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Archive for the ‘New Yorker’ Category

Jonathan Franzen–”The Comfort Zone: Growing up with Charlie Brown” (New Yorker, November 29, 2004)

Posted in A Camp, Charles Schulz, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, New Yorker, Newspapers, NPR/PRI/PBS, The Cardigans, WFUV 90.7 FM--New York City on December 7, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: A CAMP-Studio Sessions on WFUV [available on NPR] (2009).

I rather enjoyed A Camp’s latest album Colonia.  I discovered this session while browsing through NPR’s archives.  There’s a pretty lengthy (and amusing) interview with the band and then they play three acoustic songs: “Love Has Left the Room,” “Stronger Than Jesus” and “I Signed the Line.”

Nina’s voice sounds fantstic, and in such a simple acoustic session it’s her voice that really sells the music.  But this is another instance where an acoustic, stripped down session reveals the strength of the songs themselves.  The album has a lot of production, but when it’s just bare bones guitar and bass, the melodies still hold up.  And again, Nina’s voice just soars through these meloides.  Anyone who got sick of The Cardigans needs to hear what Nina Persson can do in other settings.

Check it out here.

[READ: October 29, 2010] “The Comfort Zone”

The subtitle gives the foundation of the article: Franzen loved Peanuts when he was growing up.  This article was timed to coincide with the release of the awesome Fantagraphics collection of original Peanuts cartoons. I’ve only read the first of these Peanuts books, but it was really eye-opening and quite fascinating to see that such odd thoughts were published on a daily basis on the comic section!  And, I hate to sound curmudgeonly (that’s Charlie Brown’s job) but Franzen is right, the original Peanuts cartoons are far more existentially dark and satisfying than the fluffy Snoopy & Woodstock cartoons of the late 70s and 80s.

Anyhow, Franzen loved these early comics (and he makes a wonderful comment about spending a lot of time (probably age-inappropriate time) with talking animals: Snoopy, Narnia, A.A. Milne).   But as with all of these longer Franzen articles, it’s about much more than just Charlie Brown.   One night when he was a young boy, his older brother Tom had a huge fight with their parents and stormed out.   Franzen sets this up in the context of generation gap that was sweeping through the country in the late 60s/early 70s.

And it’s this unsettledness that also explains the popularity of the Peanuts cartoons. Despite all of the differences between generations, everyone agreed that they loved Peanuts (except for Franzen’s parents, evidently–his dad never read the funnies, and his mom only liked a strip called The Girls, which sounds like a prototype of Cathy).

The other angle that this article takes is about losers.  Charlie Brown was a loser, there’s no doubt.  But Franzen himself was a winner.  He was the king of spelling bees in his school. (This relates to Charlie Brown misspelling “maze” as MAYS, a perfect misspell for a sports fan).  And when a new kid comes to challenge him he steps up his game…and makes the kid cry.

This, of course, leads to guilt. Charlie Brown one said, “Everything I do makes me feel guilty.” And now Franzen feels guilty about the boy in his class, and about being mean to a frog as a kid and about the wash cloths at the bottom of the closet which don’t get used enough (Sarah and I have jokey guilt about that too) and even about the stuffed animals who don’t get cuddled enough. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“Two’s Company” (New Yorker, May 23, 2005)

Posted in Books about writers, Cee-Lo Green, Funny (ha ha), Gnarls Barkley, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Romance, Short Story on December 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CEE-LO GREEN-“Fuck You” (2010).

Like the entire world, I am in love with this song.  I have long postulated that songs with cursing in the chorus are almost by definition catchier than songs that have none.   And this song is one of the most catchy fucking songs ever.   (I of course admit that the censored radio version “Forget You” is equally as catchy but we can’t forget that the curse version came first).

I have listened to this song dozens of times now and I simply haven’t grown tired of it.  It has a simple construction with an interesting descending musical motif and a killer killer hook.  But of course the key is Cee-Lo’s voice.  I first heard him with Gnarls Barkley and I considered getting some of his solo stuff based on the amazingness of his voice.  (I never got a round to it).  And now this song has pretty well solidified him in my esteem.(Actually his appearance on The Colbert Report where he sang Fox News in the chorus was the real solidification for me.

This song transcends genre (it’s played all the time on an alt rock station by me).  And I think that’s why it is so appealing and such a big hit.  And now I’m going to be whistling the chorus for the rest of the day.

[READ: November 20, 2010] “Two’s Company”

This story follows Franzens “Breakup Stories” rather nicely because it too is about a breakup.  This time, though, the story itself is much longer than the others (4 whole pages!).

The story is about Pam and Paul, a couple who married young and were immediately successful as TV scriptwriters.  They worked together, created memorable sitcoms and owned a company whose logo shows their names with a heart between them.

But as they settle into greater success they begin to look for something slightly different to occupy them.  I love that they said Paul stopped appearing in public because he had trouble “remembering whether the ‘O’ in ‘Michael Ovitz was long or short.”  And their public persona, just like their logo, shows them to be perfectly content and in love.  Of course, as seems inevitable, some cracks begin to surface in their perfect facade.

They are to cowrite a movie.  He has always be the more highbrow of the two (and usually gets the bigger laughs), but it is her common, even cliched, sensibility that makes all the money.   And Pam more or less takes the reins of the screenplay, writing about a couple who is perfectly happy together (the husband doesn’t even glance at the hot women that his friends are constantly ogling).  Paul feels that the story is supposed to be about them, and he starts to resent her.  He thinks her script idea is crap (a bland comedy for older ladies) and he begins to think that Pam is less attractive than she used to be.  The speed with which their partnership disintegrates is rather astonishing.

I enjoyed the story–Franzen has a great way with character.  Although I admit I was a little sad that the story went this way.  It would have been nice (like her purposed movie script) to see a couple who could work together, be successful and remain happy (I guess I’m a bland old lady).  But, as Paul seems to think, that’s just a fantasy.

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Jonathan Franzen–“Breakup Stories” (New Yorker, November 8, 2004)

Posted in Accept, Eurovision, Flash Fiction, Funny (ha ha), Gwar, Jonathan Franzen, Lordi, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story on November 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: LORDI-“Hard Rock Hallelujah” (2006).

When browsing the Wikipedia entry on Gwar, I learned that the Finnish band Lordi (of whom I’d never heard) won the 2006 Eurovision song contest with what is essentially a Gwar-lite stage show.

Unlike Gwar, this Lordi song is extremely catchy and easy to digest (as all Eurovision songs tend to be).  But like Gwar it is fairly heavy and the band are in outrageous costumes (think glam period Kiss with crazy death-monster masks on–how does he sing with all that crap on his face?).

The singer has quite the voice (he sing/speaks in a cookie monster style (but audible–a sort of radio-friendly version of cookie monster) but he also hits very high notes).  The song is an anthemic sing-along like many metal songs from the early 80s (although it’s also pretty heavy).  And, if you listen closely to the bridge it’s sounds a bit like Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme”.  It’s pretty cheesy and that’s clearly why it won Eurovision, and yet I find that after listening to it twice, I was humming it all day.

It’s fun to hear the comments after the song (I wish the recording was longer), but even more amazing is that they won with 292 points (the highest victory ever).  I’m so delighted for them (and for Eurovision that this preposterousness won).

A recent interview sounds like they have gotten heavier than this in recent years (“Bite It Like a Bulldog” kind of sounds like Accept).

Good on ya Finland.

[READ: November 8, 2010] “Breakup Stories”

I’ve been reading a lot of Franzen’s non-fiction in the New Yorker, so it’s nice to get back to some of his fiction.  Because even though the non-fiction is great, the fiction shows how creative Franzen can be.

This piece is, as the title suggets, a series of breakup stories.  It’s really five vignettes about how various couples broke up.  There’s “our friend Danni” and “Danni’s college friend Stephen” and “Ron” and “Stephen’s cousin Peter” and “Peter’s friend Antonia.”  The “stories” come across mostly as character studies in bad behavior.

Danni’s husband can’t admit that he doesn’t want children (and he takes the cowardly way out, what a cad).  Stephen’s fiancée hates that he devotes so much of his time to helping nuns (that’ a funny story).  Ron is a serial monogamist.  He hits it big with an inheritance and tries to settle down, but when he finds out that he can’t, he loses more than the woman he stayed with for six whole months.  Peter cheats on his wife and tries to make the three of them have a “French-style family relationship.” (more…)

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Colm Tóibín–“Christmas Pudding” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Colm Tóibín, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Holidays, Irish Writer, New Yorker, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TYLER THE CREATOR-“Bastard” & “AssMilk” (2010).

This is the third and final rapper from Odd Future that I’m going to listen to. In his New Yorker article, Sasha Frere-Jones mentions Tyler’s song “Bastard” as being noteworthy for its content (an anti-father screed).  It’s a somber song played over a rather nice but dark piano motif.  The song is about his father and the rest of the darkness in his life:  “I cut my wrists and play piano because I’m so depressed”  Woah.  It gets typically dark and violent (the whole group seems to relish in tales of violence and abuse of women and gays, which isn’t cool).  It’s a moving song but at 6 minutes, frankly this song is too long.

I picked a second song because I thought that “Bastard” was only 32 seconds long (the first video on YouTube that came up is an edited version which actually packs more of a wollop than the 6 minute version) so I found this other song whose title I thought was funny.

The song is certainly sillier and opens with “I’m not an asshole I just don’t give a fuck a lot.”  Inexplicably, at the one minute mark the song interrupts itself mid sentence.  There’s some kind of altercation and Tyler starts hitting some guy and demanding an apology.  The guy keeps saying sorry and eventually says uncle, and the song resumes.   The rest of the song degrades into more violence with yet another break in the music in which Tyler doth protest too much that “Woah, I’m not gay.”  I think maybe that’s too much life in the underground for me, and even though I think that Sash Frere-Jones is one of the best music journalists out there (his article about Pavement was exactly how I feel about them), I have to say I was a little less than impressed with this batch of suggestions.

After five songs in total from these guys, I need some good clean happy music.  Perhaps Cee-Lo’s “Fuck You.”  At least it’s not THAT mean-spirited.  Thus endeth my tour of underground rap.  Happy Thanksgiving weekend.

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Christmas Pudding”

Although I said Allegra Goodman’s story was the funniest, I’m going to change that and give the honor to Colm.  For a one page article, he really crams a lot of story in (and the ending is great).

As it opens, we learn that his family had the best Christmas Pudding in Enniscorthy.  His mother knew the chef at the Roche’s castle in town and she was given the recipe for the very pudding that the Roche’s ate.  (The Roches restored the Castle that was built by the Earl of Portsmouth and had a dungeon!  They were synonymous with wealth and fanciness).

This recipe (which came from America (hushed approval)) used butter instead of (I can’t even look as I type this) suet.  (As a person who leaves suet out for woodpeckers, I am revolted at the thought of this).  So yes, their pudding was awesome.

So what’s funny about this?  Well, that comes in the second half. (more…)

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Judith Thurman–“Turbot” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Essays, Food, Judith Thurman, New Yorker, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 27, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MELLOWHYPE-“Loco” (2010).

I was going to review “Earl” by Earl Sweatshirt (who I keep wanting to call Earl Sandwich).  I didn’t think much of it but I wrote a few paragraphs.  Then WordPress lost my post and I didn’t want to listen to the song again, so I switched to Mellowhype.

I was confused about Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All so I looked them up on Wikipedia.  The write up made it seem like Mellowhype might be the least aggressive/nasty/offensive of the bunch.  But that proves not to be the case at all.

This song has the styling of a Snoop Dog jam, kind of slow and menacing. The background music is pretty cool, it’s sort of a horror movie piano and keyboards with an occasional wicked cool bassline thrown in for good measure.  There’s even some female backing vocals, although where they’re sampled from I have no idea.

Of course, once he starts rapping it’s clear that he’s from the same school as the other members of the group (“Pigs raid my crib”) and lots and lot and lots of “fucks.”  Frere-Jones says in the article, that OFWGKTA has an interesting style and technique, but as for me, it’s not something I’ll listen to very often (or even again).

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Turbot”

This essay differs from all the others in that it contains an actual recipe.  Thurman explains that she used to go all out for dinner parties, preparing all manner of complete meals, including marbled roast (but the days of red meat have gone the way of the ashtray) or even spaghetti alla carbonara.  But now everyone agrees that it is fish that is the meal of choice.  And so, she offers a quick and easy recipe for turbot over vegetables presented in a delightful storytelling manner.

Because I though the recipe sounded good I’m going to copy it here (without the narrative) so that I can try it out someday. (more…)

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Aleksandar Hemon–“Borscht” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Aleksandar Hemon, Essays, Food, New Yorker, Nostalgia, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DOMO GENESIS-“Super Market” (2010).

The other band that Sasha Frere-Jones mentions in the New Yorker article is Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All a ten-member collective from L.A.  They have released a slew of albums (all available for free on their website), but none are released under that collective name.  This song seems is released by Domo Genesis on the album Rolling Papers.

This song is really bizarre.  It’s a silly story of two guys fighting because one of them cut in line at the grocery store.  The two guys argue throughout the track with ever-escalating threats.

But the really interesting thing about the track is the backing music.  It sounds like a march from some kind of 70s TV show.  It is almost menacing but mostly it’s comical.  And when you couple that with the crazy threats: “I’m a fucking ninja and a Jedi and I’m from Compton”;   “I’ll push you into an old lady bagging plastic”;  “I’ll stab you with this fucking rocket launcher” (!), it’s hard to know what to think of them.  (I think it’s funny, but I fear that they’re serious).

It’s utterly juvenile (but then all the members of the band are teenagers, so that’s expected).  The musical choice for backing tracks is pretty inspired though, and I like to think that if the guys get some real ideas to rap about, they could really be an ungrounded sensation.

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Borscht”

It’s interesting that there is another article from an Eastern European writer in this collection.  Hemon’s family is from Bosnia (via western Ukraine), where the family developed the perfect borscht.

As with Bezgemos’ family, the recipe was never written down. Mostly, this is  because there was no recipe, it included lots of things that were in the garden, and usually at least one surprise ingredient.  But whatever the ingredients, the results were always wonderfully, vinegary tarty goodness.

The article mentions a family dinner where 42 people were counted at the table.  And borscht is a poor people’s food, where you can reasonably make enough for 42 people.  It is designed “to ensure durability.” (more…)

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Allegra Goodman–“Linzer Torte” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Allegra Goodman, Das Racist, Essays, Food, Funny (ha ha), New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAS RACIST-“You Oughta Know” (2010).

Since “Combination” was a such an odd and obvious novelty song I thought I’d try the other song by Das Racist that was mentioned in the New Yorker article.  “You Oughta Know” samples Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out” extensively (and is the only music in the song).  I rather like the use of the sample, although it’s not really used very creatively.

I really don’t understand the “chorus” of the song in which the guys sing/mumble/mock the chorus of the Billy Joel song.  I mean, I understand the desire to mock Billy Joel, but I really just don’t “get” that aspect of the song.

The actual rap part is kind of interesting: “sick of arguing with white dudes on the internet” but the bulk of the song is taken up with the infernal nonsensical Billy Joel mocking.

I concede that I’m absolutely not the right audience for this band.

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Linzer Torte”

Of the five food-related articles in this issue, this one made me laugh the most.

Goodman explains that her mother was the cook in the family.  And she trucked no nonsense in the kitchen: no “little children sticking fingers into the bowl.”  As a result, Allegra never learned how to cook.

This worked out fine in her own family because both her husband and her oldest son were excellent cooks themselves.  But when her son went to college…she found herself eating only leftovers. (more…)

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David Bezmozgis–“Pickled Cabbage” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Das Racist, David Bezmozgis, Essays, Food, New Yorker, Russia, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAS RACIST-“Combination PIzza Hut and Taco Bell” (2010).

This issue of the New Yorker featured an article from Sasha Frere-Jones about two underground rap sensations.  One of them is Das Racist.  I’d heard of them especially regarding this “hit,” but I hadn’t actually heard the song until now.

This song is pretty much exclusively a novelty song.  what else could it be?  The entire lyric is about being at the Pizza Hut/Taco Bell.  It’s kind of funny, and as Frere-Jones says, I can see this being huge at college parties.  But I have to say that–as a guy who typically loves novelty songs–that this song has literally no substance.  Even the backing beats are kind of dull.

I really wanted to like this song.  The guys seem funny (all their promo photos are amusing) and yet they also seem to have serious ideas.  But it just never really did anything for me.  And yet, for all of how much I don’t get this song and really don’t like it, it’s catchy as all hell, and I know that after listening to it just twice, I will have the inane lyrics in my head for months, cropping up no doubt every time I see a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Pickled Cabbage”

The Thanksgiving issue of the New Yorker features five one page articles from different writers all about families and food.  And so, for the holiday I’m going to write 5 brief posts about articles about food.

I’ve enjoyed Bezmozgis’ pieces in the past although I don’t typically enjoy pickled cabbage.  Nevertheless, this was a fascinating look at Soviet life and at cooking.  He observes that many people have multiple cookbooks on their shelves but that his family cooked entirely from memory (this is a common theme in these essays).  For his family, food was for sustenance, not for pleasure. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”The Listener” (New Yorker, October 6, 2003)

Posted in Essays, fIREHOSE, Jonathan Franzen, New Yorker, Political Humor, R.E.M. on November 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“Sometimes” (1988).

This single for the fantastic fIREHOSE song “Sometimes” is an okay EP worth tracking down if you’re a fIREHOSE fan or even if you’re not too familiar with them.

“Sometimes” is a great mix of loud guitars in the verse and soft guitar picking in the chorus.  It’s wonderfully catchy and has a sort of southwestern vibe to it.  It’s one of my favorite songs on the SST label.

“For the Singer of REM” is a song that’s also on if’n.  I never quite knew why it was called that.  There’s a lengthy story online (about twenty questions down) about how the song came about (in a nutshell, REM asked fIREHOSE to play with them and Stipe asked Watt if he wanted to record a song or two together.  And so, Watt wrote this.  Nothing ever came  of the collaboration though). And the song is uncannily like an REM song.  The verses and the cool staccato bass bridge are right on target.  Although there’s a very un-.RE.M. part that separates the chorus from the bridge with heavy drums and very discordant guitars).  It’s pretty neat.

The final song features what Watt calls “spielin'”  This track is mostly nonsensical ranting.  But there’s so many different musical sections that it’s hard to keep track.  There’s a bunch of guitar jangling and then odd little bass and guitar bits.  And there’s some funk and all manner of things.  It’s not exactly a throwaway track because it really lets them air out their stuff.  But it’s definitely a weird little piece of music.

[READ: October 27, 2010] “The Listener”

Although at this point I’m no longer “testing” to see whether I liked Jonathan Franzen’s work (I’m very much a fan of his writing style and his ability to wrangle interesting stories out of thin air), this piece certainly qualifies as a test.

This article is a profile of (then) House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Now I personally don’t give a, well, anything, about Hastert.  I have no interest in the man at all (especially since he is no longer even Speaker of the House) but I had probably less when he WAS Speaker, so can Franzen not only get me to care about him, but to actually want to read a fourteen page article about him?

The answer is yes. (more…)

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Ethan Canin–”Vins Fins” (New Yorker August 2, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Ethan Canin, Food, Huh?, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, The Extra Lens, The Mountain Goats on November 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE EXTRA LENS-“Only Existing Footage” (2010).

I listened to this song on NPR’s All Songs Considered without knowing who the band was. And while I listened to this song I kept thinking it sounded like someone, but who?  Who?

And it took me reading about them on allmusic to realize that this is a side project between The Mountain Goats and Nothing Painted Blue (who I don’t know).   My friend Andrew gave me a bunch of Mountain Goats albums which I have enjoyed but which I haven’t written about yet.  However, I can’t say how much this sounds like a Goat’s album (as I’m not an expert yet).

Nevertheless, like a Goats’ songs, it is simple (with one simple guitar accompanied by another simple guitar) and incredibly catchy.  At 3 minutes it makes for a perfect delicate pop song.  The chorus builds wonderfully (even if, really it’s not that much fuller than the verses).

Charming seems like a condescending word, and yet this song feels charming  (even if lyrically it’s rather dark:  “oblivion’s been calling since it found out where I live.”)

[READ: October 20, 2010] “Vins Fins”

Ethan Canin is the penultimate writer in the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 40 collection, but his was the last story I read.  I was really intrigued by the excerpt that was in the main issue, but I feel like the full length story disappointed somewhat.

At eleven pages, this was one of the longest stories in the collection and it felt to me like it was simply too long.  There were a lot of things, not details, or even dead end plots, just aspects of the story that seemed extraneous.

I am fond of fiction set in the 1970s.  In some ways it seems an easy decade for mockery, and yet really any decade, if limited to a bunch of stereotypes, is ripe for easy mockery.  But there’s something about the 70s that lends itself to fun story concepts.  And this promised something similar.

Under the shadow of Watergate, on the Western edge of Cape Cod, a young man grows up.  The narrator’s father feels that Nixon will get through Watergate unharmed.  His father is a chef and restaurateur who, despite his skills, seems to make most of his money by flipping restaurants (to use a recent term…it’s not used in the story).  His specialty is French food, which is convenient since his wife is French, as in actually from France.  We learn a bit about how they met and a lot about her (and I think perhaps this is where there is too much story as she turns out to be a fairly minor character in what I think of as the main plot).
(more…)

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