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Archive for the ‘Dystopia’ Category

Dean Hale, Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale–Rapunzel’s Revenge (2008)

Posted in Adventure, Children's Books, Dean Hale, Dystopia, Fables, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Gilmore Girls, Grant Lee Phillips, Graphic Novel, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Nathan Hale, Shannon Hale on November 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GRANT LEE PHILLIPS-Live on KEXP, January 21, 2010 (2010).

I really liked Grant Lee Buffalo back in the day.  I think Grant Lee Philip’s voice is amazing–soulful, expressive, beautiful.  He was also a troubadour on Gilmore Girls!

Since Buffalo broke up, Phillips has released a few solo albums.  I have found that I don’t enjoy his solo music as much as I did the band music.  His voice is still amazing, but the solo stuff is a little too slow and meandering for me.

This set comprises four songs from his album Little Moon.  “Strangest Thing” is my favorite song from the set, it’s upbeat and beautiful.  And “Little Moon” is correctly described by the DJ as moody an intoxicating.  It’s not my favorite of his songs but the description is totally correct.

This is an enjoyable mellow set.  The DJ and Grant Lee are relaxed and comfortable and the between song chats are informative and interesting.  You can listen here.

[READ: October 30, 2012] Rapunzel’s Revenge

This story is a wonderful extrapolation of the Rapunzel story which has been moved to the Wild West.  Yup, that’s right.  Rapunzel is a cowgirl.

Well, in the beginning, the story is pretty faithful to the original.  Many elements of the fairy tale are present–Rapunzel was kidnapped from her parents (or traded for some lettuce) and raised by the enchanted witch.  This story fleshes out the politics of the witch somewhat–she has cursed the surrounding lands and made them barren–all of the fertile ground is within her walls and the peasants must pay tribute to her from their meager earnings.  And Rapunzel is a rather rebellious and outgoing girl who wants to leave her stepmother’s walled fortress and explore the world beyond.

When Rapunzel tries to climb the wall just to see what’s out there (the wall is like 70 feet tall), she is grabbed by the witch’s guard, Brute, an over-sized man who is very grouchy.  But when she learns that her real mother is still alive (and is a suffering peasant) she tries to escape for good.  Brute catches her again, and the witch locks her up (the re imagined prison is a very cool twist).  I loved that she escapes with no help from anyone (just her hair).  And that as she’s running off she meets a prince who was coming to rescue her meets her; she sends him on a wild goose chase.  This Rapunzel needs no prince. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)

Posted in Adventure, Books about writers, Cancer as plot device, Chess, Communists, Consumerism, Culture Shock, David Foster Wallace, Death, Decadence, Dictionary, Drinking, Drugs, Dystopia, End of the World, Fears, Funny (ha ha), History, Hitler, Humiliation, Kurt Vonnegut, Ladies Home Journal, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Pink Floyd, Sci-fi, Scrabble, Sex, Short Story, Suicide, Supernatural, The Future, War on August 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PINK FLOYD-Alan’s Psychedelic Christmas (1970).

I’ve always loved Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother.  I have no recollection of how I stumbled upon this live bootleg, but when I saw that it contained one of the few live recordings of “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” I had to give it a listen.

So this show is from 1970 and was recorded in Sheffield just before Christmas (Nick Mason evidently introduced the show while wearing a Santa Claus suit).  The sound quality is pretty good given that it is 40 some years old.  There’s a bunch of hiss, and the quieter talking bits are hard to understand, but the music sounds fine.

So the show opens with “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” and what is so silly (and I assume funny to watch (a little less funny on bootleg) is that the band made and ate breakfast on stage.  As Collectors Music reviews writes: “This is the only known live recording of ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ but also hosts an amazing performance by the band which included them making morning tea on stage which is audible. Just like most of their earlier performances, the performance of “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” slightly differs from the album version due to some nice jamming done by the band, especially Gilmour with his delay pedal.” As I said, some of the audio is static and hard to make out in this song–the band is conversing during their tea, but who knows what they are saying.  And who know what is o the radio.

Then the band gets down to business.  One of things I love about this period Floyd which is so different from their later work is that the played really long spacey jams often with very few lyrics.  So we get a 12-minute version of “The Embryo” (the only available studio version is a very short one on Works which is quite a shame as the song is really good).  A 14-minute workout of “Fat Old Sun” which is usually only about 5 minutes.

There’s a great version of “Careful with that Axe Eugene” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” (15 and 12 minutes respectively).

Then in a killer version of “Saucerful of Secrets,” just as they get to the end, there’s a power failure (at least according to the song title).  The band is rocking out just hitting the climax when suddenly all you can hear are un-miked drums.  Ha. After a couple of minutes, power comes back and they pick up from just before where they left off.

Then the band launches into a full 31-minute version of “Atom Heart Mother” complete with horns and choir  of voices.  It sounds quite good (the horns seem a little sketchy but that might be expected with such staccato music).

The set ends and the band needs an encore.  Apparently they couldn’t remember anything else because they just re-do the last few minutes of “Atom Heart Mother” again.

One of the things that cracks me up about these shows in the 70s in England, is that the audience is so polite. Their applause sounds like a classical theater rather than a rock show.  And with a bootleg you know they didn’t try to make the audience sound bigger than they are.

The whole package is a fun trip.

[READ: August 17, 2012] Welcome to the Monkey House

So this book is Vonnegut’s second collection of short stories.  But there’s a twist.  This collection contains all of the short stories from Canary in a Cat House except one. It also contains many of the stories he had written since then as well as stories not collected in Canary.  So you get basically 18 years worth of stories here.  And it’s interesting to see how much he has changed over those years (during which he wrote 5 novels, but not yet Slaughterhouse Five).

Since I read Canary a little while ago (see comments about the stories here), I knew that his 50’s era stories were influenced by WWII.  So it’s interesting to see how his stories from the 690s are not.  They deal more with day to day things and, of course, abstract concepts about humanity, although politics do enter the picture again once Kennedy is elected .

  • Where I Live (1964)

This was a good story to open with because it shows the then-later-period Vonnegut’s mindset and location.  This story is about Barnstable Village on Cape Cod (where I assume Vonnegut lived since there are a number of stories set on the Cape).  This is a very casually written story about an encyclopedia salesman who goes to the local library and sees that their two encyclopedias are from 1910 and 1938.  I enjoyed this line: “He said that many important things had happened since 1938, naming among others, penicillin and Hitler’s invasion of Poland.”  He is told to talk to the library directors who are at the yacht club.  I love the attitude that Vonnegut creates around the village which “has a policy of never accepting anything.  As a happy consequence, it changes about as fast as the rules of chess.” For really, this story is about the Village more than the encyclopedia salesman, and it’s an interesting look at people who move into a new place and want it to never change. (more…)

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Colson Whitehead–“A Psychotronic Childhood: The B-movies did it” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012)

Posted in Alien, Colson Whitehead, Death, Demon Seed, Demons, Dystopia, End of the World, Essays, Fangoria, Fears, Food of the Gods, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Marriage (Happy), Mother's Day, MST3K, My Bloody Valentine, New Yorker, Oddities, Prom Night, Regimen, Rosemary's Baby, Sci-fi, Sex, Sexism, Silent Night Evil Night, Skraeckoedlan, Slumber Party Massacre, Terror Train, The Birthday Party, The Devil's Run, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, The Shining, The Virgin Prunes, Vampires, Violence, Yuck!, Zombies on June 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: INVISIBLE GUY BLOG (2012).

Jonas from Invisible Guy contacted me about a project he’s working on.  I’m not quite the right fit for it, but I had to check out his site to see what he was all about.  As his About page explains; “This blog is generally a platform for unknown bands to get promoted and interviewed.”  That’s pretty awesome in itself.  But as I browsed the site, I saw that in his post Invisible Guy recommends: 80s Post-Punk – 1982 (Part II) he includes not only The Birthday Party but also The Virgin Prunes.  Much respect there (especially for someone who wasn’t alive when those records came out!).

But the bulk of his site is full of really obscure bands (lots of bands that I’ve never heard of).  He interviews band members (sometimes in Swedish!) and has quite an impressive list of publications that he’s worked for.

So head on over to Invsible Guy for a wonderful collection of punk and hardcore music as well as some iconic (and really obscure) new wave and post-punk tunes.  He’s also got some great stuff on death metal too.  Not bad for a site that’s only a few months old.  Invisible Guy has a lot of samples and videos as well as a bunch of streaming music from unreleased or just-released albums (like this demo from the Swedish band Regimen called Välkommen hem).

And here’s a video for the Swedish stoner metal band Skraeckoedlan.  The song is “Apple Trees” and no you can’t understsnad the words because they are in Swedish.  I love that.

It’s a great site.

[READ: June 15, 2012] “A Psychotronic Childhood”

The more I read Colson Whitehead, the more I like him, not just as a writer, but as a “person” (the person he presents to us anyhow.  Although I met him briefly at a convention and he was super friendly and very nice).  This essay shows that he and I occupied some of the same headspace when we were kids (we were born in the same year)—watching sci-fi and horror movies on Channel 7 & 11 after school and on the weekends.  Of course, I didn’t really get into horror movies until much later them him (his first time was when his parents took him to  a horror film in the theater at the age of 5).  FIVE!

These early horror movies really shaped his outlook.  He lists about 70 movies in this article, of which I have seen at least half (although more from MST3K than actually sitting through them unaccompanied) and his summaries about them (four or five parenthetical words) are apt and often hilarious:

  • Food of the Gods (giant chickens rain pecking doom on a small island)
  • Alien (an outbreak of tummy trouble among space miners)
  • Demon Seed (rom-com about a horny computer that wants to impregnate Julie Christie)
  • The Devil’s Run (A negligible and mind-numbing film, notable only for the utter ineptitude of its attempt to cash in on the brief occult-movie fad that followed Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist.

The Devil’s Run is the first movie he saw, back in 1975, in the theater.  He says that there was something good in it, that it really captured the element of terror when your loved one turns on you.  And he tapped into this for his novel Zone One.

Then he reflects back on 1981, when his family bought a VCR and he and his brother would head to Crazy Eddie (remember Crazy Eddie?) to rent 5 movies for the weekend (I didn’t even know they rented movies!).  The movies were inevitably 4 horror movies and one mainstream film.  And the family would gather by the TV and watch together.  How wholesome!  Except when you read what they were watching (I can’t IMAGINE my family watching these together when I was a kid–even now, Sarah hates horror films).   This is getting into the era of Friday the 13ths and Halloweens as well as classics like Terror Train, Prom Night, Slumber Party Massacre, Silent Night, Evil Night, Mother’s Day and My Bloody Valentine (“not even the holidays, hallmark or otherwise were safe”). (more…)

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Junot Díaz–“Monstro” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012)

Posted in Anarchy, Culture Shock, Death, Disease, Dystopia, End of the World, James Joyce, Junot Díaz, Lush, My Bloody Valentine, New Yorker, Now, Now, Short Story, Supernatural, William Faulkner, Zombies on June 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NOW,NOW-“Thread” (2012).

I really enjoyed Now, Now’s last single “Dead Oaks” quite a lot, and here’s another one.  A beautiful shoegazer song, hints of My Bloody Valentine, hints of early Lush.  The singer has a great voice soaring over the chugging and swirling guitar chords.

The song is smooth and dreamy, but when the guitar solo comes in, it’s kind of jagged and really unexpected–a nice treat to keep a sing from becoming too obvious.

“Now, Now” is kind of a crazy name for a band–i assumed that it would be difficult for search engines to find them.  But no.  Type in now now and there they are.

[READ: June 20, 2012] “Monstro”

I’ve read a bunch of stories by Díaz, and I was a little surprised to see him in a sci-fi issue.  Although his characters are typically nerdy sci-fi fantasy geeks, his stories are pretty much all about reality–scoring women, losing money, fighting cancer, getting women back.  And, that’s what this story is about too.

One thing that I especially liked about the story is that it is such a conventional Díaz story–his main character g0es to the Dominican Republic to be with his ailing mom.  (They live in the States but her medical costs would be much cheaper there).  So he goes to the DR for the summer.  And he meets up with a fellow Brown student who just happens to be a Very Important Person in the DR (he’s related to the 99th most wealthy person on the planet).  And this guy, Alex, hooks him up well–he gives the narrator the royal treatment all over the country.  Alex also introduces him to Mysty, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

And so they spend the summer together.  The narrator knows that Mysty is out of his league, but he lusts after her anyhow.  He confirms with Alex several times that the two of them are not an item, and that seems to be true. It’s clear that Mysty likes him–he doesn’t put up with Alex’s shit or with hers, but it’s also clear that they will never be together.

Díaz doesn’t skimp on the story either–we learn all about Alex’s background (and the fact that despite all of his wealth, he’s not coasting–he’s pulling down a 4.0 from Brown).  We also learn all about Mysty–her history, her desires and her disdain for the Dominican Republic.  And, naturally we learn all about the narrators mother–what’s wrong with her, how she’s coping and how she’s tells him that he doesn’t have  to stick around–he’s not doing her any favors.  And so he leaves her to have fun with his friends.  As he says, “What an asshole, right? What a shallow motherfucker.  But I was nineteen–and what is nineteen, if not for shallow?” (more…)

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Anthony Burgess—“The Clockwork Condition: The author comments on his most famous book, in 1973” (New Yorker, June 4 & 11, 2012)

Posted in A Clockwork Orange, Aldous Huxley, All Songs Considered, Anthony Burgess, Arcade Fire, B.F. Skinner, Bruce Springsteen, Dystopia, Essays, Fears, Free Speech, George Orwell, Japandroids, Language, New Yorker, Religion, Sinclair Lewis on June 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JAPANDROIDS-“Fire’s Highway” (2012).

I regret dismissing the suggestions of the NPR folks the other day.  As the more I dig into their suggestions, the more I like–seems their selections are better than their descriptions of said selections.  Take this description of the Japandoids’ album: “snarling punk meets the fist-in-the-air anthemics of Born to Run-era Springsteen and his modern-day equivalents in The Gaslight Anthem.”  I’ve never really liked Springsteen (I know, a Jersey boy, too).  I think it’s more about production (and saxophone) than anything else.  So, comparing bands to him is never a sell for me (even if it may be true).  To me, this sounds much more like a low-key Arcade Fire (with literally no pretensions to anything–I mean, there’s only 2 Japandroids).  Granted, Arcade Fire owe a lot to Springsteen too, but they do something different with his sound, which is why I like them.  [I’m not going to be able to argue my way out of this].

Anyhow, this song is a four minutes of punky guitars and a stupidly catchy chorus.  The fact that it’s only two guys makes it all the more remarkable that it sounds like a full band.  And perhaps, the biggest difference for me is the singer’s voice which feels very early 90s alt rock/punk.  Whatever it is, I’m a fan and will certainly be listening to more of this album.

[READ: June 14, 2012] “The Clockwork Condition”

Like most young men of a certain bent, I loved A Clockwork Orange.  I’ve watched it dozens of times and I’ve read the book.  What I especially like about the story is that my feelings about it change as I get older—which, while not the point exactly, is certainly a theme in the story–how age makes things seem different.  The most important thing I learned from this article is that there was an epilogue in the British version of the book that was not available in the American version (or the film).  And it seems to be pretty important.  What a strange thing to leave out.

Incidentally, Burgess wrote the book in 1962 and the film came out in 1973, which is why he was wrote this in 1973.  He says he was asked about Issues that arose from the film.  And he talks a lot about them.

But he also gives a lot of background.  The title of the book comes from the expression “as queer as a clockwork orange” which is Cockney slang for something so weird it subverts nature.  It was a perfect title for an idea he was going to write about—how people suggested using aversion therapy to change juvenile delinquent behavior.

So this article goes on for a pretty long time, raising all kinds of questions.  It’s really articulate and fascinating and really makes me want to re-read the anti-authoritarian novels I read in high school: 1984, It Can’t Happen Here, Brave New World.   He even talks about B.F. Skinner, who proposed that aversion therapy (which is what Alex gets in the book/movie) was wrong and that positive reinforcement was always more effective.  Skinner worked with animals (Burgess jokes about that) and the whole “you get more flies with honey” attitude works better for training animals he says.  The same is true for people.  Besides, aversion therapy removes freewill. (more…)

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Ernest Cline–Ready Player One (2011)

Posted in Adventure, Adventure, Battlestar Galactica, Brazil, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Dr. Who, Dystopia, Ernest Cline, History, Joust, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Rush, Terry Gilliam, The Future, Violence on February 15, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TRIUMPH-Just a Game (1979).

When I was a kid, my love of Rush was followed closely by my love of Triumph (I had a thing for Canadian power trios).  I’ve recently read a bunch about Triumph and was surprised to hear how acrimonious the band was.  Of course, I didn’t care about any of that back in the 80s.

This album was my favorite (even though Allied Forces was their major breakthrough).  In my gate-fold album the inner foldout was an actual board game.  How thoughtful!

It’s funny listening now, how much I liked this album back then because there is definitely some cheese here.  And I could never decide if I liked drummer Gil Moore’s songs or Rik Emmet’s songs best.  “Movin On” is a great hit but the backing vocals and “on and on” parts are kind of wimpy 70s rock–I must have blocked it out while jamming to the guitar solo.

Rik Emmet has since gone on to a successful solo career.  But on “Lay It On the Line,” the song that got me into them (thanks MTV) Rik rocks like he loves this band and this music.  The song features some serious guitar workouts and some impressive vocal acrobatics.

Perhaps, in hindsight, I like Rik’s songs better, as “Yong Enough to Cry” is pretty cheesy (it was fun to sing along to when I was 13 though–even if I never understood Gil’s pain, man).  But all of that was forgiven for the majesty of “American Girls.”  Sure, it’s also a cheesy song, but man it rocks.  As a young kid, I loved hearing the national anthem in the middle of the song.  And that solo is non-stop.

“Just a Game” is a powerhouse of a song although it’s a little long for what it is.  But then there’s the amazing “Fantasy Serenade” just over 90 second of beautiful classical guitar (a direction he’s go in much more after leaving Triumph).  It’s wonderful as a solo and it works as an amazing intro to the majestic “Hold On” (a song about music that doesn’t suck).  Although admittedly, the single version is better without the weird disco instrumental in the middle that really kind of puts a kibosh on the flow of the song.

The album ends with the strange (and quite long for what is it) “Suitcase Blues,” a 3 minute slow blues about touring.  But hey it showcases diversity, eh?

Even though many people compare Triumph to Rush, I think the more likely comparison is actually Kiss.  “American Girls” has a real Kiss vibe towards the end, and the opening chords of “Movin’ On” have a real Kiss feel.  Regardless, they played great metal/rock/prog and I’ll always love them for it.

[READ: February 12, 2012] Ready Player One

Do you like Rush? Do you like Monty Python?  Do you like the 80s?  (not those 80s, but cool 80s like Blade Runner, coin op video games, Family Ties, Square Pegs?)  Then you absolutely must read this book.  Especially if you like Rush, because how often does Rush form a plot point in a book?

Sarah was reading this book and she insisted that I read it (she has really been passing on the good suggestions lately!).  And when I heard her playing Rush a few days after reading this book (and she doesn’t like Rush), I knew I had to read it.

But what is it?  Well, It is basically the story of an online quest to find a secret egg and win a massive fortune.  The egg was placed in a virtual world by its creator, James Halliday.  Halliday was “a nerd uber-deity on the level of Gygax, Garriott, and Gates.”  He created amazing video games and ultimately the most amazing virtual reality space ever: OASIS.  (For Atari geeks, his inspiration for getting into creating video games in the first place was the Atari game Adventure).  Halliday was obsessed with the 19080s (the decade he grew up in), with technology and with geeky movies.  The only way to find this egg in OASIS is to know a thing or two (or 1,000,000) about the man who created it and the decade he loved.

If you were hooked by the first paragraph, you’ve already put this book on hold.  If you were hooked by the third paragraph, you know you have to put this book on hold.  If you’re not convinced yet let me back up.

It is the year 2044.  The earth is in a hellish state–there’s no fuel, there’s no jobs, people live in trailers that are stacked on top of each other.  Life sucks.  Except for OASIS.  OASIS is the virtual world created by Halliday.  At this stage in the world, OASIS is where most people go to school (cheaper and easier to do virtual teaching) and where many people spend most of their lives.  It’s depressing and horrible (and I actually didn’t enjoy the opening chapters all that much because it was really horrible and at a times a bit more caustic than I was expecting–but that changes quite a lot).

So Halliday invented OASIS as an idealized pace.  It was originally a multi-player game but soon became a new place to live, a kind of Eden.  It was free to join and you didn’t have to pay to play.  Although you needed credits to travel (or to build your own buildings or planets or whatnot), you could stay on the main world (which looks a whole hell of a lot nicer than the real world) and just hang out for free.  You can earn points through various achievements which would let you travel (or you could always hitch a ride with a friend) around the worlds.

Anyhow, when Halliday died, as his last will, he created a contest in OASIS.  Anyone who could find the three keys and unlock the three gates would win his entire fortune (billions of dollars) and total control of OASIS.

The protagonist (Wade in the real world, Perzival in the OASIS world) is telling his tale because he was the first avatar to find the first key to Halliday’s Hunt (it took over five years to find the first key).  If you played D&D, this section will make you smile.

When Perzival found the key he was suddenly famous because everyone on OASIS knew it was found.  Prior to this moment, the “leader board” which previously listed only Halliday, now suddenly lit up with Perzival’s name.  (Good thing OASIS avatars are anonymous, right?) (more…)

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Colson Whitehead–Zone One (2011) [prepub]

Posted in Anarchy, Canadian Music, Colson Whitehead, Consumerism, Dave Eggers, Death, Depression, Dystopia, End of the World, Harper's, Kiss, Rush, The Future, Threats, Violence, Zombies on August 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-The Fifth Order of Angels (bootleg from the Agora Ballroom,Cleveland, 26 August 1974) (1974).

I have mentioned this concert before, but I played it again today, and was struck by a couple of things.

1) According to the liner notes, Neil Peart had been in the band about two weeks.  How did they decide that their new drummer was going to be doing a drum solo during the show?  I mean, by now, everyone knows that the solo is its own song.  But, he’s been in the band two weeks.  It’s obvious he’s a good drummer, better than their original drummer, but a drum solo?  Is that just what rock bands did back then?

2) I’m struck by how much this show sounds like early Kiss.  I never really thought that  their first album sounded like Kiss, but in this live setting, a number of the songs, or perhaps just  the way they are recorded make me think of early Kiss.  In particular, during the crazy “one, two, three, FOUR!” of “In the End,” when the guitars kick back in, it sounds like a Kiss show from circa Alive!.

3) It’s amazing how guitar-centric the band was back then.  The mix is a little rough so it’s not entirely clear how insane Geddy is on the bass (when he gets a few solo notes, the bass sounds really tinny).  But the concert is like a showcase for Alex’s solos.  True, the whole first album really demonstrates what a great soloist he is, but it’s really evident here that Alex was the star.

4) Their earlier songs are really not very good.   I mean, every Rush fan knows that the first album is almost not even a real Rush album, but it’s shocking how pedestrian these songs are compared to even what would show up on Fly By Night.  Still, circa 1974 I’ll bet this show kicked ass.

It’s available here.

UPDATE: The missing content has been added!

[READ: August 9, 2011] Zone One

After reading the excerpt from Zone One in Harper’s I decided it was time to read the book (which is due to be published in October).

I admit I haven’t read Whitehead’s other works, but I have read excerpts, and I thought I knew the kind of things he wrote.  So it came as a huge surprise when the excerpt ended the way it did. I didn’t want to spoil anything when I wrote the review of the excerpt, but since the entire book is set in the dystopian future and since it explain what has happened right on the back, I can say that Zone One is set in the aftermath of a kind of zombie apocalyptic plague.  And I can’t help but wonder if the rousing success of McCarthy’s The Road has more or less opened up the field of literature to more post apocalyptic, dare I say, zombie fiction.  [I haven’t read The Road, so there will be no comparisons here].

Actually there will be one.  Sarah read The Road and complained that you never learned just what the hell started the end of the world.  Indeed, in this book you don’t either.  There is an event called Last Night, and after that, there’s simply the current state of affairs.  I suppose you don’t really need to know, and since the story is all about dealing with the zombies, I guess it doesn’t really matter how it all started, but I think we’d all like to know.

Now what makes this story different from the typical zombie story is that for the most part there aren’t all that many zombies (or whatever these undead people are called) in the story.  There are some of course, and they are inconvenient to the main characters, but unlike a story like Zombieland, (which was awesome) or the more obvious Night of the Living Dead, the story isn’t really about fighting zombies, it’s more about the rebuilding of the country in a post-zombie world. (more…)

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Tyra Banks–Modelland (2011) [prepub excerpt]

Posted in Cocteau Twins, Contests, Dead Can Dance, Dystopia, Excerpt, Funny (strange), Humiliation, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Tyra Banks, YA Books on July 27, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BRENDAN PERRY-Live at KEXP, July 26, 2011 (2011).

Brendan Perry was the mastermind behind Dead Can Dance, one of the more influential bands on the 4AD label.  I really haven’t listened to them in ages (goth is so 1990s), but I was delighted to see that Robin Guthrie and Brendan Perry performed a live set at KEXP.

There’s an interview explaining what Perry has been up to since his last solo album (in 1999)–he has a new one from 2010 that was just released in the States.  He explains a lot about his early musical career and his interests (and living in New Zealand).  But the magic really comes when he starts singing.  And sadly his set has only two songs: “Song to the Siren” and “The Carnival is Over.”

Indeed, I had forgotten what a great, resonant voice Perry has.  It is instantly recognizable and brought me back to Dead Can Dance immediately.  “Song to the Siren” is a Tim Buckley cover, which he (and others) recorded for This Mortal Coil’s It’ll End in Tears album.  This version has Robin Guthrie on guitar. 

The other song, “The Carnival is Over” is a Dead Can Dance song (from Into the Labyrinth).  This song is piano and strings and is immediately recognizable as a Dead Can Dance song.  I admit it’s not as moving as the Tim Buckley song but that would be hard to accomplish (what is it about Guthrie’s echo pedal that is so amazing?).  Nevertheless, it’s a great reunion and wonderful to hear his voice again.

[READ:  July 19, 2011] Modelland

When I was at BEA, there was a lengthy line forming at one of the publisher’s tables.  I found out that it was for Tyra Banks, who was making a “surprise” appearance.  I certainly wasn’t going to wait for her, but after a few minutes, I heard people saying that she would be coming momentarily.  So I hung out and when she arrived with her entourage, I snapped a few pictures and left.

A few days ago, my former co-worker Sandy came to work and left me a [signed!] copy of this excerpt (she had waited for Tyra and got her autograph).  I really had no intention of reading the book, but I was delighted to have a copy of it.  In the interest of embarrassing full disclosure, Sarah and I watch ANTM.  However, in our defense, we FF just about every time someone speaks.  We basically like it for the photo shoots and the final pictures.  But we both feel that Tyra is a looney-tunes egomaniac. 

But seeing the book on our table made me have to read it. 

So how good could this book possible be, especially when the main character is named (seriously) Tookie de la Crème (and her sister is named Myrracle).  Oh and holy cow Tyra’s own introduction says that this is the first book in a trilogy!  Good grief.  

The summary of the story is:

Welcome to Modelland, where every girl dreams of the beauty and glamour of the Land on the top of the mountain. Every girl but one.

Right.

Well, surprise, surpise…the story is actually quite interesting. (more…)

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Discussing The Turing Test (Adam Gopnik, Ryan Boudinot, Alex Hutchinson) (2011).

Posted in Adam Gopnik, Alex Hutchinson, Book Reviews, Brian Christian, Dystopia, End of the World, Joshua Foer, New Yorker, PJ Harvey, Q, Radiohead, Ryan Boudinot, Stephen Baker, Technology, The Walrus on June 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. (2000).  

When this disc came out it was greeted with rounds of praise.  And it’s easy to see why.  It’s a mature album and it seems very New York City (or, perhaps, more specifically, it seems very Patti Smith–“Good Fortune” practically has Smith singing–I mean the way she says “Little Italy” could have been sampled from Smith).

And after the somewhat wispy Is This Desire and the stopgap Dance Hall at Louse Point, it was great to hear PJ back in full swing. These songs are stripped down (but not raw like her early albums) and most of them pack a punch.  And I just read this quite from PJ  in Q Magazine:

I want this album to sing and fly and be full of reverb and lush layers of melody. I want it to be my beautiful, sumptuous, lovely piece of work.

And it is.  It’s very commercially successful. And it was commercially successful without compromising herself.

“Big Exit” and “Good Fortune” are wonderful rockers, catchy without being predictable.  “A Place Called Home” continues in this vein, with a somewhat slower, moodier piece.  It also exhibits some of her higher register (in the bridge), but for the most part she sings in the deep voice she’s been known for (Uh Huh Her came next, and then she switched over to the higher pitch on White Chalk).

“One Line” even made it on the Gilmore Girls (paragons of good musical taste).

“Beautiful Feeling” is a slow brooding number.  Typically, I find that I don’t like these songs from PJ, but this one is fantastic.  It’s followed by the noisy “The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore” which is very dark lyrically.

Midway through the disc, we get a surprise Thom York from Radiohead sings the lead vocals on “This Mess We’re In” (PJ does backing vocals) and it shows that Yorke sounds great doing anything.  It’s a great song.  “You Said Something” is the first real upbeat moment on the disc, with some nice acoustic guitars.  And it’s followed by the absolutely rocker, “Kamikaze” which harkens to some of the noisier aspects from her earlier records (especially her screaming vocals).

The back half of many PJ albums seem to lose momentum, but not this one: “This is Love” is another great single, catchy with some simple but cool sounding guitars.

“Horses in My Dreams” is one of long (5 minute), slow numbers.  It is a kind of languid piece, which I admit I don’t like all that much.  (I find that PJ’s slow pieces aren’t dynamic enough).  But the album closer “We Float” (at 6 minutes, I think the longest track she’s done) is the kind of moody piece that Harvey does right.  There’s some simple drums and piano that comprise the verses, but when she gets to the chorus, the song perks up with her gorgeous singing “We Float.”

Confusingly, the whole album seems like it is more from the “City” than the “Sea” (“We Float” being the exception), but that’s okay.  It’s a wonderful album and the start of another great decade for PJ.

[READ: late March 2011] discussing The Turing Test

Occasionally things converge in my reading life. And sometimes things converge rapidly.  I had just read an article by Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker that discussed machines becoming (or surpassing) humans.  The timing of this coincides somewhat with the appearance of Watson on Jeopardy! so it’s not entirely surprising to see it.  Watson proved to be very good on Jeopardy!, but that seems mostly because it can buzz in more quickly.  The real test for a computer’s “humanity” is what has been termed “The Turing Test.”

Gopnik’s summary of the Turing Test:

If a program could consistently counterfeit human language in an ongoing exchange, then, many theorists have argued, the threshold of language would have been crossed, and there would be no need for more games to conquer. This is the famous “Turing test,” named for Alan Turing.

The next night I read a story by Ryan Boudinot (in The Littlest Hitler).  The story is not current at all, and yet he also mentions the Turing test.

The third article is another book review.  The subtitle is “What will happen when computers become smarter than people?”  Again, given everything that’s happening in the world technology-wise, it’s not a total surprise, and yet the items are all quite different and it was interesting to read them all so close together. (more…)

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George Saunders–“Escape from Spiderhead” (New Yorker, December 20 & 27, 2010)

Posted in Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Depression, Drugs, Dystopia, Fears, George Saunders, New Yorker, Prison, Radiohead, Technology on January 12, 2011| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RADIOHEAD-OK Computer (1998).

The Bends showed amazing maturation for Radiohead, but OK Computer was like going from black and white to color.  It opens with “Airbag” a blast of music, oddly off kilter and unsettling but which immediately brings you into a great riff.  About midway through, the song splits in stereo with two competing solos vying for attention.   It ends with a loud stretched out chord.  And then comes one of the most bizarre singles around.  A nearly 7 minute multi-segmented song which, the first time I heard it, I couldn’t even find a melody.  I rather wish I could go back to that naive time, because my mind was blown away by the outlandishness of the song.  Now I know all the melodies and I think it’s just brilliant.

The minor chords of “Subterranean Homesick Alien” are accented with outer space sounds and yet despite its subject (alien abduction), the song is pretty well grounded: a simple, easy rocking track.  It’s followed by “Exit Music (for a Film)”, a gorgeous building minor chord song that opens with simple acoustic guitars and slowly builds to a scorching rocker (when the drums kick in at nearly 3 minutes, it’s like a wake up call).

“Let Down” is another slow builder, although it features a much more singable verse and chorus structure (it’s incredibly catchy).  It’s followed by “Karma Police” another catchy monster of a song.  It starts with a pleasant enough piano riff and features the politely sung threat: “this is what you get when you mess with us” and the beautiful falsettoed apology: “for a minute there I lost myself.”

It segues into the odd 2 minute computer-voice-recited (and barely listed as a track) “Fitter, Happier.”  This song foreshadows future Radiohead experiments.  It seems like a blow-off track, a filler, and yet like so many of the newer Radiohead songs, it works like glue holding the big hits together.  Check out how weird, wild and intricate the music behind the voice is.

“Electioneering” is one of the noisiest, most raucous songs in the Radiohead catalog.  It opens with this steel guitar sounding riff and crashes in with loud, distorted guitars and all kinds of drums.  Thom Yorke’s vocals are really loud in the mix, so when he gets to the bridge it’s practically a wall of noise, but listen to the great ascending and descending guitar riffs behind his vocals.  They’re really intriguing.  As is the skronking noisy guitar solo.

“Climbing Up the Walls” has all kinds of insane sound effects going on in the background of one ear (as befitting the title).  It’s a drum-heavy track with eerie almost unadorned vocals (until the very end when Yorke goes berserk).  It segues into the most delicate track on the disc, “No Surprises.”  The chorus of “no alarms and no surprises, please,” has always been very affecting.  And the delicate bells that adorn the verses are a very nice touch.  The penultimate track, “Lucky” is a sort of optimistic track, despite its mellow music and, I suspect, really not very optimistic ending. But the utterly uplifting scream of “it’s going to be a glorious day, I feel my luck could change” is spine tingling.

I feel like “Lucky” is such a great ending song that I tend to forget the final track, “The Tourist”.  It’s a slow, drawn out  track…”idiot, slow down.”  It’s probably my least favorite song on the disc, but it’s kind of a good ending after all of the high points of the disc.

And with the final bell of the final song, Radiohead became untouchable.

[READ: December 29, 2010] “Escape from Spiderhead”

George Saunders must live in a dark, dark world.  His comedy is dark (but very funny) yet I feel he is often quite under-served when people refer to his as a funny storyteller.  This story, which actually has many funny elements, is incredibly dark.  And even though I laughed out loud at a few things, no one comes away from this story happy.

One of the great things about Saunders is his almost obsessive mockery of corporate/medical culture.  He has more trademarks in his story than anyone I’ve ever read (even if they are all for things he has made up).  Now to me, that’s funny in itself (especially the names he gives them), but it serves a much more telling purpose: a portent of a very dark future.

This story is set in a lab, where the main character, Jeff, is being communicated with by Mr Abnesti (a very hard name to keep straight).  Jeff is in a room with Heather, and both are being fed the experimental drug ED556, a shame inhibitor.  And so they rip off their clothes and have at it (he was obviously given some Visistif™ because they do it three times).  They are also given some Verbaluce™ which helps them elucidate their experience (from more than just grunts and moans).  This Verbaluce™ is essential to all of their experiments because without their comments, the proceedings are undocumented. (more…)

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