Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Harper’s’ Category

Jonathan Lethem–“Radisson Confidential” (Harper’s, October 2011)

Posted in Books about writers, Essays, Harper's, Jonathan Ames, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran Foer, Phish, Raymond Chandler, Sci-fi on October 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait (2010-2011).

If you’re a fan of Phish, you no-doubt know about their live concert releases.  Phish has always encouraged bootlegging of their shows.  And people traded the shows all around the country.  Back about twelve years ago, they started releasing some of these concerts officially–soundboard quality recordings.  There was no indication that they would release every concert they had played, but they selected a very interesting mix of recent and early shows as well as Halloween shows (where they cover an entire album from another band) and shows from unusual places.

Starting in 2009 (after their hiatus), the band started making (almost) all of their concerts available for download (for a fee) on their site.  You can get any show–you can even get them in CD format, for a quite sizable fee–soundboard quality.  One thing that I really like about their site if you go to a concert, you can redeem the bar code on your ticket for free MP3 of the show, usually within 48 hours.  Back when I used to go to concerts, I would have loved to have copies of a lot of the shows I saw.  This is a cool service for their fans.

And speaking of cool services, this post is about Live Bait.  I love the title of the series, which is obviously a pun about places where you can buy live bait (the covers all have pictures of bait stands), but it’s also a wonderful way to bait users into buying more music–crass and clever.  Anyhow, the Live Bait downloads (up to #6 right now) are a collection of live recordings taken from various shows.  (Live Bait #5 has songs from 2009 and songs from all the way aback to 1989).  They’re assembled together into a kind of seamless show and they are all available for free. 

Okay, big deal.  But it is a big deal because, while the first couple were 80 or so minutes of music (not too shabby in and of itself), Live Bait #3 features a 58-minute version of a song (!); Live Bait #4 contains almost 4 hours of free music and Live Bait #5 contains over 6 hours of free music.  So if you’re curious about why people like Phish so much, here’s several opportunities to listen to some of their live songs for free.  

Their most recent download is from their Benefit for Vermont Flood Recovery–if you’re going to buy a show, it’s a good place to start

[READ: September 25, 2011] “Radisson Confidential”

For a time (I wish I could remember exactly when this was) it seemed like all the young hip writers were named Jonathan: Ames, Lethem, Franzen, Safran Foer, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  I think I grew weary of the whole episode and decided not to read any of them.  That has since changed, and I have now read (and enjoyed) all of them–but each for very different reasons.  The funny thing to me though is that they were all lumped together and yet they are all so very different, especially now that Safran Foer has been writing nonfiction and Franzen has proven himself to be a writer of occasional big books that get lots of attention. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Justin Torres–“Starve A Rat” (Harper’s, October 2011)

Posted in Harper's, Justin Torres, LGBTQ, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Tom Waits on October 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TOM WAITS-Blue Valentine (1978).

Waits begins to morph into his later stage persona with this album,  although you wouldn’t know it from the opener, “Somewhere,” yes from West Side Story.   It’s a pretty straightforward Louis Armstrong-style cover, and I wonder what people thought of it.  “Red Shoes by the Drugstore” on the other hand foreshadows some of his crazier songs from later on–it’s kind of a like his beatniky work, but it’s a bit scarier and has less of a jazz feel.  Of course, he hasn’t completed eschewed melody and songwriting with the wonderful “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”–a slow piano ballad.

There’s also the amazing “Romeo is Bleeding” (the inspiration for the title of the movie).  There’s some more wild bluesy songs like “$29.00.”  In fact, Waits seems a bit looser overall (if that’s possible)–his voice is less clipped and beatniky, he’s more wild and perhaps even off beat

“Wrong Side of the Road” merges into later territory although he’s got enough scat style vocals to keep it sounding cool instead of crazy.  “Whistling Past the Graveyard” is one of his most uptempo bluesy songs;  it’s fun and a little crazy.

And yet for all of these forays into the unusual, he still stays firmly footed in what you expect from 1970s Waits: “A Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun” and “Blue Valentines” are jazzy, smoky, lounge songs, keeping us on solid Waits ground.  He hasn’t stepped far enough away from his original style to alienate listeners yet, but he’s definitely pushing the boundaries of what might be comfortable.

[READ: September 25, 2011] “Starve a Rat”

This story is a sad and lonesome tale (not unlike Torres’ other story that was recently published in the New Yorker–it’s like these two magazines are linked by some kind of fictional umbilicus).

In this one, a 19-year-old boy hooks up with an older man.  The man asks the boy to wear a diaper on their first encounter.  The boy doesn’t but rather, he tries to satisfy him in other ways.  This pickup becomes something more when the man, who initially asked the boy to leave, relents and talks with him through the night.  The boy finds himself being more honest with the man than with anyone else ever.

The leads to some flashbacks about the boy’s history.  Back when he had a girlfriend, what his girlfriend’s parents were like (her mother knew that he was gay) and how much he loved the girl, even though he always knew she was just a beard.

The strange thing about this story is that I couldn’t decide when it was set.  It has a kind of dark tone that makes me think it is a 1970s story, although there is talk of clinics, so maybe it’s the 80s?  He mentions something about albums being not so out of date that they’d be making a statement–so that could be early 90s? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Dario Voltolini–“Beatrixpark: An Illumination” (Harper’s, October 2011)

Posted in Anne Milano Appel, Dario Voltolini, Excerpt, Harper's, Italo Calvino, Short Story, Tom Waits, Translation, Travel on October 4, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: TOM WAITS- Foreign Affairs (1977).

This album is kind of a split between Waits’ bluesy songs and his “poetic rants.”  The only problem with the album per se is that he’s been doing this kind of stuff for five albums now and while he’s still good at it (great at it, actually), it’s probably time for a change (which he does on the next album).  This is not to say that the songs themselves are weaker than others, or that they are not at least slightly unexpected (the eight minute “Potter’s Field” is quite unexpected), just that when you know what he’s going to be doing,  this album feels like a pre-transition, one might even say a rut.

The disc opens with a pretty piano waltz (“Cinny’s Waltz”) that segues right into his jazzy nightclub sounding (ie. piano and sax) track “Muriel.”  The third track, “I Never Talk to Strangers” is a duet with Bette Midler (which I think makes sense given her persona, but I have simply never liked her–maybe that’s why I don’t like this album as much as I could).

“The Medley of Jack & Neal (about Kerouac and Cassidy) is a long rambling story about the two beats, it ends with a riff on “California Here I Come.”  In a similar vein–alluding to appropriate music–“A Sight for Sore Eyes” opens with the music from “Auld Lang Syne” before turning into one of Waits’ weepy ballads.

The second half of the disc is more storytelling as song.  “Potter’s Field” tells a lengthy story with occasional blasts of saxophone.  About midway through, it begins to sound like more of a musical–with the music adding dramatic effects to the lyrics–this may be a kind of foretelling of his more operatic music from Swordfishtrombones.  “Burma-Shave” is another long story (over 6 minutes).  This one is much darker (a fairly straightforward story of meeting a bad guy and going for a drive), but it’s a pretty good story for all of its noirishness.  “Barbershop” has a great bassline, but it is indeed about getting a haircut.  The album ends with the title cut, a sung ballad.

His next album, Blue Valentine, features electric guitars and keyboards and will change the sound of his songs quite a bit.

[READ: September 25, 2011] “Beatrixpark: An Illumination”

I don’t think I have read too many contemporary Italian authors (Italo Calvino is the only one who springs to mind).  Realistically, this shouldn’t make any difference to anything but this story seemed so off to me that I have to wonder if it’s something about Italian authors or if it is Voltolini is particular.  This story was translated by Anne Milano Appel.

The story begins by explaining that the main character is a man from the south.  Being very conscious of the fact that the author is Italian, not American, I worked hard to think of the bottom of the boot as opposed to Alabama.  Of course, being from Southern Italy doesn’t mean anything to me really, but I kept it in mind.   Then I find out the story is set in Amsterdam.  And then several paragraphs in, we learn that he is from Southern Europe somewhere.  Sigh.  To quote the story, “Gimme a break, provincial middle-aged man from the south!  Fuck off, why don’t you?” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Bonnie Nadzam–“The Losing End” (Harper’s, August 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Bonnie Nazdam, Boredom, Cigarettes, Death, Fleet Foxes, Harper's, Marriage Trouble, Megafaun, Pranks, Short Story on September 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MEGAFAUN-“Find Your Mark” (2008).

After listening to the new Megafaun track, I checked the NPR archives.  They have this one song from their debut available for a listen as well.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same band.  Or perhaps I should say that a band can change a lot in three years.  This song begins as a three-part near-a capella barbershop/bar trio.  It reminds me in many ways of a Fleet Foxes track, except they seems more rowdy.  The song merges into a delicate guitar picking section with all of the voices “ba ba ba” ing.  Then, that guitar melody expands to an electric guitar and full band sound.

The introduction to the track (from the NPR DJ says that the album may not be everyone’s cup of tea.  But I like this track so much (even though it is so very different from their 2011 release), that I need to listen to more from this band.  Spotify, here I come. [Actually the album has some pretty crazy noises on it!].

[READ: August 20, 2011] “The Losing End”

This is a strange story about a man named Lamb.  The reason it is strange is because the middle of the story–the exciting part, the part I most enjoyed–is not really the point of the story, at least if the ending is to be believed.

As the story opens, Lamb has just been to his father’s wake.  He is feeling adrift so he goes to a parking lot to sit and think.  In addition to his father, Lamb is also thinking about his wife and his girlfriend.  I’m a little unclear exactly what is happening with his wife (Cathy) but he definitely trying to get time away from her to spend it with Linnie. While he is sitting there lost in thought, a young girl in an ill-fitting tube top approaches him. (more…)

Read Full Post »

George Saunders–“My Chivalric Fiasco” (Harper’s, September 2011)

Posted in Anachronisms, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, From the Basement, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), George Saunders, Harper's, Humiliation, Morrissey, Sex, Sparks, Technology, The Smiths on September 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SPARKS-“Good Morning” (From the Basement) (2008).

I’ve enjoyed Sparks for a long time.  But I never got around to getting the album that this song comes from (Exotic Creatures from the Deep–which has two wonderful song titles: “Lighten Up, Morrissey” and “I Can’t Believe That You Would Fall for All The Crap In This Song.” 

“Good Morning” was the first single from the album.  It features a very bouncy keyboard opening which reminds me of Strangeways-era Smiths.  And then Russel Mael’s crazy falsetto comes pounding in on top of the whole thing. 

Visually, Sparks are fascinating because Ron Mael looks exactly the same as he has since day one: slicked back hair, thick glasses and a crazy little moustache.  This band is doubly fascinating because the two guitarists and bassist all have shoulder length hair and are wearing T-shirts with the new album cover on them.  In fact, the bassist and one guitarist look like they could be twins (the other guitarist is wearing a hat, so he messes with the identical-ness).  It’s an amusing scene to see.

This is a strange song, it’s catchy in its repetitiveness, but it’s got a cool bridge that breaks up the song into different parts (and the backing guys hit the high falsetto notes perfectly–I think I would have assumed they were women!).  This seems like a strange choice for a single and I can see wh it wasn’t a big hit.  (Most Sparks songs are kind of strange, so who knows which of their songs will catch on).  Of course, I don’t know the rest of the album so I don’t know if there was a more likely choice.  Nevertheless, I may have to investiagate this disc a bit more.

[READ: August 31, 2011] “My Chivalric Fiasco”

This is the second Saunders piece in a couple of weeks in two different publications (this seems to happen to him a lot–do I smell a new book coming out?).  This is one another of Saunders’ more corporate-mocking pieces.  He plays around with name brands and has a lot of trademarked and capitalized words.

But it starts off very unlike that whole realm. It seems to be set at a Ren Faire or some such thing.  On TorchLightNight the narrator sees Martha running through the woods saying, that guy is my boss.  Don Murray comes out of the woods after her, and it clear that something has gone on between them.  When Ted, the narrator, asks them what’s going on, they admit to a “voluntary” fling.  Then Don tells Ted that he has been promoted out of Janitorial; he is now a Pacing Guard.

The next day, Ted is given some KnightLyfe, a pill that helps him with medieval improv.  Until the pill kicks in, Ted is horrible in his role, but once it does, he (and the story) switch into a  kind of crazy Ren Faire “Olde” English: “Quoth Don Murray with a glassome wink, Ted you know what you and me should do sometime?” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Zadie Smith–3 Book Reviews (Harper’s, September 2011)

Posted in Arranged Marriage, Art, Book Reviews, Craig Thompson, Danzy Senna, Death, Essays, Fears, From the Basement, Harper's, Ian Thomson, Racism, Super Furry Animals, Violence, Zadie Smith on September 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK–SUPER FURRY ANIMALS-“Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon” (From the Basement) (2007).

[DISCLAIMER: This post was published on September 6th see that post for details].

Continuing this exploration of the From the Basement series, I found this unlikely video from Super Furry Animals.  SFA have never been big here (well, that had a fluke hit but that doesn’t count).  I have no real idea how big they’ve been back home.  So maybe it’s not a surprise that they are playing here.

SFA were a bunch of crazy psychedelic indie rockers.  Their early albums are totally nuts (like the EP Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogochynygofod (in space)).  But over the years, they have mellowed considerably. This song is the final track from Hey Venus!, an album that returned the Furries to their more rocking roots.  Despite the album’s overall rockingness, this song is the mellow ender to the album. 

This live version is very good, with Gruff Rhys sounding in fine form.  Visually, it’s more interesting than say Neil Hannon’s in that there are five of them, but they’re not exactly putting on a crazy show. What’s nice is the chance  to see just what the recording space looks like (there’s lots of wide shots) and to see just which hairy Welshmen are making which sounds. 

This is a wonderful song that could easily have been on anyone’s mellow folkie playlist.  The album version has a little bit more going on, but it’s not missed in this someowhat stripped down form. 

[READ: August 29, 2011] 3 Book Reviews

After last month’s tour de force about one title, this month returns to Zadie’s typical 3 books/month schedule.

The first book is Ian Thomson’s The Dead Yard: A Story of Modern Jamaica.  Zadie makes the amusing observation that this book, a very good and very well researched cultural study of Jamaica was written by a white Scotsman; she notes that a sense of remove from the culture was probably essential in order to create this book. 

Thomson offers historical context for the dangerous world that Jamaica occupies now (it’s not all “Jah, ganja mon” in the country.  In fact, five people are murdered every day (on this island of 3 million).  Fascinatingly, there is much racism in Jamaica—people seen as too black are often looked down upon in favor of lighter-skinned people.  Because of this, respect is very important.  Indeed, any kind of disrespect can cost you your life—just about everyone packs a gun (hence the stat above.  Of course this racism also may be why the Jewish, Indian and Chinese Jamaicans are thriving while the majority black are not.

Zadie says the only place where Thomson falls flat is in his utter dismissal of dancehall music (he likes reggae but can’t stand dancehall).  He dismisses Sean Paul and although Zadie’s not a huge fan of Sean Paul, she finds this dismissal a poor oversight possibly due more to his age (culture being a young person’s game) than anything else.  I especially enjoyed her dissection of one of Sean Paul’s videos. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Zadie Smith–1 Book Review (Harper’s, August 2011)

Posted in Book Reviews, Death, Edward St. Aubyn, Essays, From the Basement, Harper's, The Divine Comedy, Unlikable main character, Wikipedia, Zadie Smith on September 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NEIL HANNON-“A Lady of a Certain Age” (From the Basement) (2008).

[DISCLAIMER: This post was published on September 6th, see that post for details].

This video comes from the From the Basement series.  As I mentioned, the Radiohead live show comes from this series, but initially, rather than recording a whole album, more often that not they recorded a few songs.  The bad news is that many of the videos are no longer available on the site (there’s a DVD, but I’m unclear exactly what it includes).  But for each artist, there seems to be one streaming video.

This is a mellow song from The Divine Comedy’s Victory for the Comic Muse album.  It’s probably my favorite track on the album.  It’s a literate and clever song about an older woman.  This version is simply Neil and his acoustic guitar.  I tend to think of The Divine Comedy as being a heavily orchestrated band (their music is wonderfully symphonic) so it’s surprising for me to hear a DC song in this simple acoustic format. 

And yet, Neil’s voice is stellar and it easily holds up i this intimate setting.  Visually it’s not that exciting (it’s just Neil sitting, playing and singing), but musically it is wonderful. 

[READ: August 31, 2011] One Book Review

Unlike previous columns, Zadie only reviews one book in this one.  And she sets up her reading by talking about summer books.  I recently posted about Summer Books, and this would have been a nice addendum.  Zadie talks a bit about the fun and joy of Summer books.  Her assessment is that a summer book should really engross you: 

If every few minutes you find yourself laying it flat upon your chest and wondering about lunch then it is probably not a summer novel. 

Zadie’s summer book is a continuation of a series.  The author is Edward St. Aubyn and this third book is called At Last (the culmination of the confusing “Patrick Melrose Trilogy” Some Hope, Mother’s Milk and At Last–confusing because the first book of the trilogy (Some Hope) was actually released in England as three separate books–Never Mind, Bad News and Some Hope, making this the fifth book in the series).  He has also written other books, but I’m not sure of any of them deal with the same family or not.

At last (and the series in general) is a semi-autobiographical story of a good family in name only.  There is an alcoholic mother, a pedophiliac father, and a main character, Patrick, who has shot heroin and chugged whisky and yet still manages to recite poetry.

Despite the darkness (and the fact that At Last focuses on Patrick’s mother’s funeral), the story sounds like a wonderful mix of dark humor and scathing wit.  Indeed, the previous book, Mother’s Milk was short listed for the Booker Prize in 2006 (he has written two novels in between). 

Zadie quotes extensively from the book and the quotes are really good: long  sentences that are well constructed and contain a bit of humor in almost every piece.  But it’s a subtle humor, and it seems like it takes a careful reading to make sure you get it all. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Colson Whitehead–Zone One (2011) [prepub]

Posted in Anarchy, Canadian Music, Colson Whitehead, Consumerism, Dave Eggers, Death, Depression, Dystopia, End of the World, Harper's, Kiss, Rush, The Future, Threats, Violence, Zombies on August 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-The Fifth Order of Angels (bootleg from the Agora Ballroom,Cleveland, 26 August 1974) (1974).

I have mentioned this concert before, but I played it again today, and was struck by a couple of things.

1) According to the liner notes, Neil Peart had been in the band about two weeks.  How did they decide that their new drummer was going to be doing a drum solo during the show?  I mean, by now, everyone knows that the solo is its own song.  But, he’s been in the band two weeks.  It’s obvious he’s a good drummer, better than their original drummer, but a drum solo?  Is that just what rock bands did back then?

2) I’m struck by how much this show sounds like early Kiss.  I never really thought that  their first album sounded like Kiss, but in this live setting, a number of the songs, or perhaps just  the way they are recorded make me think of early Kiss.  In particular, during the crazy “one, two, three, FOUR!” of “In the End,” when the guitars kick back in, it sounds like a Kiss show from circa Alive!.

3) It’s amazing how guitar-centric the band was back then.  The mix is a little rough so it’s not entirely clear how insane Geddy is on the bass (when he gets a few solo notes, the bass sounds really tinny).  But the concert is like a showcase for Alex’s solos.  True, the whole first album really demonstrates what a great soloist he is, but it’s really evident here that Alex was the star.

4) Their earlier songs are really not very good.   I mean, every Rush fan knows that the first album is almost not even a real Rush album, but it’s shocking how pedestrian these songs are compared to even what would show up on Fly By Night.  Still, circa 1974 I’ll bet this show kicked ass.

It’s available here.

UPDATE: The missing content has been added!

[READ: August 9, 2011] Zone One

After reading the excerpt from Zone One in Harper’s I decided it was time to read the book (which is due to be published in October).

I admit I haven’t read Whitehead’s other works, but I have read excerpts, and I thought I knew the kind of things he wrote.  So it came as a huge surprise when the excerpt ended the way it did. I didn’t want to spoil anything when I wrote the review of the excerpt, but since the entire book is set in the dystopian future and since it explain what has happened right on the back, I can say that Zone One is set in the aftermath of a kind of zombie apocalyptic plague.  And I can’t help but wonder if the rousing success of McCarthy’s The Road has more or less opened up the field of literature to more post apocalyptic, dare I say, zombie fiction.  [I haven’t read The Road, so there will be no comparisons here].

Actually there will be one.  Sarah read The Road and complained that you never learned just what the hell started the end of the world.  Indeed, in this book you don’t either.  There is an event called Last Night, and after that, there’s simply the current state of affairs.  I suppose you don’t really need to know, and since the story is all about dealing with the zombies, I guess it doesn’t really matter how it all started, but I think we’d all like to know.

Now what makes this story different from the typical zombie story is that for the most part there aren’t all that many zombies (or whatever these undead people are called) in the story.  There are some of course, and they are inconvenient to the main characters, but unlike a story like Zombieland, (which was awesome) or the more obvious Night of the Living Dead, the story isn’t really about fighting zombies, it’s more about the rebuilding of the country in a post-zombie world. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Colson Whitehead–“Last Night” (Harper’s, July 2011)

Posted in Colson Whitehead, Death, Excerpt, Gambling, Harper's, Primus, Set in New Jersey!, Zombies on August 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PRIMUS-June 2010 Rehearsal (2010).

Just when I was convinced that Primus were a done deal, I learned that they were not only touring but had just released a free downloadable EP of their recent rehearsals.  It’s got 4 songs: two super oldies, 1 pretty oldie and one not terribly old one (these designations are in terms of albums releases, not length of time ago, as they would all be old ones by that reckoning).

The two oldies are my favorites: “Pudding Time” sounds wonderful–a few updates, and slight improv things, but basically that’s the song that introduced me to Primus.  “Harold of the Rocks” is the other one.  I love Harold, because it is such a weird, crazy song (even by Primus standards).  Lyrically, it’s about some guys who meet the fabled Harold of the Rocks.  Sometime later the narrator meets Harold again.  Harold is currently lit up like an old Christmas Tree and he tells the narrator that he doesn’t remember much about what happened that night.  And that’s pretty much it.  It even mentions Schooly D!  Great stuff.

The other two songs are “American Life” which comes from Sailing the Seas of Cheese.  It’s a deep cut as opposed to the more obvious single, “Jerry was a Race Car Driver.”  It’s nice to hear that song again, as it wasn’t very high-profile, although it is surprising to me that it’s 3 minutes longer than the original.  “Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread” is from The Brown Album, an album I don’t know all that well.  It’s got some good stuff in it, including a pretty good solo from Ler.

This EP features the drumming of Jay Lane, who was in Primus even before “Herb” (who I miss very much) and was in Sausage.  “Herb” by the way, was in A Perfect Circle and THE BLUE MAN GROUP!  Holy cowboys!

Primus sucks!

[READ: July 25, 2011] “Last Night”

This is an excerpt from Zone One, a book Colson Whitehead signed for me at BEA (I really must read it one of these days).

The story opens with something happening on Last Night.  It’s a little confusing, and since no context is provided, it doesn’t make all that much sense until the very end of the excerpt which (the end) blew my mind.

The story concerns Mark Spitz–not Mark Spitz the swimmer (or maybe it is Mark Spitz the swimmer–again, no context), –a teenager who goes to Atlantic City with his friend Kyle.  And for the most part, the story is pretty tame, almost dull (but Whitehead is a great writer and he invigorates what could have been a pretty typical Atlantic City gambling weekend).  The boys gamble, get comped and basically don’t leave the casino for the duration of their stay.

What I love about the story is that little things, meaningless sentences like, “They did not watch the news nor receive news from the outside” [when you are on a casino weekend with buddies you do not check the news] seem innocuous–like little details that would fill out any story.  It’s only later that… (more…)

Read Full Post »

Zadie Smith–3 book reviews (Harper’s, July 2011)

Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Five Dials, Harper's, Marlene Zuk, Mela Hartwig, Memoirs, My Morning Jacket, Nature, Olivia Judson, Prince, Sex, Sigrid Nunez, Susan Sontag, Will Self, Zadie Smith on July 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET–Z (2005).

I’ve enjoyed My Morning Jacket since I bought their live album Okonokos.  I’ve enjoyed all of their releases since, but I never listened to Z, the album that forms the basis of much of Okonokos. Finally, I saw it cheap and picked it up.

And I was really surprised.  The reason I hadn’t gotten it was because I figured I had all of the songs already in live format, so who needed the studio?  Well, it turns out that the studio versions are quite different from the live ones.  In fact, on my first listen, I didn’t really like the studio versions all that much.  After a few listens of course, I like them just fine, but they are indeed quite different.

There are three songs here that didn’t make the live record: “Into the Woods,” “Anytime” and “Knot Comes Loose.”  But the other seven songs appear (often in slightly longer form) on the live disc.  And the live disc is fuller, louder and more energetic than the studio.  That’s what a live album is supposed to sound like.

Z, on the other hand, sounds a bit more polished, more almost dancey–reflecting the kinds of sounds they would incorporate down the road (like on Circuital).  But Z isn’t quite as full-sounding.  Despite that, the songs are top-notch.  And Jim James’ voice is truly a thing to behold (check out that crazy high note at the end of “What a Wonderful Man”).

I hate to sound like I’m down on this disc, because indeed, I am not.  It’s a really fascinating mix of psychedelia and Prince-inspired keyboard rock (I’m not going as far as funk, but it’s certainly Prince-y.  There’s some folk tracks, there’s the amazing “Wordless Chorus” which has a kind of 70;s soft rock feel, which is followed by the Prince-titled “It Beats 4 U” which sounds nothing like Prince, but has a great subtle guitar intro.  “Gideon” doesn’t match any of the over the top epics of earlier records, but it sure feels close.  And “Off the Record” is a practically ska.  The album even has a near 8 minute closing track, the awesome “Dondante.”

All in all, Z is pretty great.  But I still like the live versions better.  That’s what happens when you listen to things out of order, I guess.  But when do live albums count for anything?

 [READ: July 11, 2011] 3 book reviews

According to Five Dials, Zadie Smith is an official member of Harper’s staff now (funny I found out about it from Five Dials, but they really do have tentacles in all aspects of my life).  Congratultions, Zadie.

I can’t imagine having to review two or three books a month (I know I review a lot here, but most of them are short stories).  Zadie plows through a lot of books for this column, but what is wonderful is that the diversity of what she reads is really pronounced.  Just witness this months’ books.

MELA HARTWIG-Am I a Redundant Human Being?
Zadie takes a great angle on this novel.  She (with the help of an online reviewer) compares the protagonist of this novel (written in the 1930s) with Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City.  Why?  Because both protagonists seem to live their lives in the male gaze.  And yet they both also continue on their merry way regardless of what the men say or do.  True, Hartwig’s novella has much more angst, but really, there is a similar attitude present.

I especially like Zadie’s argument that women writers have never really had they way to express the bragging rights that men have employed time immemorial “We can’t, as the saying goes, pull it out and slap it on the table.”  And as such, women have had to achieve their victories through more roundabout means.  I rather liked this analysis.  And, I think it makes for more interesting reading most of the time. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »