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Archive for the ‘Funny (ha ha)’ Category

Terry Pratchett–The Light Fantastic (1986) [Discworld #2] [Rincewind #2]

Posted in Anachronisms, Death, Discworld, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Magic, Rincewind, Terry Pratchett, The Luggage, Trolls, Twoflower, Wizards, Wizards, Ysabell on September 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: Summer 2021] The Light Fantastic

After finishing the cliffhanger ending Colour of Magic, I quickly started book two.

Unlike the previous book, this one feels like a full novel–one story about the coming end of the Discworld.

Rincewind and Twoflower (with the luggage) have just fallen of off of the Disc.  The one wonderfully convenient thing about writing about wizards and magic and such is that you can have pretty much anything happen.

We learned early in book one that Rincewind had read a spell from the Octavo–the most powerful book of magic (so powerful that it was locked up and it had been assumed that no one would ever open it)–nice job Rincewind.  The spell then became lodged in Rincewind’s mind.  It has tried on occasion to get out (bit thankfully it never has).  It has also prevented Rincewind from learning any other spells–but that’s his problem. (more…)

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Terry Pratchett–The Colour of Magic (1983) [Discworld #1] [Rincewind #1]

Posted in Death, Death, Discworld, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Short Story, Terry Pratchett on September 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: Summer 2021] The Colour of Magic

Back in the mid 1990s I was working at a bookstore in Boston (Wordsworth, R.I.P.).  They had a great imported books section (from England) and I bought the first four Discworld books in mini editions.  They were adorable and preposterous, with a font size of about 4pt. They were about four inches square.

Imagine reading a book that small.  I would be physically incapable of reading it now.

But I read all four books.

At least I thought I did.  Because when I decided to reread the Discworld series, I distinctly remembered that Rincewind was a bad wizard and that he wore a hat with the word “Wizzard” on it.  He traveled with Twoflower and Twflower had magical luggage.

But when I read this book, he never wore a hat that said “Wizzard” and literally nothing in the story was familiar to me.  So maybe I never read these books?  Granted it was over 25 years ago but still

So it was like reading them for the first time.

This first book is rally four interconnected stories.  But there’s enough repetition of basic information at the start of each story that you know that these were intended to be read separately.

Discworld itself is very well established already, though.

“The Color of Magic”

We start in the city of Ankh-Morpork which is presently on fire.  We meet Rincewind who is instantly revealed as a terrible wizard and a cowardly person (as many wizards prove to be). He has lodged in his brain one of the eight mega powerful spells from the Octavo and as a result can fit no other spells into his head.  No one know what will happen is he says the Spell, but it probably wont be good.

He is with (and sort of protecting) Twoflower, the world’s first tourist.  Twoflower is an insurance clerk from the Agatean Empire.  Hhe tries to sell “in-sewer-ants” to a tavern owner who is used to getting his inn burnt down in brawls.  And yes, Twoflower has luggage made of sapient pearwood.  It will follow its owner anywhere (on little legs that everyone finds very disturbing).  The Luggage is aggressive and always looks angry (as angry as a keyhole can look). It also tends to eat anyone who tries to break in. (more…)

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Simon Rich–New Teeth: Stories (2021)

Posted in Alexandra Sauser-Monnig, Amelia Meath, Babe Ruth, Babies, Baseball, Corporate skewering, Death, Fantasy, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Josh Gad, Megafaun, Molly Sarlé, Monsters, Morality, Mountain Man, New Yorker, Pirates, Short Story, Simon Rich, Sylvan Esso, Technology, Wye Oak, Yuck! on August 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FLOCK OF DIMES-Tiny Desk Concert #246 (August 10, 2021).

Flock of Dimes is a fun band name.  It’s the solo project of Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner (I thought Wye Oak was a solo project as well–no, it’s a duo).  [Gee, why wasn’t Andy Stack invited to this sing along?]

For this Home Concert, the solo project turns huge with nine people sitting around having a big ol’ sing along (I’ll assume they are all vaccinated and that this was filmed before Delta took off).

The setup is pretty simple: three guitars (I love that the guys on the couch are lefty (Michael Libramento, baritone guitar) and righty (Alan Good Parker, tenor guitar) so it looks appealingly symmetrical). some percussion and a lot of voices (the men on the right of the screen seems somewhat less invested).

The friends who are singing along include the three singers from Mountain Man: Amelia Randall Meath, Molly Sarlé and Alexandra Sauser-Monnig.  Meath is also in Sylvan Esso and her bandmate Nick Sanborn is also present (he’s one of the less invested men).  The set is filmed at Sylvan Esso’s new studio in Durham, N.C., called Betty’s.

“Two” is a bouncy number with lots of percussion.  I like the way the backing singers join in from time to time, but not constantly–it introduces new voices throughout.

One of the invested men is percussionist Matthew McCaughan from Bon Iver–he’s got a full complement of instruments at hand.  Joe Westerland (from Megafaun) is the other percussionist, he’s just a bit more subtle in his actions, but you can see him gently tapping through “Two.”

“Price of Blue” is a little slower but it has a wonderful melody.  The harmonies really standout on this song.

I don’t know the originals of these songs, but I have to assume the blurb is correct

These acoustic performances actually shed new light, thanks to radiant and radically different arrangements, while fully capturing the warmth we look for from Tiny Desk concerts.

Whatever the case, the backing vocals are tremendous.  You can really hear Molly Sarlé’s gorgeous harmony vocals.

“Awake For The Sunrise” feels like an old fashioned fire side sing along.  I’ve enjoyed Wye Oak’s music but I don’t know it very well.  I rather like Wassner’s delivery here–but i feel like these songs might not be as good without these harmonies!

[READ: August 12, 2021] New Teeth

I’m guessing that Simon Rich had a baby.

This collection of stories is loaded with stories about little kids.  And that’s all right because he has a very funny take on being a parent.

The other stories tackle the corporate environment and are full of fish-out-of-water stories.

“Learning the Ropes” is about being a new parent.  But it is written from the point of view of two pirates. And hilarity ensues.

What’s odd to me is that in his first books, his stories were really short, but I feel like lately his stories have gotten much longer–sometimes too long.  This one in particular kind of dragged at times, because it’s pretty much a one-note joke: what? pirates raising a little girl?!  One pirate is a concerned parent which means he wants them both to care about the child.  It’s got a few very funny moments, and of course, when the pirates who speak in pirate style (“The only man I trust is me first mate”) say things like “Arr… it be called ‘limit testing.’ She be acting out because she be craving discipline,” well, that’s classic Simon Rich right there. (more…)

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K. Eason–How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge: Arithmancy and Anarchy: The Thorne Chronicles Series, Book 2 (2020) [audiobook 2020–Nicole Poole]

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Aliens, Assassination, Audiobooks, Deafness, Duology, Fairies, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gender, K. Eason, Magic, Multiverse, Nicole Poole, Outer Space, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Science, Violence on August 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: Summer 2021] How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge

The only thing better than finishing an awesome book is discovering that there’s a sequel and the quality and integrity of the sequel is just as strong as the original story.

Everything from the first story is in place here: the characters, the narrator, the tone, and, delightfully, Nicole Poole to read it.

Obviously, there are massive spoilers in this book for the first story.  So make sure you read that one first.

But to sum up, Rory successfully avoid an arranged marriage (while not upsetting her arranged husband).  She is able to shut down a coup on Urse and ultimately kick-starts a revolution.  Not bad for an under age Princess.

But she is done with being a Princess.  She rescinds her life and goes off to become a space pirate.  She has taken her former royal bodyguards, Thorsdottir and Zhang (so yes, there’s even more time given to these two great characters!) with her.  They pledge to protect Rory so they guess they just go with her?  And Jaed has come along with them too, mostly because he has nowhere else to go (literally) and he crushes on Rory, too.

So Rory’s team aren’t so much space pirates as do-gooders.  They are more like salvagers who might intercept smugglers (this is the equivalent of her telling her mom she’s going to follow Phish and make jewelry).

And for all concerned, Grytt is still in the story although as it starts, she is on Lanscott farming sheep (!) with Rory’s former betrothed Ivar (!!) former crow prince of the Free Worlds of Tadesh {No they are not “together” Grytt is mostly just minding the poor boy while she is “relaxing”).  Grytt by the way needed more implants after the last book and is probably 3/5 mecha to human.  Which she seems to prefer, honestly. (more…)

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K. Eason–How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse: Arithmancy and Anarchy: The Thorne Chronicles Series, Book 1 (2019) [audiobook 2019–Nicole Poole]

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Aliens, Assassination, Audiobooks, Deafness, Fairies, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gender, K. Eason, Magic, Multiverse, Nicole Poole, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Science, Violence on August 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: Summer 2021] How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

This book title appealed to me immediately.  And I loved it.  The story is convoluted in the best way and Nicole Poole is an excellent reader.

The one bad thing about an audio book as opposed to reading the book yourself is that you don’t get to see how certain words are spelled (although it saves all the trouble of trying to figure out how to pronounce them).

The book is set in a futuristic world where space travel is common and war is far more common.

Rory was born into the Thorne family as something of a surprise.  There hadn’t been a female offspring in the Thorne family for ten generations.  The name Rory was reserved for first born males.  But it was determined that the name was gender-neutral enough that the girl could also have the name, no matter how unsettled it made people.

Then Eason sets about establishing this world–with great detail and thoroughness.  Some of which I’ll try to capture. The story is set on the Thorne Consortium, the planet where Rory’s father is King.

Rory’s mother is the Consort.  She was from Kreshti, “a small independent and allied planet on which skill with combat training was considered both a plain necessity.”

Incidentally, the narrator is telling the story as a history lesson and she is far from neutral.

They are both served by the Vizier, a man gifted in arithmancy and scholarship.  “Finding quaint, forgotten, and neglected customs was his second favorite pastime in the multiverse. Explaining to others the relevance of those ancient customs was the first.”

The Vizier discovered that it was customary to invite the faeries to bestow blessings on each new born girl.  The King is annoyed by this–it never happened for any of the boys (and they had invented void-flight with no magic needed). (more…)

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Colleen AF Venable, Stephanie Yue–Katie and the Catsitter (2021)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Colleen AF Venable, Cute, Funny (ha ha), Stephanie Yue, Summer, Summer Camp, Superheroes, Unfinished series on August 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: July 2021] Katie and the Catsitter

I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by Colleen AF Venable.  This is her first middle grade graphic novel.  And it is fantastic.

So much fun and so much going on!

The artwork is by Stephanie Yue who also drew her Guinea P.I. books and it is a perfect match.

In this story Katie is a little bummed because her friends are going off to summer camp and she can’t afford to go.  She puts up a sign in her apartment offering her services, but she finds that she’s really not very good at anything (she can’t lift heavy groceries, she kills plants).  Finally, she asks if she can work for the bodega owner downstairs.  He loves Katie, but she is too young.  He offers her a consolation lunch of “baby kale, blue cheese, craisins… those are basically candy.”  But all she wants is a PBnJ.

It’s all pretty normal.

Except that in this world there are superheroes and super villains.  The most famous superhero right now is The Eastern Screech, a guy whop dresses like an owl. (more…)

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Amy Meyerson–The Imperfects (2020)

Posted in Amy Meyerson, Austria, Death, Diamonds, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), History, Parenting, Philadelphia, PA on August 1, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: July 2021] The Imperfects

I saw this book at work–I didn’t think I’d be seeing as many interesting books at work with my new position, but here was one that I wanted to read!

The title was interesting and the concept was eye catching right from the start.

The story seems fairly simple.  There is a grandmother–Helen Auerbach–and three grandchildren.  The grandchildren are estranged from their mother, who is peripherally in contact, and their father, who thy have not seen in decades.  They are also kind of estranged from each other because of some bad choices each of them has made.  Incidentally all of the children are Millers, not Auerbachs from their estranged father.

The book opens in Vienna 1918 with a historical moment that weighs heavily on the rest of the story.  I didn’t really like the writing style of that section–it was not what i was expecting and I hoped the rest of the story wouldn’t be written in that way (and it wasn’t, thankfully).  But I enjoyed the way that moment ultimately tied into the story. (more…)

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Patrick Freyne–Ok, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea (2020)

Posted in Babies, Essays, Funny (ha ha), George Saunders, Hospitals, Humiliation, Irish Writer, Military, National Prayer Breakfast, Parachutes, Parenting, The Irish Times on July 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

[READ: Summer 2021] Ok, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea

I saw this book at work and loved the title.  I actually assumed it was a novel.  I’d never heard of Patrick Freyne and had no idea who he was.  In fact, by the time I’d read the first few essays I still had no idea who he was.  And that didn’t really matter all that much.

I suppose if you know him as a features journalist for The Irish Times, you would have some preconceived notions of what to expect.  But I tend to like “memoirs” by unknown-to-me people better than those by celebrities.  This is even addressed in the Preface.  His best friend says

“If I was going to read a book about someone’s life, it would be someone like Julius Caesar or Napoleon or some famous general”
…
“You know  there’s a whole genre of work that’s basically memoir writing,” I say.  “People who aren’t particularly famous witting about their lives.”
“Really?  Are you sure?”

That made me a little nervous abut going in but I figured if he put that in, it would probably all be pretty funny. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Road Trips” (New Yorker, November 27, 2006)

Posted in David Sedaris, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Hitchhiking, Iris, Lars Vaular, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Norway, Sex, Verftet Online Music Festival on July 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: IRIS-Verftet Online Music Festival 2020 (April 1, 2020).

In April 2020, Norway’s Verftet Music Festival streamed an online concert:

Get ready for Verftet Online Music Festival, Bergen’s largest virtual concert festival, where we can enjoy great music together. We want to turn despair and frustration into innovation and positivity, and invite everyone to a digital festival experience out of the ordinary – right home in your own living room.

I was completely unfamiliar with Iris, but she was the only other singer whose set was still streaming.  Because Aurora is a Norwegian singer in the same range, I feel like Iris’ voice sounds similar to hers.  But that’s a lazy comparison.

I suspect that she is a bit more poppy than this set lets on.  Like the Silja Sol set, it feels like a more “unplugged” kind of show.

It opens with “crawl for me” with she her singing to a guitar.  It’s quiet and powerful.  The rest of the band comes out for “mercy” which is “how i would like to to not show me any.”  There are washes of guitar s and keys, including a very cool, almost sinister keyboard sound in the end.

A cellist arrives for “kroppsspråk” which is a cover of a Lars Vaular song.  It’s kind of rapped–but in Iris’s more singing way.  It seems like the original is very dancey and she has dialed it back.

After a gentle piano solo version of “giving in” (her voice is lovely in the spare setting), she played “from inside a car,” my favorite song of the set which  has a breathy quality that I really like.

Then she throws in a Beatles cover.  “Here, There and Everywhere” is a beautiful gentle cover with just her voice and an acoustic guitar.

“hidden springs” stays with the acoustic sound, but she moved to a more techie processed vocal for “your mind, the universe.”  She has a few technical glitches for this song but when they are resolved her voice sounds very cool as it starts and then turns into a much bigger song.

As they prepare the next song she jokes that you shouldn’t eat crackers in bed, which proves to be the opening line of “hanging around you/crackers,” a sweet sounding breakup song.

Before the final song she mentions that all of her band is wearing band T-shirts: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Kiss and um, Reservoir Dogs(?).  It’s an amusing look for such a gentle show.

Before starting “romance is dead” she encourages everyone to visit my You Tube channel for recipes.  This set ending song is soft and lovely, just piano and strings and her beautiful voice.

[READ: July 15, 2021] “Road Trips”

When David was a kid, his father rallied the families on their street in Raleigh to plant maple trees.  For years they were tiny, pathetic things.  Now, decades later they are tall and majestic creating a canopy down the street where his father still lives.

He was home visiting his father who brought him to a block party.  At the party a teenager saw David’s father and groaned “Lou Sedaris, who invited her?”

“My son is gay,” the boy’s mother announced as if none of us had figured this out yet.  David was blown away that someone could casually announce this on the street where he grew up.  As a young homosexual David played all the games that the other closeted kids did.  Dated girls and claimed that sex before marriage was what dogs did–a true union of soles could take eight to ten years!

He kept his secret until he was twenty.  But he would have kept it longer had a couple not picked him up when he was hitchhiking.  It was 1 AM and he was picked up by a Cadillac with people his parents’ age in it. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Old Faithful: Testing the limits of love” (New Yorker, November 29, 2004)

Posted in Bleachers, Coronavirus, David Sedaris, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Quarantine, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Yuck! on July 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLEACHERS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #235 (July 12, 2021).

People love Jack Antonoff and Bleachers.  I feel like I’m supposed to be blown away by him, but I’m not.  In fact I thought that I had seen him live, but it was actually Porches (not the same thing but sort of similar).

Both as producer extraordinaire and artist in his own right, Jack Antonoff has had an outsized impact on the past decade in pop. And yet, even with such maximalist aims, Antonoff clearly understands the effectiveness of scale: that the most enduring tracks are often intimate portraits.

Surrounded by greenery, the footage is interspersed with close-up angles filtered through an old-school finish (scan the wide shot and you’ll spy a video camera perched on the piano, plus one very tiny desk, too).

They play three songs.

The set opens with “91,” the album’s ambitious opening cut.

The songs opens with the two saxophone players standing really close to each other (where’s the social distancing guys?).  This song is a kind of story song with a lot of words.  The whole presentation reminds me a lot of Tom Waits (no bad thing) or Bruce Springsteen (which I guess makes more sense since Bruce sang on a song of his).

It’s followed by a bombastic revision of “Stop Making This Hurt,” which gets a slick saxophone rewrite courtesy of Zem Audu and Evan Smith.

“Stop Making This Hurt” opens in an interesting way with staccato sax from (l-r) Zem Audu and Evan Smith while Antonoff stabs some piano notes.  I suppose I would like this more if it didn’t sound exactly as it does.  Piano and sax are really just not my thing and that’s pretty much all these songs have.  Mikey Freedom Hart adds keys, but it’s mostly bass notes adding depth to the song.

Springsteen sings on the studio version of “Chinatown.”  Interestingly I felt like this version sounded more like Meatloaf than anything else.  Musically I enjoyed this song and Antonoff seems like a nice guy, but I’ll not be seeing Bleachers anytime soon.

[READ: July 15, 2021] “Old Faithful”

This essays opens with David finding a lump on his tailbone–never a happy discovery.  It was a cyst or a boil–“one of those words you associate with trolls.”

Just sitting hurt him–and forget about laying down.  He threatened that boil–“I’m going to go to a doctor if you don’t go away.”  It didn’t listen.

He says he didn’t go to the doctor because it would have been very expensive in London (really?  Don’t they have NHS?).  But mostly he was afraid of hearing that he had “lower-back cancer” and they’d have to “remove his entire bottom.”

He suffered with the pain believing he was setting a good example for Hugh who tends to moan and complain–a splinter gets into his hand and he claims to know how Jesus Christ felt. (more…)

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