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Archive for the ‘Dreams’ Category

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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Robert Coover–A Child Again (2005)

Posted in Art, Darkthrone, Death, Dreams, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Ghosts, McSweeney's, Plague, Political Humor, Robert Coover, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator, Until the Light Takes Us, Violence on April 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DARKTHRONE-“Kathaarian Life Code,” (1992), “Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” (2004), “Canadian Metal” (2007).

After watching Until the Light Takes Us, I wanted to check out some of Darkthrone’s music.  According to their Wikipedia page, over the years the band who pioneered black metal has morphed away from the sound.  They’ve added elements of punk and speed metal to their bludgeoning sound.  In the movie Fenriz says that he listens to all kinds of music and is very open-minded.

“Kathaarian Life Code” is a ten minute dirge of black metal.  It opens the band’s second album (considered to be a black metal classic) with chanting and guttural spoken words.  Then it blasts forth with the jackhammer style of drums that is now standard in black metal.

It slows down from time to time, allowing for the really heavy parts to blast through the chaos of the fast parts.  It’s pretty intense and not for the faint of heart.  You can hear occasional guitars screaming through the din, but the production is intentionally murky, dark and noisy.  As they say in the movie, the bands intentionally recorded on the shittiest equipment they could find.

“Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” is a later song, taken from what is considered their final album in the black metal style.  The band was turning away from the traditional black metal sound, and there are elements of punk (guitar riffs that are audible, and a sound that is less bass heavy) present.  And the production, while still mired by noise is relatively cleaner.

“Canadian Metal” is from their third most recent album, after the shift from black metal was more or less official.  It sounds more like an early death metal song.  There’s low tuned notes, audible vocals (growled, but you can actually hear words) and a kind of headbanging aspect to it.  The album is called F.O.A.D. which was a song by Venom (and others, obviously), and this track reminds me of Venom somewhat.  I wouldn’t say that the band has sold out because there’s no way anyone is playing this on the radio, but it’s interesting to see how a band has managed to change things up and add new elements to its sound even though they were the forerunner and grandfather of a scene.

[READ: February and March 2011] A Child Again

This is a collection of short stories from Robert Coover.  There is a kind of theme throughout (most of) the stories about returning to childhood.  But the overall sense is one of despair, sadness, pointlessness and sex.  Lots and lots of sex.  And the sex is usually as vulgar and nasty as the tone of the book suggests it would be.  It’s a little off-putting, actually.

I was planning to say that I didn’t like this collection at all because I really didn’t enjoy the first half-dozen or so stories.  I continued because Coover has a great reputation that I didn’t want to give up after a few misfires.

The real disappointment came because the stories seem so promising: many of them are a kind of retelling of classic fairy tales that looks at “what happened afterward.”  However, and this was true for almost all of them, Coover tries to do two contradictory things with the stories.  He is playing with fairy tales but he is also writing stories that are completely unlike fairy tales.  By that I mean, Coover’s stories are long and very detailed, they bring far too much information to the story.  And a fairy tale is almost by definition short.  I mean, “Puff the Magic Dragon” is a song that’s about five paragraphs long.  But Coover’s “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” is 26 pages long.  So instead of playing with the original, it feels like an original story that uses someone else’s characters.  It’s unsettling and unsatisfying.

It’s also not very funny.   And I’m not sure fit’s supposed to be.  But with a title like “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” you expect the funny.  And there are funny moments.  I mean the whole premise is that little Jackie Paper has grown up into Sir John Paper.  He’s now an old Knight and he is sent to slay the dragon (Puff) who is plaguing the city.  Even though that is a tragic story, it is also inherently humorous.  And there are laughs when they reunite.  But it gets so bogged down in details, that the essence of the story seems to get lost.  Perhaps I’m just disappointed because it (they) turned out so unlike I wanted them to be. (more…)

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Ransom Riggs–Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011) [prepub]

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Culture Shock, Death, Demons, Dreams, Fears, Fleet Foxes, Ghosts, History, Mental Floss, Nazis, Oddities, Photo Essays, Quirk Books, Ransom Riggs, Supernatural, Time Travel on April 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FLEET FOXES-Live at The Black Cat, Washington, DC, July 7, 2008 (2008).

I still love the Fleet Foxes debut album, and I listen to it quite often.  One of the most impressive aspects of the band is their amazing harmonies.  So how does a band that is so vocal-centric perform live?

In an interview included with the concert, Bob Boilen asks that question.  They explain that the bigger venues are a bit harder because they have to crank up their monitors.  They also try to stay close to each other to be able to hear the harmonies clearly.  Well, they did something right because the harmonies sound very impressive here.

The main problem comes because lead singer Robin Pecknold is sick.  As in, just getting over a major cold, sick. As in, he admits that their last few shows were something of a rip off for the attendees.  Tonight’s show, he says is half a ripoff.  And that is most evident in my favorite Fleet Foxes song, “Mykonos” in which Pecknold’s voice cracks with abandon.  I would feel bad for the audience if the band wasn’t so personable and friendly and generally cool.  They make the best of a rough situation, and again, the backing vocals sound fantastic.

There are also a ton of delays in this show.  Most of them seem technical, although there seems to be a lot of tending to Pecknold’s voice, too.  But as I said, the band is engaged with the audience, telling stories (someone in the band is from DC and he asks if anyone went to high school there), and generally keeping everyone entertained.  It’s probably not their best show ever, but it still sounds great.  You can listen and download at NPR.

[READ: March 27, 2011] Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Quirk Books, publishers of mash-ups like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (as well as many other, well, quirky, titles) has published this fantastically exciting novel.

The cover depicts a creepy girl who is hovering off the ground.  But the girl herself is SO creepy that I didn’t even notice the hovering part.  She is just one of the peculiar children within the book.  And this picture is one of 50 included within the book (I’m only bummed that two pictures were not available in my copy).

So the story opens with Jacob Portman talking about his grandfather.  His grandfather (Abe) was a young boy in Poland during the 1940s.  When the Nazi’s invaded, his family was killed and he was sent to Wales, to the titular Miss Peregrine’s Orphanage (not widely known as a home for peculiar children).  But as details emerge from his grandfather’s version of the tale, things seem not right.

Abe talks about the monsters that chased him out of Poland–but he wasn’t describing Nazis, he was describing actual monsters, with multiple tongues and horrifying faces.  They followed him to Wales and were actually chasing him to that very day, in America.  And when he talked about Miss Peregrine’s house, he talked about the special kids who live there: the girl who could call forth fire out of thin air, the girl who could levitate, and the boy who had bees living inside of him.

Of course, that was all nonsense, just post traumatic stress from being attacked by Nazis, right?

That explanation works until the night that Abe is murdered.  He calls Jacob for help (they think he is going senile).  When Jacob gets to his house, he finds the screen door torn open and Abe missing.  The follow a trail and find Abe, bleeding in the woods.  Jacob thinks he can see the same kind of monster that Abe had always described lurking right nearby in the woods.  Although Jacob’s friend (who drove them to Abe’s house), didn’t see anything.

And now, Jacob’s dreams are plagued by scary monsters.  And he can’t get his grandfather’s cryptic last words out of his head.  Time to see a therapist, obviously. (more…)

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Franz Kafka & Coleridge Cook–The Meowmorphosis (2011) [prepub]

Posted in Angst, Boredom, Coleridge Cook, Dreams, Fears, Franz Kafka, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Futility, Humiliation, Joss Whedon, Mash-up, Quirk Books, Translation on March 24, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ANGST-“The Weather’s Fine” (1988).

I recently rediscovered the band Angst.  They were part of the second wave of SST bands (the ones who never went anywhere and were summarily dropped with no forwarding address).  I know of Angst from their song on The Blasting Concept Volume II (which I love).  I decided to investigate Angst a little further and my good friends at YouTube came through with a number of Angst tracks that I’d never heard.

Like this one.

Angst is a kind of jangly pop band.  This song in particular would not be out of place on the radio in 1992 or indeed now.  It has an early R.E.M. feel, but I think what makes it stand out somewhat is that the chorus feels kind of short–you kind of expect Peter Buck to sing a second part of the chorus, but that never materializes.

Angst is a band that could have been huge (SST was not much for marketing).  And as far as I can tell all of their discs are utterly out of print.  Pity.  This is some good stuff.

Tap your feet along!

[READ: March 22, 2011] The Meowmorphosis

I received this book as an Advance Reader’s Copy.  I absolutely loved Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.  I didn’t read Quirk Classics’ other mash-ups: Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters or Android Karenina (although I love the title of that one).  Nor did I read any of the other mash-ups that Quirk Press did not print.  It became rather passe after one great idea.

But this one seemed different somehow….  In part, Kafka.  But also, it’s not a classic novel plus horror.  It’s more horror plus…cats.  And the opening line is wonderful:

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.

Anyone who has read The Metamorphosis knows that it’s about 85 pages long.  So, how did Coleridge Cook (which is a pseudonym, FYI) get 200 pages out of it?  Well, it’s not simply The Metamorphosis.  It incorporates aspects of  The Trial and the short story “Little Woman” (and quite possible some other things as well).

And in that respect, it’s pretty neat.  He takes these three separate Kafka stories and interweaves them, all keeping with the same basic structure of The Metamorphosis with Gregor as a cat.

And so, as in the original, Gregor is abused by his family.  But unlike the original, he eventually escapes outside where he meets Josef K. and is put on trial.  He is eventually let go and returns home where he imagines the tearful return he will have with his sister.

But here’s the problem.  Unlike P&P&Z which made a whole new plot and added so much excitement to the original story, all that this mash-up does is to change him from a cockroach into a kitten.  So really, the story is exactly the same but instead of scenes with creepy, gross cockroach detail, we get scenes with cute and cuddly kitten details.  And as such, it’s hard to understand exactly why the family is so creeped out by him. (more…)

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Classic Albums: Rush–2112 • Moving Pictures (2010)

Posted in Airlines, Ayn Rand, Barenaked Ladies, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cars, Concept Albums, Dreams, Drugs, Foo Fighters, Funny (ha ha), Rolling Stone, Rush, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Samuel R. Delaney, Travel on February 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: January 3, 2011] Classic Albums: Rush–2112 • Moving Pictures

Sarah got me this disc for Christmas.  Thank you, Sarah!

This DVD is from the Classic Albums series.  The series is shown on VH1 in the states and BBC (and other places) elsewhere).  There’s been about 35 episodes of the series, with Rush being one of the few bands to have two albums for the show (which is an honor, but which also cuts down on the content for each album by half…boo!).

The show is an hour, and there’s almost an hour of bonus footage on the DVD  (which die-hard fans will enjoy more than the actual show).

The main show itself looks at the creation of these two classic albums.  There are interviews with the band members as well as many people associated with the band (and a couple completely random musicians).  We get their manager Ray Daniels and the producer for these albums Terry Brown (his segments are my favorite because he gets behind the mixing console and plays around with the songs).  We also get Cliff Burnstein (the guy with the crazy hair) who was instrumental in getting Rush publicity. (more…)

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Paul Poissel/Paul La Farge–The Facts of Winter (2005)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Dreams, Funny (strange), Huh?, Kakyoung Lee, Los Campesinos!, McSweeney's, Paul La Farge, Paul Poissel, Research, Scholarship, Translation, Unreliable narrator on January 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LOS CAMPESINOS! Live in studio at KEXP, July 31, 2008 (2008).

For this brief in-studio performance Los Campesinos! play four songs from their debut album Hold on Now, Youngster.  The band sounds great in this setting.  I don’t have this album, so I don’t know if they deviate at all from the originals, but the live versions are tight and very effective.

The interviews are informative and rather gushing (I’ve never heard a DJ kiss the ass of a performer in such a nice way before–and the band seems really flattered by it–it’s all very sweet).  There’s also some fun comments about their screaming tendencies.

What I didn’t notice so much on Romance is Boring was how many different lead singers the band has.  With these four songs, there are enough lead vocalists to show a lot of diversity (and a lot of screaming, too–“don’t read Jane Eyre!”).  And, as one might expect from the later disc, their earlier lyrics are smart, funny and wicked, too.

The difference between Romance and Hold On, seems to be that the band were much punkier on the early disc, and that all comes out in these live tracks.  And the songs are all short: 3 minutes and under.  They really pack a lot in here.

[READ: January 6, 2011] The Facts of Winter

This book is, apparently, an elaborate joke.  It is set up as a book written by French author Paul Poissel.  But unlike the other things that Poissel wrote (his most famous and lasting works were written after this book), this is a collection of dreams.  Specifically, it’s a collection of dreams from random unnamed people in France, circa 1841.

The book is laid out with the original French story on the left page and the translation on the facing page.  I don’t know French, but my minimal French comprehension leads me to think that the translations are accurate.

So, each entry (most about a half a page, some stretch to two pages) is a recounted dream. I didn’t count how many dreams there were, but there’s more or less one a day from January to March.  None of them are outlandishly crazy or dirty or anything like that, but they are amusing to read.  There is a preponderance of canoes in the dreams.

After the dreams we get a lengthy Afterword (which all told, may be longer than all of the dreams combined).  The Afterword details La Farge’s work while translating and learning more about Poissel.  It is rather funny and goes into all kinds of personal details about La Farge and his ex-girlfriend as well as the friend he met in the city of Aix who takes him to all kinds of old ruins. (more…)

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Speaking with the Angel (2000)

Posted in Alice Cooper, BLK JCK, Boredom, Carole King, Colin Firth, Dave Eggers, Death, Dreams, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Fishbone, Frank Zappa, Gil Scot-Heron, Giles Smith, Glee, Helen Fielding, Humiliation, Irvine Welsh, John O'Farrell, Melissa Bank, Nick Hornby, Nina Simone, Of Montreal, OutKast, Patrick Marber, Pete Shelley, Politicians, Prince, Prison, Punks, Rob Roy, Robert Harris, Roddy Doyle, Set at School, Short Story, The Buzzcocks, TV on the Radio, Zadie Smith on October 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer July/August 2010 Music Issue Compilation CD: “We Bumped Our Heads Against the Clouds” (2010).

Of all the Believer music compilations, this is by far my least favorite.  It would be oversimplifying things to say that the music is not for me, but in many respects it is not.  Chuck Lightning, the curator of the project states that this compilation is more or less a look into the state of the union for black artists.  And that invariably means a lot of R&B and songs that might be heard on Glee (I like the show, but I never know any of the music).

Deep Cotton’s “Self!” reminds me of novelty dance hit from the late 80s.  Of Montreal, who I thought sounded totally different from this, offer “Hydra Fancies” which is as catchy a disco anthem as any disco anthem can be.  Roman GianArthur’s “Depraved Valet” is an amazingly falsettoed Prince knock off.  Cody Chestnutt’s “”Come Back Like Spring” is a simple almost acapella ode to spring.  Saul Williams’ oddly titled “B.S. in a Tampon” is a spoken word with acoustic guitar that reminds me of Gil Scot-Heron.  Janelle Monáe’s “Cold War” is the first really catchy song (the la las remind me of Carole King), although  I could do without the overstated “Calinda” part and the extended fade.

The first song I really liked was BLK JCKs “Iietys” which sounded enough like TV on the Radio to be really interesting.  Spree Wilson’s “Chaos” also sounds like TV on the Radio (the more R&B side of the band, although the guitar solo is a dead ringer for “Hotel California.”  Scar’s “Rewind” is the song that should be on Glee.  I want to hate it but it is so damned catchy, I can’t.  Again, those Oh Oh Ohs are too perfect (and the auto0tune of course is unassailable).

Rob Roy’s “Velvet Rope Blues” is my favorite song on the disc by a large distance. It’s a weird rap that reminds me of The Streets, with an awesome sung chorus ala OutKast.  Hollyweed’s “Have You Ever Made Love to a Weirdo” is a trippy, juvenile space rap that is really silly.  Sarah hates it but I kind of like it, as it’s in the spirit of Frank Zappa, (although I hate the sax solo).  Fear & Fancy’ s “Off the Grid” sounds also not unlike OutKast.  And George 2.0′ s “Turn Off the TV” is a anti-TV rap rant (with the somewhat ironic conclusion that you yourself might end up ON the TV).

M.I.A. is probably the biggest name on the disc. “Born Free” is a weird little track of highly distorted vocals over a punk guitar buzzsaw sound.  But her vocals are mixed so loud in the mix that they sound unrelated.  It sounds not unlike a Go! Team track.  This track makes me wonder how she became such a sensation.

Hot Heavy & Bad’s “One” returns to that disco sound in the vocals with some contemporary bass sounds.  It wears out its welcome pretty quickly.  Tendaberry’s “Cold Boy” sounds like a less horn-y Fishbone.  Mother Novella offers one of the few all guitar songs, “Closer 9 1/2” and it’s an okay mid tempo rocker.

The final song is pretty awesome in theory: Nina Simone covering Alice Cooper.  That’s right, Nina Simone covering Alice Cooper.  Sadly I don’t know the Alice Cooper song, so it’s a bit lost on me.

[READ: September 16, 2010] Speaking with the Angel

I bought this volume when it came out (and apparently donated $1 to TreeHouse at the same time).  It’s a collection edited by Nick Hornby (and the cover is designed similarly to the way High Fidelity and even About a Boy were at the time (“the Hornby look,” I suppose).

I didn’t buy it for Hornby alone, although he does have a story in it, but because it looked like a really promising collection of stories from authors I liked.  And for some reason I didn’t read it until now.  It includes 12 stories, and as the introduction notes, $1 was donated to TreeHouse.org.uk (in the US $1 goes to TreeHouse and another $1 goes to New York Child Learning Institute).  I don’t know if the money still goes there, but you can donate with a form at the back of the book.  (more…)

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James Joyce–[Week 7] Ulysses (1922) [Eumaeus, Ithaca]

Posted in Big Books, Demons, Digression, Dreams, Fears, Infinite Zombies, Irish Writer, James Joyce, The Flaming Lips, Tindersticks on August 23, 2010| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: A HOUSE-I am the Greatest (1991).

A House were a Dublin band that released a number of great songs and a few good albums from the mid 1980’s until the late 1990s.  I loved A House (but never knew whether to file them under A or H).  They were a smart, often sarcastic, occasionally poppy college rock band who played dissonant songs more often than not and wrote lyrics which could be off-putting more often than not, but which, in the right mind frame, were simply, as the album says, the greatest.

It opens with a nice jangly guitar which is quickly interrupted by a strange feedback sound and Dave Couse’s somewhat unsettling voice.  And he gives a litany of things about which he does not care, but mostly because nobody else does.  It’s followed by the sweet tender ballad “Too Young.”  The next track was the single, of all things.  “Endless Art” a simple riff which name checks dozens of dead artists that bridges with Beethoven’s Fifth.  It gets tedious after about 200 listens, but since I haven’t heard it in a while, I found myself really grooving to it again.

In keeping with the “let ’em guess” attitude of the disc, the next song is a plaintive moan of longing called “When I First Saw You.”  I’m fairly certain he’s singing out of tune for the whole track.

“Take It Easy on Me” opens with a great wah-wah’d guitar sound that should have been a left-field hit like The Flaming Lips had.  But it’s their simple acoustic songs that pack the most punch like “I am Afraid.”  It’s followed by what sounds like a Tindersticks song, until Couse’s voice kicks in, and we get a great questioning song about religion called “Blind Faith”.

He seems back to his old tricks on “I Lied” (“When I said that I loved you, I lied.”) Then the full band kicks in (with great harmonies) “When I said, when I vowed, I don’t love you anymore, I lied.  I adore you!”

The rest of the songs play with this formula: off kilter yet poppy, harmonies on top of dissonant leads.  The pace never slackens, and the albums stays strong through the brilliant final track, “I am the Greatest” (a spoken word folk track that is all smackdown which devolves into a bunch of blokes shouting “I am!”).

Check out the fantastic stop motion video for “Endless Art” on YouTube, and let me know if you can find a version that’s better than this one.

[READ: Week of August 23, 2010] Ulysses: Episodes 16-17

Nearing the end of the book, still recuperating from the insanity of the Circe episode, we get two episodes that are considerably mellower.  I enjoyed the beginning of Episode 16, but felt a little at sea when it was hijacked by the sailor.  Episode 17 on the other hand is definitely my favorite.  Even though I love the surrealism of Circe, there’s something about the catechism of Episode 17, with its question and answer format–its own sort of surrealism–that I find fascinating, funny and surprisingly informative.  It fills in a ton of details that were left out of the beginning (or that were hidden) and yet still retains a bizarre stream of consciousness. It also offers incredible insight into the man who is Leopold Bloom. (more…)

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2666 final (?) thoughts

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Communists, David Foster Wallace, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Dystopia, Foreign Books, History, Infinite Zombies, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Translation, Violence, War, Yuck! on May 6, 2010| 6 Comments »

I’ve waited to post this, my wrap up of ideas abut 2666, until I saw what others had to say about it.  Which is kind of a cop out but also kind of understandable.  This book is a giant mess of information, and I’m not entirely sure how to process it all.  So I’ve been looking for help.  And I’ve gotten some, but it’s all kinds of contradictory.  Most people seemed to hate the book.  A few people enjoyed it somewhat, and one or two people really felt moved by it.

I think I fall squarely in that middle camp.  As anyone who has been reading here knows, I became obsessed with Bolaño’s books, and read all of his short fiction (saving Savage Detectives for a read in a few weeks).  And yet I’m not exactly sure WHY I felt compelled to read these stories.  (I’m very glad I did…there will be more on Bolaño himself in a day or two).

I’ve decided to look back over what I wrote to get a sense of what I thought of the book (I knew these posts would come in handy). (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Romantic Dogs (2006) [translated 2008]

Posted in Ben Folds, bolanobolano.com, Consumerism, Death, Demons, Dreams, History, Infinite Zombies, Language, Laura Healy, Military, Poetry, Poets, Pornography, Roberto Bolaño, The Office, Translation, Violence on April 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-University A Capella (2009).

The story goes that Ben Folds heard some a capella bands and decided to give them some airtime.  So he had them record a bunch of his songs.

I have been surprised at how much I enjoy some kinds of a capella music.  Ed Helms’ stuff on The Office is certain fun, but on a more serious level, it’s amazing what these singers can do with their voices in terms of diversity, range and even sounds.

But at the same time, it’s the lead vocalist on most a capella tracks that sell the song.  And, on this disc there are a lot of lead singers I don’t like. Part of it is because I don’t like R&B vocal stylings, which I find too over the top at times.  Although I do admit that there;s one or two on here that work very well.

Overall, I enjoy this disc.  It’s fun to hear different interpretations of songs that I know and like.  Although I think realistically its the songs that Ben himself sings that I enjoy the most.

[READ: April 25, 2010] Romantic Dogs

This is the final Bolaño book that I’m going to read before finishing 2666 (Savage Detectives you’re next).  And it happens to be a collection of Bolaño’s poetry.

I have a complicated relationship with poetry.  I have written (and had published) a few poems.  I dated a woman who was (and I suppose still is?) an excellent poet (hi, Paula).   When I worked for a literary magazine, I learned how to judge poetry.  And yet, I don’t really read it.  And I think the reason for that is that, in my head, poetry deserves more attention than I’m usually willing to give it.  I feel like a poem should be pored over, read and re-read and, if good enough, memorized.

I have memorized about two poems in my life.  And since I often don’t feel like devoting a ton of time to poems,  I just don’t really read them.  And that’s a shame for me, because while poetry does demand a closer look, it’s not a precious item that should be put on a pedestal and looked at only when company comes over.

And Bolaño is as good a poet as anyone to demonstrate that. (more…)

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