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Archive for the ‘Holocaust’ Category

Kurt Vonnegut–Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (1981)

Posted in Arthur C. Clarke, Blivit, Bob Elliot, Books about writers, Boredom, Communists, Daily Sun, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Gore Vidal, History, Hitler, Holocaust, Humiliation, Interviews, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Mark Twain, Mark Vonnegut, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, NASA, Nazis, Pornography, Pulp Fiction, Ray Goulding, Religion, Short Story, Technology, The Future, The New York Times, The Statler Brothers, Violence, War, William F. Buckley on June 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

PalmSundayFrontandBackSOUNDTRACK: THE STATLER BROTHERS-“Class of ’57” (1972).

stalerI don’t know much about The Statler Brothers.  They are considered country, although this song is hardly country–it’s more folk with some bluegrass and, the real selling point–great harmonies (especially the bass singer with the big mustache).

The song is a wonderful coming of age song, sad and funny with a list of what happened to everyone in the class of ’57.  Like:

Betty runs a trailer park, Jan sells Tupperware,
Randy’s on an insane ward, Mary’s on welfare.
Charlie took a job with Ford, Joe took Freddie’s wife,
Charlotte took a millionaire, and Freddie took his life.

John is big in cattle, Ray is deep in debt,
Where Mavis finally wound up is anybody’s bet.

But the kicker comes at the chorus:

And the class of ’57 had its dreams,
Oh, we all thought we’d change the world with our great words and deeds.
Or maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs,
The class of ’57 had its dreams.

And then at the end:

And the class of ’57 had its dreams,
But living life from day to day is never like it seems.
Things get complicated when you get past eighteen,
But the class of ’57 had its dreams.

Vonnegut quotes the entirety of this song in the book and I’m glad he did, it’s a very moving song and really captures American life.

[READ: May 26, 2013] Palm Sunday

After writing several successful novels, Vonnegut paused to collect his thoughts.  And Palm Sunday begins: “This is a very great book by an American genius.”  It is also a “marvelous new literary form which combines the tidal power of a major novel with the bone-rattling immediacy of front-line journalism.”  After all the self praise, he decides that this collage–a collection of essays and speeches as well as a short story and a play which is all tied together with new pieces (in TV they would call this a clip show)–this new idea of a book should have a new name and he chooses: blivit (during his adolescence, this word was defined as “two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag.”  He proposes that all books combining facts and fiction be called blivits (which would even lead to a new category on the best seller list).  Until then, this great book should go on both lists.

This book is a collection of all manner of speeches and essays, but they are not arranged chronologically.  rather they are given a kind of narrative context.  What’s nice is that the table of contents lists what each of the items in the book is (or more specifically, what each small piece is when gathered under a certain topic).

Chapter 1 is The First Amendment in which he talks about Slaughterhouse Five being burned and how outraged he was by that–especially since the people so anxious to burn it hadn’t even read it (and the only “bad” thing is the word motherfucker).  The first speeches included are “Dear Mr. McCarthy” to the head of the school board where his books were burned and “Un-American Nonsense” an essay for the New York Times about his book being banned in New York State.  The next two are “God’s Law” for an A.C.L.U. fund raiser–it includes his confusion as to why people don’t support the A.C.L.U. which is working for all of our own civil liberties. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Posted in Advice, Bombs, Books about writers, Consumerism, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Death, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Hitler, Holocaust, Isaac Asimov, Isaac Newton, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage (Happy), NPR/PRI/PBS, Sexism, Short Books, Suicide, Violence, War, William Shakespeare, WNYC--93.9 New York on September 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CYMBALS EAT GUITARS-Live on KEXP June 18, 2009 (2009).

Cymbals Eat Guitars are from Staten Island (with members from New Jersey).  They have released two albums, although this recording is from after the release of their first album.    They play four songs:  “And the Hazy Sea,” “Cold Spring,” “Tunguska,” and “Wind Phoenix.”   They are noisy songs (mostly) with squalls of guitars (squalls is a good word since two of the guys are from Manahawkin, New Jersey.

The band has true progenitors in the indie rock scene–there’s sounds of Pavement, The Replacements,  even more melodic Sonic Youth .  They play noisy guitars and the vocals veer from softly sung to loudly screamed (often within the same line).    “Cold Spring” starts like a kind of shoegazery song and then after almost three minutes it turns into a  blast of pummeling rock with a noisy guitar section, before moving into a third more melodic section.

There’s   a lengthy interview with the band, where they give a shout out to New Jersey and seem genuinely surprised by the success they’ve had.  It’s a good show, and you can hear it here

[READ: September 25, 2012] God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

Again, against my better judgment I brought this Vonnegut book home too because it was on the shelf (and it was very short).  I still haven’t finished Bluebeard yet, but I have been curious about this book for some time.  It references Vonnegut’s early novel God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, but it also name checks Dr Jack Kevorkian.  So just what is it?

Well, it is collection of radio spots that Vonnegut did for WNYC radio in New York back in 1998.  Vonnegut claimed that he went to Kevorkian’s facility, was strapped in and almost killed multiple times, but Kevorkian brought him back each time creating a near-death experience. And each time Vonnegut travelled through that “blue tunnel,” he would interview a dead person.

The people he interviews vary quite a lot in fame and stature: (more…)

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Nathan Englander–“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (New Yorker, December 12, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Angry Birds, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Holocaust, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Nathan Englander, Nazis, New Yorker, Racism, Religion, Short Story on December 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA-Angry Birds Theme (2011).

My son, Clark, loves Angry Birds.  I’ve played it a few times and found it enjoyable, but he is obsessed.  He is absolutely the target market for this song.  And who knows maybe it will get him to like classical music.

I wasn’t sure if I’d recognize the tune, but it is already ingrained in my head.

This version is wonderful.  It sounds like it might be from a Tim Burton movie. 

The full CD is a collection of video game themes.  We don’t have a console, so I don’t know any of the other songs on the disc. But I do rather like this one.  I can’t wait to see his face when he hears it.

Check it out on NPR!

[READ: December 15, 2011] “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”

This story went from being a (rather) funny piece about Hasidic Jews to being a (rather) emotional story about marriage, religion and self-preservation.

As the story opens, Mark and Lauren are visiting the narrator and Deb.  Deb and Lauren grew up together.  But after school Lauren met Mark and they moved to Israel where they became Hasidic (and took the new names Shoshana and Yerucham).  As the story opens, the narrator (a non-observant Jew) is trying to hold his tongue while these religious folks are well, kind of judging  them.  It’s wonderfully summed up by this comment:

“Jewish to you?” I say.  “The hat, the beard, the blocky shoes.  A lot of pressures, I’d venture, to look jewish to you.  Like, say, maybe Ozzy Osbourne or the guys from Kiss, like them telling Paul Simon, ‘You do not look like a musician to me.'”  [Is there a joke in there since the guys from Kiss are indeed Jewish, or no?]

The narrator and Deb has a son, Trevor, who is sixteen.  The scene where he comes into the room to discover the Hasidic couple is hilariously subtle (very well written).  Then we learn that Shoshana and Yerucham (which Deb calls them) have ten children–all girls.  Yikes.  But the narrator continues to refer to them (at least in his story) as Mark and Lauren.  And the more questions he asks the more we find out that although they keep Holy the traditions, they are a bit lax about some of the rules (maybe?)  I actually don’t know the rules so I don’t know if what they’re doing is “wrong” or not.  And, amusingly there’s a bit in the story in which Yerucham complains about non-Jews giving them shit for what they do–“Can you eat in there?” kind of questions.

So, when the narrator asks if they can drink, Yerucham says he can make the whiskey kosher.  And that starts them on their way. (more…)

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Sam Lipsyte–“Deniers” (New Yorker, May 2, 2011)

Posted in Drinking, Drugs, Holocaust, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Racism, Religion, Sam Lipsyte, Short Story, The Flaming Lips on June 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FLAMING LIPS-“Two Blobs Fucking” (2011).

As I understand it, the Flaming Lips will be releasing an EP a month for the next twelve months–all in an unusual manner.  The first track, “Two Blobs Fucking” comes as a 12-part free video download.  Like with their album Zaireeka (which had 4 discs that you were supposed to play simultaneously to get the full effect), this song  comes as 12 separate audio tracks.  According to the online instructions, you’re supposed to get 12 friends with iPhones to each download a section and to play them at exactly the same time.  I don’t have an iPhone (or 12 friends that I could get in the same place at the same time to listen to a song), so I did the next best thing: I used YouTube Downloader, converted the tracks to WAV and then mixed them with Audacity.

I have received many CDs over the years that have mixing technology where you can play certain tracks and not others, but it’s very rare that I play around with them.  This whole process was easy enough that I made 20 different mixes of the song.

The “full” version is a fascinating amalgam of noises with a very cool riff that opens the track.  About midway through, the whole song is taken over by noise–a distorted squealing noise–for a few seconds.  And then the song continues as it was with gentle washes of sound.

The twelve tracks include the main riff, the riff as done by “voices” (doh doh doh), there’s a few noise (guitar) tracks and some noise (animal sound) tracks.  There’s a drum and percussion track as well as the vocal track.

The lyrics are a brief story about Wayne finding a dumpster from a factory which makes and discards manikin body parts.

It’s a weird track.  It’s not their best by any means, and the lyrics are hard to hear for the most part (unless you isolate them, of course).  But having now listened to it so many different ways, I’ve rally grown fond of it.  The riff itself is as I said, simple, but very cool.

It’s a neat experiment and nice that it was free (unlike their second release–a USB drive that is buried inside a candy skull which costs $150).

[READ: May 23, 2011] “Deniers”

This is, as far as I can tell, the first short fiction piece that Lipsyte has had published (please correct if I’m wrong), aside from that really short piece in The Revolution Will be Accessorized.  I enjoyed The Ask quite a lot, and I was excited to read more from him.

This piece, as the title implies, plays around with types of denial.  But it is self-denial that they experience.  The main character is Mandy, an adult whose father, Jacob,  is still alive but who has recently been put into a nursing home.  The opening of the story is more about Jacob.  More specifically, it’s about how Jacob relates (or doesn’t) to Mandy.  Jacob is a holocaust survivor, but he has barely said one word about it (or, really, anything) to Mandy.

Through a series of flashbacks, we see Mandy’s childhood with this distant father.  We also see what happened between Jacob and his wife–a fascinating story of duplicity on almost everyone’s part (and which is wonderfully encapsulated by the picture that accompanies the story (a Shell station lit up at night with the light from the letter “S” unlit). (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Breakfast of Champions or, Goodbye Blue Monday (1973)

Posted in Books about writers, Consumerism, Decadence, Drinking, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Holocaust, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage Trouble, Nazis, Pearl Jam, Political Humor, West Memphis 3 on June 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-East Rutherford, NJ 6.3.06 (2006).

This concert was a free download with the purchase of Backspacer. I chose this because this is the show that I should have gone to.  [How many concerts have I seen at the Meadowlands–or whatever it is called now?].  Not to mention, this is the last concert date of the first leg of the tour, and the last concerts are usually a little longer, a little wilder, a little more fun.

And there’s a number of reasons why this is true during this show.

The first is the technical flaw.  Midway through their fifth song, “Animal” there is some kind of power failure (the flaw with audio from concerts is that you have no idea what’s really going on).  The song shuts down, there’s some crowd chanting and then the power comes back on.  This gives Eddie Vedder a chance to make a Springsteen joke (did he leave for tour without paying the electric bill) and the band resumes, even more intense than before.

There are a number of Springsteen moments during the show.  They thank him for introducing them to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey–where proceeds from this night’s show go).  Later, Eddie’s explains that his failure to figure out the chords to Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” led to his creating the song “Gone”.  And Eddie’s “Pre-Opener” (sadly not on the download, but you can hear it here) is a cover of Springsteen’s “No Surrender.”

Springsteen aside, this is a great show.  The download is three discs long (the first disc is 25 minutes or so and comprises the audio from up to the power failure).  But even with the confusion, the band sounds wonderful.  They run through all kinds of songs from throughout their career, “Even Flow,” “Alive,” “Why Go,” “Black,” “Porch,” and “Garden” from Ten.  “Animal,” “Rats” and “Leash” from Vs. “Last Exit,” “Whipping” and “Corduroy” from Vitalogy, “Habit” and “Lukin” from No Code, “In Hiding” from Yield. “Love Boat Captain” and “I am Mine” from Riot Act, and about half of the songs from Pearl Jam.  There’s also a whole bunch of songs from Lost Dogs: “Hard to Imagine,” “Yellow Ledbetter,” “Last Kiss” and “Don’t Gimme No Lip” and even “State of Love and Trust” and “Crazy Mary.”

The show is a pretty rocking show overall.  In fact, as you can see above they don’t even play their more crowd pleasing ballads (“Betterman,” “Daughter”).  And the set in no way suffers from it.

This show also has a special guest and a special announcement.  Vedder explains that June 3 is West Memphis 3 Recognition Day.  Wikipedia says The WM3 are three teenagers who were tried and convicted of the murders of three little boys in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993 by a prosecution team that put forth the idea that the only purported motive in the case was that the slayings were part of a Satanic ritual. In July 2007, new forensic evidence was presented in the case, including evidence that none of the DNA collected at the crime scene matched the defendants, but did match Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the victims, along with DNA from a friend of Hobbs’ whom he had been with on the day of the murders.

The WM3.org site shows that many musicians are behind them, offering support and free music.   A new trial date has been tentatively set for October 2011.  If they are found not guilty they would have spent eighteen years in jail for nothing.  Damien Echols (who was sentenced to death) co wrote “Army Reserve” with Vedder, and Echols’ wife says a few words on stage.

Another great moment comes in “Crazy Mary” when Boom Gaspar and Mike McCready have a kind of dueling organ vs guitar solo.   It goes on for several minutes and Gaspar’s Hammond sounds great.  Later in the show, Vedder toasts the crowd for being great.  It may also be the only toast to incorporate the phrase “fucking assholes” (as in if people don’t think you were amazing, they’re fucking assholes).

One of the great things about Pearl Jam shows is that they pack a lot of music into them.  I was especially mindful that when they came out for their second encore, they played nine more songs for about 30 minutes.  Not a bad encore at all.

This is a great set if you’re looking for live Pearl Jam.

[READ: May 24, 2011] Breakfast of Champions

I read this whole book during my trip to BEA.  I read it while on the bus (two and a half hours total) and then while waiting on line for various author signings.  I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book in such a short period before.  It’s not a long book by any means and it is full of illustrations (more on that later).  It was an ideal book to choose for a day of book reading.

So the novel is actually set up as a story within a story.  The Preface explains that the story is written by Philboyd Stuge (Vonnegut has a lot of fun with names).  It explains that “Breakfast of Champions” is a trademark of General Mills and he is neither  associated with GM nor disparaging them by using the phrase so much (it doesn’t occur frequently until much later in the book).  Stuge explains some of the background information about ideas in the book (that people are actually robots and how Armistice Day was a better name for the holiday than Veterans’ Day).  He also explains that he is writing this book as a 50th birthday present to himself (Vonnegut was born in 1922).  And for his 50th birthday, he is going to act childishly and draw illustrations in the book.  So I found this picture from the novel

That may give you an idea of what to expect inside (although most of the illustrations are “better” than that one).

What is especially helpful about the story is that it tells you what will happen as it goes along.  So the novel starts:

This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.

One of them was a science fiction writer named Kilgore Trout.  He was a nobody at the time, and he supposed his life was over.  He was mistaken.  As a consequence of the meeting, he became one of the most beloved and respected human beings in history.

The man he met was an automobile dealer, a Pontiac dealer named Dwayne Hoover.  Dwayne Hoover was on the brink of going insane.

And that is literally the story.  So why is the book 297 pages long then?  Vonnegut is really out to talk about contemporary society:  America mostly, but not exclusively.  And does he ever. (more…)

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W.G. Sebald–Austerlitz (2001) [translated 2001]

Posted in Anthea Bell, Culture Shock, Death, Holocaust, James Joyce, Kate Bush, Nazis, Roberto Bolaño, The Rolling Stones, Translation, Travel, W.G. Sebald, War on May 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-Director’s Cut (2011).

Kate Bush has re-recorded eleven songs from her two least-loved discs, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.  According to the story at NPR, this seems to have been inspired by the Joyce estate’s granting Kate the right to use part of Ulysses as the lyrics for the song “The Sensual World” (in the original version she paraphrased the book).  So, she decided to re-record a bunch of other songs from those two albums as well.

I admit that neither one of those discs is high on my repeat play list, with The Red Shoes being a particular disappointment.  (Although there are some great songs on each).  When I read that these songs from those two albums I wasn’t terribly excited to hear them.  But I must say that these new versions have really reinvigorated these tracks.

I’m surprised by some of the choices (redoing “This Woman’s Work” is something of a shock, as is redoing her only real hit from The Red Shoes, “Rubberband Girl”), but whether it’s that she chose the best songs, or the new version have more life to them, this is a wonderful collection of songs.

Actually, rechecking the track listing, it does appear to be the best tracks from both discs, but I’m pleasantly surprised to seen how many good songs were actually on The Red Shoes to begin with,

from The Sensual World

  • Sensual World (retitled “Flower of the MOuntain”)
  • Deeper Understanding
  •  This Woman’s Work
  • Never Be Mine

from The Red Shoes

  • The Song of Solomon
  • Lily
  • The Red Shoes
  • Moments of Pleasure
  • Top of the City
  • And So is Love
  • Rubberband Girl

For the most part, the music seems to be the same (although there are some glaring exceptions).  I admit to not remembering the originals for all of them all that well).  But she has mostly rerecorded her voice (and possibly other lyrics, if NPR is accurate).  Her voice is unmistakably Kate, but in some places she sounds noticeably older (which she is, so duh).  She doesn’t seem to be able to hit quite the highs of before, but her voice has a throaty excellence to it now that brings something new to the songs.  It’s not noticeable on every song, although it is most notable on “This Woman’s Work,” which began with high sopranos, and now begins with lower alto notes.  But she can still hit some of the cool screechy notes on “Top of the City”

There are some tracks that are very different, “A Deeper Understanding” (a song about love via modems) replaces the earlier style of singing with a heavily autotuned computer voice.  It’s unsettling but very cool sounding.

The biggest changes come in “This Woman’s Work” and “Rubberband Girl.”

“This Woman’s Work” is a far more sedate track now. It doesn’t have any of the soaring moments of the original.  It seems to have more depth in this version, but I miss the “Oh darling make it go away” moment.  Nevertheless, it sounds really pretty in this more mature version.  It’s simply a very different song now.

As for “Rubberband Girl,” I’ve always had a real fondness for the original, so I don’t know how I feel about the rerecorded version (which is so very different).  The original is very elastic with cool music and weird vocals and is kind of trippy (and may not even be all that good), but I have grown quiet attached to it.  The new version is a simple guitar sound (it reminds me of a sort of unplugged Rolling Stones song now).

Overall, this is an exciting revitalization of Kate’s back catalog, and I hope it inspires her to make another new album in the next few years or so.

[READ: May 14, 2011] Austerlitz

I read about Sebald in Five Dials. And the glowing talk about him made me want to read one of his books (specifically, this one).

Austerlitz is a strange novel which I enjoyed but which I never really got into.  I feel like rather than absorbing me into its words, the book kind of held me aloft on the surface.  As such, I have a general sense of what happened, but I’d be very hard pressed to discuss it at length.

The basic plot summary is that an unnamed narrator runs into a man named Jacques Austerlitz.  Austerlitz talks to him at length about his life. They run into each other at various points over the years, and Austerlitz’ story is continued.  And literally, that is the book.  Now, of course, Austerlitz’ story is multifaceted and complex.  But we will never forget that this is a story within a story (it’s impossible to forget because the phrase “said Austerlitz” appears about 500 times in the book. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–Brief Interviews with Hideous Men [audio books] (1999, 2003, 2009)

Posted in Audiobooks, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, Holocaust, Humiliation, John Krasinski, Language, Masturbation, Meta, Sex, Suicide, Unlikable main character on November 7, 2010| 8 Comments »

[LISTENED TO: End of October 2010] Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

There are three options for listening to Brief Interviews.

The first version is the original audio cassette which is read entirely by DFW (1999).  It’s out of print but you can download the audio for free at the David Foster Wallace Audio Project. The second version is the newly released audio book that coincides with John Krasinski’s film (2009).  This CD features some of the readings by DFW although most of the actual interviews are read by the actors from the film (see below for all details).  The third option is a collection of staged readings which were created by The Howling Fantods Brief Interviews Project.  They are available at the site and at the David Foster Wallace Audio Project.  [UPDATE Nov. 8: For the sake of accuracy, I wanted to state that George Carr is responsible for all of the work down for these recordings.  The Howling Fantods site simply hosted the results].

None of these recordings include all of the stories from the book.  Although the stories that they do include are unedited (this is officially listed as “unedited selections from the book”).  The stories that are not included in any of these recordings are:  creepy organ music

  • “The Depressed Person”  [this would have been a tour de force to read]
  • “The Devil Is a Busy Man”
  • “Think”
  • “Signifying Nothing”
  • “Datum Centurio” [I can’t imagine trying to read this out loud]
  • “Octet”
  • “Adult World (I)”
  • “Adult World (II)” [I would have liked to hear how these were handled]
  • “The Devil Is a Busy Man”
  • “Church Not Made with Hands”
  • “Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (XI)”
  • “Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko” [this is my least favorite bit of DFW work and I would have really liked to have heard it read aloud to see if I could get anything more out of it].
  • “On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright’s Father Begs a Boon” (more…)

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Nathan Englander–“Free Fruit for Young Widows” (New Yorker, May 17, 2010)

Posted in Death, Holocaust, Nathan Englander, Nazis, New Yorker, Short Story, The Beatles, War on May 14, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Beatles-With the Beatles (1963).

Reading the liner notes to these discs gives me a greater appreciation for what the Beatles did.  They put out these first two records in the span of eight months and recorded both of the discs in a matter of like 26 hours each.  That’s pretty amazing.

I’m also starting to think that mono may be the way to go with these early discs.  I mean I’m a stereo guy, but I’m listening to these discs in the car, and it’s weird to have all the instruments on my side and all the vocals over by the passenger seat.

As for this disc itself, again, I was surprised by how many songs I didn’t know on it.  It’s also funny to hear so many cover songs (although it makes sense this early in their career).  Especially since, for the most part, their originals are quite a bit better.  It’s also funny how many of these covers I think of as Beatles songs.  Especially, “Money.”  This disc closer is like “Twist and Shout” in that it really rocks the house down at the close of the disc.  It’s not quite as intense as “Twist” but it’s close.

The only real dud on the disc is “Roll Over Beethoven” which is remarkably stiff for a song about rock and roll.

Whether it’s the production or the amount of time they spent in the studio, this disc sounds more accomplished than the first.  And I can really see  what all the excitement must have been about.  Four good-looking guys singing about love.  What could be better than that?

[READ: May 11, 2010] “Free Fruit for Young Widows”

After reading the Holocaust-based story in McSweeney’s (post coming soon), and the Holocaust section of 2666, the last thing I was ready for was another Holocaust story.  And what a doozy this one is.

Sometimes, when reading a Holocaust based story, I worry that my emotions about the Holocaust will overshadow the quality of the story.  In other words, is it a cheap ploy, an easy setting to get a reaction from the reader.  This story definitely is not. (more…)

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