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Archive for the ‘Death’ Category

Struan Sinclair–Automatic World (2008)

Posted in Death, Fantasy, Funny (strange), Jarvis Cocker, Postmoderism, Pulp, Sci-fi, Smarty Pants, Struan Sinclair, Suicide, Supernatural, The Walrus, Unreliable narrator on October 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

sinclairSOUNDTRACK: JARVIS COCKER-Further Complications (2009).

cockerI really enjoyed Pulp’s Different Class album when it came out.  In fact, I liked it so much I made sure to get This is Hardcore and even the one before the got big, His n Hers.  I felt like the earlier stuff was just okay.  So either they hit their stride or they got lucky just before they broke up.

Going back now, I don’t like those discs as much as I did then (maybe it was burnout), but I retained a fondness for Jarvis Cocker and his zany exploits. And yet, I wasn’t really all that interested in his solo output.

But there were several excellent reviews of this disc and I figured I’d check it out.  And it was totally worth it.  This disc is a fascinating collection of seemingly every musical style that Cocker has ever heard.  Each song is laden with his (often caustic) wit and clever word play.  And it rocks really hard.  It was produced by Steve Albini (!).

Musically, there’s not a terrible amount of originality, but that almost seems the point.  Cocker is trying on differnt styles, writing archetypical or over-the-top verses for these songs.  “”Further Complications.”” opens the disc in what could be described as a Pulp-style rocker (But, and this is consistent throughout the disc, with much harder guitars).  “Angela” is a dopey hard rocker ala the Stooges, while “Pilchard” is a fantastic near-instrumental with great breaks and stops.

The disc slows down on “Leftovers” which reminds me of a Nick Cave type ballad (although it is much funnier).  “I Never Said I Was Deep” is, as the title suggests, a wonderfully self deprecating ballad.  Funny and catchy with the delightful chorus, “I never said I was deep, but I am profoundly shallow.”

“Homewrecker!” is another great rocker (this one horn-filled).  And “Fuckingsong” is a noise-filled, riff-fired rocker that seems totally out of character for Jarvis and yet works perfectly.

The last two songs take up a lot of time on the disc.  “Slush” is another delicate ballad that kind of overstays its welcome at 6 and a half minutes (lop off a minute or so and it would be very tidy).  But despite being too long, the song itself is really great.

And the final song “You’re in My Eyes (Discosong)” is, indeed a very disco-y tune.  It fits in thematically with the rest of the disc somehow (probably because of how seedy it sounds).  And it works very well as a disc track.  But it also suffers from disco excess, in that at nearly 9 minutes it is too long by half.  Especially since the last three minutes are (my personal pet peeve) just a repeat and fade/final note to the end.  It ‘s the kind of thing that makes me not want to hit play immediately again because it really bugs me when a great album like this slowly fades away for three minutes.  But then I remember that the rest of the disc is pretty fantastic, and I give it another whirl.

Good for you Jarvis, welcome back.

[READ: October 3, 2009] Automatic World

This is one of the first books I’ve read in a long time really just didn’t click for me.  I picked up this book because of this fantastic review at The Walrus.  The book wasn’t (and still isn’t) available in the States (although you can get a used copy from Amazon for $10), so I ordered in from amazon.ca.  And the fact that I actually ordered it from Canada (and paid the shipping) is the major reason why I read through to the end.

But here’s the thing.  Sections of the book are fantastic and totally gripping.  But other sections are nebulous and confounding.  And you get the real sense that the four (or more) stories are related, they really aren’t (as far as I can see).  Now, I am fully willing to admit that I simply didn’t get this book.  I’ve just come off reading (and putting a ton of effort into) Infinite Jest.  I deliberately didn’t read Automatic World at the same time as IJ because I knew it was supposed to be a difficult read.  So, it’s entirely possible that I was simply burnt out to really appreciate what was going on here.

When I just re-read the review at the Walrus, it once again really made me want to read the book (the review suggests that the book lets you know that the four stories are not connected, but I don’t think it does).

But let’s see what the book is about. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–“The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing” (Amherst Review, 1984/Tin Roof #40, 2009) [UPDATE]

Posted in Amherst Review, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drugs, Infinite Summer, Neurotics, Suicide, Tin House on October 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »

tinI’m popping this updated review into its own post because it’s quite different from my original review and it seems like it should be by itself.

The first time I read this story, I was too conscious of DFW’s own fight with depression and his suicide.  And since this piece is about someone with depression (and it’s in the first person) it really seemed a little too nonfictiony to be actual fiction.

As I thought about it more, though, I realized that this was not a nonfiction piece.  There were obviously things that didn’t happen to DFW; even if they seemed thinly veiled, this narrator was obviously not him.  So I decided to re-read the story with this new attitude. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–“Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire” (Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays from Might Magazine) (1998)

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Death, Essays, Fables, Infinite Summer, Might, Neutral Milk Hotel, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sex on September 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

shinySOUNDTRACK: NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998).

neutralI had always put off getting into Neutral Milk Hotel.  They were just another one of those Elephant 6 bands, and there were so many bands and splinter-bands and solo bands that I had to draw the line somewhere.  And Neutral Milk Hotel were on the other side of it.  I hadn’t even heard them, I just decided I couldn’t listen to them.

About four months ago, I heard a piece on NPR about a high school putting on a musical based on this album.  They played bits and pieces of the disc and I was totally blown away.  The play is somehow connected to the Anne Frank story (as the album apparently is, too, although I haven’t been able to figure that out from the lyrics at all).

It also turns out that my friend Jarrett had put “Two-Headed Boy” on a sampler disc for me, so I already DID know some of the disc.

Make no mistake, this is an unusual disc: from the bizarre cover, to the bizarre song titles (“The King of Carrot Flowers”).  And, most notably, to the instrumentation.  Sure it starts out simply enough with some acoustic guitars, but it eventually adds everything from flugelhorn (a recent safe word on How I Met Your Mother)to euphonium to zanzithophone(!) to what I thought was a theremin, but which turns out to be a singing saw (even cooler!).

“The King of Carrot Flowers Pts 2 – 3” begins with the very earnest “I love you, Jesus Christ.”  It eventually morphs into the rollicking Pt 3, with the repeated effort of “I would [x] until I learn to [x]”  It’s frankly an amazing trilogy to open the disc.

The title track and “Two-Headed Boy” continue this fascinating orchestral folk with incredible catchiness and what can only be described as supremely earnest singing.  At times, the singing almost makes one uncomfortable for how naked it sounds.

“The Fool” allows for some interesting marching band type instrumentation, but it is followed by even more earnest singing in “Holland, 1945” a ramshackle song that feels like it is trying to race itself to the end.   And then there’s “Oh Comely” a simple guitar ballad that grows and shrinks for 8 minutes of raw, lyric bending.  Eventually it adds some horns as Magnum sings “we know who our enemies arrrrrrrrrre.”

The whole disc has a sound of being recorded too close to the microphone…with many many sounds crackling into distortion.  And while it does have a feeling of cheapness, it really has more of a feeling of urgency…they couldn’t wait to get these songs out, and damn the recording levels (the guitars on “Ghost” are almost outrageously too loud, even though they are not louder than anything else in the song).

The disc ends with the fun, keyboard and uilleann pipe fueled “The Penny Arcade in Calirfornia” a wonderful instrumental that reprises some of the musical lines from other songs.  And then comes “Two Headed Boy, Pt 2” which doesn’t really reprise the original song. Rather, it is a multi-versed song in which Magnum barely pauses for breath trying to get the lengthy verses (with no evident chorus) out.  It ends with an actual reprise of “Two Headed Boy” and fades out.

It’s a fantastic disc.  Simply fantastic.

Neutral Milk Hotel has basically been on hiatus since this record, so it’s not hard to catch up with their output (2 full lengths and an EP).  It’s just a shame if you waited as long as I did to do it.

[READ: September 18, 2009] “Hail the Returning Dragon, Clothed in New Fire”

When Infinite Jest came out there was a lot of discussion of its being “ironic.”  But generally, it is well established at this point (just look at virtually any post on Infinite Summer) about how un-ironic the book is.  In fact, it rather eschews irony.  (I’m not going to detail why, I promise).

This essay, if nothing else, should hammer home the idea that DFW had very little tolerance for irony (even despite the nature of this book, the magazine it comes from, and some of the other ironic pieces in it). (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Final thoughts] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Canadian Content, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Infinite Summer, James Joyce, John Krasinski, Kurt Vonnegut, Meta, Postmoderism, Set at School, Short Films, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Violence, William Golding, Yuck! on September 22, 2009| 13 Comments »

inf sum

Okay, now that I’ve had time to digest the book (and to cope with the ending) I wanted to give some final thoughts on the book.  I also wanted to tie up some loose ends by posting my original response to the Salon.com questions as well as my letter to the posted article (keeping all my IJ stuff in one place).  I also found a map of Enfield that places things nicely in context.  I’ve included that at the bottom of the page.

But on to the book:

My previous post ended with what feels like a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.  And yet I the disappointment I felt at the end of the book was not so much at what was said, but was actually a sort of disappointment that the book is over.

The book, the world, these characters became a part of my life.  I know for a fact that I have never spent this much time and effort on a book before (I didn’t even spend as much time on Ulysses, which I’ve read twice for a class).  And I think having the book left so open keeps the characters floating around in my head without actually letting them rest.  (Wraith-like if you will).

When I finished the book, the first thing I did was to go back to the beginning and re-read the Year of Glad section (now, for the third time!) [And I now I’m not the only person to have done so….just how many posts will say that that’s what they did?]. And I know that’s sort of the set-up of the book, like Finnegans Wake or even Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  And, in re-reading, even more gaps were filled in.  And that is, of course, why people read it multiple times.  And yet, do any of the multiple-times readers come any close to filing in the gaps of that lost year, or do they just find more and more awesome details to obsess over (or both)?

But before I get wrapped up in trying to “figure out what happened” I have to mention just how much I enjoyed the book.  I’ve never read anything like it.  The details, the quotes, the laughs, the pain.  It all sounds so trite (“It was better than Cats!”)  And yet, whether it’s the work itself or the amount of time spent on it, these characters are now with me.

So, I had read IJ when it came out.  And sometime in 1997 or 1998 after DFW published A Supposedly Fun Thing… he did a promotional tour stop in Boston.  And I recall getting up there and getting his autograph and saying how much I loved IJ and how it has stayed with me two years later. And that was true then (of course, if you’ve read me fumbling around and not remembering anything, you’ll know the details didn’t stay with me for 13 years, but that’s okay…the writing and the imagery stayed there somewhere.)

I think also, given the amount of time I spent on the book, and the amount of effort I expended keeping track of things, having this vacancy (both in the fact that the book is over and in the gap of one year) is really weird.  I’ve since read a bunch of reviews of IJ and the one thing I cannot imagine is how anyone with an advanced readers copy of this book could hope to read it in a few days (typical reviewer turnover time) and actually have something useful to say about it in time for a slated book review date?  I would think that if you weren’t following quite so closely you wouldn’t feel the sense of loss at the end of the book.

But enough pontificating.

Let’s think about what happened from 11/20 YDAU to Whataburger in late November, Year of Glad. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 14/End] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in A Clockwork Orange, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Infinite Summer, Meta, Neurotics, Set at School, Short Films, Sonic Youth, Suicide, Supernatural, Synesthesia, Technology, Tennis, Violence, Yuck! on September 21, 2009| 8 Comments »

finSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-“Rather Ripped” (2006).

rippedWhen Rather Ripped came out, I was really excited by it.  It rocked heavy, it was catchy and it featured a lot of Kim.  I listened to it all the time, and would have said it was my favorite SY disc of this era.  However, listening to Sonic Nurse reminded me how much I liked that one too, so I’m unclear now which one I like better.

Jim O’Rourke left the band, so they’re back to a 4 piece.  And the overall sound of the album is more minimal. There’s less squalling feedback (although there are noisy parts).  And the song structures are tighter.  It sounds more like a punk album that a jazz album.  It’s a great release.

“Reena” is so instantly catchy, it’s an amazing opener.  And it’s followed by “Incinerate” which might be even more catchy.  A simple guitar riff and a beautiful chord progression.  “Do You Believe in Rapture?” is a delicate guitar-harmonics filled song.  The only thing that keeps it from being totally poppy are the off-kilter harmonics between verses.

It’s followed by the screaming noise guitars of “Sleepin’ Around.”  This has some amazing tom-filled drums from Steve Shelley which really propel the song along.  It eventually morphs into a pretty straightforward chugga-chugga song until the noise solos in the middle.  “What a Waste” is a lo-fi rocker with Kim singing angrily.  It’s followed by Kim’s more delicate/sexy “Jams Run Free,” a rather tender guitar line.  And, with Kim playing more guitar, I’m wondering if she’s writing these more delicate guitar riffs?  They seem kind of bass-like rather than the complex lines that Lee typically writes.  I’ll never know.

“Rats” is a noisy Lee song that I’m quite fond of.  It’s immediately followed by an even more delicate Kim song, “Turquoise Boy.”  This is a slow ballad that is quite surprising.  “Lights Out” continues the quiet mood with Thurston’s own brand of sinister/seductive singing.

“The Neutral” continues Kim’s delicate singing.  While “Pink Steam” is a beautiful six minute near-instrumental that Thurston reins in with great vocals at the end.  “Or” ends the disc in a quiet frame of mind.

I’m still undecided if I like Nurse or Ripped better.  But I am delighted by this new style that SY has been playing with.

[READ: September 17, 2009] Infinite Jest (completed!)

Hal is remembering the ’98 blizzard (which I actually tried to remember if I had been in Boston for and then realized that ’98 came after the book was written…Doh!)

It was the year that E.T.A. opened and they moved from Weston to E.T.A.  The Moms was attached to the Weston house so she dragged things out. (more…)

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“The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing” (Amherst Review, 1984/Tin Roof #40, 2009)

Posted in Amherst Review, David Foster Wallace, Death, Drugs, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Infinite Summer, Mogwai, Neurotics, Suicide, Tin House on September 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

40SOUNDTRACK: EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY-The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place (2003).

eitsExplosions in the Sky play beautiful, lengthy almost cinematic instrumentals.  They are primarily a guitar-drum band, (but they do add bass from time to time).

Each of their albums is practically symphonic in its beauty as most of the songs start slowly, sparsely, with a few guitar notes.  They have simple melodies that fold in on themselves.  When the (often martial) drums are added, it brings a depth to the song that lets you know this isn’t simply some kind of ambient background music.

Mogwai is probably the most likely comparison point, yet Mogwai’s instrumentals don’t have quite the expansive feel…Mogwai tends to rock a little harder too.  In some respects, Godspeed, You Black Emperor are another touchstone for epic instrumentals, and yet they really don’t sound anything alike.  EITS’s songs are definitely rock: the guitars are clearly guitars, and when the bands rocks (and they do) it is definitely the rock of a guitar band.

The tracks are haunting (as is the bands’ name, the album name, and the song titles: “First Breath After Coma”; “Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean”) and yet they are ultimately uplifting, reaching crescendos that are hard not to be bouyed by.

Even as instrumentals, the tunes are so engaging that they quickly move to the front of your activity.  You can’t go wrong with any of thier discs.

And, yes, I chose this, their third album, to stand in contrast with the DFW piece below.

[READ: September 15, 2009] “The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing”

This is listed as fiction according to the awesome DFW site The Howling Fantods.  (And indeed, Tin Roof has republished it as fiction too).

And so I went into this story expecting some kind of young (he was a junior in college when this was published) fantasy story ala Vonnegut (Tralfamadore and all that).  Well, don’t make that mistake going into this.

This is some heavy shit.  And one can only hope that it is as fictional as everyone ascribes, although really, that seems unlikely. **  [Please see my update at the bottom for my clarification on this rather naive sentence]. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 13] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Adventure, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Edith Wharton, Eschaton, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Humiliation, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Morality, Neurotics, Oddities, Postmoderism, Racism, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Sports, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Universities, Violence on September 18, 2009| 2 Comments »

ijestSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Nurse (2004).

nurse

After the glorious Murray Street, SY return with an even better disc: Sonic Nurse.  This is probably their most overtly catchy (and therefore in my opinion wonderful) record since the Goo/Dirty period of 1991.  (Can it really be 13 years between these discs?).

This disc features Jim O’Rourke as well.  I’m led to believe that he has been playing bass with the band in order to free Kim up to do other things.  Although what she is doing I can’t really imagine.

“Pattern Recognition” opens with the most catchy guitar line in Sonic Youth memory.  Such a great and easy guitar riff.  Kim’s voice is sultry and wondrous.  And Steve Shelly really gets a chance to shine with some fun drum parts.  And, as is typical lately, the catchy songs get some lengthy end treatments, so this song ends with a 2-minute noise fest.  But it’s a good one.  “Unmade Bed” is one of Thurston’s special mellow-singing songs but the guitar solo is weird and wonderful.

“Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” was originally called “Mariah Carey and the…” (and I have no idea if the original was different).  Is one of those noisy Kim-sung jams that SY are known for. But it also features a “Hey hey baby” sing along chorus too.

“Stones” continues this midtempo catchiness with another amazing guitar riff that runs throughout the song.  While “Dude Ranch Nurse” is another mellow Kim piece that has a great riff and wonderfully noisy bridges.  And of course, Lee is awesome on “Paper Cup Exit,” yet another fatastic song.  The cool breakdown in the song is a nice unexpected twist.

“I Love You Golden Blue” may be the most beautiful song the band has ever done.  Kim’s voice is delicate and delightful as she whisper/sings over a gorgeous guitar line.  The final song is another of Thurston’s beauties: “Peace Attack” a slow builder, complete with verse ending guitar solos.

Sonic Nurse is a beuaty.

[READ: Week of September 14, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 949)

Flying in the face of potential spoilers, I was looking for any evidence of there ever being a “unedited Director’s Cut” version of Infinite Jest.  There is, supposedly, one copy of the full text floating around, and I’m actually quite surprised no one has tried to capitalize on DFW’s death by releasing it (I’d rather see that than another “This is Water” type publication).

But while looking around, I got this pleasant surprise from the Howling Fantods–these are comments on a first draft of IJ (without too much unpublished work shown).  But there’s also this disturbing (to me) item:

(N.B.: Wallace made numerous corrections for the paperback edition of 1997, so that edition is the one scholars should use. Put a Mylar cover on the pretty hardback and leave it on the shelf.)

Great. So I read the wrong copy?  Twice??

ijdot1
I haven’t said very much in any of these posts regarding DFW himself.  I don’t feel it is my place to comment on the man or his situation.   However, through a nice shout out to me, I found this really cool site: The Joy of Sox.  It’s primarily about the Red Sox but it has a delightful side venue in DFW information.  There’s not a ton, and he quotes extensively from others who have done more research than he–he’s a fan of DFW, but this is a sports blog after all.  But it is a delightful collection of miscellanea.  And he pointed me to this article, “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open“, which I had never read (so thank you!).   So, do check out the site, he’s not doing Infinite Summer, but he’s likely going to read IJ again in the fall.

ijdot1
As this almost-final week opens, the book is flying downhill like an AFR wheelchair, paralleling Gately’s literal inability to talk with Hal’s metaphorical? literal? we’ll see? one.  But it really is the Gately show.  We learn more and more about him, and his back story makes him more and more likable.  Who ever would have guessed? (more…)

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Jonathan Lethem–“The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear” (Harper’s, October 2009)

Posted in Books about writers, Boredom, Death, Harper's, Jonathan Lethem, Meta, Mystery, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Violence on September 17, 2009| 2 Comments »

harperoctSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Murray Street (2002).

murray stAfter NYC Ghosts and Flowers, I put off getting this disc.  I was getting a little bored by the meandering, somewhat glacial pace of the last two discs, and figured that was the trend they’d be continuing (especially since there are only seven songs on here!).

And yet when my friend Lar told me I absolutely had to pick it up, I consented, as he’s rarely wrong.  And he was not wrong here either.  Murray Street continues in a vein  similar to the last few discs, but it includes what the others were missing: amazing melodies!

It opens with “The Empty Page,” a reasonably upbeat sounding song with some wild choruses.  “Disconnection Notice” is one of their slower pieces, also cooly catchy, which doesn’t meander as it gets to where it’s going.

“Karen Revisited” is an eleven minute piece from Lee.  It begins, typically, as a beautiful Lee song.  However, the last six or so minutes are taken up with a deconstructing noise mess.  (There’s cheering at the end of the song leading me to suspect it was recorded live).  I don’t so much mind the noisy end part, but it’s so disparate from the first part that I wish they were two separate songs.

“Radical Adult Lick Godhead Style” is an absurd free form piece of lyrical nonsense which rocks tightly.  “Plastic Sun” stands out for being sung by Kim, by being very dissonant, and by being only two minutes long.

The album closer, “Sympathy for the Strawberry” is another long, slow, expansive piece, and yet the melody grabs you right from the start and won’t let you go.  Fantastic.

This reigning in of styles forecasts good things ahead on their next few discs as well.

[READ: September 13, 2009] “The Dreaming Jaw, The Salivating Ear”

This short story is quite short and quite surreal.  And I am amazed at how much time I spent with it.

As it opens, there is a weird an unsettling scene about a man who has killed someone in his blog.  I felt that the story was trying to be deliberately surreal by having this person get killed online, and yet that doesn’t seem to be the case.  The story remains weird and deliberately confusing until you get about 2/3 of the way through.  Then it all becomes clear and warrants a second read through. (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 12] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Bewitched, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Cheers!, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Summer, M*A*S*H, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Neurotics, Postmoderism, Ren & Stimpy, Seinfeld, Set at School, Short Films, Suicide, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Violence on September 12, 2009| Leave a Comment »

ijSOUNDTRACK: THE MIGHTY MIGHTY BOSSTONES-Don’t Know How to Party (1993).

mmbI’ve always had a thing for ska (although even I got sick of it when No Doubt took over the airwaves, thanks Gwen).  When ska gets added to blistering metal, well, it’s hard to resist.  And so we get Boston’s own Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

This was the first Bosstones’ record I’d heard and I fell for it immediately.  I also really appreciated the aggressively green plaid that the band sported at the time (although they have since denounced the look).

A horn section can be a tricky thing in a rock band, with many using it to very poor effect. But the Bosstones used it wonderfully, complementing the heaviness and adding a cool skanking sound to the metal chops. And the songs are fantastic and fun.  “Someday I Suppose” is just one of the great rocking anthems from the 90s.  “Illegal Left” is wonderfully catchy and funny.  And “Issachar” is just blistering punk.  These three songs show the rocking and skanking range on the disc.  All of this is wrapped around Dicky Barrett’s rough, growling, heavily-smoker-sounding voice.

The Bosstones would go on to write some hugely popular tunes after this disc (with each disc getting progressively more recognition and sales) but for me, this is what ska is all about.

[READ: Week of September 7, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 876)

Infinite Tasks drew my attention to a new comment regarding the Joelle timeline that we’ve been concerned about.  Greg Carlisle responded to it at Infinite Summer. And so Infinite Tasks updated an older post here.  I’m willing to accept Carlisle’s word as he did write Elegant Complexity after all.

And yet there’s another interesting time line issue that I bring up below about a chapter heading and an electronic calendar that Hal looks at.

ijdot1I’ve also decided that, since the story is steamrolling to an end, and since so many of the end days are coming along, I’m going to update my own calendar (but just the November info).  I’m putting it at the end of the post to include this week’s information.

In general, I’m a little bummed to see so many people have completed the book early, tempting as it is to do so (although obviously that’s better than not finishing at all, right?).  I’m nevertheless enjoying my routine and I think I’ll actually miss it when it’s over.

ijdot1

elizThis week’s reading is almost entirely focused on Gately in St Elizabeth’s Trauma Wing.  He is stuck staring at the ceiling which is breathing at him.  It reminds him of a holiday in Beverly, Ma in which the beach house that they rented had a hole in the roof. The hole was covered by a plastic sheet which flapped and pulsed with the wind.  His crib was placed under the hole and it freaked him out (although what is a 4 year old doing in a crib?  Well, Gately’s mom is clearly not the best parent.) (more…)

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