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Archive for the ‘Funny (strange)’ Category

Rivka Galchen–“Who Will Fight with Me?” (New Yorker, October 3, 2022)

Posted in Babies, Calvin Trillin, Death, Essays, Funny (strange), New Yorker, Parenting, Rivka Galchen on January 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: January 4, 2024] “Who Will Fight with Me?”

Rivka Galchen was one of the writers whose essays and stories in the New Yorker I made sure that I read.  This essay is a non-fiction piece about her father.

I enjoyed the very first line:

Recovering from a happy childhood can take a long time.

It made me think about how we seem to glamorize hard upbringing–college essays are based on overcoming hardship.  People love to complain about their parents and how tough they had it as kids.  But isn’t it wonderful to have had a happy childhood?  Isn’t that what parents strive to give their children?

I had a happy childhood and I am nothing but grateful for it. (more…)

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Hilma Wolitzer–“Overtime” [The 2023 Short Story Advent Calendar #12] (1974)

Posted in Canadian Content, Christmas, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Hilma Wolitzer, Hingston & Olsen, Marriage Trouble, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:

[READ: December 12, 2023] “Overtime”

This year my wife ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my sixth time reading the Calendar–it’s a holiday tradition!  Here’s what H&O says about the calendar this year.

The 2023 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individual short stories from some of the best writers in North America and beyond.  Now in its ninth year, the SSAC is back to once again bring readers a deluxe, peppermint-fresh collection of 25 short stories from some of the best writers in North America and beyond.

The author of this story was Hilma Wolitzer.  Each day has an online component with the author with a brief interview.

It’s December 12. Hilma Wolitzer, author of Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, suffers neither fool nor broken hanger.

Here’s a fun bit from the Q&A

When did you write it, and how did the writing process compare to your other work?

HW: I wrote it 50 years ago! My only other work way back then was housework, and as with writing I was always trying to make order out of chaos. Revising a story is something like cleaning out a closet: excessive words and broken hangers all have to go.

This was one of those delightfully weird stories that has a weird premise and follows it through to a very satisfying ending.

It opens

Howard’s first wife wouldn’t let him go….  I wondered why he was attracted to her in the first place.  It could only have been her pathos.  Reenie is little and thin.

Howard and Reenie had only been married for seven months, and yet Reenie constantly called them for help and advice.  And financial support.  (more…)

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Sam Ernst–The New Manifesto or The Slow Eroding of Time (2021)

Posted in Arthur B. Johnson, Books about writers, Choose Your Own Adventure, Dreams, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Sam Ernst, Skiing, Unreliable narrator on July 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: June 1, 2022] The New Manifesto

So I received this book at work and it was my job to catalog it (it has yet to be cataloged by anyone else).  But there was a problem.

The cover of the book says The New Manifesto a novel by Sam Ernst.  But you never trust the cover for the actual title of a book, you trust the title page.  And the title page says The New Manifesto or The Slow Eroding of Time Arthur B. Johnson edited by Sam Ernst.

Now the cover also has an about the author of Sam Ernst (with an author photo of the back of his head).  And the list of books by Arthur B. Johnson don’t seem to exist.  So, clearly, the author is Sam Ernest and Arthur B. Johnson is fictional,  But from a cataloging standpoint, Johnson needs to be acknowledged in some way.  Which is a pain.

Anyway, I decided to see if this book was worth all of the trouble.

I’m not quite sure.

It opens with a Foreword by Dr James L. Vanderworthy of Bradford College (also fictional).  He says that The New Manifesto is the novel that resonates with him more than any other.  The editors preface is from Ernst, he says he had a copy editing position at Smith Ralston Excelsior which led him to meet and befriend Arthur B. (“Artie”) Johnson.  It was this that inspired him to edit Artie’s words in the way we see here.  The Publisher says they didn’t really know what to do with the book, but they thank Ernst for his tireless work on it.

The book is presented in nine parts.  Many are short, but some (like part 2 An Assemblage) are nearly 100 pages.

Part 1 the Prelude is a series of 25 numbered paragraphs

1. He sat down to write
4. He was writing a book.  A book he never finished.  This is a story of failure.
18. Given the book’s title, he was finding it surprising how little manifesting was being done.

Part 2 is written in several much longer sections.  Each one is a hilarious account of the narrator’s life as he does remarkable things and then moves on.

He averts a war between two countries. He speaks neither language but found a letter from one kingdom to the other.  Had the message not gotten through, war was inevitable.  But he rowed for days across the sea to bring the message to the beacon he saw.  He walks to a war torn country and is taken for a doctor (he is not).  Because of a book he had just read, he is able to diagnose a seemingly dying patient, and as he leaves the area he inadvertently participates and wins the 1984 Sarajevo Ski Jump Competition.

After a few more adventures, including one aboard a ship, he gets a job at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he uncovers a brilliant scientific schema because of the box elder bugs that swarm his office window. (more…)

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Lucy Ellmann–Doctors & Nurses (2006)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Lucy Ellmann, Murder, Sex, Yuck! on March 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: January 20, 2023] Doctors & Nurses 

When I requested Sweet Desserts, I also requested Doctors & Nurses. I didn’t know the order of her books, I just picked the two that were the first ones on the list.

Doctors & Nurses is similar to Sweet Desserts in that it is short (although it is actually 50 pages longer) and has short chapters.  But otherwise it is very different.  Desserts was a fairly serious book about two sisters (and a lot of sex).  This book is a farcial romp (with a lot of sex).

Comments online said the cover looked like a chick lit book, but it looks to me more like a cartoon from Playboy from the 1970s.

And it kind of reads like that too.

While Sweet Desserts bounced back and forth between past and present and the focus shifted between the main character and her sister, this story focuses pretty squarely on Jen, a fat nurse who is misanthropic and really seems to hate everyone.

There is one notable and peculiar thing about this book that is never addressed nor explained.  Every pages has SEVERAL words that are written in all capital LETTERS for, and I’m not trying to be obtuse about this, no reason that I can READILY determine.  I admit that I didn’t put a lot of TIME into trying to figure it out, BUT it is very peculiar.

The book opens with a scene of a rock and a gorge and the rock perpetually invading the gorge’s precious space.  It’s remarkably graphic sexually, as far as a rock and a gorge can have sex that is.

But that has nothing to do with the rest of the story (until the every end) which is about a nurse named Jen.  Jen is angry most of the time (the list of thing she hates is extensive).  And the tone is set pretty early. (more…)

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Collectibles–edited by Lawrence Block (2021)

Posted in Alex Segura, Books about writers, Bookstores, Cars, David Rachels, Dennis Lehane, Dip-in Books, Elaine Kagan, Fleetwood Mac, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Janice Eidus, Joe R. Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Judas Priest, Kasey Lansdale, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lawrence Block, Lee Goldberg, Murder, Otto Penzler, Revenge, Rob Hart, S.A. Cosby, S.J. Rozan, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Violence, Yuck! on November 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

 

SOUNDTRACK: FLEETWOOD MAC-“The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” (1969).

I know this song from Judas Priest, who made a killer cover that they played for years.  Rob Halford’s voice on the song (in their live version from 1976) is incredible.

I didn’t even know there was an “original” until a decade or so ago.  It seemed out of character that Judas Priest would cover a trippy Fleetwood Mac song (of course they also covered Joan Baez, so…).  But wow, this song is a trip.

I mean, the lyrics alone are the stuff of legend at this point.  There’s dozens of places where you can read about the song.  Here’s a few paragraphs from Uncle Stylus.

Peter Green said it’s a song about the corrupting influence of money, which he equated with the devil. In 1969, the huge success of Fleetwood Mac had brought them a considerable income and Green had agreed with the band that they would would give it all to charity. One can imagine that “morning after” moment when he demanded they made good on their idealistic rush of blood. A massive quarrel ensued, and Green never forgave the other bandmembers for reneging on the idea and claimed that this was what inspired the song.

Manalishi is a word that Peter Green made up for the song. The sound of it rolling around the tongue is exotic and menacing, suffused with the mystery of demons and gremlins from a medieval Italian dark night.

Listening now it’s clear that he was really, whether consciously or unconsciously, telling us about his depressive schizophrenia and even the dark persona unleashed within him when he took certain drugs, the “green” of the manalishi being Green himself. It reads like the beginning of a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Judas Priest cover doesn’t really follow the original all that much (the ending wailing is so much cooler the way Halford does it).  But the riff here is pretty spectacular (understandable why they’d want to cover it).  Also, it was a big hit in England when it came out, so it’s not like the band was crate-digging for rarities.  I had just never heard of it.

There is something some sinister about the slow menace of the Fleetwood Mac version.  It’s incredible to think that this is the same band who put out Rumours (although really it isn’t, but whatever).

Check out the live from Boston version for some real heaviness.  And marvel that this weird song was a hit.

[READ: November 2022] Collectibles

Evidently Lawrence Block has created several of these anthologies all loosely based around a theme.  This is the first one I’ve read, although I see another one called Playing Games is on the horizon.

This collection is about collectibles.  Most but not all of the stories are crime or mystery based.  A couple have a touch of the supernatural as well.  The term “collectible” is pretty broadly defined from one story to the next, but it’s a decent prompt to let you know what you’re getting.

Lawrence Block – The Elephant in the Living Room (An Introduction)
This is an essay about the book which includes an amusing story about Lawrence’s Uncle Jerry who ha a collection of giraffes.  There were presently none in the collection because he hadn’t found one up to his standards. (more…)

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Dubravka Ugrešić–In the Jaws of Life (1981-1989) [translation 1992]

Posted in André Gide, Anti-war, Celia Hawkesworth, Daniil Kharms, Dubravka Ugrešić, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Huh?, Humiliation, Jealousy, Leo Tolstoy, Meta, Michael Henry Heim, Sex, Sexism, Surreal, Translation, Yugoslavia on March 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: March 16, 2022] In the Jaws of Life

The version pictured here is not the one I read–there’s no pictures of it online!  My copy was translated by Celia Hawkesworth and Michael Henry Heim.

This book is a collection of short stories from throughout Ugrešić’s career.

The book has three (or 8) stories in it.  I discovered Ugrešić through The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar (story #2).  “Lend Me Your Character” was weird and cool and was probably my favorite story in the collection (it’s here as well).

When I read a little about Ugrešić, I found that she was born in Croatia, but left the region when the war in Yugolslavia broke out, saying she was post-national and refusing to acknowledge her Croatian heritage.  She currently resides in Amsterdam.

Her stories are wonderful mash ups of fairy tales, feminist theory, “traditional women’s writing” and a lot of sexuality.

“Steffie Speck in the Jaws of Life (a patchwork novel)” (1981) [trans C.H.]
This story has so much going on that it’s easy to overlook that it’s a fairly straightforward story, just with a lot of filigree tacked on.  The story opens with a “Key to the Various Symbols” and includes things like — dotted lines with scissors (cut the text along the line as desired); slashes (pleats: make large thematic stitches on either side of the author’s seam); four equals signs (make a metatextual knot and draw in as desired).  And so on.  And the contents is actually listed as “The Paper Pattern” which lays out each section according to a sewing pattern.  Each section heading is given a parenthetical comment (tacking, padding, hemming, interfacing).

When you start the story you see that the symbols are indeed throughout the story, although honestly after a few pages I gave up trying to figure out what they might mean.

The story starts with the narrator saying that her friends told her to write “a women’s story.”  The author looks at several lonely hearts letters in the paper and picks the fifth one as the basis.  Steffie, aged 25, is a typist by profession.  She’s lonely and sad and lives with her aunt. (more…)

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K.J. Parker–The Big Score [Saloninus #3] (2021)

Posted in Fantasy, Fraud, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, K.J. Parker, Thieves, Tom Holt, Unreliable narrator on January 24, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: January 26, 2021] The Big Score

This book came in at work and the blurbs raved all over it.  Since it was barely 100 pages I figured I’d give it a read.  I didn’t realize that this was number three in a series about Saloninus.  I’m not sure if it matters.

I had forgotten that I had read one of Parker’s books already Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (The Siege #1) which I enjoyed rather a lot.

The story starts with the death of Saloninus.  And the subsequent realization that he fakes his death.

The story continues with Saloninus talking about himself and we quickly learn that Saloninus is the most naturally gifted, smartest, wittiest, and just generally wonderful person in the world.  Well, not wonderful, surely, as he is also a petty thief and general troublemaker who has been kicked out of more cities than we’ve ever heard of.

He gave a speech at his own funeral in which his sang his own praises as the author of such classics as Analects, Ideal Republic, and Beyond Good and Evil.  And as the creator of the telescope, synthetic blue dye, indoor sanitation and a potentially viable flying machine. (more…)

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Mavis Gallant–“From the Fifteenth District” (Canada) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #17] (1979)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Canada, Canadian Content, Christmas, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Hingston & Olsen, Mavis Gallant, Paris, France, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 17, 2021] “From the Fifteenth District”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

I thought  had read more by Mavis Gallant, but apparently I hadn’t.  This is a light and amusing ghost story, set in the fifteenth district of Paris.

But Gallant has an amusing twist on the concept right from the start.

A deceased soldier says that he is haunted by the entire congregation of St. Michael and All Angels on Bartholomew Street.  Since he received his posthumous purple heart, people await for him to come and receive communion, and the crowd gets larger every year. (more…)

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Chris Womersley–“A Lovely and Terrible Thing” (Australia) [The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar #3] (2011)

Posted in Alberto Manguel, Australia, Canadian Content, Chris Womersley, Christmas, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Hingston & Olsen, Short Story, Supernatural, Surreal, The Short Story Advent Calendar on December 3, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK:  hiatus

[READ: December 3, 2021] “A Lovely and Terrible Thing”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my seventh time reading the Calendar.  The 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check this link where editor Alberto Manguel is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

You know this story is going to be unusual because the main character works for Ripley’s Believe It or Not (I didn’t know they had that in Australia).

He is off to investigate a claim when his car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.  After a few hours of fruitless struggle, a local man approaches.  They decide that the place the driver is going is too far to walk so the local (named Angola) offers to let him spend the night at his place. (more…)

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Paul Tobin, Arjuna Susini, Vittorio Astone, Saida Temofont–Heist or How to Steal a Planet (2021)

Posted in Aliens, Angelica Villa, Arjuna Susini, Billie Birds, Coronavirus, Corporate skewering, Death, Dogs, Fat Joe, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Guns, Huh?, Humiliation, Paul Tobin, Prison, Quarantine, Saida Temofont, The Future, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Vittorio Astone, Yuck! on June 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FAT JOE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #217 (June 1, 2021).

This Tiny Desk (Home) Concert opens with big chords from Eric Whatley’s bass and Simon Martinez’ guitar.  Then some record scratching from DJ Ted Smooth and crashing cymbals from Rashid Williams.

Fat Joe walks into a shop and is handed a mic as the Eugene “Man-Man” Roberts plays a menacing melody on the keys.  I like Fat Joe’s vocal style but “My Lifestyle” is just another story of bitches n’ hos.

A founding member of the D.I.T.C. (Diggin’ In the Crates) crew, Fat Joe Da Gangsta has managed to last nearly 30 years and multiple generations in the rap game without ever giving up his lease on the top of the charts.

He introduces DJ Ted Smooth and his protégé Angelica Vila and then the Terror Squad band.

That crew turns the rugged “My Lifestyle” into a visceral experience with layers of nuance added by Joe’s longtime DJ Ted Smooth.

“What’s Luv?” is a slow ballad.  Angelica Villa sings and her refrain of “whats luv” sounds remarkably like a sample–her voice is really amazing.

 On the 2002 smash “What’s Luv,” Angelica Vila takes the spotlight singing a hook originally performed by Ashanti.

It’s weird to see her dancing and grinding like it’s a music video, which I guess it is, but still.  There’s some salsa infusions in the song.

“Lean Back” has a bad ass riff and a repeated chant of “lean back.”  It’s really catchy.

Latino hip-hop legend Fat Joe muscled his way out of the streets of the South Bronx with his debut album, Represent, in 1993. He radiates a different energy in 2021, sauntering in his own uptown streetwear shop, fresh fitted in pink leather and a designer bucket hat, but he’s still got that old larger-than-life electricity.

And yet he still seems unreasonably angry–staring down the camera and shouting, “Tiny Desk don’t play with us like that, man.”  [What could that possibly mean in this context?]

Up next is “Sunshine (The Light)”

an effervescent new springtime jam that was spawned by 22-year-old internet sensation Amorphous, who mashed up Luther Vandross’s debut single “Never Too Much” with Rihanna’s “Kiss It Better.” Joe, who has always had a solid ear for new talent and a prowess for pinning down a buoyant hit record, came in and gullied this sparkling jam, renewing a glow that’s been dim for this last year.

It’s a pretty song and Angelica’s voice sounds really great.  I look forward to hearing more from her.

He shouts out to Luther and then goes on a little rant about being old and having everything ripped away and the coming back at 40.  I don’t know he seems pretty successful to me.

“All The Way Up” ends the set sounding similar to “Lean Back” but with a jazzy sample.  Throughout the song as he raps lines there’s a response.  I thought they were samples, but it turns out that the DJ is his hype man too.

I tend to like rappers in this Tiny Desk Home Concert better than on record, but I really liked Fat Joe’s style.  I’ll have to keep it limited to this though, I think.

[READ: May 20, 2021] Heist

I enjoyed this book so much I wanted to see what else Paul Tobin had written.  Lo and behold, he is responsible for a favorite graphic novel Claudette.  This story is a lot different and a lot darker, but it still has his sense of humor.

The book opens with a man fleeing from people trying to kill him. Glane Breld escapes and says he needs a drink…and a  crew.  He’s been out of prison for nine hours and he is ready for his next heist.

The people he wants are Celine Disse, master gunsmith, Gaville, master of disguise (she is crazy-she enjoys blowing things up and collecting famous peoples underwear).

Saving the best for last Eddy Lets.  Why is he the best?  Because the closest this planet ever had to a leader was Eddy’s mom Lera.  Her assassination was Glane’s fault.

When Glane heads to his rendezvous he is met by a local street urchin named Brady.  Brady latches on to Glane and Glane cant shake him.  But the kid proves useful.  Not only does he get Glane away from some assassins but he also gets Glane a splint for his brain–so his mind can’t be read.

Then Brady, believing he has a tourist with a lot of money, tells the history of planet Heist.  Right up to the story about Glane himself (Brady does not realize the man is Glane).

Dignity Corporation owns all of the planets in the area but this one (Heist).  Glane was hired by the Dignity Corporation to find incriminating evidence on Lera.   This faked evidence was used by Dignity to bring down Lera which eventually led to her assassination.  Soon after, Heist was taken over by Dignity Corp. (more…)

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