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Archive for the ‘Corporate skewering’ Category

Martin Amis–“Laureate of Terror” (New Yorker, November 21, 2011)

Posted in Book Reviews, Charles Dickens, Christian Bok, Corporate skewering, Death, Don DeLillo, George Eliot, James Joyce, Jane Austen, Martin Amis, Natural Disasters, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Ulver, Violence on December 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ULVER-A Quick Fix of Melancholy (2005).

This EP came two years after Teachings in Silence (with a movie soundtrack and “greatest hits” collection in between).  This first track, “Little Blue Bird” is a simple soundscape with echoey keyboards.  When Garm starts singing, his most emotional side comes through (even if I really can’t understand him most of the time).

“Doom Sticks” belies its name and the EP title by being somewhat upbeat.  There are kind of squeaky keyboards that pulsate through the track.  After about a minute and a half, distorted drums keep a martial beat.  But it quickly morphs into a twinkly section that makes me think of the Nutcracker or some other kind of Christmas special.

“Vowels” is similarly upbeat (the music on both of these two tracks has a vaguely Christmastime feel somewhere in there–not that anyone would think these were in any way Christmas songs, or maybe it’s because I’m listening in mid-December).  For this, we get a return of Garm’s choral voice: deep, resonant and hard to understand (although I undertsand the lyrics are from a poem by Christian Bok).   But the poem quickly makes way for some dramatic staccato strings. 

“Eitttlane” begins with some menacing keybaords and staccato notes, creating a feel of a noir movie.  But when the vocal choir comes in, it gets even more sinister.

These Ulver EPs are really true EPs–stopgap recordings for fans.  Their larger works tend to be more substantial, but these EPs allow them to play around with different styles.

[READ: December 1, 2011] “Laureate of Terror”

Two authors I admire in one article, how about that!  In this book review, Martin Amis reviews Don DeLillo’s first collection of short stories and gives a summary of DeLillo’s work.

Amis opens the article by undermining my plans for this blog.  He states point blank than when we say we love an author’s works, we “really mean…that we love about half of it.”  He gives an example of how people who love Joyce pretty much only love Ulysses, that George Eliot gave us one readable book and that “every page of Dickens contains a paragraph to warm to and a paragraph to veer back from.”  Also, Janeites will “never admit that three of the six novels are comparative weaklings (Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Persusaion).  [I still hope to read all of the books by the authors I like].

Amis says he loves DeLillo (by which he means, End Zone, Running Dog, White Noise, Libra, Mao II and the first and last section of Underworld).  And he also seems to really like The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories,(well, much of it anyway), DeLillo’s first (!) short story collection

His main assement is that these pieces are a vital addition to DeLillo’s corpus.  (more…)

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Sarah Selecky–“This Cake is for the Party” (The Walrus, November 2011)

Posted in Cake, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Dalbello, Marillion, Queensrÿche, Sarah Selecky, Short Story, Technology, The Walrus on October 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: QUEENSRŸCHE-Rage for Order (1985).

Thinks looked to be very different for Queensrÿche on Rage for Order.  I mean, look at them.  On the back of The Warning they were leather-clad hellions.  On Rage, they are quite the dandys (man, I wanted Geoff Tate’s coat!).   This would be the first of many times that they confounded their fans with a style change.

Yet despite the look of them, the album opens with a scorcher, “Walk in the Shadows.”  It’s not as heavy as their earlier songs, but it has perfected many of the elements of those earlier records: the chanted vocals, the great riffs and the screaming solos.  “I Dream in Infrared” shows their they’ve always been interest in technology.  It’s ballady, but it’s got some really sharp guitars and some more soaring vocals.

The keyboards at the end of the song segue into “The Whisper,” the first indication that things would be different on this record–orchestra keyboards hits (which I have always loved) are used to punctuate verses, and there are cool, whispered words (which would be used prominently on Operation: Mindcrime. 

Then comes the big shock, “Gonna Get Close to You” a weird synth/metal hybrid with a strikingly catchy and poppy chorus (that seems ever-so-80s to me)–see below for a fun surprise about this song.

Then “The Killing Words” opens with a keyboard riff that sounds not unlike 80s-era Marillion–Tate even whispers words not unlike Fish does on early Marillion albums.  Of course, when the chorus comes in it is pure Queensrÿche .  There’s more orchestral hits and cool effects on “Surgical Strike.”

I love everything about the opening of “Neue Regel,” from the unusual guitar to the “steam” sounds used as percussion to Tate’s processed, minimized voice–it makes for a wonderfully claustrophobic song.  It’s made even more so by the overlapping, intertwining vocals later on. 

“Chemical Youth (We Are Rebellion)” is a cool sparse song (the opening in particular). But it also shows their interest in, if not politics, then at least contemporary society (again, more foreshadowing of Mindcrime).  “London” just builds and builds in intensity, while “Screaming in Digital” takes the technological aspect one step further with all kind of sinister synthesized sounds and the crazy way it ends.

The album ends with “I Will Remember,” an acoustic song complete with mournful whistling from Tate.   But even as a ballad, it’s not your typical lyrical content: “And we wonder how machines can steal each other’s dreams.”  I don’t love it as an album ender, although it does wind things down pretty nicely.

This is my favorite Queensrÿche album, hands down.  I know most people like Mindcrime better, but for me, this one is more progressive and showcases a lot of the risks the band was willing to take.

Incidentally, there’s a wonderful review of Rage here, in which I learn that “Gonna Get Close to You” is actually a cover of a song by the Canadian singer Dalbello (who is really crazy and fun, and whom I’ve never heard of until I just looked her up).  How did I not know it was a cover?  (Or more like, I knew it, but forgot it over the last twenty some years)?  I might actually like the original better.

[READ: October 25, 2011] “This Cake is for the Party”

This was a very short story that crammed a lot of emotion into two pages.

As the story opens, Bonnie is finishing a cake for a party.  The party is to celebrate the engagement of Janey and Milt.  Janey is one of Bonnie’s older friends and she’s happy for Janey.  She likes her fiancée, Milt (even if he did just get a black eye).  The black eye came from a misunderstanding.  Milt was in a pub “lasciviously” twirling the mustache that his high school class dared him to grow.  Someone in the pub thought he was making advances on his woman and punched Milt in the face. 

But Bonnie’s boyfriend, David doesn’t like Milt.  He won’t say why, he just doesn’t.  It could very well have to do with the fact that he and Janey used to date, and it’s possible that Janey dumped David for Milt (that’s a little unclear in the story). (more…)

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Shepard Fairey–E Pluribus Venom: The Art of Shepard Fairey (2008)

Posted in Anarchy, Barack Obama, Big Books, Communists, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Environmentalism, Free Speech, Funky Web Sites, Greed, MC Paul Barman, Political Humor, Religion, Set at School, Sex, Shepard Fairey, Skateboarding, The Big Lebowski, WPA on October 15, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MC PAUL BARMAN-It’s Very Stimulating (EP) (2001).

So is this guy a joke? Well, he’s very funny.  Very funny, in fact.  But to my ear, not in a novelty sort of way.  He’s got the kind of rhymes that make you laugh but still work upon multiple hearings.  And, yes, Paul Barman is a squeaky, Jewish boy from Ridgewood, New Jersey (again!) and he really can’t rap on the beat and he really doesn’t have much in the way of rhythm, but got awesome skills in the lyrics department and he has production from Prince Paul (that’s the kind of credentials that anyone would like).

The theme of this EP is Paul’s utter failure to get with women (even in his fantasies).  He’s crass and vulgar and yet he’s also quite smart and rather witty (“I think about all the pube I got while reading the Rubaiyat“) .  The music is more or less inconsequential.  As Prince Paul noted, the craziness comes from the lyrics, so you don’t want to overkill the song.  But there’s some great samples and some solid beat work as well.  Nevertheless, we’re here for the words.  So, sample a few of these rhymes:

“The Joy of Your World”

It was time to copulate but we didn’t want to populate
So my bold groin reached for my gold coin proooophylactic
I unwrapped it, you can’t know how I felt
It wasn’t a gold coin condom, it was chocolate Chanukah gelt
The white part crumbled on her tummy and the rest began to melt
Foiled again…..

“School Anthem” or “Senioritis” (this song was renamed for the reissue of the disc it seems)

Homework is tell major lies or plagiarise encyclopedias, so boring
Fresh-faced teachers want to tickle ’em
but a test-based curriculum excludes exploring

I’ll let a mystery gas out of my blistery ass
Just to disrupt the misery of history class

“Salvation Barmy”

She said, “Go get a haircut”
So I showed her my bare butt
Pulled down my Carhartts put my moon in her star-charts

“I’m Frickin’ Awesome” ( I love this especially for the Lila Acheson bit)

It’s nice to be hypnotized by a man you don’t despise yet
He had a type of flow and I can’t quite label it
All I know it made me want to take off my cableknit
Sweater, Oh he better be hetero
I hope they don’t catch us in the Lila Acheson
Wallace Wing when Paulus brings the mattress in–rudely
He backlashed my booty
like I was Susan Faludi over the Grace Rainey Rogers Room rostrum

“MTV Get Off The Air, Pt 2”  (the first two lines are fantastic, but the whole thing is genius).

Smirkin’ jocks with hackysacks
in Birkenstocks and khaki slacks
I’m the hypest lyricist
while they’re like, “What type of beer is this?”

Just wait until the full length for the utter genius that is “Cock Mobster” (how can be s o smart and so stupid at the same time?)

[READ: October 10, 2011] E Pluribus Venom

Like most people, I learned the name Shepard Fairey because of his iconic prints for Barack Obama.   In addition to supporting Obama, I really liked the design of the prints–simple, bold, an easy iconic style (which has since been lifted, morphed and used everywhere).  I know that many of Fairey’s prints actually come from other people’s original photos.  He has a print of Muhammed Ali in this book, and he clearly didn’t take the original photo (I don’t know where it came from).  But since all art is theft, I’m okay with Fairey taking someone else’s work and making something new from it.  I’ve always felt that attribution should be enough if you modify the original enough to call it different (which I feel this print does).  [The fact that he didn’t acknowledge the source does bug me, of course].  But that’s neither here nor there because this book predates all of that.

This book documents events that occurred in 2007.  The E Pluribus Venom show was based largely around two images that Fairey designed to reflect the two sides of capitalism.  The image to the right really doesn’t do any justice to the work itself, but you can kind of see that he created two-sided faux dollar bills.  The front showed all the good things that capitalism can do.  The back showed all of the evils that capitalism causes.  The images resemble dollars, but the text is straightforward in its message.  As with a lot of what Fairey does, it’s blunt and obvious but pretty cool.

As far as I’m concerned, though, this is the least interesting image in the book.  Although I love that they made dollar bill sized prints of these faux dollars and left them scattered around in cities to promote the show.  They way they were folded made them look at a glance like actual currency.  Very cool. (more…)

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George Saunders–“My Chivalric Fiasco” (Harper’s, September 2011)

Posted in Anachronisms, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, From the Basement, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), George Saunders, Harper's, Humiliation, Morrissey, Sex, Sparks, Technology, The Smiths on September 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SPARKS-“Good Morning” (From the Basement) (2008).

I’ve enjoyed Sparks for a long time.  But I never got around to getting the album that this song comes from (Exotic Creatures from the Deep–which has two wonderful song titles: “Lighten Up, Morrissey” and “I Can’t Believe That You Would Fall for All The Crap In This Song.” 

“Good Morning” was the first single from the album.  It features a very bouncy keyboard opening which reminds me of Strangeways-era Smiths.  And then Russel Mael’s crazy falsetto comes pounding in on top of the whole thing. 

Visually, Sparks are fascinating because Ron Mael looks exactly the same as he has since day one: slicked back hair, thick glasses and a crazy little moustache.  This band is doubly fascinating because the two guitarists and bassist all have shoulder length hair and are wearing T-shirts with the new album cover on them.  In fact, the bassist and one guitarist look like they could be twins (the other guitarist is wearing a hat, so he messes with the identical-ness).  It’s an amusing scene to see.

This is a strange song, it’s catchy in its repetitiveness, but it’s got a cool bridge that breaks up the song into different parts (and the backing guys hit the high falsetto notes perfectly–I think I would have assumed they were women!).  This seems like a strange choice for a single and I can see wh it wasn’t a big hit.  (Most Sparks songs are kind of strange, so who knows which of their songs will catch on).  Of course, I don’t know the rest of the album so I don’t know if there was a more likely choice.  Nevertheless, I may have to investiagate this disc a bit more.

[READ: August 31, 2011] “My Chivalric Fiasco”

This is the second Saunders piece in a couple of weeks in two different publications (this seems to happen to him a lot–do I smell a new book coming out?).  This is one another of Saunders’ more corporate-mocking pieces.  He plays around with name brands and has a lot of trademarked and capitalized words.

But it starts off very unlike that whole realm. It seems to be set at a Ren Faire or some such thing.  On TorchLightNight the narrator sees Martha running through the woods saying, that guy is my boss.  Don Murray comes out of the woods after her, and it clear that something has gone on between them.  When Ted, the narrator, asks them what’s going on, they admit to a “voluntary” fling.  Then Don tells Ted that he has been promoted out of Janitorial; he is now a Pacing Guard.

The next day, Ted is given some KnightLyfe, a pill that helps him with medieval improv.  Until the pill kicks in, Ted is horrible in his role, but once it does, he (and the story) switch into a  kind of crazy Ren Faire “Olde” English: “Quoth Don Murray with a glassome wink, Ted you know what you and me should do sometime?” (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Microserfs (1995)

Posted in Airlines, All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Douglas Coupland, Environmentalism, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Gilligan's Island, Kate Bush, Marriage Trouble, Melrose Place, Pranks, Premiere, Ra Ra Riot, Religion, Technology, The Future, Travel, TSA, Video Games, Virginity (Loss of), Work on August 19, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RA RA RIOT-Live at the Black Cat, Washington DC,  October 12, 2008 (2008).

I really like Ra Ra Riot’s album The Rhumb Line, and this concert is basically a showcase for that album.  There’ s an interview at the end of the show (all downloadable from NPR), in which the  band says that critics raved about their live show as much as their album.

I don’t really hear that the show is more energetic than the album (maybe visually they are wild), but it did sound fantastic.  It’s amazing to hear a rock band that is dominated by strings–the cello and violin are often louder than the guitar (but not in a competing/drown you out kind of way,  more of a strings do the melodies and the guitar adds bulk to the sound).

I always enjoy hearing a band that is grateful to their audience for showing up (this is most evident in young bands, who seem so much more genuine about their love of the audience) and Ra Ra Riot are certainly that .  They seem genuinely surprised at the turn out, and they play a great set accordingly.

There are two songs that aren’t on the album here “A Manner to Act” and the encore “Everest.”  They both feel like they came off the album, which bodes well for their second album, Orchard, which just came out in May.  Ra Ra Riot also do a great cover of the obscure Kate Bush song “Suspended in Gaffa.”  At the end of the show they tack on a cover of “Hounds of Love.”  Lead singer Wesley Miles has a wonderfully strong voice and he can reach some pretty high notes–not soprano or anything like that, just strong enough to be able to pull off a Kate Bush cover.

This is a great show.  And when you read about the tragedy they suffered just as they were starting to take off, their obsession with death may not be so surprising.  I’m looking forward to Orchard.

[READ: 1995 and August 18, 2011] Microserfs

After reading Life After God and thinking about Microserfs, I looked up Coupland’s bibliography and saw that indeed Microserfs came next.  And I was really excited to read it.  I have recently watched the JPod TV show and I knew that JPod was a kind of follow-up to Microserfs, so I wanted to see how much of it rang true.  And I’ve got to say that I really rather enjoyed this book.

While I was reading this, I started taking notes about what was happening in the book.  Not the plot, which is fairly straightforward, but about the zeitgeisty elements in the book.  And, since I’m a big fan of David Foster Wallace, I was also noting how many zeitgeisty things this book had in common with Infinite Jest.  I’m thinking of tying it all together in a separate post, maybe next week.  But I’ll mention a few things here.

My son also loved the cover of this book because it has a Lego dude on it and he has been really getting into Lego lately.

So Microserfs is the story of a bunch of underpaid, overworked coders who work for Microsoft.  The book is written as the journal of Daniel Underwood (Coupland still hadn’t really branched out of the first person narrative style, but the journal does allow for some interesting insights).  The story begins in Fall 1993.  I felt compelled to look up some ancient history to see what was happening in the computer world circa 1993 just for context.  In 1991, Apple released System 7.   In 1993, Windows introduced Windows NT, Intel released the first Pentium chip, Myst was released and Wired magazine launched.  In 1994, Al Gore coined the term Information Superhighway.  Yahoo is created.  The Netscape browser is introduced.  So we’re still in computer infancy here.  It’s pretty far-seeing of DC to write about this.

Daniel works at Microsoft with several friends.  Daniel is a bug tester, Michael (who has an office, not a cube) is a coder, Todd (a bodybuilder) is a bug tester.  There’s also Susan (smart and independent), Abe (secret millionaire) and Bug Barbecue (an old man–he’s like 35).  The five of them live in a house on “campus.”  There’s also Karla (a type A bossyboots who doesn’t like seeing time wasted) who works with them but lives up the street.

As the story opens, Michael has just received a flame email from Bill Gates himself and has locked himself in his office.  This leads to a very funny scene and ongoing joke in which the office mates feed slide two-dimensional food under his door and he vows to eat only things that are flat. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Life After God (1994)

Posted in Airlines, Boredom, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, David Foster Wallace, Decadence, Douglas Coupland, Drinking, Drugs, Environmentalism, Religion, Rush, Short Books, Technology, The Future, Travel on August 17, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-“Garden Road” (1974).

So the bootleg that I mentioned yesterday was in fact incomplete.  On the Up the Downstair site, the track list includes “What You’re Doing” and “Garden Road.”  When I wrote to the cool host of Up the Downstair, he said that these two songs were available on You Tube and that he’d try to find them and add them to the site.

So in the meantime, I got to listen to the song on YouTube.  This is a song that the band wrote but which they never recorded (same is true for “Fancy Dancer”).  I have to imagine that they wrote these songs for their second album (along with “In the End” which they kept) around the time that Neil Peart joined the band.  Once they realized that Neil could write better lyrics, they scrapped these two heavy rockers.  Both songs have great riffs, even if lyrically they’re pretty poor.

The song rocks pretty well, although the solo seems to have been put to better use in “Working Man.”  I enjoy how the song breaks for the shouts of the Garden Road chorus (kind of like “Bad Boy”–perhaps it was a “thing” for them).  I rather like this song, and I think I like it better than a couple of the songs on Rush.

Check it out.

Maybe it’s time to release these old chestnuts for the fans?

[READ: August 10, 2011] Life After God

After the success of Shampoo Planet, Douglas Coupland wrote several short books (which were really short stories).  They were compiled in Life After God.  To me this book also stands out as another odd one from DC, because it is very tiny.  Not in length, but in height.  It’s a small book, about the size of a mass market paperback.  But it makes sense that it was made this short because it is written with lots of short paragraphs that lead to page breaks (kind of like Vonnegut).

For instance, the first story contains at most two paragraphs per “chapter” about–16 lines of text and then a page break.  At the top of each page is a drawing from DC himself which illustrates to a small degree the information on the page.  It leads to incredibly fast reading and even though the book is 360 pages, you can polish it off pretty quickly.

But what’s it about?  Well, mostly the stories seem autobiographical (even though they are classified as fiction.  And actually, I don’t know anything about DC’s personal life so I don’t know if they are based on anything real, although I do know he doesn’t have any kids, so those can’t be true at any rate).  There are eight stories.  They are all told from the first person and are more or less directed at “you.”  They all seem to deal with existential crises of some sort.  They are honest and emotional.  To my ear, sometimes they seem a little forced, maybe it’s contextual, but it’s hard to write this kind of massively introspective piece and have it sound “real.”  (But maybe I’m not very introspective about things like this myself). (more…)

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Demetri Martin–This is a Book by Demetri Martin (2011)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Demetri Martin, Funny (ha ha), Ghosts, Humiliation, Marriage Trouble, Meta, New Brunswick, NJ, New Yorker, Saturday Night Live, Sex, Short Books, State Theatre, Technology, Weekend Edition on June 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

ATTENDED: WEIRD AL YANKOVIC-Live at the State Theater, New Brunswick, NJ May 19, 2011 (2011).

I’ve seen “Weird Al” live three times now and I have never been disappointed by the show.  The first year my friend Matt and I waited out by the bus and got the bands’ (minus Al’s) autograph.  The second time we waited even longer and Al had an autograph (and picture taking) session in the theater after the show (how cool is that?).

This year, Sarah and I didn’t wait around afterwards (kids at home) but the show was still great.  Al made a joke after the first song thanking his opening act, Technical Difficulties. (There were indeed 45 minutes of technical difficulties before the show, but Al’s joke made us quickly forget it–and, kudos to the State Theater: I ordered my tickets online from their site and the day after the concert, the theater owner sent an email apologizing for the delay. Classy!).

Sarah had never seen him perform before, so she was pleasantly surprised by the set selection.  I was also surprised by the set selection because he pulled out a few older, more obscure tracks (“Frank’s 2000″ TV” (!), “You Don’t Love Me Any More”–complete with Al smashing a guitar!).  But he also dazzled with some new tracks from his forthcoming album.

The set opened with the polka medley (“Polka Face”).  This is the first polka medley that I didn’t know any (well almost any) of the sped up songs, but it’s always a treat to watch them play it live.  The one complaint with the show was that the sound in the theater wasn’t very good (which is surprising given that it’s an old theater) so it was hard to make out a lot of the words, especially to the new songs–and what’s Al without the lyrics?).  But his new song “I Perform This Way” (parody of Lady Gaga’s “I Was Born This Way”) was fantastic (Al was dressed up like a cartoon peacock).

Yes, costume changes.  One of the most entertaining things about Al’s shows is the costume changes.  For all of his big video hits, he comes out dressed like the video (the band does as well, although it’s a bit more subtle).  So, we get the Amish garb in “Amish Paradise,” the Michael Jackson red jacket for “Eat It”–(another surprise) and, my personal favorite, the fat suit from “Fat.”  One of the funniest costume changes was for a song that will sadly not be released on the album (but you can hear and download it here), “You’re Pitiful,” in which he wore multiple T-shirts (about 5) which all expressed some kind of funny comment (anyone know who was the face on one of the shirts?) and finally ended in a Spongebob Squarepants shirts and tutu.

So how does he do all of these costume changes? In between songs, when the band runs offstage, they play wonderful video clips.  Some of the clips are from his TV shows, some are faux documentaries, and the best are interviews that Al splices together (you can see a whole bunch here) which are hilarious and surprisingly mean-spirited.  I wish he would release them (and any other AlTv segments) on DVD, but I imagine that no one would ever give permission for that–check out the Kevin Federline one, for instance.  But they’re all pretty great.

The crowd was also totally into it (including the guy behind us with an Al wig (and a Harvey the Wonder Hamster).  And the age range was fantastic–from kids to grandparents.  My only hope is that my kids are old enough to come to a concert next time he comes around.

Oh and a brief word about his band.  He’s had the same four guys with him for years and years and years.  Rubén Valtierra is the newest member of the band and he’s been with them since 1991.  Jim West (guitar), Steve Jay (Bass) and Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz (drums) have been with Al since 1980.  They are tight as a drum, can play incredibly diverse styles at the drop of a hat (check out “CNR” which sounds exactly like The White Stripes) and they all seem to have a lot of fun on stage (see them jump in the air on “Fat” or the crazy vocal-only solo at the end of “Yoda”

–which I think is longer than ever and totally mind-blowing).

[READ: May 21, 2011] This is a Book

I recently read Martin’s “This is Me” in the New Yorker. “This is Me” is, along with about 100 other things in This is a Book.  I also heard Demetri Martin on NPR a few Sundays ago and he read a few short things from This is a Book.  And they were quite funny.

Indeed, the funny things in this book are really very very funny.  It seems to work that the shorter the item, the bigger the laugh.  Conversely there are a number of longer, extended jokes which just go on and on, like a Saturday Night Live sketch that just won’t end.  Those quickly lose their humorous value.  Fortunately  there aren’t too many of those in here.

What makes me smile a lot about the book are the jokes he plays with book conventions.  So the title page says “This is a book by Demetri Martin called This is a Book by Demetri Martin.”  Or the previous page:

Also by Demetri Martin

*

*Nothing yet.  This is his first book.

The book opens with “How to Read this Book.”

If you’re reading this sentence then you’ve pretty much got it.  Good job.  Just keep going the way you are.

I’m not going to spoil the rest of the book (or talk about each piece).  But I will mention some real highlights: (more…)

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The Best American Comics 2006 (2006)

Posted in Africa, Alex Robinson, Alison Bechdel, All Songs Considered, Anarchy, Ander Nilson, Ben Katchor, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Bust, Canadian Content, Chris Ware, Collecting, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, David Heatley, David Lasky, Death, Depression, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Esther Pearl Watson, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Gilbert Shelton, Graphic Novel, HOB, Ivan Brunetti, Jaime Hernandez, Jesse Reklaw, Joe Sacco, Joel Priddy, John Porcellino, Jonathan Bennett, Justin Hall, Kim Deitch, Kurt Wolfgang, LGBTQ, Lilli Carré, Lloyd Dangle, Lynda Barry, Military, Olivia Schanzer, R. Crumb, Rebecca Dart, Rick Geary, Seth Tobocman, Sex, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Tom Hart, War, World Cafe Live on April 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH on World Cafe, August 21, 2006 (2006).

Travelling back even further on the NPR timeline, Sonic Youth appeared on World Cafe in 2006 to promote Rather Ripped.

This is a brief session (only three songs) but as with the interview with Thurston Moore, David Dye does another great interviewing the band here.  Although it must be said that saying the band is once again a four piece (when clearly there are five people in the picture and in the studio and when he later says two guitars, two basses and drums–which I also think is incorrect, as I’m pretty sure Kim switched to guitars at this point, although I don’t know if she did during this set) is not a great way to start the interview.

Facts aside, the interview is informative and interesting and provides a glimpse into the band’s psyche all these years into their career.

The set is also good (although Thurston’s voice sounds a little off on the opener “Incinerate”).  The surprising thing about the set is that even with the five of them, the feeling is one of restraint. True, the songs on Rather Ripped are not as noisy as previous records, but this feels like they are trying not to wake anybody up the NPR folks.  It’s a weird feeling for a Sonic Youth set, but the plus side to it is that you can really hear everything clearly.

The other two songs are sung by Kim: “Jams Run Free” and “What a Waste” (why do they never promote any of Lee’s songs??).  And there’s the very amusing comment that the first time they played “What a Waste” Thurston and Kim’s daughter said it sounded like the theme from Friends.  Ha!

[READ: April 15, 2011] The Best American Comics 2006

I just recently learned about this series from The Best American line of books.  I had known about the Best American Short Stories and Essays and even Non-Required Reading (which I have not yet read).  But once I found out about the best comics, I knew I had to check it out.

The first issue came out in 2006.  The series editor is Anne Elizabeth Moore and the Guest Editor for this volume was Harvey Pekar.  Each of them has an introductory essay in the book.  To me the amazing thing about Pekar”s essay is how aggressively defensive he sounds (a sort of, “you may not like this one, but try this one” attitude) about these comics and comics in general.  I don’t know much about Pekar’s work.  I know he’s a kind of underground icon, but I seem to have missed him.  My impression of him is that this sort of antagonistic/defensive attitude seems to go along quite well with his comics, so I guess that makes sense, but I didn’t find it very welcoming.

But that’s okay, because I really enjoyed the comics.  And quite a few were by artists that I had never read before, which is even better! (more…)

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The Revolution Will Be Accessorized: BlackBook Presents Dispatches from the New Counterculture (2006)

Posted in A.M. Homes, Alain de Botton, Arab Strap, Art, Augusten Burroughs, Ben Greenman, BlackBook, Books about writers, Bruno Maddox, Chuck Palahniuk, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Damien Hirst, Dirk Wittenborn, Douglas Coupland, Drinking, Drugs, Emma Forrest, Ernest Hemingway, George Plimpton, Glenn O'Brien, Harold and Maude, Holidays, Irvine Welsh, J.T. Leroy, Jay McInerney, Jeff Koons, Joan Didion, Jonathan Ames, Mark Leyner, Mary Gaitskill, Matthew Barney, Meghan Daum, Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, Naomi Klein, Neal Pollack, Rick Moody, Ryan Boudinot, Sam Lipsyte, Short Story, Travel, Victor Bockris, William T. Vollmann on March 25, 2011| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-Kicking a Dead Pig + Mogwai Fear Satan Remixes (1998).

This release came out soon after Young Team, when it seemed like Mogwai was just flooding the market.  It’s a remix album of a number of tracks from Young Team. And, when it was re-released it contained several mixes of the track “Fear Satan” as a bonus disc.

In general, I’m not a fan of remixes.  There, I’ve said it. Back in the flush 90s, when I used to buy a lot of import singles, I enjoyed the B-sides, but was always disappointed when there was a remix rack.  Some are fine.  Indeed, some are pretty good.  But for the most part you get a very long song that is mostly drum machine and sounds and noises.  And I know that they are designed for dancing, but I’m not a dancer, so despite how much techno I own, I’m very rarely thrilled to ge a remix.

Which is  as good a way as any to say that this is a pretty inessential disc, even for Mogwai fans. Even though Mogwai themselves throw a couple of remixes on there.  And for the most part, what we get are washes of sound.  Since Mogwai don’t really do lyrics, it’s not always very obvious what song the remixers are remixing.

  • Hood: “Like Herod” has some interesting staccato, which Mogawi typically doesn’t have.
  • Max Tundra: “Helicon 2” is primarily ride cymbal although a guitar motif does come in (with some pretty harmonics) eventually.
  • Klute: “Summer” (Weird Winter Remix). There’s nothing distinctive about this.
  • Arab Strap: “Gwai on 45.”  I actually expected a lot from this mix because Arab Strap are a weirdly wonderful band and the guys have worked with Mogwai.  But then, they’re not an exciting band–they’re very good, just understated.  And as a result, this remix is okay but nothing too exciting.
  • Third Eye Foundation: “A Cheery Wave from Stranded Youngsters” (Tet Offensive Remix) is also okay.
  • Alec Empire: “Like Herod” (Face the Future Remix).  Alec Empire usually turns all of his remixes into super fast like 500 bpm noise explosions (just like Atari Teenage Riot). He doesn’t do that here, and the song just kind of melds in with the rest.
  • DJ Q: “R U Still In 2 It” has a vocal, but it is mostly one word repeated over and over.
  • Kid Loco: “Tracy.”  I liked this track more than many others.
  • Mogwai: “Fear Satan.”  It’s weird to me that you would remix one of your own songs, although I guess it’s fun.  I still like the original better.  And I’m fairly certain this one is different from the one on the next disc.

The four “Fear Satan” remixes are by:

  • Mogwai: delicate, the washes of sound are quiet and warm, and it really features the flute quite a lot. Although by the end, the feedback does come in.
  • μ-Ziq: remix is much more staccato. The washes have been removed.  There’s very little connection to the original.
  • Surgeon: remix begins electronically and builds as a slow wave.  It’s pretty much one note getting louder and louder until about a minute left when it changes tone.  It’s hard to imagine even calling this a remix.
  • My Bloody Valentine: at 16 minutes,  the MBV remix stands out for length. After about five minutes of interesting feedback squalls it shifts to a high-pitched noise, almost like a drill. After a few minutes of this it shifts into a very pretty electronic song.  By the end it’s a pounding heavy drum fill rocker.  Any resemblance to “Fear Satan” seems purely coincidental, but it’s a wild ride.

[READ: March 11, 2011] The Revolution Will Be Accessorized

I only heard about this anthology when I read the Sam Lipsyte piece from it.  I didn’t really like his piece, but the rest of the anthology sounded intriguing.  It was put out by BlackBook magazine, which I have a sort of vague awareness of, but couldn’t really say anything about (it’s some kind of counter-cultural fashion magazine or something).  But it seems like the counter-cultural aspect really lends sway here.

This anthology is a collection of short stories, essays and interviews.  There’s also an introduction by Jay McInerney

JAY McINERNEY-Introduction
He talks about BlackBook and the essays contained here. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–original articles that comprise A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1991-1996)

Posted in Blue Velvet, Book Reviews, Books about writers, Boredom, Cigarettes, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, David Lynch, Dune, Esquire, Essays, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, Harvard Book Review, Lost Highway, PJ Harvey, Premiere, Religion, Research, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Smarty Pants, Tennis, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Twin Peaks, Virginity (Loss of), Yuck! on March 21, 2011| 14 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-4-Track Demos (1993).

After the intensity of the Steve Albini produced Rid of Me, Harvey releases this collection of demos.  The amazing thing is that these versions actually seem more intense than the Albini version. Or if not more intense, then certainly more raw.

The songs definitely have an unfinished feel about them, and yet they only vary from the final version in polish (and Albini’s stamp).

“Rid of Me” is just as quiet/loud, and has those high-pitched (and scary) backing vocals.  Speaking of scary vocals, her lead screams in “Legs” are far scarier here than on Rid of Me–like really creepy.  (Which sort of undermines that idea that this was released because Rid of Me was too intense for fans).   “Snake” actually features even creepier vocals–Harvey must have had a field day making these sounds!

I admit that I like the finished version of “50 Ft Queenie” better,”but there’s something about this version of “Yuri-G” that I like better.

The disc also has some tracks unreleased elsewhere.  “Reeling” is an organ-propelled song of female strength with the nice lyric: “Robert DeNiro sit on my face.”  “Hardly Wait” is a slow grinder that is fairly quiet for this time period.  “M-Bike” is a cool angry rocker about a guy and his motorcycle which is one of my favorite tracks on the disc.

It’s a great companion to Rid of Me.

[READ: end of February to early March]  original articles that comprise A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

As I mentioned last week, I decided to compare the articles in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again with the original publications to see what the differences were.  It quickly became obvious that there were a lot of additions to most of the articles, and it seems rather pointless (well, actually it seems exhausting and really outrageously time-consuming) to mention them all.  But what I did want to note was the things that are in the articles that have been removed from the book.   There’s not a lot but there are a few juicy tidbits (especially in the early articles) that are fun to note for anyone who read only the book and not the original articles.

My process for this was rather unthorough: I read the article and then right afterward I read the book.  If I noticed any changes, I made a note on the article version.  Many of them were surprisingly easy to note as DFW’s writing style (especially his idiosyncratic phrases) really stand out.  This is especially true in the Harper’s articles.  The academic ones were less notable, I believe, and I’m sure I missed a bunch.

I’m not sure in any way how these pieces were dealt with initially by the magazine or DFW.  I assume that DFW handed in the larger article (like we see in the book) and the magazine made suggested edits and DFW edited accordingly.  Then the book copies are probably the originals, bt which have also been updated in some way.

In most cases, it’s not really worth reading the original article, but I’m including links (thanks Howling Fantods), for the curious.

As for length, it’s hard to know exactly what the conversion from magazine article to book is.  The “Tornado Alley” tennis article is 8 pages (more like 4 pages when you take out the ads) and the book is 17.  Perhaps more accurately it seems like one Harper’s column = just under one book page.  I’ll try to figure out what the conversion is if I can.

One last note, whenever I say “article” I mean the original magazine version.  And obviously “book” means ASFTINDA. (more…)

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