SOUNDTRACK: BECK-“Gimme” (2013).
This was the final of the three singles that Beck released in 2013.
It is by far the weirdest of the three, and seems the most experimental.
The song is only 2 and a half minutes long. It starts with vibraphone-like sounds. The vocals are layered and processed with random voices shouting “Gimme” throughout the track. I have no idea what the lyrics are.
It is noisy and cluttered, although there is a melody under all of that. And then it ends just as suddenly as it began. This song may some end of the year lists, but it’s certainly not easy listening.
[READ: April 1, 2014] “Subject to Search”
Sarah recently brought home a copy of Lorrie Moore’s Bark, and I’ve put it on my to-read list (somewhere near the top). So browsing through this back issue of Harper’s I saw this story and figured it was probably in Bark (it is), but I decided to read it anyhow.
The story begins with an amusing exchange. A man sits down and says “I have to leave.” He and the woman are in a restaurant and she wonders if he has time to eat. He tells her to order lamb couscous and she worries about her pronunciation. It turns out they are in France and her French is passable at best. She worries that there is a distinction between lamb to eat and lamb as a pet (like between pork and pig) in French and that she may end up with something totally unacceptable.
When the man returns he explains to her that he has to fly back to the States, and to us that he is in “the intelligence game.”
As the story unfold we learn more about him from the way she has perceived him (she assumed he was a drug runner from his story about driving cars in Holland). He escaped from Iran just before the hostage situation broke out in the 70s. And he paid for everything in cash. But we also learn that she has known him for years. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 