this throughout the year.  I’m guessing it’s just a popular book.

(more…)

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Kasper Hauser–Sky Maul: The Unauthorized Catalog Parody (2006)

Posted in Arrested Development, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dip-in Books, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), How I Met Your Mother, Kasper Hauser, Oddities, Smarty Pants, The Cure, The Onion, The Sound of Young America, Time Travel on March 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

skymailSOUNDTRACK: THE CURE-The Cure (2004).

cureI’ve been a huge fan of The Cure since my friend Garry introduced me to them circa 1985.  I saw them twice in concert, I overplayed Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me, and even got the giant Boys Don’t Cry poster.

And then I grew up.  I basically stopped getting Cure albums around Wild Mood Swings (which was only two albums before this one even though it was nearly a decade ago).  I eventually got Bloodflowers when a friend said it was very good, and I agreed.  But it took me a long time to get this one (I think I was tired of the persistent “last album ever” deal).  Nevertheless, I still like the Cure, and I do like this one.

This self-titled disc is very familiar sounding. In fact, it’s as if someone told Robert Smith: make a greatest hits album but with all new songs.  And that’s more or less what you get with this disc.  It doesn’t have a theme like Disintegration or The Top.  There are manic highs and lows all over the album.  In fact, on several songs Robert is happy and in love, and on others he will never be in love.  Rather than depression, it’s almost all schizophrenia.

It starts in a very downbeat fashion (“Lost”) with scowling, reeling vocals despite him singing about being “so happy and so young.”  The mood continues on “Labyrinth” with its sinister, somewhat Egyptian sounding guitar line.

And then you get two of Robert Smith’s upbeat songs, “Before Three” (“The happiest day I ever knew…”)  and “Until the End of the World” (“I couldn’t love you more!”).  You know they’re happy songs when he drifts into that impossible falsetto.  “Anniversary” is one of their dark songs like ” A Forest” with that great Cure drumming tribal drumming. And there’s the single “alt.end,” which is, simply, another great single from The Cure.

The sonic landscape continues with another falsetto song “(I Don’t Know What’s Going ) On.” And then we’re back to the aggrieved and angry “Us or Them” where Robert almost repeats a line from “The Kiss”  “get your fucking head out of my world” (the original being “get your fucking voice out of my head”).

The only questionable song is the final one, “The Promise”.  And the only reason it’s questionable is that it’s 12 minutes long. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for The Cure, since the aforementioned “The Kiss” is 6 minutes of delightfulness.  But I think 12 might be a bit too long.  Nevertheless, it lets the album end on an angry, bitter note, just as it began.  Symmetry, after all.

I guess I’m still a Cure fan after all these years.

[READ: March 8, 2009] SkyMaul

I heard about this catalog through a plug from The Sound of Young America.  They said it was selling cheap on Amazon, so I snatched up one of the last remaining copies.

This catalog is hilarious.  Obviously, it is a parody of the Sky Mall catalog that you look at on airplanes when you have run out of everything else to look at, and have no intention of purchasing anything from (unless you are Barney Stinson [I tried to find a link to his Sky Mall compulsiveness, but there are no official ones, so if you just Google “barney skymall” tons of things comes up].

Many parody titles don’t live  up to the hilarity they promise.  This boils down to a couple of reasons: They are so true to the original it’s hard to tell them apart; they require a deep awareness of the original in order to really appreciate the joke; most people who know they original that well actually LIKE the original, and don’t want the parody.

SkyMaul however, is that rare beast: a parody that is very funny but is also full of crazily inventive and absurd humor.  Unlike many of the very specific parodies that exist, SkyMaul allows for across-the-board humor, so it never gets bogged down in finding that “perfect parody moment.”

SkyMaul works similarly to The Onion, in that some of the items in this catalog are direct parodies of existing items (Atheist motivational posters; the first ever Milk vacuum–for when people put unwanted milk on your cereal), and others are simply utter nonsense (like the Llamacycle (a llama with a wheel for front legs, or the Air Straightener “Stop Breathing Disorganized Air!”)).

There were a number of things that had me laughing out loud and thinking of people who would love to read this (Happy Birthday, Matt).

The genius of the book is dividing the catalog into smaller subsections (just like the real thing) which allows them to diversify their products.  Some subsections include: The Image Sharpener; The Statuetory (Meeting and Exceeding Your Home Statue Needs); J. Crewcifix (Extreme Religion Since A.D. 33); Tomorrow’s Garage Sale (Filling up you home, office, and storage areas); NASCAR Stepdad; WhadjaGITme? (Toys for demanding kids…); Shemail (Doodads for ladies) [Although that’s not as good as Arrested Development’s designer Shemále]; Heavy Petter (pushing animal product on people]; The Nicest Gift (is to let people deal with stuff on their own); Coming Soon (the store 4 sex toys ‘n’ stuff).

You get the idea of where this catalog is going. And to top it off there’s even a crossword puzzle in the back.  This may have been the funniest part of the book, so don’t skip it!  Sample entry: Q: Superman’s weakness. A: Chocolate.

To see some examples from the book, click here.

Oh, and in case you’re like me, you didn’t know that Kasper Hauser is not a person but a comedy troupe.

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Zadie Smith–“Dead Man Laughing” (New Yorker, December 22 & 29, 2008)

Posted in Andy Zaltzman, Christmas Album, Comedy Album, Edward Aczel, Essays, Fawlty Towers, Funny (ha ha), Holidays, John Oliver, Monty Python's Flying Circus, New Yorker, Political Humor, Smarty Pants, Sufjan Stevens, The Daily Show, Zadie Smith on January 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

TNY 12.22&29.08 cvr.inddSOUNDTRACK: SUFJAN STEVENS–Peace! Songs for Christmas Vol. V (2006).

peaceThis EP comes very close to being my favorite; it may even beat vol 3.  In part because the disc is 35 minutes long (still short for Sufjan Stevens but longer than some bands’ full lengths).

Four songs are sort of repeated from other discs.  “Once in Royal David’s City,” “Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming,” (a pretty piano version) “Jingle Bells” (a bouncy piano version) and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” (a slow piano version) are short instrumental reprises and act as nice segues between the more meaty songs.

“Get Behind Me, Santa!” is something of a Santa bashing song, but it’s still pretty fun (with some great prog rock synth sounds).  But it is nowhere near as delightful as “Christmas in July,” another original that is totally Sufjan, from start to finish.  It’s a great song regardless of the season.  The pair of “Jupiter Winter” and “Sister Winter” are two originals: one mellow, the other less so.  While I don’t love “Jupiter,” “Sister” is fantastic.

“Star of Wonder” is not the part from “We three Kings” but an original song full of Sufjan’s orchestration.  It is mesmerizing. “Holy, Holy, Holy” is another beautiful rendition of a classic Christmas song (the delicate harmonies are really affecting).  And finally, “The Winter Solstice” sounds just like its title: chilly and spare.

And that completes the box set, one of my favorite Christmas collections.

[READ: January 4, 2009] “Dead Man Laughing”

I have only read On Beauty (and a piece in The Believer to be reviewed later) by Zadie Smith and yet I feel that she has rapidly eclipsed many of my favorite writers.  There is something about her style that is just beautiful to me.  She writes deliberately and powerfully without overembellishing or resorting to anything beneath her.  People often say that they could listen to so and so sing or recite the phone book, their voice is so good (I feel that way about Patrick Stewart).  Well whatever the equivalent for a writer is, that hows I feel about Zadie Smith. (more…)

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Wacky Packages–with an interview with Art Spiegelman (2008)

Posted in Airlines, Art Spiegelman, Bob Newhart, Collecting, Comedy Album, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Jerry Seinfeld, MST3K, Russia, The Bob Newhart Show, War on December 2, 2008| 2 Comments »

wackySOUNDTRACK: BOB NEWHART-The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1960), The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back (1960) & Behind the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1961).

newhart1We started watching The Bob Newhart Show on DVD (the 1970s one, not the one set in the inn).  I was surprised how much I liked it and how well it stood up, for the most part.  And it made me realize how much I liked Bob Newhart in general.  So, I figured I’d try some of his stand up and see what it was like.

newhart3I was delighted to find out that a joke from Mystery Science Theater 3000 was finally explained to me: the “Mrs Webb” joke that is muttered whenever an old lady is driving a car comes from the “Driving Instructor” joke on the first album (hereafter known as Button-Down).  It’s only taken a decade for me to get that joke!

newhart2But really, what do you get when you listen to a Newhart CD?  And what would a reviewer write about in a review of these CDs?  Well, I think it would go something like this:

[Reviewer]: Yea, hi, ha ha.  Hi.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: I was just listening to these Newhart CDs.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: No.  No, they’re not new, they’re almost 50 years old now.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Ha ha, right.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: No, they’re basically telephone conversations.  In most instances Bob plays a character listening to the person on the other end whom you never hear.  So, it’s almost entirely reaction shots.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Yes, they’re very funny.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: A few are dated.  The one about Khrushchev, “The Khrushchev Landing Rehearsal” (Button-Down), for example is pretty funny but was probably a lot funnier in 1960.  And “Driving Instructor” (Button-Down) is sexist in set-up (it’s sort of a joke about “women drivers” but once you get past that it applies to any new driver) but the joke is probably the funniest thing on any of the discs.  I was also concerned about “The Africa Movie” (Behind the Button) as it seemed potentially fraught with inappropriate humor, but it turned out to be very very funny, and a wonderful twist on expectations.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Yes, the skits do run pretty long.  Most are over 5 minutes, but he packs a lot of jokes into that time.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Well, sure there are a few that are only about 2 minutes long, and one that even comes close to set up/punchline: “TV Commercials” on Behind the Button (the dentist commercial in particular).  But even on that disc, the one sided nature of the conversations persists.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: There’s a Khrushchev skit on Behind the Button as well (“Tourist Meets Khrushchev”), but aside from knowing who he is, the jokes in that skit aren’t dated at all.  It’s all about an annoying tourist running into him somewhere…and the resultant consequences.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Yeah, Yeah. Boom!
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: It’s not violent, just implied.  Another potentially violent one is “Bus Drivers School” (Strikes Back) as he notes that it takes a certain type of sadist to drive a bus, if you know what I mean.  But, uh, well, the only one that gets somewhat risque is “The Uncle Freddie Show” which shows Newhart’s intolerance for kid’s TV show hosts.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: What?
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Well, Uncle Freddie doesn’t seem to like kids.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Oh.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Well, no, some other topics are “Nobody Will Ever Play Baseball” (Button-Down) because how could you possibly market it [“Why four balls, Abner?”]?
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Yes, a lot with marketing.  Like “Abe Lincoln Vs. Madison Avenue” (Button-Down) [“Keep the beard, Abe], and “Merchandising the Wright Brothers” (Button-Down) [“Where will we put the john, Orville?”].
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Precursor to what?
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Well, he does predate many, many comedians by having airline jokes.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: No, nothing about peanuts. But “The Grace L. Ferguson Airline (And Storm Door Co.)” (Strikes Back)” pretty much negates the need for any future airline humor.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: No, I’m not saying the new comedians aren’t funny.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: I do like Seinfeld.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: No, Newhart’s bit is about an airline run out of someone’s house.
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: It’s totally….
[ ]:
[Reviewer]: Oh, forget it.

All three discs are very funny.  I was under the impression that he only had these three discs, but I now understand he released four more discs through 1967, all of which are supposed to be funny, but which are unavailable right now.

[READ: Halloween 2008] Wacky Packages

So you don’t really READ this book.  This book is a collection of images from the Wacky Packages collection of trading cards that circulated from 1973-1974.  There were seven series of cards that ran during this time for a total of some 232 cards.  According to the site I link to below, there were 16 series in total, which makes sense, as I was only 5 when these 7 series came out, but I distinctly recall getting the packs myself. (more…)

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