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Archive for the ‘Essays’ Category

The Best American Non Required Reading 2002

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Adventure, All Songs Considered, Basketball, Camden Joy, Dave Eggers, David Schickler, David Sedaris, Death, Dinosaur Jr., Drinking, Drugs, Elizabeth McKenzie, Eric Schlosser, Essays, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Gary Smith, Graphic Novel, Heidi Jon Schmidt, History, Jenny Bitner, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Keith Pille, McSweeney's, Meenakshi Ganguly, Michael Finkel, Michael Kamber, Military, Newspapers, Pranks, Racism, Religion, Rodney Rothman, Sam Lipsyte, Sara Corbett, Scientists, Seaton Smith, Sebadoh, Seth Mnookin, Short Story, Sports Illustrated, The Onion, Travel, Violence, War, Work, Zoe Trope on September 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DINOSAUR JR.-Live at the 9:30 Club, Washington D.C. October 8, 2009 (2009).

This was one of the first shows I downloaded from NPR.  I’ve been a fan of Dinosaur Jr. since my friend Al turned me on to Green Mind back in college.

This is an amazing show created by the original Dino Jr. members.  This tour is in support of their second album since reuniting, Farm. This set-list is an outstanding mix of old songs, new songs, Barlow-sung songs and even some songs from when Barlow and Murph weren’t in the band.  (Green Mind is still my favorite album by them).

When the band reunited there was much joy, and I’ve said in reviews of the newer albums, I’m not entirely sure why.  I mean, Dino Jr has always been about Mascis, and it’s not like Barlow is such an unusual bassist (although Murph’s drumming is always solid).  I’ve nothing against Barlow (I love Sebadoh and Folk Implosion) or Murph, it just seems odd to get excited about having them back in the band aside from nostalgic reasons.

Having said that, the band sounds amazing (and yes, Barlow does get to sing on “Imagination Blind”).  What never really came across to me until hearing all of these great songs live was that Mascis has always been a great pop song writer.  These songs are catchy as hell. But Mascis buries them under loud squalling guitars and a voice that is almost whiny, almost off-key, a total slacker voice.  (But you’ll notice it is never actually off-key.  He must work very hard at that.)

By the nd of the show Mascis chastises the audience for not moving (we obviously can’t see what they’re doing), saying he forgets that people don’t move in Washington, D.C.  But during the encore break, NPR host, Bob Boilen, points out that Mascis himself doesn’t move either–he just stands in front of that wall of Marshall stacks (Boilen wonders how he can hear anything anymore).  And looking at the pictures it’s comical the way he looks, surrounded by amps.  The picture above doesn’t fully do it justice, but check out the extra photos at the NPR page.  And while you’re there, listen to this show. It is amazing.  For a total slacker, Mascis can rock a guitar solo like nobody’s business.

[READ: July 20, 2011] The Best American Non Required Reading

I’d been meaning to read this series for years (yup, Eggers fan), But I have a hard time starting “collections” because I feel like I’d rather be reading a novel.  Nevertheless, I have most of these Nonrequired books, so it seemed like I should dive into one and see what it was like (I don’t think the year really matters all that much–some of the articles are topical but most are not exactly).  Then Sarah said this would be a great book to read on vacation because it’s all short essays, and she was right.  It was perfect for late nights when I wanted something to read but didn’t feel like getting involved in the novel I was reading.

DAVE EGGERS-Introduction
Eggers’ introduction is actually a partial short story about kids who go swimming in pools around town. It reminded me of the opening of Life After God by Douglas Coupland, but of course, lots of kids did that so I’m not saying it was “lifted” from DC.  The story “ends” (it doesn’t really end so much as stop) with an interesting scene between two unlikely kids who get caught.

After this story Eggers includes these three notes about the collection: It’s not scientific, It’s alphabetical, and We had a lot of help with this.  Of the three, it’s the middle one that’s most useful because Eggers says that you shouldn’t necessarily read them in order just because they are printed this way: “In the first half of this collection, you get a good deal of hard journalism, primarily about war and refugees, from Afghanistan to the Sudan, followed immediately by a number of less serious pieces, about malls and Marilyn Manson.  We didn’t group anything by theme , and won’t be offended if you skip around.”  This was good to know (not that we needed the permission of course), but yes, the beginning of the book is pretty heavy. (more…)

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Jared Diamond–“Animal Art: Variation in Bower Decorating Style among Male Bowerbirds Amblyornis inornatus” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, May 1986)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Art, Birds, Depeche Mode, Essays, Fanfarlo, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Jared Diamond, Poker, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Scholarship, Sparks on September 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FANFARLO-“Replicate” (2011).

This is the final Fall Music song I’m going to mention.  “Replicate” was Robin Hilton’s song of choice for the fall, and I can see what he liked about it–there’s a lot of unusual sounds going on (in many ways it reminds me of Sparks or maybe sort of early Depeche Mode, although no one in the discussion mentioned them).  It opens with a series of staccato string notes over a repeated lyrics (“it’s gonna, it’s gonna, it’s gonna…happen soon”).  The strings build and build, but they stop before any major climax; they are replaced by a fast, kind of spazzing keyboard melody with more repeated vocals, (“it’s gonna, it’s gonna, it’s gonna…happen soon”).  The staccato notes come back and both sounds build to another near-climax.

Until the chorus comes in with its supremely catchy but very cold “oohs”.   Even the end builds but does not quite achieve the climax one would expect, although it is still satisfying.

It’s a very clinical song, cold and detached (the instrumental break has wood blocks that sound like a woodpecker banging a tree on a winter’s day).  But the vocals are so warm, that they disarm the song of its coldness even if the chorus is “Will it replicate inside our bodies now?”   At first I really didn’t like the song, but after a couple of listens, I really heard what Robin Hilton enjoyed.  And I would like to hear more from them.

The video is pretty neat too:

[READ: September 19, 2011] “Animal Art”

This article was probably the most “academic” and “scientific” of them all five of the JSTOR articles I read.  And by that, I mean, that it was researched and tested and full of abbreviations and as a result it reads very dry.  Which is a shame (well, actually it’s not a shame, the scientific requirements are essential for there to be an academic article published)–what it needs is a cool popular version to lighten it up a bit (and it needs better pictures as well).

The article looks at the bowers of the bowerbird.  The bowerbird is a family of 20 species of bird found in New Guinea and Australia.  Bowerbirds are noted and named for the bowers that the males construct to win a mate (see photo at right).  What’s interesting is that the different species of bowerbird construct similar nests but do things quite differently (some “glue” the sticks of their nest together with either spittle or insect secretions while others weave their sticks together).  But they are all very particular about the nests they build:

When I shifted the position of a decoration, the bower owner either restored it to the original position or else discarded it in the forest.  Decorations changed from day to day as birds replaced wilting flowers and rotting fruit with fresh ones.

The articles sets out to discover whether the traits that the male bowerbird develop in their nests are inherited or are learned.  Diamond believes that they are learned because birds that are not very far apart use different techniques, but immature birds are often seen observing the adult birds to presumably learn from them.  The nests are built by the males, but, similarly, the immature females go with the adult females to inspect the nests, thereby learning what traits to most look for in a nest.

But what seems to have inspired this paper was the bowerbirds’ proclivity for choosing colors to decorate their nests: most use flowers and mosses from the surrounding area, arranging them in beautiful colors.  What Diamond did was to take colored poker chips (a series of uniform shape, size and texture) with varying colors to see if the bowerbird would choose based on color (his scientific conclusion is that it’s really impossible to tell because who knows what other variables are at play, but his more satisfying conclusion.  is that the birds decorate by color.

So, Diamond put the poker chips in front of their bower (on the moss “mat” that looks like a welcome mat).  And with one group of birds:

Within 10-30 minutes [three birds] picked up all chips regardless of color and discarded the in the forest.

While for a different group of birds, they quickly discarded any white chips (and one bird discarded the yellow chips as well).  There was a marked preference for colors in this order: Blue>purple>orange>red>lavender>yellow>white.  While these birds not only embraced the chips and used them for their decorations, other birds stole chips from their rival makes’ nests:

When I placed three chips of each color at bower W6, bird W5 stole within 3hr all blue, orange and purple chips, two red chips and no yellow, lavender or white.

(Poor W6 bird–he really has nothing).  But the study shows that the birds hate the white chips!  He even created a chart that showed that most of the birds kept 100% 0f the blue chips, and most of the purple chips while dismissing almost entirely the yellow chips; none of them kept any white ones.  (One bird in the study seemed to be quite a pig–this is the one who stole from W6–he kept far more than the other birds, including 100 % of orange an 66% of yellow–i wonder if the females thought he was a gaudy show off?)

Incidentally, this study was done in 1986, so it does not account for the more recent discovery that bowerbirds will basically use any old crap to build their nests, provided it is colorful.  Many people find this sad, but the birds don’t seem to mind.   In the article, the author says that one of the birds came up to his colleague, stood on his shoe, and tried to steal the blue docks that he was wearing.  Here’s a picture of a bowerbird with a whole bunch of blue clothespins.

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Suzanne Toczyski–“Jean-Baptiste Labat and the Buccaneer Barbecue in Seventeenth-Century Martinique” (Gastronomica, Winter 2010)

Posted in 18th Century, All Songs Considered, Big Books, Essays, Excerpt, Fishing, Food, Gastronomica, History, Jean-Baptiste Labat, Linda Sue Park, Los Campesinos!, Memoirs, Palm Worm, Pirates, Religion, Suzanne Toczyski, Travel, Yuck! on September 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK–LOS CAMPESINOS!-“By Your Hand” (2011).

I’ve enjoyed Los Campesinos!’s records in the past and I’m pretty excited about the prospect of a new release.  This song doesn’t deviate too far from their previous releases although to my ear it sounds a bit more musical (more instruments, more vocals) and less abrasive.  The basic elements are still there:great lyrics delivered in a more or less spoken way, followed on its heels by big shouty sections (and the whole band seems to be shouting along on this one).

This song also feels a little warmer, although the lyrics “by your hand is the only end I’ve foreseen” is either really dark or really naughty depending on how well it correlates to the verses.  Regardless, the chorus is catchy and fun to sing and the lyrics are wonderfully twisted.  Los Campesinos! have done it again.

And here’s the video.

[READ: September 16, 2011] “Jean-Baptiste Labat and the Buccaneer Barbecue in Seventeenth-Century Martinique”

I was interested in this article because it talked about the boucan and the buccaneer, and both of these things were mentioned in Book 9 of The 39 Clues.  It was a weird sort of coincidence that the boucan which I had never heard of before should appear in two things that I read about week apart (and then this weekend the Pa Renaissance Faire was pyrate themed!).   I was also interested because of the way this article was presented in the email to us: “if you have ever wondered on what foods a seventeenth-century missionary from the island of Martinique dined, check out this article from Gastronomica. (Hint: They include manatee, lizard, and parakeet)” made it a must-read.

While the article does, indeed make mention of these foodstuffs, it is by no means the extent of the article.  Rather, Toczyski looks at what Labat, a French priest and a missionary, wrote in his extensive chronicle about his stay in the Caribbean.  In particular, she focuses on the amazing breadth and depth of his gastronomical accounts (which includes details about all the meals they ate en route (the ship was amazingly well stocked–they even had a garden on board, which was under guard day and night (!); and then on the island he also talks in loving detail (with recipes) of all of the native dishes that he would eventually consume (including turtles, frogs and the palm worm (see picture at right (the picture and an awesome description of eating the palm worm is here at Boots in the Oven, at the bottom of the page).

(more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–Commencement Speech, Kenyon College, May 21, 2011 [“Liking is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts” (New York Times, May 28, 2011)]

Posted in Audiobooks, Birds, Environmentalism, Essays, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Scranton, PA, Set at School, Technology, The Flaming Lips, The Huffington Post, The New York Times on September 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JONATHAN FRANZEN-Commencement Speech (audio) (2011).

You can hear the entire speech from the Kenyon College site.

[READ: May 28, 2011] Commencement Speech

On May 21, Jonathan Franzen gave a commencement speech to the students of Kenyon College.  When I think about my commencement speech (from Judy Woodruff of CNN), all I can remember is that I had never heard of her (and when I typed her name just now I got it almost entirely incorrect–the only thing right was the “wood” part).  I don’t recall a single thing that she said.  [It’s also fascinating that I can’t find any record of this speech anywhere online–what a different world it was twenty years ago].  I rather expect that most people feel this way about commencement speakers.  I have to wonder, if Jonathan Franzen had spoken at my college, would I have cared?  Is there even a chance that I would have read any of his novels (had they been published of course) when I was in college?  Would I be treating this any differently than my whatever speech in 1991?

But I like Jonathan Franzen and I wanted to read what he had to say. 

His speech is about love.  Love is kind of an odd topic for a commencement speech, isn’t it?   I mean, aren’t they supposed to talk about the Future and Jobs or something?  Or maybe even sunscreen?  But really, what is more useful for a 21-year-old to think about than Love.  Franzen hits the nail right on the head about Love, how it is a dangerous, risky proposition to put yourself out there, to take off your veneer and reveal all of your flaws–and hope someone will love you.  Not new or novel, but still true.

The way that Franzen gets into this subject is through technology.  It seems weird and artificial at first, but it’s a wonderful way to get into a young audience’s state of mind.  They were probably all looking at their iPhones while he was extolling the virtues of his new Blackberry (the old person’s phone, right?).  And when he segues into Facebook (who even knows if he has an account–but he seems to be well-versed with it, so maybe he does) you can imagine students raising their head in familiarity (maybe even updating their status) and wondering (as he puts it) if this 51-year-old guy is going to dis Facebook. (more…)

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9/11 + 10 (New Yorker, September 12, 2011)

Posted in Airlines, Colum McCann, Culture Shock, Daniyal Mueenuddin, David Remnick, Death, Duran Duran, Edward Conlon, Edwidge Danticat, Elif Batuman, Essays, Explosions in the Sky, Fears, Friday Night Lights, Harry Potter, Hisham Matar, Ian Frazier, Ian Parker, J.K. Rowling, Jonathan Safran Foer, Lorrie Moore, Mogwai, New Yorker, Nick Paumgarten, Play (Drama), Threats, TSA, Zadie Smith on September 11, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY-Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (2011).

I found out about Explosions in the Sky because of the events of 9/11.  Back when everyone was looking for albums to point fingers at in some kind of hysteria (that’s also how I found out about I am the World Trade Center who are not as exciting as Explosions…).

EITS make beautiful epic instrumental music (as well as the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights).  They play music in a similar vein to Mogwai, but they take their epic instrumentals in a different direction.  And this album is perhaps their most commercial to date (as commercial as you can be when you write 10 minute instrumentals).  And while “commercial” is not usually an adjective that I give as praise, for this album it is indeed.

Take Care, Take Care Take Care is a terrific album.  It ‘s not as visceral as past releases; rather, it seems like a more experienced band playing with their sound and tweaking it in subtle ways to make it less obviously dramatic but somehow more powerful.

On “Last Known Surroundings,” there are soaring guitars that give way to simple, pretty guitar riffs.  Martial drums propel the songs forward, even if they lead to unexpected places.  It’s soundtrack music that’s not background music.

Perhaps the biggest difference with this album and previous ones is that this album doesn’t quite live up to the band’s name.  There’s no major explosive crescendos.  There are noisy bits but they’re not climactic per se.   “Human Qualities” slows to a quiet drum beat and while you’d expect to come out of that with a cacophonous explosion, it doesn’t.  The explosion does come later, but only after it has worked up to it again.

“Trembling Hands” features “voices.”  Or maybe just one voice.  It’s on a loop that becomes more of a sound than a voice.  The song is only 3 minutes long, but it’s an intense 3 minutes–more great drum work on this one.

“Be Comfortable, Creature” has a beautiful delicate guitar opening that drifts into a kind of solo.  After 3 minutes it settles into the main riff, a winding guitar line that send you on a journey.  “Postcard from 1952” is a great song. It begins as quiet intertwining guitars and slowly builds and builds into a gorgeous rocking conclusion.  7 minutes of steady growth with a nice epilogue at the end.

The final song, “Let Me Back In” also has kind of spooky voices that appears throughout the song (distorted and repeated).  But you know this song is a winner from the get go (even if the opening chord structure is a bit like Duran Duran’s “Come Undone.”)  It’s a slow builder, a cool, moody ten minute piece.  When you get to the beautiful descending guitar riff that shoots out after about 2 minutes, it’s an ecstatic moment–air guitars are mandatory.

And let’s talk packaging.  The album comes in a gate-fold type of cardboard.  If you open it up all the way it can be folded into a little house (with windows and a door and a chimney).  That’s pretty cool, guys.

If I have one compliant about the album it’s that the quiets are really quiet and he louds are really loud.  That makes this a very difficult album to listen to say, at work, or basically anywhere where other people will be blown away by your speakers.  The middle of “Human Qualities” for instance, is really quiet, you feel like you need to turn it up to hear the drum beat–there’s too much volume fiddling (listening in the car by yourself negates any reason for this complaint, of course).

Keep it up, guys.

More “controversy” from the band

[READ: September 10, 2011] New Yorker essays

Ten years ago, The New Yorker published several short essays by famous and (to me anyway) not so famous writers.  They were all written directly in the aftermath of the attacks and they were moving and powerful.  I was going to wait until today to re-read them and post about them, but for various reasons, I decided to do it on May 12.

Now, ten years later, The New Yorker has published several more essays by famous and (to me anyway) not so famous writers.  I note that none of the authors are the same (that might have been interesting) although Zadie Smith does quote from John Updike’s piece of ten years ago.

The strange thing to me about these pieces is that ten years seems to have hindered the writers’ ability to focus on the incident and to talk about What It Means.  In this collection of essays, we have a few that talk about an individual and how his life has changed since 9/11.  These are pretty powerful, although it’s odd that they would talk about another person and not themselves. We have a couple of essays that talk about the writer him or herself, but these seem kind of unfocused.  And then we have ones that talk about the state oft he world; honestly, what can you say about that.

It’s possible that I’m jaded or in a bad mood and that’s why I didn’t appreciate these essays.  Or perhaps I’m just facing the futility of things.

This is not to say that I think that writing about 9/11 is easy (you’ll notice I’m not doing it).  Indeed, I think talking about it in any kind of meaningful, non-strident, non-cliched way is nigh impossible.

But these writers do give it a try.  And I am grateful for that. (more…)

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Jhumpa Lahiri–“Trading Stories” (New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2011)

Posted in Books about writers, Death, Essays, From the Basement, Jhumpa Lahiri, Memoirs, My Morning Jacket, New Yorker on September 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  MY MORNING JACKET-“Touch Me, I’m Going to Scream (Part 2)” (From the Basement) (2009).

As I mentioned, My Morning Jacket is one of the few bands that has two videos up on the From the Basement site.  So here is Part 2 of the song from yesterday.  While Part 1 is a beautiful, smooth, folkie kind of song, Part 2 delves into a more electronic sound.  It starts with some keyboard noodlings, morphs into a loud rocker and then ends with more keyboards noodlings. 

I enjoyed watching this because Jim James is playing the keyboardy parts on a very small contraption the size of an iPad.  It’s one of those new fangled instruments that make me show my age.  I gather it’s a sampler, but even looking at the buttons I have no idea what he’s doing with it.  About midway through the song, James puts down the keyboard object and pulls on the Flying V guitar for some good loud guitars. 

Again, the harmonies are fantastic and it’s cool to see the whole band sing along.  I also enjoyed watching the other guitarist play the slide on his guitar.  

By the end of the video, it’s amusing to see them all sink lower and lower to the ground as the music fades and regresses into tiny quiet twinklings.  Until, that is, the surprising (and unannounced) addition of the 6 second “Good Intentions.”

Jim James does not wear a cape during this song, by the way.

[READ: September 1, 2011] “Trading Stories”

I have still yet to read much Lahiri, a woman whom I know I should be reading.  And now that I just learned she won a Pulitzer, it seems even more egregious that I haven’t. 

This personal history is about growing up without books.  Her father was a librarian so they borrowed a lot of books; however, but she never really owned any.  [My wife and I are not that kind of librarian–books litter our house]. 

The story reveals Jhumpa as a child writing stories with a friend in school (even during recess).  They were immensely creative and inventive and they loved it.  But she slowly began losing interest in writing.  (more…)

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Aleksander Hemon–“The Aquarium” (New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2011)

Posted in Aleksandar Hemon, Cancer as plot device, Death, Essays, Fears, From the Basement, My Morning Jacket, New Yorker on September 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET-“Touch Me, I’m Going to Scream (Part 1)” (From the Basement) (2009).

My Morning Jacket is one of the few bands that has two videos up on the From the Basement site.  The two videos are parts one and two to the song “Touch Me, I’m Going to Scream” (which is kind of funny as the two parts are really quite unrelated and they seem to have been recorded not consecutively in the show.

As I mentioned in the Fleet Foxes review, I love seeing bands singing harmonies.  And the voices in My Morning Jacket songs are often soaring and, sometimes unbelievable (how does Jim James hit those notes?).  So this “concert” is visually satisfying in this regard.  Not to mention, Jim James wears a cape throughout the song!

It’s also very satisfying musically.  The band sounds great (as have all of the bands during these sessions).  “Touch Me” is a great catchy, sing along song from Evil Urges.  And this version is quite perfect.

[READ: August 30, 2011] “The Aquarium”

This is the first of the longer articles in the New Yorker’s 2011 Summer Fiction issue.  But despite the issue’s title, this is not a work of fiction (at least I hope it isn’t because it’s a shitty thing to make up).  So, assuming it is true:

Hemon found out that his nine-month old daughter had a brain tumor.  This essay details his life while dealing with this unthinkable issue and also trying to maintain a normal life for his three-year old daughter.  He tells this story in a surprisingly roundabout way.  Meaning, we don’t learn the fate of his daughter till nearly the end of the essay.  And in this way it mimics his own experience of finding out the fate of his daughter: one hundred and eight days after the initial diagnosis.  (more…)

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Zadie Smith–3 Book Reviews (Harper’s, September 2011)

Posted in Arranged Marriage, Art, Book Reviews, Craig Thompson, Danzy Senna, Death, Essays, Fears, From the Basement, Harper's, Ian Thomson, Racism, Super Furry Animals, Violence, Zadie Smith on September 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK–SUPER FURRY ANIMALS-“Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon” (From the Basement) (2007).

[DISCLAIMER: This post was published on September 6th see that post for details].

Continuing this exploration of the From the Basement series, I found this unlikely video from Super Furry Animals.  SFA have never been big here (well, that had a fluke hit but that doesn’t count).  I have no real idea how big they’ve been back home.  So maybe it’s not a surprise that they are playing here.

SFA were a bunch of crazy psychedelic indie rockers.  Their early albums are totally nuts (like the EP Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogochynygofod (in space)).  But over the years, they have mellowed considerably. This song is the final track from Hey Venus!, an album that returned the Furries to their more rocking roots.  Despite the album’s overall rockingness, this song is the mellow ender to the album. 

This live version is very good, with Gruff Rhys sounding in fine form.  Visually, it’s more interesting than say Neil Hannon’s in that there are five of them, but they’re not exactly putting on a crazy show. What’s nice is the chance  to see just what the recording space looks like (there’s lots of wide shots) and to see just which hairy Welshmen are making which sounds. 

This is a wonderful song that could easily have been on anyone’s mellow folkie playlist.  The album version has a little bit more going on, but it’s not missed in this someowhat stripped down form. 

[READ: August 29, 2011] 3 Book Reviews

After last month’s tour de force about one title, this month returns to Zadie’s typical 3 books/month schedule.

The first book is Ian Thomson’s The Dead Yard: A Story of Modern Jamaica.  Zadie makes the amusing observation that this book, a very good and very well researched cultural study of Jamaica was written by a white Scotsman; she notes that a sense of remove from the culture was probably essential in order to create this book. 

Thomson offers historical context for the dangerous world that Jamaica occupies now (it’s not all “Jah, ganja mon” in the country.  In fact, five people are murdered every day (on this island of 3 million).  Fascinatingly, there is much racism in Jamaica—people seen as too black are often looked down upon in favor of lighter-skinned people.  Because of this, respect is very important.  Indeed, any kind of disrespect can cost you your life—just about everyone packs a gun (hence the stat above.  Of course this racism also may be why the Jewish, Indian and Chinese Jamaicans are thriving while the majority black are not.

Zadie says the only place where Thomson falls flat is in his utter dismissal of dancehall music (he likes reggae but can’t stand dancehall).  He dismisses Sean Paul and although Zadie’s not a huge fan of Sean Paul, she finds this dismissal a poor oversight possibly due more to his age (culture being a young person’s game) than anything else.  I especially enjoyed her dissection of one of Sean Paul’s videos. (more…)

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Zadie Smith–1 Book Review (Harper’s, August 2011)

Posted in Book Reviews, Death, Edward St. Aubyn, Essays, From the Basement, Harper's, The Divine Comedy, Unlikable main character, Wikipedia, Zadie Smith on September 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NEIL HANNON-“A Lady of a Certain Age” (From the Basement) (2008).

[DISCLAIMER: This post was published on September 6th, see that post for details].

This video comes from the From the Basement series.  As I mentioned, the Radiohead live show comes from this series, but initially, rather than recording a whole album, more often that not they recorded a few songs.  The bad news is that many of the videos are no longer available on the site (there’s a DVD, but I’m unclear exactly what it includes).  But for each artist, there seems to be one streaming video.

This is a mellow song from The Divine Comedy’s Victory for the Comic Muse album.  It’s probably my favorite track on the album.  It’s a literate and clever song about an older woman.  This version is simply Neil and his acoustic guitar.  I tend to think of The Divine Comedy as being a heavily orchestrated band (their music is wonderfully symphonic) so it’s surprising for me to hear a DC song in this simple acoustic format. 

And yet, Neil’s voice is stellar and it easily holds up i this intimate setting.  Visually it’s not that exciting (it’s just Neil sitting, playing and singing), but musically it is wonderful. 

[READ: August 31, 2011] One Book Review

Unlike previous columns, Zadie only reviews one book in this one.  And she sets up her reading by talking about summer books.  I recently posted about Summer Books, and this would have been a nice addendum.  Zadie talks a bit about the fun and joy of Summer books.  Her assessment is that a summer book should really engross you: 

If every few minutes you find yourself laying it flat upon your chest and wondering about lunch then it is probably not a summer novel. 

Zadie’s summer book is a continuation of a series.  The author is Edward St. Aubyn and this third book is called At Last (the culmination of the confusing “Patrick Melrose Trilogy” Some Hope, Mother’s Milk and At Last–confusing because the first book of the trilogy (Some Hope) was actually released in England as three separate books–Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope, making this the fifth book in the series).  He has also written other books, but I’m not sure of any of them deal with the same family or not.

At last (and the series in general) is a semi-autobiographical story of a good family in name only.  There is an alcoholic mother, a pedophiliac father, and a main character, Patrick, who has shot heroin and chugged whisky and yet still manages to recite poetry.

Despite the darkness (and the fact that At Last focuses on Patrick’s mother’s funeral), the story sounds like a wonderful mix of dark humor and scathing wit.  Indeed, the previous book, Mother’s Milk was short listed for the Booker Prize in 2006 (he has written two novels in between). 

Zadie quotes extensively from the book and the quotes are really good: long  sentences that are well constructed and contain a bit of humor in almost every piece.  But it’s a subtle humor, and it seems like it takes a careful reading to make sure you get it all. (more…)

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Five Dials Number 20: General Interest (25 July 2011)

Posted in Advice, Alain de Botton, Austin City Limits, Books about writers, Craig Taylor, David Foster Wallace, Doni Gewirtzman, Essays, Five Dials, Gang Starr, Jeremy Gavron, Jon McGregor, Jonathan Safran Foer, Keith Ridgway, Kirsty Gunn, Mark Dow, Memoirs, Niven Govinden, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Stereolab, Them Crooked Vultures, Word usage on September 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:THEM CROOKED VULTURES-Live on Austin City Limits, Feb 13, 2010 (2010).

This set from Them Crooked Vultures is outstanding. I really like the album, but in a live setting these three (technically 4) guys are on fire.  They extend the songs a bit but are always tight as a drum.  Josh Homme is a great front man, even if he’s not that animated.  He shares guitar duties with Alain Johannes who is not on the album, but who gets some great sounds out of his guitar.

Dave Grohl is in his drum-pounding glory back there.  Man, he hits the drums hard.  And he seems to be really enjoying himself .

 And the biggest surprise (sort of, but not really) is John Paul Jones.  He fits in perfectly with the two younguns, and he really shows them how it’s done.  His bass work is phenomenal: fast, furious and accurate to a fault.  He also plays keyboards, an LED pulsing 12-(at least) string bass and a fascinating purple electric slide guitar contraption on “Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I”.   Matt Rosoff from cnet explains this guitar here:

It looked like some sort of slide guitar with an electronic screen. I’d never seen anything like it before, so I did a little digging and found out from a March interview in Bass Player that it’s a custom-made axe created by Hugh Manson, who has been Jones’ tech for some time and who owns a renowned guitar shop in England. It’s essentially laid out like a lap slide guitar, modified so Jones can sling it over his shoulder and carry it around on stage, and with two extra bass strings at the bottom.

So what about that rectangular screen? According to a forum post on the EMG pickups site, it’s a MIDI controller that Jones can use to trigger stage lights. I imagine it could also be used to trigger various effects, similar to the modified Korg Kaoss controller that Manson built into a guitar for Muse’s Matt Bellamy.

If you’re already a fan of the band, you really need to check out this live show; they are amazing.  And if you’re not a fan, you will be after this show.  This is how I first heard  them and I was blown away.

You can watch the show online on PBS.

[READ: July 27, 2011] Five Dials Number 20

I didn’t expect to get caught up to Five Dials issues so quickly (has it really been 20 weeks already?).  This is the most recently releases issue!  They aren’t getting published as often as I expected.  Which is fine.  But the funny thing with this issue is that there were several printing errors in the initial run of this issue.  I don’t know if this has happened before, but it seemed so noticeable to me, that I had to wonder how it slipped by everyone.  The most obvious was that the front page had many ƒƒƒƒ characters (these were also evident in the Word Cloud later on).  There’s a word missing from the fiction “the thin cold stillness you got [  ] this part of the country” and there’s a crazy typo in the Fiction story later on. The errors have now been fixed.  But, the letter to the editor (and this has not been fixed) promises us a picture which isn’t there. “Here’s a photo of Doni at the reading – he did a brilliant job.”  I’ll assume they were partying too hard at the Port Eliot Festival to make sure  the issue was launch-ready

CRAIG TAYLOR-A Letter from the Editor: On Cable Street and General Interests
There were some serious race riots on Cable Street back in 1936.  Indeed,the head of the British Union of Fascists, Mosley, and his aggressive supporters were turned back by a noisy crowd (Irish women throwing fishy potatoes at them).  The rest of the magazine he says is general Interest, an anachronistic term from the 20th century before all magazines had to specialize in something.  I mentioned in my introduction that there was a photo error here.  Doni Gewirtzman performed a reading at the launch of Five Dials 19.  They couldn’t out the picture there, so they added it here.  Perhaps in Issue 21? (more…)

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