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Roberto Bolaño–“Prefiguration of Lalo Curo” (New Yorker, April 19, 2010)

Posted in bolanobolano.com, Chris Andrews, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gangsters, Infinite Zombies, New Yorker, Pornography, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Short Story, The Space Negros, Translation on April 22, 2010| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK:  THE SPACE NEGROS Do Generic Ethnic Muzak Versions of All Your Favorite Punk/Psychedelic Songs from the Sixties (1987).

I stumbled upon this CD again when I was looking for a Sparklehorse disc (alphabetical you see).  I originally discovered this album when I was a DJ in college and the absurdity of the title instantly grabbed me.

And never has a title so accurately described the music within (except for “the space negros” part which is just weird).  Anyhow, the disc is indeed a collection of generic ethnic muzak recordings.  But it predates that late 90’s “ironic” muzaky recordings of hipster songs.

Nevertheless, it is muzaky background versions of songs from the sixties (and a few originals).  The difference comes in the instrumentation: zithers, harpsichords, clarinets, autoharp, etc.  In other words, this isn’t a guy making cheesy Casio recordings of classic songs.  This is a collection of musicians reinterpreting songs for fun (and presumably to get high to?).

The most noteworthy songs for me are “Silas Stingy/Boris the Spider” medley and The Stooges’ “We Will Fall.”  In fact, I didn’t recognize any of the other songs on the disc (the 13th Floor Elevators and The Electric Prunes are the only bands that I recognize aside from The Who and The Stooges).

So, this is clearly a labor of love.  Whether or not you will love it depends on your tolerance for trippy muzaky renditions of songs that sound like they’re from an Indian restaurant/hash shop circa 1964 (that exists on the moon?).  The CD reissue includes thirty more minutes of tunes which are all just listed as More Generic Muzak (no covers here).   It’s strange that these more nebulous bonus tracks really tend to show off how good the rest of the disc is.  Sure in part that’s because the other tracks are actual songs, but it also shows how well the weird musical approach to these songs works when it is focused with a good starting point.

The Space Negros (headed by Erik Lindgren) made several discs, but it’s hard to find a lot of information about them online.  Even their own website is surprisingly devoid of information (although you can buy the disc!)

[READ: April 19, 2010] “Prefiguration of Lalo Curo”

Even when I try to stop reading Bolaño, the stories keep arriving in my mailbox.  This story (to be released in his forthcoming story collection The Return) looks at the history of Lalo Curo.  For those of us reading 2666, Lalo Curo figures prominently in The Part About the Crimes.  And in 2666 his history is given.  So this short story is a bit confusing within the canon of Bolaño.  2666

In this one, Lalo’s mother, rather than being raped and impregnated as a young girl (as had all of her mother’s mothers) was a porn star.  Lalo was born Olegario Cura (surname Cura (The Priest) because his father was a priest).  And, as with all my favorite Bolaño stories, there’s all kinds of fun questions regarding narrator and intended reader.  Lalo’s mother “Connie Sánchez was her name, and if you weren’t so young and innocent it would ring a bell” along with her sister and friend were all stars in a series of porn movies.  The man behind the movies was a German [another thing that recurs in Bolaño] named Helmut Bittrich.  Helmut treated them well, and the whole production company felt like a (weird, certainly) family.  In fact, Connie made films even when she was pregnant with Lalo (lacto-porn!).

Connie had tried legitimate theater (even Broadway!), but eventually, her career went towards porn.  The bulk of the story is given over to (graphic) descriptions of all of her films.  But the most interesting section is about Bittrich’s understanding of “the sadness of the phallus.”  After all those graphic scenes we get this remarkably poetic moment:

he’s naked from the waist down, his penis hangs flaccid and dripping. Behind the actor, a landscape unfolds: mountains, ravines, rivers, forests, towering clouds, a city, perhaps a volcano, a desert.

Pajarito Gómez is the male actor described above.  He is the primary male in all of the porn films.  He wasn’t well endowed, but he had a special kind of presence on screen.  As the story ends, Lalo goes in search of Gómez and finds him easily. They share a moment, watching movies and reconstructing the past.

It’s an interesting story, one that fully fits within the Bolaño landscape.  Bolaño is pretty obsessed with porn, and this story is obviously no exception.  It may not be the best introduction to Bolaño’s work, and yet in many ways, it’s pretty much Bolaño in a nutshell.

For ease of searching I include: Bolano, Sanchez, Gomez

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 11] The Part About The Crimes (5 of 5) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Culture Shock, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Gangsters, History, Infinite Zombies, Marriage Trouble, Mystery, Natasha Wimmer, Prison, Racism, Roberto Bolaño, Rush, Sex, Translation, Translators, Universities, Violence on April 5, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-Permanent Waves (1979).

When my friend Doug and I were hanging out back in the 80s, we both were getting into Rush at the same time.  And because this album was in black and white this was the last Rush LP we bought.  Imagine our surprise when it turned out to contain “The Spirit of Radio” one of the best hard rock anthems ever.

The cover art also featured a newspaper that read Dewey Defeats Truman.  But the band got in trouble for it from the Chicago Tribune!  I’ve never actually seen an actual cover with that headline (or the proposed fix: Dewei Defeats Truman).  Huh, thanks internet, here’s a picture of it.

The disc  also contains some (more) of my favorite Rush tracks.  “Freewill,” a fantastic “smart” song features some insane guitar and bass work in the middle sections.  And side one ends with “Jacob’s Ladder,” a 7 minute mini epic with precious few words that really evokes the simple concept of the sun’s rays bursting through clouds.  It’s surprisingly moving.

Side two features two more short tracks: Entre Nous suffers from side two syndrome: it would have been a hit if it was on side one.  While “Different Strings” is probably the last mellow song the band would write until the acoustic tracks on Snakes and Arrows.

For me, the best song is “Natural Science.”  A three-part mini 9 minute mini epic that features very cool lyrics, acoustic and electric guitar, a mid-song (short) drum solo and an incredibly intense heavy metal section.  And I have been really really psyched that they play this live again.

This disc marks an interesting transition from the prog rock heyday to the poppier commercial side that would soon arrive.  It’s a great mix of truly classic classic rock, real virtuoso performances and a couple of nice pretentious epics.  You’ll but it for Spirit of Radio, but you’ll get hooked by Natural Science.  “A quantum leap forward, in time and space….”

[READ: Week of March 29, 2010]  2666 [pg 565-633]

Before I start with the final week of the Crimes, I wanted to acknowledge everyone else who has been doing a great job in the endurance-o-rama that is the winter/spring 2666 online readathon.  I have been terribly remiss in mentioning (and even reading) as many of these posts as I would have liked (oh where does the time go).  But there’s some folks who have been doing a great job bringing up issues and suffering through The Part About the Crimes with me.

Obviously our friends at Bolanobolano are hosting this event and keeping wonderful track of details that I’m too exhausted to do myself.

And of course, the cohosts in Crimes, Infinite Zombies, are keeping tabs on all manner of thoughtful aspects of this book.

Steve, who I often read on IZ, also posts at his own site: A Solipsist’s 2666.

The Daily Snowman has been offering interesting thoughts, as well as a Paragraph of the Week (often from 2666).

Naptime Writing always offers thoughtful comments as well as a quote of the week.

Bleakonomy offers brief summaries and ideas, as well as non-2666 related thoughtful ideas.

Alone with Each Other offers that rarest of birds: someone who really likes The Part About the Crimes.

I haven’t been reading these blogs as much as I would have liked (and maybe someday I’ll post a comment to one of them long after we’ve all finished reading), but what I’ve read, I’ve appreciated.  So thanks for keeping me company out here.

And on to the last (and best) section of the Part About the Crimes.

I don’t know if the slow plodding death after death was like climbing a hill, but these last 68 pages were like speeding downhill with the top down.  So much was packed into it.  I was totally rejuvenated, thrilled to meet new (!) characters and totally unsurprised when the Part ended and absolutely nothing was resolved. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 10] The Part About The Crimes (4 of 5) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, Black Flag, bolanobolano.com, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Fridays, Gangsters, Infinite Zombies, Kiss, Larry David, Natasha Wimmer, Roberto Bolaño, Suicide, Translation, Virginity (Loss of), Wikipedia, Yuck! on March 29, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-KISSology: The Ultimate Kiss Collection, Vol. 2: 1978-1991 DVD (2007).

In addition to containing Kiss Meets the Phantom, this DVD contains concert footage, music videos and some interviews.  We see Peter Criss being interviewed on CNN (!) by a woman in a tank top (ah, the early days of 24 hour news) about leaving the band.   Of course, this doesn’t hold a candle to the actual music video for “Shandi” one of the cheesiest of cheesy Kiss videos.

This early 80s period is one of disco, operas and unmasking, and it is generally considered their low point.  I however, happen to enjoy this weird period.  While I acknowledge it’s not very “good,” I enjoy it much more than their mid-80s makeup-fee period.  (The often maligned The Elder has a weird kind of charm of the over-extended-effort).  So, I am of course sad that it is so under-represented here.  Although we do get a few clips from the long defunct show Fridays (I wish they would have shown more of the show itself, as it bought us Larry David and Michael Richards (and is mentioned in Black Flag’s “TV Party”, but that show seems to be locked away in a vault somewhere).

Disc 2 features an Australian tour during 1980, where the Aussies go crazy for them, and the band plays accordingly.  There’s also the final (or one of the final) shows they did with makeup.  And then the first show the did without makeup (1983).  And, naturally we see the highly undramatic “unmasking” on MTV, a hilarious attempt at TV news by the ever-flappable J.J. Johnson.

The concert in 1987, (The Crazy Nights Tour) is pretty bad.  This was a time when the band still played the early makeup songs, but they seemed to care so little about them, that it’s kind of embarrassing (Paul’s contempt for singing “Love Gun” in a way that even vaguely resembles the original is rather shocking).  Even Ace is phoning it in at best.  (Of course, Gene is a ham from the start so he’s always on).

After watching that last show I was not looking forward to the final Detroit show (The Hot in the Shade tour–a disc I liked more than most of the late 80s discs, even if the cover conceit of a sphinx with glasses is about as lame as you can get), but I was surprised at how great the band sounded.  They seem energized and like they were having a lot of fun.  Bruce Kulick definitely rocks hard (although I am a little disappointed that he felt compelled to change some of Ace’s signature guitar solos).  And it ends the disc on a very high note.

The collection ends with the death of drummer Eric Carr.  Which is certainly a downer, but seeing the shows that he played in are definitely a high point.  I’m fairly certain, however, that I can’t bring myself to watch Vol. 3 of this collection.

[READ: Week of March 22, 2010]  2666 [pg 513-564]

More deaths. I am starting to get worn down by all the murders (and I can see that I am. not. alone.) and by the cavalier attitude of the police (which is either a coping mechanism for them or just a case of simply not caring).  I am very much looking forward to Part 5!

However, there were some breakthroughs this week! One of the murderers was captured and found to be a member of Los Caciques [blackbird?] gang.  [UPDATE: 6/27/2012:  Thanks to Oscar in the comments for the update on what <<cacique>> means.]

Amidst the usual murders was a suicide.  Perla Beatriz Ochoterena, a teacher, wrote that should couldn’t take it anymore.  Juan de Dios Martínez talks to Elvira Campos about it, but they didn’t come to a valid explanation.  Was it because of the dying girls? Would that drive anyone to kill herself? (more…)

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Jan Van Meter, Christine Norrie & Ross Campbell–Too Much Hopeless Savages Part Three

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Christine Norris, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Graphic Novel, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Jan Van Meter, LGBTQ, Mystery, No Forcefield, Oni Press, Primus, Punks, Religion, Ross Campbell, Threats, Travel, Violence, YA Books on January 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NO FORCEFIELD-God is an Excuse (2001).

I was looking up what Larry LaLonde, guitarist for Primus, had been up to while Primus seems to be on hiatus.  I hadn’t heard a word from him, so I was surprised to see that he had released two albums with a band called No Forcefield.

I looked for the discs, and found both of them used for $1.00 each.  So I ordered them without really knowing what they were about, except that they were described as “experimental.”

This is the second disc by the band which consists of Brain and Ler from Primus as well as assorted other fellows (Bob Cock) and guests.  And experimental is an okay word to describe the record.  But a better one is disappointing.

With the lineage that these guys bring to the band, it’s surprising how mundane the disc is. It opens with a phone message about Bin Laden and God which morphs into the hilarious Denis Leary bit about CDs and the silver dog bone thing.  It then becomes a fairly straightforward electronic track.  And this electronic stuff is kind of the purpose of the group, I think.  There are at least 3 long, simple instrumentals that are little more than a few notes repeated over a drum beat.

The other tracks are complete nonsense: a faux TV show with “products” for sale which is a teensey bit funny, but not really.  There’s also Billy Roz, whoever that may be, crooning “You Are My Sunshine” as well as some polkas over a drum machine (he sings like an old doddering man).  And finally a short drum solo.

It’s not even clear to me why Ler is in the band as it seems to be mostly drums and a simple keyboard chord.  The only interesting track on the disc is “How to Purify Street Heroin” which is an awesome scratchy workout which I assume is by DJ Disk from the Invisbl Skratch Piklz.  And that’s pretty much it.

I was really disappointed my first go around, as I was expecting something, anything, more than this.  On subsequent listens, I can appreciate the disc as background/comedy although really neither one is a reason to hunt this down.

[READ: January 21, 2010] Too Much Hopeless Savages

This third collection of the Hopeless Savages saga sees many new revelations.  Turns out that Nikki Savage’s mom has come under the influence of a preacher who is intent on praying at the Hopeless-Savage house trying to get them to react in some way.  (I’m a little unclear exactly what his goal is here).

At the same time, Arsenal and her boyfriend and Twitch and his boyfriend (the  boyfriends are brothers) are off to the boyfriends’ homeland of Hong Kong.  Arsenal is there for a martial arts competition and Twitch heads along so that the H-S siblings can meet their boyfriends’ great grandmother.

Hijinx naturally ensue.  In this case, Arsenal is slipped a very valuable package and she soon has numerous groups of men after her (it’s unclear if any of them are up to any good).  The rest of the family decamps for Hong Kong to escape from all the praying (and they bring grandma along to de-brainwash her).

What is surprising about the story is the emotional depth that comes out of an incident from Arsenal’s past.  (more…)

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The Fifth Column (1996) & The Flexicon (1998)

Posted in A.M. Homes, Albert Goldbarth, Books about writers, Constellation Records, David Foster Wallace, Diane Ackerman, Eric Chenaux, Exquisite Corpse, Funny (strange), Gangsters, Infinite Summer, Irvine Welsh, Jonathan Franzen, Meta, Oddities, Paul Debraski, Poetry, Postmoderism, Rick Moody, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Susan Daitch, Violence on October 6, 2009| 1 Comment »

coprseSOUNDTRACK: ERIC CHENAUX-Sloppy Ground [CST052] (2008).

sloppy

It took several listens before I fully enjoyed this disc.  There’s something about Chenaux’s voice that is very calming, almost soporific.  And, since his general songwriting style is kind of ambient and almost formless–with no real choruses or even rhythms, the disc tends to get lost in the ether.  There’s also some unusual instrumentation (electric harp & guitarjo (!)) too, which continues the otherworldly feel of the disc.

What really hooked me into the disc though was the three “funk marches” that distinguish themselves from the rest of the disc.  “Have I Lost My Eyes” comes in like a raging gust of fresh air after the first three drifting tracks.  It’s got a strong melody and raw drums that propel this fantastic track.  “Boon Harp” & “Old Peculiar” have a similar strong vibe.  And they are really the anchors of this disc.

The rest of the album isn’t bad, I just find it hard to listen to in one lengthy sitting.  The opening three songs tend to drift a round a little too much.  But one at a time, these songs are pretty cool.

[READ: Last Week of September 2009] The Fifth Column & The Flexicon

These two pieces were part of the list of uncollected David Foster Wallace publications.  The difference with thee two pieces is that he plays a small role along with several other authors.  Both of these pieces are sort of a exquisite corpse idea. Although unlike a true exquisite corpse, (in which the author sees only a little of the end of the previous author’s work) it’s pretty clear that the authors had access to the entire work.  The quotes in bold are from The Howling Fantods.

For a delightful exquisite corpse piece that I authored see the untitled comic strip on my website.  About ten years ago I started an exquisite corpse comic strip and sent it to a number of people who all had a lot of fun continuing the story.  I have finally put it online at paulswalls.com/comic.  (See, artists, I told you I’d do something with the cartoons some day!) (more…)

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Mark Costello & David Foster Wallace–Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban Present (1990)

Posted in Books about music, Boston, MA, Consumerism, David Foster Wallace, De La Soul, Essays, Gangsters, History, Ice-T, Infinite Summer, L.L. Cool J, Mark Costello, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Research, Run D.M.C, Schoolly D, Sex, Short Books, Smarty Pants, Steely Dan, Violence on October 5, 2009| 2 Comments »

rapperSOUNDTRACK: SCHOOLLY D-Smoke Some Kill (1988).

schoolySince this disc is featured so prominently in Signifying Rappers (and the book is named after the best track on this disc) I thought I’d dust it off and listen to it again.  I got this disc probably in 1989 at the suggestion of my friend Al.  He recommended “No More Rock N’ Roll,” I think.

I haven’t listened to the disc in years, probably a decade.  The last time I listened, I think I wasn’t all that impressed by it, which is why it’s funny to me how much significance the book gives this disc/track.  In listening again, I felt more or less the way I did last time, although interestingly, after reading the book, I agreed that some of the tracks are pretty good.

“Signifying Rapper” in particular, seemed better after DFW’s analysis of it (he discusses it in the tradition of the trickster narrator, and I agree it’s a good one).  Although, at one point in the book DFW decries the misogyny in a lot of rap, but he doesn’t mention the homophobia.  And, despite the trickster style in this song, the homophobia is pretty outrageous (even if, in a surprising twist, the “faggot” kicks the “pimp’s” ass).  But really, the thing that upsets the pimp so much, that he went off to fight the faggot about is this rather absurdly childish set of insults:  your dad’s a faggot, your mom’s a whore, your granny’s a dyke and your brother’s a faggot too.  Now, homophobia aside, would these insults really get anyone so angry?   Hard to say.   But regardless of the whole thing, the song is set to the riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” so, that’s pretty fun.

The rest of the disc is a mix of kind of lame tracks and a few good ones.  “Here We Go Again” has some great scratching on it (in fact the scratching throughout the disc is quite good), and there’s some really good background samples on “Gangster Boogie II.”  Although I think the best tracks come near the end: “Treacherous” (which samples or reinterprets Gil Scot-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Televised”) and “Black Man” which features the cool shout-out “What’s the Word?  Johannesburg!).

A few tracks are kind of flat.  “Mr Big Dick,” is, at best, silly and even the title track “Smoke Some Kill” is sort of uninspired.  What’s interesting about somewhat flat style is that this disc has come out after Public Enemy’s wall of sound changed the face of rap.  But Schoolly is sticking with the very sparse Run D.M.C. style.  The difference is that with Run, you had two vocalists, but Schoolly is by himself.  It’s just not quite as exciting.

And, then there’s the aforementioned “No More Rock N’ Roll” which is a companion to “We Don’t Rock, We Rap”.  The whole anti-rock trope rings hollow especially since he samples from it so freely.

It was still early days, but rap has progressed pretty far from this CD.  It also turns out that this disc is really hard to find.  It’s discontinued and lists on Amazon for $50.  How lucky for me!

[READ: October 2, 2009] Signifying Rappers

I wasn’t planning on reading this book this soon.  (I’m  not turning into a DFW addict, I swear).  But this showed up all because of the whims of the interlibrary loan system.  I put holds on books for people all the time, and usually it’s for new, popular books, so it’s often several weeks, sometimes months before the books come in.  I tend to forget that a 19 year old book that nobody is clamoring to read will show up in about 3 days.

So, those of you thinking about reading this book because you want to complete the DFW ouvre were probably wondering if this co-authored book should really count.  And, like, how would you know what he wrote?  Well, I didn’t immediately figure out the patently obvious system that they used in the book: When Mark Costello writes a section it is introduced with a large M.  When DFW gets a section it starts with a large D (see, obvious).   You can also tell because DFW’s section are laden with footnotes and very large words (no, really?)

I think for all readers, the main question is what are these two white, educated, twentysomethings doing writing about rap.  And, they both answer in their own way that, well, they like rap.  A lot.  In fact, DFW goes on to say that rap circa 1989 is the only musical genre that is interesting after some five years of commercial pap (and he’s pretty accurate with that, actually).  He also notes that as of their writing of the book there had been no real in-depth treatises written on rap.  Oh, and lastly, in the spirit of rap itself, they did it because they wanted to do it. (more…)

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Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays

Posted in Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Dip-in Books, Donnell Alexander, Drinking, Drugs, Eddie Vedder, Essays, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Glasgow Phillips, Gods, History, Jess Mowry, M. Doughty, Marc Herman, Martha McParlin, McSweeney's, Michael Moore, Might, Missoula, MT, Oddities, Paula Kamen, Political Humor, Politicians, Racism, Religion, Research, Sex, Smarty Pants, Soul Coughing, Supernatural, Technology, Ted Rall, The Future, Travel, Tripp Hartigan, TV on the Radio, Violence, Wikipedia, Zev Borow on October 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

adidasSOUNDTRACK: TV ON THE RADIO-Dear Science, (2008).

sciencThe problem with TV on the Radio for me is that their first EP is so damned good that anything else they do pales in comparison.  Having said that, Dear Science, comes really close to topping that EP.  I liked Cookie Mountain (their previous disc) but I felt like they put so many elements into the mix that it detracted from the best part of the band: Tunde Adepimbe & Kyp Malone’s vocals.

And so, on Dear Science, the vocals are back up front where they belong.  This disc is a lot less busy, which may seem a little like selling out, but instead, it just heightens the complexity and originality of the band’s work.  The disc rocks hard but it also heightens some really cool jazz and dance elements.    But it all comes back to the melodies and vocals for me.  And on Dear Science, they pretty much outdo themselves.

And you can dance to it!

[READ: September 30, 2009] Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays

After reading David Foster Wallace’s essay in this book, I looked at the other articles here and decided to read the whole thing.  And I’m really glad I did.  It’s an interesting book full of, funny and often thought-provoking pop culture articles circa 1996.  As with some of the other pop culture/political books that I’ve read several years after they were relevant, it’s often weird to look back and see what things fully occupied the popular landscape at the time.  And, when a piece is completed dated, it’s pretty obvious, and sometimes unintentionally funny.  But there are many pieces here that are timeless (or at least hold up for a decade), and those are still really good reads.

This book also does a good job of summarizing the tenor of the defunct Might magazine.  A dose of irony, a splash of humor and a lot of criticism of what’s trendy.

The strange thing to me about this book, though is the targets that they chose to go after sometimes.  Rather than critiquing right-wing attitudes or corporate shenanigans (which they do touch on), they really seem to be after pop and rock celebrity.  For instance, there are two separate articles which take a potshot at Eddie Vedder (this was around the time of the Ticketmaster fiasco which didn’t put him in the best light but which could hardly be seen as only self-serving).  This seems rather unfair, unless his sincerity could really be called into question by a bunch of ironic jokesters.  Magazines like Radar and Spy used to do snarky articles like this. I’d always thought that Might was a little better than that.  But indeed, there’s one or two pieces here that have a holier- (or perhaps indier)-than-thou attitude.   Which may have been fine in the 90s but which seem petulant now.

But aside from those, the irony-free pieces are very enjoyable.  (more…)

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Mark Binelli–Sacco & Vanzetti Must Die (2006)

Posted in Death, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gangsters, Great Northern, History, Mark Binelli, Meta, Nada Surf, Racism, The Anniversary, The Believer, Threats, Twin Peaks, Veruca Salt, Violence on September 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

saccoSOUNDTRACK: GREAT NORTHERN-Trading Twilight for Daylight (2007).

grewatA patron donated this disc to our library.  I had never heard of Great Northern, but I gave it a listen, in part because I hoped that the band name came from Twin Peaks (no idea if it does). And wow, I was blown away by this disc.

This is like the great unheralded indie rocker band (although having looked them up apparently the are quite heralded).  Their songs sound like an inviting combination of The Anniversary (the GN song “The Middle” always puts me in mind of The Anniversary’s “The Siren Sings”), Veruca Salt, Nada Surf and any number of supremely catchy bands.  The vocals are split between a make and female voice which makes the diversity even more appealing.

There’s not a bad song on the disc, and I find myself playing it quite often. The music is first rate, with great textural setups and drop offs, and the choruses, oh the choruses.  It’s hard to even pick a favorite song.

I’m somewhat surprised I’d never heard of this band before (they have a new album out this year that I haven’t heard), but then they are on a label I’ve never heard of either (Eenie Meenie).  I will totally get their new disc, as well as their Sleepy Eepie EP.  I’m really that impressed.

[READ: January 2007] Sacco & Vanzetti Must Die

I read this book over two years ago (I’m cleaning up the final books that I haven’t posted about), and I’m afraid I’m a little shaky on the details.  But I just remembered that I read about it in The Believer.

The premise of the book is that Sacco & Vanzetti are actually a comedy team, not anarchists.  Well, they are anarchic, but in the realm of comedy, not bombs.  They are a sort of Laurel & Hardy with Sacco as the fat troublemaker (and yes the name fits) and Vanzetti as the straight man, the ideologue.  As they progress from slapstick routines to film, their comedy gets more specific, and their schtick concerns “knife grinders/throwers.”  The knife angle is explained as a family trademark or maybe it’s a stolen gimmick.

Inevitably, their careers begin to wain, and their lives take a turn for the worst.  And when things get bad, they get really bad, leading them to trial, with possible execution. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 10] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Adventure, Big Books, Boston, MA, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Eschaton, Esquire, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gangsters, Goonies, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Oddities, Political Humor, Postmoderism, Religion, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Toilets, Violence, Yuck! on August 29, 2009| 8 Comments »

dfw-title-pageSOUNDTRACK: GARBAGE-Garbage (1995).

garbageI was thinking about how IJ reminds me so specifically of a place and time (I instantly think of the apartment I was in when I started reading it).  And there are also some discs that I was crazy about at the time too.

I very distinctly remember when the first Garbage single “Vow” came out.  I remember seeing it in Newbury Comics [the absolute best record store chain, ever] on Newbury Street and it was plastered with stickers about how it was the new band from Butch Vig and he had produced every popular alt record in the 90s and blah blah blah.  But so I basically got Vigged out and didn’t bother listening to it.

Strangely, I don’t remember what changed my mind about them.  I assume I heard the first proper single “Queer” and instantly fell in love with the band.

It makes me laugh that the band was initially marketed as Butch Vig and two other high-profile producers got together and made this great music and they found this unknown Scottish woman to from the band.  And then, shortly there after the band was Shirley Manson and three unknown guys.  Heh, prettiness wins out.

Garbage was at a record store in downtown Boston that year.  I went down, but went to the wrong location (Doh!) and by the time I got to the right one, the line was too long and I was told I wouldn’t get in.  Alas. (Hey, I’ve still got my autographed poster from The Verve before they released “Bittersweet Symphony.”)

This album was in very heavy rotation at my house at the time.  I must’ve listened to it 1000 times.  But this is the first time I’ve listened to it in awhile.  It’s hard for me to be critical of it since I know every nook and cranny.  But listening to it today I think it is still pretty damned awesome.  The vocals are tight and creepy/sexy.  The songs are all solid rocking/catchy.  And the production is superb (obviously).

Not a bum track on the whole release, even 14 years later.

[READ: Week of August 24] Infinite Jest (to page 729)

There has been much discussion here on the forums and here between me and Infinite Tasks about the IJ timeline.  There is the pretty glaring observation that M.P. tried to kill herself  on November 7th, was in the hospital for five days and then appears in Ennet House on November 8th.

In last week’s reading, the WYYY engineer is musing about M.P.  He was told that she was hospitalized, and I considered that maybe that five day gap came BEFORE she tried to kill herself (for otherwise, how to explain that Mario missed her radio show sometime in late October?).  And yet that doesn’t seem to jibe with the fact that she’s apparently in there for an overdose.

A new timeline issue may be cropping up in this week’s reading.  A green Nunhagen-sponsored car appeared during the Escahton match.  We learn this week that Steeply is driving a Nunhagen-sponsored car.  But she arrives during the Hal/Stice tennis match, three days after Eschaton.  Has she been trying to get into E.T.A. for three days?  But, also, note that she left AZ, and Orin met the Swiss hand model (and Orin is having his second go -round with her during the match), early on the 11th (I think).  So I don’t think Helen could have been at ETA during the Escahton match.  Is there a second gunman green car?

This timeline stuff bugs me mostly because I feel like IJ is really fantastic.  And I assume that DFW spent a lot of time on it. (Certainly more time that I am spending reading it!). I imagine him with charts and graphs and circles and arrows explaining where everyone is at any given time.  Now, there are a number of conceivable explanations for the mistaken timeline:

  • Most of the stories about Madame Psychosis are second-hand, so they could be wrong.
  • There is ample evidence that people in this book are crazy and therefore not to be trusted.
  • And of course, there’s always the possibility that DFW just screwed up.

If this final option is the reality, I won’t be devastated.  I don’t think the book hinges on a few minor timeliness issues.  But I will be a bit surprised.  DFW seems like such a meticulous guy (I mean, geez, look at the detail he puts into his scenes) so it would be really surprising if he got timeline issues messed up.

There is always the possibility that these issues will be cleared up, after all, he ties up so many loose threads, but I suspect they won’t.  And that’s okay.  I won’t turn into Steeply’s father poring over every page and keeping a journal in little notebooks (that’s what the blog is for!)

ijdot1It is incredible serendipity that I did the JOI filmography during this week as this week’s readings actually count on knowing a bit about it.  And since I had just reevaluated it, I was aware of a thing or two during Hal’s viewing scene.

ijdot1Week 10 starts off seeming like a lot of nothing is happening.  There’s a few post-Event scenarios.  Until we get to November 14th, and a whole lot goes on.  A whole lot! (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 8] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Big Books, Boston, MA, Canadian Content, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Garbage, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Paul F. Tompkins, Prison, Set at School, Sonic Youth, Sports, Suicide, Technology, Tennis, The Future, The Sound of Young America, Violence, Yuck! on August 15, 2009| 5 Comments »

ij8SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star (1994).

ejstns“Bull in the Heather” is one of my favorite Sonic Youth songs.  I love everything about it (even if I haven’t got a clue what it’s about): the simple opening, the switch to harmonics, and, my favorite part, the drum break that leads to the chorus (who ever heard of getting a drum break stuck in your head?).

There’s a lot to speak for this disc even though it seems to be overlooked (as the empty spot between Dirty and Washing Machine).  Take the absolute variety of textures, and the almost surreal mixtures of styles within (short) songs (like “Bone” which opens with super fast paced drumming and howls from Kim and then breaks into a very mellow (and catchy) chorus).

For sheer variety: the disc opens with an acoustic guitar strummer by Thurston (“Winner’s Blues”), and then, after the single “Bull in the Heather,” there’s the 2 minute noise-fest “Starfield Road.”  This is followed by the cool and catchy “Skink,” which is like Kim’s version of the slinky and cool “Self-Obsessed and Sexxee.”  This is definitely Kim’s disc, she sings about half of the songs, and shows a great variety of styles here.

“Androgynous Mind” is one of those weird songs that has a wonderfully catchy vocal line but where the music is pretty much abstract nonsense.  And speaking of catchy, this disc continues with SY’s notion of sing along choruses (even if what you’re singing doesn’t make a lot of sense (“Screaming Skull” fits that bill perfectly)).  And then “Quest for the Cup” does a 90 degree turn after the intro.  All of these shifts and changes occur in less than half an hour.

The last 20 minutes or so settle the disc down somewhat (except for the brief “In the Mind of the Bourgeois Reader,” but the 7 minute closer “Sweet Shine” ends the disc on a mellow note.

This is also the last SY disc produced by Butch Vig.  Vig’s production is often described as clean. But Vig doesn’t clean up the noise that SY makes, he just makes it, I guess, crisper would be a better word.  Compare the way that Garbage’s “Vow” opens with a big grand noise and then stops dead after a few seconds.  Vig seems to be a master of controlling noise to make it stand out more.  And in that respect, his technique really shines through on this disc…it feels almost mechanical in its precision.

From this point forward, Sonic Youth would break away from this style of music into a freer and looser almost jazz feel, so even if the album title doesn’t make literal sense, it describes the disc quite well.

[READ: Week of August 10] Infinite Jest (to page 589)

Last week, showed Gately’s car speeding through Cambridge.  He runs over a discarded cup which we follow as it sails down the street and hits the Antitoi’s door.  It was very cinematic.  Discussions abound about whether IJ could (or should) be filmed.  I’m not going to add to that discussion but I did want to mention what I see as the filmic way the book written.

In many movies you are introduced almost casually to many of the protagonists, seeing them in their most typical place of employment or hang-out spot or some such thing.  And in films, it doesn’t seem that weird to get a two minute or even 30 second establishing shot of character A before jump cutting to character B.

And that’s how IJ starts, with all of these jump cuts, establishing shots, of characters.  Clenette’s scene is hard to read, but if you saw it in a movie, you’d say, okay that’s her character.  And, for the most part you would expect her to reappear later in the movie. I’m not sure what anyone expects to happen in IJ, so who knows what we think the Clenette scene is about, but realistically, the character has to come back, even if what she said didn’t make any sense at the time.

And as movies go, so does the book, cutting back and forth between scenes building the stories along as they inevitably intertwine.

It’s also not unheard of to have what seems like it may be the end of the chronological story appear first (we haven’t seen any return to the Year of Glad yet).

And so, yes I will say a thing about the filmic possibilities of  this book.  Sure the book is long, and yet so much of the book is description, stuff that in a movie can be done with an establishing shot, even a slow one.  The whole Joelle/overdose scene which covers so many pages could be filmed rather quickly.  So could Eschaton. The question of course is how much would be lost in translation.  And that I can’t answer (although I expect quite a lot).

Be a hell of a film, though.

ijdot

So, in a few places, especially on Infinite Tasks, people have been mentioning some crucial information that happens on Page 17.   I felt bad that I didn’t recall anything that happened on page 17, so I went back and re-read this section (and how weird is it to re-read parts of a book that you haven’t even finished yet?)

And so Page 17 feels like a major spoiler!  It feels like so much is given away!  It feels like such an essential part of the story that it’s amazing how it’s sort of tossed off in a hallucinatory sequence.

I think of John N.R. Wayne who would have won this year’s WhataBurger, standing watch in a mask as Donald Gately and I dig up my father’s head.  There’s very little doubt that Wayne would have won.

Wow.  So much packed into those two sentences!  Holy cow.

And, the end of that sequence has an orderly ask Hal, “so, yo, then man what’s your story?”

Is that the device that sets up that Hal is telling this whole book?  I just blew my mind.

ijdot

This week’s reading begins with the aftermath of The Escahton debacle.  Or the precursor to the aftermath, anyway.  And it features the color blue. A lot.

It also gets to a question I’ve been puzzling about for sometime: why isclouds every IJ book jacket/promotional material designed in a sort of cloud motif. Well, in the section we lean that Uncle Charles’ office is decked out in an unsettling cloud wallpaper (which is coincidentally the same wallpaper as Hal’s dentist).  It has only appeared briefly so far, so it seems odd that it would take on such an iconic feel.  But we’ll see if it comes back.

(more…)

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