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Archive for the ‘Russia’ Category

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya–”Medea” (Harper’s, June 2011)

Posted in Anna Summers, Death, Fables, Harper's, Keith Gessen, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Russia, Short Story, Violence, Weezer on June 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEZER-Death to False Metal (2010).

This is a fascinating release.  I assumed it was a quick cash in of unreleased tracks.  And yet it doesn’t sound like a bunch of tracks from different eras thrown together.  A little digging reveals that it is sort of a collection of unreleased tracks.  The ten songs here were written over the band’s career but were either never finished or were finished but never released.  According to various places online, Rivers edited and manipulated the songs (and maybe re-recorded some?) to make them all sound current (and like they’re from the same time).  Thus he considers this to be the follow-up to Hurley.

The album is full of poppy songs (“Turning Up the Radio” has FIFTEEN people listed as composer on Allmusic–the true sign of a pop juggernaut).  There’s a couple of slightly heavier songs, “Blowin My Stack” has a big shouty chorus and “Autopilot” has a very electronic kind of sound.  But perhaps the most notable track is the cover of “Unbreak My Heart.”  That song came out in 1996, so one assumes that this version must be at least ten years old, because why would someone make a cover of an old pop hit from fourteen years ago?  It’s quite good, though, as Weezer covers tend to be.

If you like Weezer, this isn’t a throw away.  The songs are just as good as their other recent records (which means they’re not as good as their early ones, but are still poppy).  If you don’t like Weezer this will do nothing to change your mind.

Although I am amused by the album cover design that they chose for this title (which is a tribute to the band Manowar, obviously), I think a better cover would have been Weezer in loincloths.  Can you imagine Rivers Cuomo brandishing a giant sword?

[READ: May 21, 2011] “Medea”

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya had a story in The New Yorker recently.  The fact that she has one here as well can only mean she has a book coming out (although a quick look at Amazon does not indicate that she does).

The opening line says, “This is an awful story…”  And it’s true (not in the sense of being bad, but in the badness that it contains).  Petrushevskaya tends to write very dark stories (dark fairy tales is how they’re mostly categorized), and while this is not a fairy tale, it is certainly dark (and as with most of her stories, it’s quite short).

It’s a fairly simple story: the narrator hops in a cab and complains about how her seventy-three year old grandmother called for a cab to pick her up at a certain time but it never came–and never even called to say it wasn’t coming.  This meant she missed her plane, and the people waiting for her missed her and basically the whole day (and a lot of money) was lost because of a cab.

The cabbie didn’t have anything to do with that, but he tells her that it could be worse, and proceeds to launch into a story trying to outdo her story.  They jockey for position in terms of terrible stories (a woman whose baby dies on vacation–and that’s only the beginning of her problems) until finally he talks about himself. (more…)

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Deborah Willis–“Hard Currency” (The Walrus, December 2010)

Posted in Books about music, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Culture Shock, Deborah Willis, Drinking, Prostitution, Russia, Sarah Harmer, Short Story, The Walrus, Weeping Tile on February 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WEEPING TILE-eePee (1995).

Canadian singer Sarah Harmer was originally in the band Weeping Tile.  As far as I knew, they had only released this cleverly titled EP.  Further research at Sarah’s site proves this to be incorrect.  They released two albums and this EP, all of which are available at her site (and elsewhere).  There’s also mention of something called Secret Sessions although there is no evidence of its physical existence on the net.

So this EP is 7 tracks and features two songs that were recorded later on Sarah’s solo discs.

The opener, “Anyone” opens with a nice R.E.M. type guitar sound, but jumps into an uptempo alt rocker.  It’s a very satisfying opening and seems like it should have been a hit.  Interestingly, the next song, “Basement Apt” was a hit…six years later on Sarah’s solo disc.  This version is rawer and feels slower even though it is the same overall length.  The big difference is that Sarah’s solo version has a louder and faster drum track that really makes the song fly.  This version feels more aching though.

“Dogs and Thunder” introduces a more country sound (folk guitar and strings) that Harmer would experiment with off and on for years.    It’s followed by a great cover of Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down.”

Another highlight is “Westray” a very stark almost a capella track which highlights Sarah’s raw voice.  It’s very affecting.  And the disc concludes with “King Lion,” a great song that is back to guitar basics.  The chorus is wonderfully catchy.

This is a great EP from a short-lived Canadian band.  Sarah Harmer has always had great songwriting chops and it’s fun to hear her in her more youthful rock version here.

[READ: January 11, 2011] “Hard Currency”

This is one of the longest stories in The Walrus that I can remember.  It’s set in Russia and concerns Alexei, a Russian writer who now lives in America.  He has had great success internationally (and won a Pulitzer) for his novels, all of which were set in Russia.

And yet, for all of his connections to his motherland, he doesn’t really like Russia very much.  He has been back there several times but he is never treated with respect. In fact, he is never even treated as a Russian–despite his birth, people look at him and know that he’s not a Russian anymore.

The plot of the story is about prostitutes.  [I am pretty surprised at the proliferation of prostitutes in stories…do authors frequent prostitutes more than other people?].  When the story opens, we learn that Alexei’s very first sexual experience was with a prostitute.  And now, twenty-eight years later, after much success and a failed marriage, he has returned to Russia and has called upon another prostitute. (more…)

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David Bezmozgis–“Pickled Cabbage” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Das Racist, David Bezmozgis, Essays, Food, New Yorker, Russia, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAS RACIST-“Combination PIzza Hut and Taco Bell” (2010).

This issue of the New Yorker featured an article from Sasha Frere-Jones about two underground rap sensations.  One of them is Das Racist.  I’d heard of them especially regarding this “hit,” but I hadn’t actually heard the song until now.

This song is pretty much exclusively a novelty song.  what else could it be?  The entire lyric is about being at the Pizza Hut/Taco Bell.  It’s kind of funny, and as Frere-Jones says, I can see this being huge at college parties.  But I have to say that–as a guy who typically loves novelty songs–that this song has literally no substance.  Even the backing beats are kind of dull.

I really wanted to like this song.  The guys seem funny (all their promo photos are amusing) and yet they also seem to have serious ideas.  But it just never really did anything for me.  And yet, for all of how much I don’t get this song and really don’t like it, it’s catchy as all hell, and I know that after listening to it just twice, I will have the inane lyrics in my head for months, cropping up no doubt every time I see a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Pickled Cabbage”

The Thanksgiving issue of the New Yorker features five one page articles from different writers all about families and food.  And so, for the holiday I’m going to write 5 brief posts about articles about food.

I’ve enjoyed Bezmozgis’ pieces in the past although I don’t typically enjoy pickled cabbage.  Nevertheless, this was a fascinating look at Soviet life and at cooking.  He observes that many people have multiple cookbooks on their shelves but that his family cooked entirely from memory (this is a common theme in these essays).  For his family, food was for sustenance, not for pleasure. (more…)

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William T. Vollmann–”The Saviors” (New Yorker, June 21 & 28, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Anarchy, Big Books, Communists, Death, New Yorker, Russia, Short Story, Superchunk, Threats, Violence on October 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SUPERCHUNK-“watery hands” (1997).

Even though I enjoy the manic energy of early Superchunk, I find myself really enjoying the later, more “sophisticated” songs.

“Watery Hands” continues this more “sweet” sound that Superchunk has been exploring.  It also includes a cool break that offers a little bass solo as well as even more keyboards (so it seems that the keyboard experiment pleased them).

Meanwhile, the final song, the “watery wurlitzer mix” of water hands is a goofy track, probably the first throwaway track on a Superchunk EP.  And yet, having said that it’s a catchy and silly little ditty, heavy on the wurlitzer and oddball keyboard sounds, which all but eliminates the original, except for faint traces of guitar that pop up here and there.

The middle track “With Bells On” is a decent mid-tempo song.  Nothing terribly exciting but even unexciting Superchunk is usually pretty good.

[READ: October 9, 2010] “The Saviors”

William T. Vollmann was the next writer in the New Yorker’s 1999 20 Under 40 collection.

I have heard a lot about Vollmann.  And I have read a few articles by him.  But I’m sort of daunted by his output.  And this is the first piece of his fiction of that I’ve read.

I don’t know if this is representative of his work, although from what I understand it kind of is.  This is historical fiction loaded down with details (some details which I have to assume he’s made up).  This story compares the lives of Fanya Kaplan and Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaya.  (As with so many Russian based stories, those names are hard to keep straight as the story goes along).

In the first paragraph we learn that Fanya Kaplan tried to assassinate Lenin on August 30, 1918.  She was captured and later executed on September 3.  In the second paragraph, we learn that Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaya was Lenin’s wife. (more…)

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David Bezmozgis–“The Train of Their Departure” (New Yorker, August 9, 2010)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Communists, David Bezmozgis, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Rush, Russia, Sex on August 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-Oak Oppression: Cobo Hall, Detroit, December 17, 1978 (1978).

This is another bootleg from Up the Down Stair.  This is a 1978 show, right after the release of Hemispheres.  I have always loved this era of Rush, and the fact that they play so many looooong songs in this show is music to these ears.

We’ve got a 12 minute “Xanadu”, a 10 minute “Cygnus X-1”, followed by “Cygnus X 1 Book 2 Hemispheres” (18 minutes), a 10 minute “La Villa Strangiato” and and 18 minute complete “2112.”  That they can fit 10 more songs into this concert is pretty amazing.

The show is of good quality, although aside from the track listing there aren’t a lot of surprises here (Rush shows don’t deviate all that much from the records).  The nice surprise is in the drum solo.  It’s pretty much the same one from All the World’s a Stage, but it has some really fun effects on it at the end.

[READ: August 4, 2010] “The Train of Their Departure”

David Bezmozgis is another of the New Yorker’s 20 Under 40.  I enjoyed this story, set in Russia in 1976, because it was like two different stories combined into one saga.

Polina is a twenty-one year old married woman.  As the story opens, we learn of the cute courtship that her husband Maxim treated her to.  He followed protocol, her treated her very nicely.  He waited every step of the way, from kissing to petting to more.  He even used contraception (something most Russian men didn’t bother with).  Their courtship felt inevitable, even if Polina was never really smitten with him. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 12] The Part About Archimboldi (1 of 4) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Communists, Death, Foreign Books, History, Infinite Zombies, Military, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Punks, Racism, Religion, Roberto Bolaño, Russia, Sex, Smarty Pants, Suicide, The Dead Milkmen, Translation, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), War on April 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Beelzebubba (1988).

Why the hell do you think they call it a burrow owl anyway?

Beelzebubba is pretty close to the pinnacle of The Dead Milkmen’s career.  Of the 17 songs, there’s only one or two that fall flat.  But there are so many that rise to greatness.  The wholly un-PC James Brown-mocking song “RC’s Mom” which is pretty much all about beating your wife is in hugely questionable taste, but the funk is quite funky.

The brilliant “Stuart” is the culmination of all of the white trash mocking/spoken word nonsense songs.  And then there’s the outstanding single “Punk Rock Girl.”  It is simultaneously catchy as all hell and yet whiny and kind of off-key.  It’s really magnificent and was suitably lauded.

The strange thing to me is that the actual released “single” was for “Smokin’ Banana Peels” (an EP with that title was released with an absurd number of dance remixes).

“Sri Lanka Sex Hotel” is an angry rant that references The Killer Inside Me and talks about having sex with everything.  It’s pretty bizarre, but is musically fantastic.

True, the back half of the disc suffers somewhat (“Howard Beware” and “Ringo Buys a Rifle” are just okay), but the disc ends with the sublimely vulgar “Life is Shit” a gospel-tinged song that matches Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for faux uplift.

Future DM discs would feature some good songs, but the band pretty much peaked with this one.  I’m so bored I’m drinking bleach.

[READ: Week of April 5, 2010]  2666 [pg 637-701]

What a difference a week makes.  The style and writing of Part 5 is markedly different from Part 4.  It is far more laid back and focuses primarily on one individual, Hans Reiter (who we know from Part One is Archimboldi).

The Part opens with information about his parents: his father had one leg (he lost the other in WW1) and his mother was blind in one eye.

Hans’ father, after losing his leg, was in the hospital, expounding on the greatness of smoking.  (He even gives a smoke to a man wrapped head to toe in bandages–and smoke pours out from all the cracks).  When he left the hospital, he walked home–for three weeks.  And when he arrived back home he sought the one-eyed girl in the village and asked for her hand in marriage.

Hans Reiter was born in 1920. He proved to be unreasonably tall: (At 3 he was taller than all the 5 year olds etc).  And he was most interested in the seabed.  There is much information from his childhood of his love of the sea (when his mother bathed him, he would slip under the water until rescued).  At six he stole a book, Animals and Plants of the European Coastal Region, which he more or less memorized and was the only book he read.  And then he began diving, investigating the shoreline.

His father evidently hates everyone and thinks all nations are full of swine (except the Prussians).

Hans also enjoyed walking and he would often walk to the surrounding towns: The Village of Red Men (where they sold peat), The Village of Blue Women , The Town of the Fat (animals and butcher shops); or in the other direction, he went to Egg Village or Pig Village.  Or even further along was the Town of Chattering Girls (who went to parties and dances).

He almost drowned twice.  The first time he was initially mistaken for seaweed as he was floating in the water.  (After he had discovered laminaria digitata).  He also began to draw seaweed in his book.  (The seaweed connection is pretty thorough as he was described as looking like seaweed when he was born).  The tourist who saved him was named Vogel.  He believed in the general goodness of humanity, but he felt that he was a bad person for initially mistaking Hans for seaweed.  Vogel also talked endlessly about the virtues of masturbation (citing Kant as an example). (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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Periodical: New Yorker

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

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

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

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

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

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Paul Debraski–“Miracle Memory” (rejected by The Believer, June 2009)

Posted in Canadian Music, Demons, Empires of Tin, Fugazi, Godspeed You Black Emperor, History, Hockey, Jem Cohen, Miracle, Paul Debraski, Red Dawn, Russia, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion, The Believer, Threats, Vic Chesnutt, War on July 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Believer occasionally publishes first person narratives.  They’re usually relatively short but are insightful and poignant.  After reading one particular story the events described below converged in my head.  When I wrote this piece I had originally called it “Piece for The Believer” because well, that’s who it was written for.  I’m not upset that they rejected it, but I’m also not going to submit it anywhere else because I can’t think of any place else where it would fit. So, it might as well go somewhere!  [This is a slightly modified version]

[WRITTEN: April 2009] “Miracle Memory”

Recently my work had a staff training day.  It was yet another of those in-house services in which they pay people to create acronyms for success, and to encourage us all to read Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.  This particular training was about Teamwork (always capitalized).  The meeting proceeded apace, finding clever ways to say the same thing for five hours, until she told us that after lunch we would be treated to some clips from a movie that we would find inspiring in its look at teamwork.

When lunch was finished, she unveiled the movie: Miracle.  According to IMDB, Miracle is

The inspiring story of the team that transcended its sport and united a nation with a new feeling of hope. Based on the true story of one of the greatest moments in sports history, the tale captures a time and place where differences could be settled by games and a cold war could be put on ice. In 1980, the United States Ice Hockey team’s coach, Herb Brooks, took a ragtag squad of college kids up against the legendary juggernaut from the Soviet Union at the Olympic Games. Despite the long odds, Team USA carried the pride of a nation yearning from a distraction from world events. With the world watching the team rose to the occasion, prompting broadcaster Al Michaels’ now famous question, to the millions viewing at home: Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

And of course, what better display of teamwork could there be than an underdog team winning a gold medal?

I instantly bristled upon hearing that this was our movie.  One of my strongest non-family related memories is of watching the U.S. Olympic team skating to victory over the U.S.S.R. in the 1980 Olympics.  I didn’t watch the whole game (I didn’t become a fan of hockey until the late 1990s), but I tuned in during the third period right around when Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal. (more…)

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Adam Curtis–The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004) (Wholphin, Vols 2, 3 and 4)

Posted in Adam Curtis, Airlines, Brent Hoff, Demons, Funky Web Sites, History, Lawrence Weschler, McSweeney's, Political Humor, Politicians, Russia, Technology, The Power of Nightmares, Threats, Violence, War, Wholphin, Wikipedia, WMDs on July 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

powwer[WATCHED: June 2009] The Power of Nightmares

This is a film, not a book.  But I found it so fascinating that I had to say something about it.  I have to say it again, this series was truly amazing, and I encourage everyone to watch it.

The Power of Nightmares is a 3 part documentary, totaling about 3 hours.  It was created by the BBC in 2004.  The underlying theme of the film is that politicians have begun to resort to fear in order to achieve their desired aims.  Where in the distant past, politicians offered hope and future fulfillment, nearly all campaigns now try to scare you into voting for them.  (This was before Obama, and may explain the popularity of Obama’s campaign).

The premise of the series is that the rise of the radical Islamist movement (including al Qaeda) and the rise of the American Neo-Conservatives not only parallels each other but actually supports each other.

This documentary is well researched and, obviously, controversial.  It has, to the best of my knowledge, never aired in the U.S. (more…)

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