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Archive for the ‘For Better of For Worse’ Category

Mark Tatulli–Reheated Liō: A Delicious Liō Collection Ready to Devour (2011)

Posted in Aliens, Ben Folds, Birds, Blondie, Bloom County, C., Calvin and Hobbes, Cats, Children's Books, David Foster Wallace, Death, Death Cab For Cutie, Demons, Dennis the Menace, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, For Better of For Worse, Foxtrot, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Hagar the Horrible, Halloween, Holidays, Hospital Ships, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Ministry, Nancy, Non Sequitur, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Shearwater, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Enfield Tennis Academy, The Far Side, The Lockhorns, The Mountain Goats, The Weakerthans, Tiny Desk Concert, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies on October 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ENFIELD TENNIS ACADEMY-“My Missing Eye” (2017).

The Enfield Tennis Academy is one of the major locations in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.  So, of course, a band that names itself after it must be listened to.

This is the first release by the band (which states “The Enfield Tennis Academy is TR.”

The bandcamp site describes this song as

“Garbage thrown together on a free trial of Reason. Song’s about missing a fucking eye. Real music soon.”

This is two minutes of noisy instrumental metal math rock.  There’s a lot of different sounds in this two minute song.

It opens with some staccato pummeling sounds–the guitars are interesting in that they sound like they are chords yet ringing out at the same time.  The middle is a really fast pummeling section that reminds me of Ministry.  Those opens stringed chords come back late in the song, and they sound really cool.

I’m curious to see what TETA’s “real music” is going to sound like.

[READ: July 20, 2017] Reheated Liō

I have really enjoyed the Liō books (going forward, I’m leaving off that line over the o, because it’s a real pain).

The strip has been going on for some 12 years now, which is pretty amazing.  And yet, there don’t seem to be any new or recent collections out.

So Lio is strip about a boy named Lio.  Lio is a dark, dark kid.  He has a pet squid, he loves monsters and he’s delighted by chaos.  Over the years his character hasn’t changed much but Tatulli has given him some surprising tenderness, which is a nice trait. (more…)

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Charles M. Schulz–The Complete Peanuts: 1981-1982: The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s comic strip masterpiece: Dailies & Sundays (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Angst, Anorexia, Baseball, Basketball, Birds, Boredom, Butterflies, Cats, Charles Schulz, Citizen Kane, Comic Strips, Dogs, Doug Hennig, Etiquette, Fantagraphics, Fantasy, Football, For Better of For Worse, Funny (ha ha), Golf, Halloween, Hockey, Humiliation, Ice Skating, Jealousy, Letters, Math, Peanuts, Regrets, Religion, Romance, Sexism, Soccer, Son Little, Summer Camp, Technology, Tennis, The Bible, The Future, The Muppet Show, Tiny Desk Concert, World War I, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on October 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

1981 SOUNDTRACK: SON LITTLE-Tiny Desk Concert #496 (December 18, 2015).

sonlittleI know of Son Little, although only vaguely.  WXPN has played his song “The River” quite a lot, although I don’t think I’ve heard anything else.

For this Tiny Desk Concert, he’s really stripped down–just his acoustic guitar, a percussionist (Jabari Exum playing a djembe with accoutrements) and a backing vocalist, his sister Megan Livingston.  His playing is even pretty stripped down–his chords are minimal, almost more like accents for most of the songs (although he does play louder from time to time).

As such, this really celebrates his voice which is strong and almost gospel-like.

He plays three songs. “Lay Down,” is a quiet soulful song with perfectly spare accompaniment.  When it ends, everyone seems adorably shy with Little saying, “just mildly awkward enough.”

“Your Love Will Blow Me Away When My Heart Aches” is a bit bigger–Little sings a bit louder and plays louder chords, but it is still quite minimal.

He ends with “The River” which is certainly stripped down from the radio version.  It opens with some claps and he encourages everyone to clap along although “If you’re like clap challenged then maybe… don’t–you know who you are.”  The song has that bluesy rock feel even in this understated form.  And while I like the original better, this is a great version–that quiet clapping and percussion is really nice.

[READ: July 26, 2016] The Complete Peanuts 1981-1982

So far the 1980s see Schulz settling into a few consistent themes in his strips–regular motifs that he mines over and over again.  Although it’s interesting to see how they have morphed over the decades.

Patty is constantly falling asleep in school (and getting D minuses), Snoopy continues to write funny/bad jokes and gets rejection letters about his books (this is usually pretty funny but it’s also surprising as Snoopy is usually the “successful” one); Snoopy also plays a lawyer a lot in these strips.

1981 begins where 1980 left off with Patty loving the story of Hans Brinker.  1981 also has a lengthy section about Valentines Day (a subject that gets more emphasis in some years than others), although this year Sally is the major protagonist (and her Sweet Babboo her object).  1982 also has a Valentine’s Day with Sally–she gets her hand stuck in the Valentine’s Day cards box.

Schulz used to do bible instruction which is why he quotes it so much.  And he occasionally peppers his strips with religious commentary.  There’s a joke about school prayer–Patty has to go up to the board and when her teacher falls ill she shouts “school prayer works, Marcie.”  There’s an amusing joke that Snoopy used to teach Sunday School at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm.

Although the running jokes are funny, I love when he gets a new idea.  Like the a fun twist on the dog ate my homework joke when Snoopy as the WWI pilot steals Sally’s homework claiming it is the enemy’s secret papers and he eats them.

Sometimes Schulz gives a one-off joke that’s just silly and funny like when Woodstock “poofs” a dandelion and it “poofs” him back. (more…)

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Mark Tatulli–Silent But Deadly: Another Liō Collection (2008)

Posted in Aliens, Ben Folds, Birds, Blondie, Bloom County, C., Calvin and Hobbes, Cats, Children's Books, Death, Death Cab For Cutie, Demons, Dennis the Menace, Dogs, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, For Better of For Worse, Foxtrot, Funny (ha ha), Games (Non Video), Hagar the Horrible, Holidays, Hospital Ships, Humiliation, Inventions, Liō, Loch Ness Monster, Mad Scientists, Mark Tatulli, Nancy, Non Sequitur, Parenting, Peanuts, Pigs, Rats, Shearwater, Squids, Supernatural, Surreal, The Far Side, The Lockhorns, The Mountain Goats, The Weakerthans, Tiny Desk Concert, Vampires, Yuck!, Zombies on May 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

silentSOUNDTRACK: HOSPITAL SHIPS-Tiny Desk Concert #177 (November 23, 2011).

hospital shipsHospital Ships is a band created by Jordan Geiger, who was in the band Shearwater, among others. In 2011 he released his second album as Hospital Ships.  The blurb describes the album as “packed with poppy folk songs and brash rockers enhanced with instrumental flourishes and bursts of guitar feedback,” but for this recording, they strip everything down to the basics: a guitar, banjo, ukulele and a drum with a towel over it to muffle the sound.

Geiger has a rather high-pitched, delicate, almost talking-singing voice and his songs are rather pretty.  The band plays 3 songs in just over ten minutes.  The first one, “Phantom Limb,” (once my lover, now my friend, you are my phantom limb) has a recurring motif of them saying/singing “ha ha” which is rather catchy.

“Carry On,” features a four-letter word (technically a seven letter word), which might be one of the first times on a Tiny Desk Concert that such a word is uttered.  It’s especially funny given how sweet the band sounds.  The sentiment of the song is nice though: “To all the women I’ve loved, When I was with you I would say I was better off….  And when I’m gone, carry on, carry on.”  There were harmonies in the first song, but they are more prominent in this one (three part) and are quite nice.  The banjo player also does a whistling solo.

“Let Me In” made me laugh because he uses the word baby a lot (which Ben Folds said in his Tiny Desk that he has never said in real life, so why would he put in it a song?).  But this song is very gentle and sweet–just Geiger on his guitar singing “baby, let me in.”

Geiger’s voice reminds me of a few different people–Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie especially on the final track; perhaps the Mountain Goats or the Weakerthans.  And his songwriting is very good.

[READ: December 26, 2015] Silent But Deadly

I really enjoyed the first Liō collection, and was pretty excited that I could find the second collection so quickly (my library doesn’t have any more collections for some reason, so I’ll have to track the rest down elsewhere).  This book collects the strips from February 25, 2007 – December 2, 2007.

Not much has changed from that book to this one, but I think Tatulli’s comic chops have gotten even better.

The strip won me over immediately with the first one in the book. Lio draws a monster and it comes to life.  He looks at the marker and it says “magic marker” and he gets a big grin and goes back to work.  So simple yet so funny.

It is that big grin–wide open-mouthed just unfettered mischievous delight that occurs in nearly every strip. (more…)

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