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Archive for the ‘Harper’s’ Category

Paul Theroux–“Our Raccoon Year” (Harper’s, May 2012)

Posted in Bill Callahan, Death, Harper's, Humiliation, Paul Theroux, Short Story, Smog, Unlikable main character, Versus, Yuck! on April 19, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BILL CALLAHAN-“Santa Maria” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers(2009).

I don’t often listen to songs that are as simple and straightforward as this one.  It’s an acoustic guitar with occasional piano and Callahan’s deep voice.  The melody is enjoyable and the vocals are crystal clear.  (Callahan is from Smog, a band I know of, but whom I don’t really know).

The original of this song is by Versus on their Afterglow EP.  I’ve liked Versus for a long time–their mix of male/female vocals and rockin’ guitars is always exciting.  But I didn’t remember this song at all.  It turns out that it’s kind of a slow, brooding number, something I probably wouldn’t have paid a ton of attention to back when I was rocking out more.

I prefer the Versus version as there’s more interesting tricks afoot, although Callahan does some cool subtleties by the end of the song that really bring out some interesting twists to the song.

[READ: April 16, 2012] “Our Raccoon Year”

I’ve read a few pieces from Paul Theroux, and I’ll say that this piece really surprised me.  While I wouldn’t try to categorize all of Theroux’s writing, I would say that a domestic story about raccoons is one that I would not have expected.

The story opens with the narrator, a young boy, telling us that his Ma decided to go away.  Their Pa explained that she was where she wanted to be “with her friend.”  Given the circumstances, and the fact that Pa was a well-respected citizen (and attorney), Pa was given custody of the narrator and his brother. He was the first man to be given custody of children after a divorce in their region and it only upped people’s opinions of him.

That’s a neat conceit for a story.  So it’s surpising when he says that it also began their “raccoon year” which means it was their year of dealing with raccoons. (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“Disatser Aversion: The quest to control hurricanes” (Harper’s, October 2009)

Posted in Bright Eyes, Buckminster Fuller, Essays, Harper's, Magnetic Fields, Natural Disasters, Nature, Rivka Galchen, Scientists on April 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BRIGHT EYES-“Papa was a Rodeo” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I don’t especially like Bright Eyes.  But, as with Ryan Adams, his covers are quite good.  The Magnetic Fields are pretty distinctive when it comes to lyric and melody.  I’ve enjoyed a lot of their recordings, and once you get into The Magnetic Field’s mindset it’s hard to imagine anyone else singing his songs (that voice!).  But if you haven’t heard a song for a while, it’s fun to hear a new interpretation.

And I really like what Bright Eyes does with this song–especially the backing vocals and harmonies at the end of “one night stand.”  And–personal preference–the covers is paced a little faster, which I like, too.

[READ: April 2, 2012] “Disaster Aversion”

This is the final article by Rivka Galchen in Harper’s.  One would never expect an article with that title to be as personal as this one was–but I think Harper’s has a way of bringing that aspect out of writers].  For instance, the opening line is, “Like many a girl with a long-dead father I refer to myself as a girl rather than as a woman, and I gravitate to place I suspect my father, dead fifteen years now, might haunt.”  Her father wa sa professor–which means that Rivka needed to go see the Whitney’s Buckminster Fuller Retrospective (which sounds awesome, frankly).  I love this comment, which feel so true: “My father either admired Buckminster Fuller tremendously or thought he was a tremendous fool.  I can’t remember which.”

Rivka doesn’t know all of the details of her father’s work, but she knows the basics, so when she started doing some investigation into storm and weather modification, she was right in her father’s area.  Her research led to a Project STORMFURY from the 1960s.  And she grew interested in modifying hurricanes.

The article basically details her attempts to speak to weather scientists and to ask them questions about current and future opportunities for reducing the damages done by hurricanes.  As with much non-fiction, it doesn’t seem worth it for me to summarize her research–just read the article, its quite enjoyable.

But the fun part comes from the scientist she had a really hard time interviewing.  She spends most of the article puzzling about why this renowned scientist won’t speak to her–won’t even see her.  She has many reasons at her disposal for why the man won’t speak to her–the man knew her father and maybe his eccentric and at times confrontational behavior put him off of her family. The true is far more amusing. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Train” (Harper’s, April 2012)

Posted in Alice Munro, Canadian Content, Cancer as plot device, Destroyer, Harper's, Lavender Diamond, Mennonites, Religion, Short Story, The Decemberists, Trains on April 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LAVENDER DIAMOND-“New Ways of Living” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

This song plays around with the Destroyer original a little bit more than some of the other covers have.  Lavender Diamond’s lead vocalist is a woman, Becky Stark, so her voice is different from Dan Bejar’s.  Of course, Bejar’s voice is kind of high-pitched so it’s not that different.  The original also has a female backing vocal on all of the Lie-Dee-Dies, which Lavender Diamond supplies by herself.

The Destroyer version is softer, a bit more delicate (especially the ending section which is washes of strings and gentle keyboards).  Lavender Diamond’s version is primarily piano, and that starkness somehow makes the song more intense.  So yes,  I find myself enjoying the Lavender Diamond version a wee bit more.  I hadn’t heard much by Lavender Diamond before (I knew that Becky Stark was on the Decemeberists’ Hazards of Love album).  But I think it’s time to investigate her stuff a little bit more.

[READ: April 5, 2012] “Train”

I had put off reading this story for a little while because it was pretty long (12 pages in Harper’s which is quite long for a Harper’s story).  Not only was it justifiably long, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

The story was set up in an unexpected way (especially for Munro whose stories tend to be pretty straightforward).  It opens with a man jumping off a train (I also tend to think of Munro as writing about women, so a male protagonist is also something of a surprise).

So Jackson hops off of a train.  It was going slow, but it hurt more than he expected.  After he gets his bearings, he realizes that he is closer to civilization than he realized–indeed, there’s a woman out milking a cow.  The woman turns out to be Belle (the cow is Margaret Rose).

After years of reading different kinds of stories, there were so many different ways this meeting could have gone (most of them badly).  But Munro tends to not write about physical violence, so this meeting goes pretty well–it’s not even all that awkward because Belle is a sweet, almost naive, woman.

Belle lives by herself, although that is a recently development.  Her mother passed away a few months ago after decades of needing a lot of physical help.  Her father has been dead for many years–he was hit by a train.  He used to take care of Belle’s mother, but once he died, the responsibility was all hers.

She was also more or less supported by the Mennonites who live up the road.  The introduction of them is wonderful, as it is how Jackson sees them: “Over the hill came a box on wheels, being pulled by two quiet small horses….  And in the box sat half a dozen or so little men.   All dressed in black with proper black hats on their heads.”

Of course, these little men are the Mennonite children who look after her.  Jackson pities Belle, although she neither seeks it nor really deserves it.  She seems quite content with her situation.  He decides to stick around and fix up her house for her (which is in bad need of repair).  He imagines that he can work for her for a few months and then maybe help the Mennonites a bit and then continue on his way. (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“Once an Empire” (Harper’s, February 2010)

Posted in Broken Social Scene, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Funny (strange), Harper's, King Missile, Rivka Galchen, Short Story, The Clean on April 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE-“Complications” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I liked Broken Social Scene’s first album quite a lot.  This is their cover of a song by The Clean.  I know of The Clean from the Topless Women Talk about Their Lives soundtrack although not this particular song.  (What’s with all these New Zealand bands being on Merge?)  I found the original song online.  Interestingly, the original version is only 2 minutes long.  But Broken Social Scene always does things by double, so their version is 4 minutes long.

The cover version opens with a young person saying “This song was written before ‘Born to Run,'” although as far as I can tell “Complications” was written in 2001. So who knows.

The cover is a fuzzy, ramshackle mess of a song, which is not to say that it isn’t good (the original is kind of ramshackle, too).  The prominent melody doesn’t exactly remind me of “Born to Run” but I can see the connection.  The big question is, what does BSS do with the extra two minutes?  Well, mostly they jam, with some wild soloing–but it’s all mixed just under the fuzz of the noise.

This is another strangely faithful cover (5 in a row so far) for this covers album.  And once again, I think I like the cover a little better.

[READ: April 1, 2012] “Once an Empire”

Clearly I wasn’t reading every story that came in Harper’s back in 2010, because I know I skipped this one.  But now that I’m quite fond of Rivka Galchen, I decided it was time to go back and check it out.

How can you not like a story that starts out: “I’m a pretty normal woman, maybe even an extremely normal one.”  You know that normal things will not be afoot by the end of the story, right?  And so it is, by the second paragraph: “I never thought I’d be the victim of an especially unusual crime.  Or of any crime, really.”

You’re totally hooked, right? Me too!

The narrator takes her wonderfully sweet time getting to the crime: dithering over whether or not it was Tuesday night (“Every Tuesday night I go and see whatever is playing at the movie theater nearby.  I’m not choosy.  I’m happy to see what everyone else is going to see.”) or Wednesday morning. Talking about the giant clock/thermometer on the Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower that keeps her company.  And then describing her walk home.

She notices that her windows are dark–she always leaves her lights on.  And then, she notices that some thing–not something, some thing–is emerging from one of her windows.  And as she focuses, she realizes it is her ironing board. (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“Into the Unforeseen: A romance of César Aira” (Harper’s June, 2011)

Posted in Books about writers, César Aira, Essays, Figurines, Harper's, Mercury Rev, Rivka Galchen, Short Books on March 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FIGURINES “The Air We Breathe” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

Figurines are from Denmark.  This song has a very distinctive Mercury Rev feel (late-period  Mercury Rev) with high pitched vocals and delicate intertwining melodies.

The verses are done on simple piano and the bridge has some nice harmonies.  This is a cool alt rock song that stands up to repeated listens.

[READ: March 28, 2012] “Into the Unforeseen”

The timing of this article is quite amazing.  Having really enjoyed Galchen’s short story, I decided to see what else she had written.  It’s not a lot, but she has written three things published in Harper’s–two essays and one short story.  This first essay is all about César Aira.  I didn’t even know who Aira was when it came out in 2011, but now, I get to read it again having just finished another of his novels.  (The essay concludes with information about Varamo, a novel that was just recently translated into English which I picked up at the library, yesterday).

This essay is about the week that Galchen spent with Aira in and around Aira’s home (but not his birth town of Coronel Pringles which he kind of jokingly forbids her from seeing.  Galchen loves Aira’s writing (and has a kind of crush on him, although they’d never met before).  She doesn’t say in this article but she was a Spanish language major, so she has clearly been reading his books in Spanish.

She lets us know that the day before she met Aira, her ten-year relationship ended (she hints at the reason but is quite discrete).  She brings this up because of an emotional moment later in the article.  And that’s what I loved about this article–it was personal and really invited the reader in to experience this meeting with her.   (more…)

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John Ralston Saul–“The Archduke’s Assassin” (Harper’s, April 2012 & Brick, Winter 2012)

Posted in Abba, Brick, Communists, Harper's, History, John Ralston Saul, Julee Cruise, Sally Shaprio, Short Story, Swedish Music, Violence, War on March 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SALLY SHAPIRO-“I’ll Be By Your Side” (Extended Mix) & “He Keeps me Alive (Skatebård Mix)” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

These two tracks also came from the Viva Piñata compilation.  “I’ll Be By Your Side” has a very Euro dance-sound to me (updated ABBA, perhaps?).  It sounds so incredibly 80s to me.  Unlike most of the other tracks, this is an extended mix, not a remix, so I assume this is what the real song sounds like, too.  It’s a fine little pop song (catchy chorus) although I don’t need an 8 minute version of it.

“He Keeps Me Alive” feels like  Julie Cruise song–straight out of Twin Peaks–until the bouncy synths come in (I can’t imagine what the remix did as it sounds so much like the other song).  The one possible remix element is the vocals, which get very synthesized near the end.

Both of these songs have that Europop feels that I like much more than American pop.   I had been puzzled by the name of the singer, because her name clearly wasn’t coming from where I though the music came from.  Well, Wikipedia tells me “Sally Shapiro is the pseudonym of a Swedish vocalist and the name of the synthpop duo composed of Shapiro and musician Johan Agebjörn.”  At least I got the Abba connection right!

[READ: March 22, 2012] “The Archduke’s Assassin”

This is an excerpt from Saul’s upcoming novel Dark Diversions (it was also published in Brick, although I read it in Harper’s).  What’s fun about this excerpt is that I have literally no idea what direction the rest of the novel could go.  This appears to be a self-contained incident and while it seems pretty clear who the protagonist is, it’s hard to speculate how much more of the book would be about him or his friends or even the excerpt’s titular assassin.

It begins with a discussion of Yugolslav politics circa 1987–how the official inflation rate of 50% is indeed official, which means mythological.  The setting is the Writers’ Union, a nineteenth century stone palace which housed the best restaurant in Yugoslavia.  The food was great, as was the gossip.

The narrator’s friends were all mixed race (in other words typical Yugoslavs).  But for the moment they were all Serbs.  The discussion moves to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and how the narrator should meet the man responsible.  When he replies that Gavrilo Princip died in prison in 1918,  his friend Dana corrects him and says she is talking about Vaso Čubrilović.  Čubrilović was one of several people who conspired to assassinate the archduke.  As of 1987 he was the only one still alive.  [He is a real person.  He got 13 years in prison, eventually became a history professor and died for real in 1990].

The narrator goes to meet the man at the University.  After a brief theoretical discussion of history, Čubrilović says that he believes that technology will save the future, that software will lead the way.  The narrator ponders this later over a meal and wonders if a new mythology is needed to distract people in a time of political emptiness.

There isn’t a lot to the excerpt–it’s not profound or anything, but it does what an excerpt should–it whets your appetite for more.  The writing is excellent and the topic is intriguing.

I enjoyed that the story mentions some Serbian dishes like kesten-pire sa šlagom (chestnut pureé with cream and chocolate) and  žito sa šlagom (crushed wheat, walnuts and dried raisins with cream).

For ease of searching, I include: Skatebard, Johan Agebjorn, kesten-pire sa slagom, zito sa slagom, Vaso Cubrilovic, pinata

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Roberto Bolaño–“I Can’t Read” (Harper’s, April 2012)

Posted in Canadian Music, Chris Andrews, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Marriage (Happy), Roberto Bolaño, Short Story, Translation, You Say Party! We Say Die! on March 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: YOU SAY PARTY! WE SAY DIE!-“Monster (RAC Remix)” and “Like I Give a Care (Octopus Project Remix)” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

Viva Piñata is a free CD compilation that I received I think when I ordered a Tokyo Police Cub CD.  It celebrates “5 years of ass-whippin’ at Paper Bag Records.”  It came out in 2008, so presumably, Paper Bag Records has now been whippin’ ass for 9 years.

You Say Party! We Day Die! (that’s a name that seems to be trying too hard) is from British Columbia, Canada and they seem to be a noisy keyboard band.  “Monster” is a keyboard-heavy poppy song.  Of course, since this is a remix I have no idea what the original sounds like.  The lead singer has a cool deep voice (a more poppy Kim Gordon, perhaps?).  But this song is dominated by the propulsive synths.

“Like I Give a Care” has a remix that is even more intense, overeffected, noisy and chaotic with a great propulsive bass.  It also seems like most of the song has been stripped, leaving just a chorus repeated.  As a remix it works fine.

I’ve often complained about remixes–if I like a song, why would I want to hear a remix of it?  This is the opposite.  I’ve never heard the song before and the remix is kind of fun. I’m intrigued to hear what they actually sound like.

[READ: March 22, 2012] “I Can’t Read”

Another month, another excerpt from a new posthumous Bolaño release.  This latest book is called The Secret of Evil which Harper’s says will be out this month (we’ll see about that).  The Secret of Evil is evidently a collection of unfinished pieces that Bolaño was working on when he died.

This particular story certainly seems finished, so who knows what the rest of the book will be like.

I am particularly fond of this kind of story from Bolaño–it reads like nonfiction (and maybe it is).  It seems to be a true account from his life (written in first person and about his family)–it’s a personal, relaxed style in which he muses about things and events.  It is also set during his first trip back to Chile since leaving in 1974 (a subject he mines quite well).

This one starts with the line: “This is a story about four people.”  The first two people he talks about are his son Lautaro and a new friend that his son made named Pascual.  Lautaro was eight and Pascual was four, but since Lautaro was desperate for someone to play with, he overlooked the age difference and made a holiday friend. (more…)

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Jess Walter–“Thief” (Harper’s, March 2012)

Posted in Fears, Gipsy Kings, Harper's, Jess Walter, Rush, Short Story, Steven Katz, The Eagles, Travel on February 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STEVEN KATZ-In the Garden of Earthly Delights (2009).

Since I mentioned an album my Aunt Marg gave me, I’m also going to mention this one, that she gave me the following Christmas.  She told me that Steven Katz is a classical guitarist in St Croix.  They saw him play when they were on vacation and they were amazed that he this amazing guitarist who was just sort of hanging around in St Croix (that’s the life, eh?)

I enjoy classical guitar, although I suspect if I was able to play it I’d enjoy listening to it even more.  As it stands, I can appreciate the fast trills (and Katz is masterful at them) and the general feel for the form.  On the other hand, I’m a terrible critic of this kind of music.  It all sounds kind of samey to me.   This is not a criticism of the genre or of Katz, it’s simply an admission that I like the stuff, but I couldn’t tell you a grand master from a regular master.  The one big difference I can say is that unlike the Gipsy Kings (of whom I am quite a fan) there are no extended clapping sections (well, a small clapping section in “Moroccan Roll”).

All of Katz’ composition are beautiful (all the songs are original except for one cover).  They often feature slow sections that are very moody as well as virtuosi parts (that I’ll bet are amazing to watch).  Katz is an amazing guitarist (of course I think anyone who can play this style is amazing).  He plays a Flamenco acoustic guitar over some simply keys and percussion on most of the tracks.  If I had any song to quibble with it would be “Parting at the Ganges” which has a cheesey keyboard in the background and chimes that are clearly sampled–that isn’t a bad thing necessary, except when they stop abruptly and start again.  But I only noticed that on my third listen.  But most songs have simple arrangements (bongos and whatnot).

On the plus side there’s some really unexpected guitar lines at the end of “Gypsy Caravan” and the whole feel of “Moroccan Roll” is very cool.  “Shake It Up” diverges from style on the rest of the disc with some interesting and familiar south of the border musical setups (before returning to some amazing fretwork).  I also really liked the opening of “Desert Rain Cry” because it sounds (I’m sure completely unintentionally) like the opening of Rush’ “Xanadu” (without the wooden blocks).  (The rest sounds NOTHING like the Rush song).

I mentioned the Gipsy Kings above and the comparison is apt because like the Gipsy Kings, Katz also does  cover of Hotel California. Unlike the Kings’ version, there are no vocals. Also unlike their version, this version is quite subtle.  He uses his guitar to play the vocal line, but he does it in a flamenco style–incorporating the melody into the fingerwork–it’s very cool.  He also incorporates the famous guitar solo into his playing–you hear it but he’s not “just” playing the solo.  It becomes and entirely different song than the original.

I went to Katz website and he is funny and self-deprecating, but he also tells us that he has played with all kinds of people including Dr. John, Mavis Staples, Edgar Winter and Mountain (this last one shows that he’s not a young man).   But I’m also quite certain he is not this Steve Katz who was in Blood Sweat and Tears.

[READ: February 21, 2012] “Thief”

I have read two other things from Walter, both of them via McSweeney’s journals.  It’s interesting to read him outside of that context as this piece is different from those two (I’m also amazed that he is releasing his sixth novel!).

I didn’t like the way this story started out, but once we got past the awkward introduction, I thought it was extremely compelling.  And then when it ended, I had some weird feelings about the conclusion.  But more on that later.  (I’m learning that when I say things like “I didn’t like the beginning, it’s usually like the first paragraph or two, which isn’t really fair, but which can often make or break someone’s interest in a story).

So the story starts out with observations about the Girl from her dad (capitalized because all three kids are apparently referred to as Little, Middle and Girl).  Wayne is watching his daughter sleep.  He had her when he was just 19 and she changed his world.  Now she’s 14 and he doesn’t like that Girl hangs album covers on the wall and wears her hair like Peter Frampton (I did enjoy the very simple pop culture references that set the time of this story perfectly).  Then he looks in on the sleeping Middle (who is so unlike Wayne that he thinks of him as the Milkman’s kid) and Little.  Any of the three could be the thief.  Little is a greedy sumbitch (I love the detail about his first words).  Middle is a pretty unlikely candidate (he’s bookish and timid).  And then there’s Girl.  She walks to the bus stop but sneaks a ride with the guy in the Nova; she’s probably smoking pot.

One of them is definitely the thief.

Wayne has a giant jug in which he dumps his change.  It is the family vacation jug.  After two years of change, it will be full enough for a vacation.  And this year’s is Kelowna, BC and the Bedrock City there (yes a Flintstone’s Theme Park–which was real, but is now sadly closed).  Wayne suspects that the Girl doesn’t want to go to Flintstones land and is stealing money to sabotage the trip.  His wife thinks he’s crazy, but he has set little traps and he knows the vacation jug is moving and emptying. (more…)

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Yoko Ogawa–“Old Mrs. J” (Harper’s, February 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Books about writers, Death, Funny (strange), Harper's, Helium, Marriage Trouble, Short Story, Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Snyder, Translation, Wild Flag, Yoko Ogawa on January 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WILD FLAG-SXSW April 1, 2011 (2011).

Wild Flag has released one of the best albums of 2011.  I can’t stop listening to it.  So, it’s funny that this show has been sitting on NPR’s download page for months without me checking it out because I didn’t know who the band was until the album came out.  Wild Flag is Carrie Brownstein, Mary Timony and Janet Weiss (and a keyboardist who I will never remember because I never heard of the band she was originally in). 

This show at SXSW is one of their earlier shows.  It’s so early that one of the songs in the setlist appears on the album with a different title.  And the band is full of raw energy and passion. 

Although research shows that they’d been touring since November, Mary Timony seems somewhat hesitant in a few songs.  But Carrie Brownstein seems fired up to be playing again, and she rages and jumps around the stage, her voice as aggressive and fun as it was in Sleater-Kinney.  Janet Weiss, as ever, kicks massive ass on the drum kit.  man can she wail–she is a vastly underrated drummer. 

The band has great cohesion and they seem like they’re really enjoying themselves. 

 In many respects this band sounds like Sleater-Kinney (2/3 of the band are here).  But the addition of Timony’s lyrics and more gentle voice bring a cool change.  And the keyboards flesh out the songs in wonderful ways as well–for a band with no bassist, it’s funny that the most pronounced keyboards riffs are at the high end of the register.

There’s a few flubs during the set, in one of the more pronounced keyboard riffs, there’s a pretty major gaffe.  And sometimes it seems like they don’t know exactly how they should be harmonizing with each other (not true on the record at all).  And during the extended soloing of “Glass Tambourine” (6 minutes), I’m not really sure what Mary is up to.  But that’s okay.  The band is all about rawness, so that can be forgiven. 

While the album is better, this live show is a good introduction to the band. 

Since Carrie Brownstein worked for NPR I almost expect all of their shows to be available here.  But for now, watch the whole show here.

[READ: January 17, 2012] “Old Mrs. J”

Stephen Snyder translated this story that was originally written in Japanese.  It’s interesting to me when a work is translated from another culture.  Does the translator intend to keep the other culture obvious or does the translator try to make the story, in this case, more European or American.  There’s some inevitability in that, since the language is changed, and yet the sensibility of the original often remains.

I bring this up because I tend to think of Japanese writing as being very distinctive.  And yet this story didn’t really “read” very Japanese to me (Kiwi fruit aside).  It did read a little bizarre, but that was the fun part.

The story starts out simply enough: a young writer (who is a woman, although you don’t find that out until very late in the story unless, unlike me, you assume the main character is a woman because the author’s name is Yoko).  The author works late and sleeps in til noon or so.  It’s a quiet, peaceful place.  The landlady is older and somewhat feeble.  Until, that is, she gets into her garden and then she seems possessed by a fire. 

The landlady hasn’t really talked to the writer.  Then one day the writer hears the landlady in the garden cursing at a stray cat.  The landlady hates cats and curses them up and down.  Finally the writer tells her to put pine needles down, that cats hate prickly things on their feet.  This I did not know.

And they strike up a friendship.  The landlady reveals that her husband was no good and that he left her.  She also reveals that she gives massages.  And she begins leaving the writer vegetables from her garden.  Then one day, the landlady brings her a strange carrot with 5 “fingers” coming off of the central stalk.  The carrots are quite special.  And she keeps them a secret until sure enough, she begins growing lots and lots of them.  Even the newspaper comes to take a picture.

This idyllic story is interrupted in the last few paragraphs.  First by what seems like metaphorical scariness and then, ultimately, with reality.  It is a wonderfully realized story, wonderfully told and with enough hints of magical realism throughout that the ending isn’t totally unbelievable–even if it is quite unexpected.

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Diane Williams–Vicky Swanky is a Beauty (2012)

Posted in Africa, Concept Albums, Constellation Records, Diane Williams, Disease, Flash Fiction, Harper's, McSweeney's, Poetry, Racism, Short Books, Short Story, Slavery on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MATANA ROBERTS-COIN COIN Chapter One: Gens de couleur libres [CST079] (2011).

This is an abrasive album.  Not only does it has some massively skronking free-jazz, but it is also aggressively political, dealing with slavery and race.   So, if the heart-rendered screams of Roberts don’t make you uncomfortable, the description of a woman on the auction block will do it.

I listened to this album a number of times and kept thinking that it would probably work much better live than on record.  Lo and behold, if I’d read the liner notes more closely I would have known that it was performed live.   (The final song has an introduction and cheers at the end, but none of the rest of the album indicates that it’s live).

I like free improv jazz (when I’m in the mood of course) and I also like noise jazz (John Zorn mostly).  So I’m not averse to a lot of the genre.  But there was something odd about this recording to me.  And this is where that whole “live” recording comes into play.  This music felt like it was being performed for an audience.  I don’t know what the difference is, but it’s one I heard.  I can imagine images going along with the show.   And because of that, I feel like I was missing a crucial element.

The liner notes don’t explain anything about the show itself, nor how this person apparently named Coin Coin relates to her (it seems vaguely autobiographical, but I’d love to know more).

There are moments of rather conventional beauty on this recording.  The song that contains the “Bid ‘Em In” section is a great singalong (of course, when you realize what you’re singing about, you’re horrified).  And there are some other sections where Robert’s voice melds perfectly with her band and with Gitanjali Jain’s backing vocals.

The final song is a very moving song written for her mother.

The only thing I really don’t like about the album is Roberts’ poetry-slam-type singing.  I have complained before about this type of sing-song delivery, which just irks me.  I can see that there are times on the album where it works, but for the most part it feels arbitrary (as it always seems to me).  And when you have crazy improv jazz you need something to hold it down.  The poetry slam lyrics don’t do that.

This is not for everybody, but it is certainly a powerful album.

[READ: January 16, 2012] Vicky Swanky is a Beauty

McSweeney’s has gotten me to like a lot of things that I never thought I would–a cooking magazine, a sports magazine, long out of print unheard of titles.  But they simply cannot get me to like flash fiction.  Okay, that’s not entirely true.  Deb Olin Unfurth is quite a master of the genre.  But man, I just cannot get into Williams’ short short stories.

The majority of these stories are two pages long.  This means 12 lines on the first page and anywhere from a quarter to a full-page on the second.  But there are also some stories that end after one page (12 lines).  So here’s the little drinking game I invited.  Since Williams’ stories end so arbitrarily, try to guess which ones end after those first twelve lines and which ones continue on to the next page (it’s not really a fair game because some stories end in ten lines or so, but you get the idea).

Take “Cockeyed” (more…)

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