Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘New Yorker’ Category

Annie Proulx–“Rough Deeds” (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Annie Proulx, Black Hippy, Canadian Content, Death, Greed, Kendrick Lamar, New Yorker, ScHoolboy Q, Short Story, Threats, Trees, Unlikable main character, Violence, Yuck! on June 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_06_10_13Schossow.inddSOUNDTRACK: ScHoolboy Q “Collard Greens” (2013).

colalrdgreens-f7ef9a5569c897652952a2688c4af9911361663a-s1NPR opened their summer preview show with two rap songs.  This was the second.  The bass line is very neat—propulsive and continuous and there’s this little keyboard sprinkling across the top.  This is West Coast rap style and I like the music quiet a bit.

The rapping is unusual—some amusing voices and nonsense words, but I admit I didn’t really get into it until about half way through when the rapper (ScHoolboy Q or guest Kendrick Lamar I don’t know) comes in with an unusual-sounding voice—sped up and goofy.  And he does one of my favorite rap things—singing really fast in a high voice then ending with a low word (Gawd).

The song feels atmospheric, although overall, I’m not a fan.  The DJ who introduced the song says that he is part of the “supergroup” Black Hippy, along Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and Kendrick Lamar.  She describes ScHoolboy Q as the darkest of the bunch, which makes me think I should check out the rest to see what other kinds of things they do.  [I did, and I didn’t like them–lyrically they are remedial at best].

[READ: June 18, 2013] “Rough Deeds”

This story is set in New France, (also known as Canada).  Duquet is a timberman, seeking his fortune by amassing the largest area of woods to be exported both to the Americas and back to Europe.   He connected with a man named Dred-Peacock (I included him mostly for his name) who set him up with a connection in Scotland.

Duquet wasn’t exactly sure about trading with the enemy, the English, but money is money and they had lots of it and need for lots of wood.  And soon a fortune was made.

Then Dred-Peacock encouraged him to head to Maine where thousands of acres were there for the asking.  Indeed, Duquet was able to buy twenty thousand acres at 12 cents an acre.  But when he and his man Forgerson went to investigate, they found a crew cutting down trees on his property!  When he accosted them, they fled.  The youngest member of the thieving team had a limp and fell behind–which gave Duquet the opportunity to hurl his tomahawk at him, felling him instantly.

When the boy won’t talk, Duquet cuts off two of his fingers (Duquet does not mess around) and the boy reveals that he works for McBogle.  The boy already had an infected leg and Duquet had no intention of healing him, so he allowed the boy to die, ultimately killing him and burning his body in McBogle’s makeshift mill.

While Duquet was doing this, Forgerson was off scouting a new way to get the timber to the mill and finding people to work with them.  When he returned, he wondered where the boy had gone, but said nothing.

And there were no consequence for Duquet. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Dashiell Hammett–“An Inch and a Half of Glory” (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2013)

Posted in Adventure, Brenda Lee, Charlie Wilson, Dashiell Hammett, Kanye West, New Yorker, Ponderosa Twins Plus 1, Short Story, Threats on June 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_06_10_13Schossow.inddSOUNDTRACK: KANYE WEST “Bound 2” (2013).

yeezus-51d72498d1b9891010bf6a62582ee1be614b4806-s1I dislike Kanye West.  He strikes me as a colossal ass.  So I was shocked how much I really liked his last album.  In addition to great melodies, I liked how audacious it was.  And now he has a new album (with no cover apparently) and this new single.

The song samples Brenda Lee (of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” fame) Ponderosa Twins Plus 1 and has no actual beats.  And the amazing thing is that Kanye does his own thing—his own particular form of rapping—over the repeated do wop sample “Bound to Fall in Love.”  (That’s the Ponderosa  Twins).  It’s not quite right—his flow doesn’t quite follow the melody that‘s playing.  And of course, this old school sweet song has “I wanna fuck you hard in the sink” rapped over it.  There are times when it sounds like he is rapping despite the song that is playing along—as if someone was playing it and he had to fight to be heard over it.

I respect how contrary the song is.  Especially when a new nicely sung part comes across—it may be a sample (Charlie Wilson), I’m not sure, but it comes out of nowhere and brings in a beautiful melody.  And it is interrupted mid flow as well.  The whole song feels like pieces thrown on top of each other.  And after two or three listens it starts to make sense.

Kanye may be crazy, but he knows music.  Ah ha, honey.

[READ: June 18, 2013] “An Inch and a Half of Glory”

When I saw that Hammett was the first author in this Fiction issue of the New Yorker, I automatically assumed that the stories would all be noir (especially since they all have a black and white cover picture).  Perhaps that was presumptuous as I have never read Hammett before, (although he is known for his detective stories).  But indeed, this story isn’t noir at all.  Nor is there any detective work involved.  It seems tied to the issue by virtue of his name, not the actual story (which had not been published before).

The story is simple enough,  There’s a fire on the second floor of a building,.  A crowd has gathered to watch and wait for the firemen.  Then someone notices a small child in the third floor window.  The child isn’t afraid and there aren’t any flames yet so the people kind of just watch the kid and say that the firemen will be along any second.  But when a woman in the crowd chastises the men for not helping the baby, the men as a group (7 or 8  of them) charge into the building.

They hear sirens almost immediately and they all leave.  Except for Earl Parish.  Parish decides that he is going to do something about this.  Even though he knows the other men will be mad at him for continuing on when they all left.  Then he changes his mind, but he knows he can’t leave now…now that he has stayed.  So he plunges onward, finding the boy and bringing him out to safety.

The next day in an inch and a half column, he is referred to by name as having saved the boy from the fire. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tessa Hadley–“Valentine” (New Yorker, April 8, 2013)

Posted in Ben Gibbard, Boredom, Cigarettes, Communists, Death Cab For Cutie, Drugs, New Yorker, Romance, Sex, Short Story, Tessa Hadley, The Postal Service, Virginity (Loss of) on June 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_04_08_13Ulriksen.inddSOUNDTRACK: THE POSTAL SERVICE-“A Tattered Line of String” (2013).

postalI enjoyed The Postal Service record but I wasn’t as big of a Death Cab for Cutie fan at the time.  Now, having enjoyed DCFC so much in the last couple of years, this song sounds much more like a DCFC song but with keyboards (Ben’s voice is so distinctive).

This song has been released with the reissue of the Postal Service album.  It’s not on the original but it also sounds like it might be a remix (the skittery backing vocals make me think remix).

Either way this is a supremely catchy song (Gibbard knows from melody) and when you throw the keyboards and dancey beats on it, it’s even more poppy than DCFC’s stuff.  I wonder why the album wasn’t bigger when it came out.

[READ: April 21, 2013] “Valentine”

Tessa Hadley has written another story that I enjoyed–with that same quaint feeling of love in 1970s England.

The story opens with the narrator Stella and her friend Madeleine waiting at the bus stop.  They are fifteen, have never kissed boys, and think about nothing else (especially since they go to an all girls school).   Madeleine is willowy with long curls a “kitten face” and “luscious breasts” while Stella is small, plump and shapeless.

As they wait for the bus, Valentine approaches (yes I though the title was about the day not a person).  He is in school as well but he is new to them.  Valentine has just moved to the area from Malaya.  And, as he sizes them up, offering them each a smoke, when it comes down to it, amazingly, he chooses Stella.

She likes him because he is different as she is different–they are clearly soulmates.  While her parents (well, Gerry is her stepdad) don’t ‘t approve of him (his hair, his dress, his attitude).  He barely talks to her parents when they interrogate him and then he imitates their voices when they are alone.  Regardless of what others thought or really, because if it, they are soon hanging out all the time.  And soon he is her boyfriend.  And soon enough she had lost weight (because all they did was talk and smoke), they died their hair black (a proto-goth in the hippie 70s) and they basically began to look alike. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala–“The Judge’s Will” (New Yorker, March 25, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Jealousy, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Short Story, The Beatles, The Smith Westerns on June 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_03_25_13Juan.inddSOUNDTRACK: THE SMITH WESTERNS-“3AM Spiritual” (2013).

smith-westerns_cvr-208198ccccc71e78a954f8e32cfa71f6abe43e63-s1This album is currently streaming on NPR.  It is a sweet acoustic pop album with elements of retro electric guitar sounds.  It has lots of elements that I recognize (name any folkie power pop band and you can hear them in here).  But the biggest element here is The Beatles–later period Beatles–especially on the instrumental break of this song.

It opens with jangly guitars and a falsetto vocal (with lots of ah ha has at the end of the verses).  There’s a soft keyboard and some wooooah yeashs.   So far so good.

At the two-minute mark the song gets much bigger–the “whoa yeahs” get louder and there’s a guitar break which lasts for a few measures and which seems like the song will be ending (it is a power pop song after all).  But the chord changes and the song stops and the pizzicato piano comes in.  And it’s followed by that fuzzed out classic rock guitar solo sound.   All of which is brief enough to keep the listener guessing while the song swings back into some Whoa Yeahs until it ends.

It’s a simple pop song, but it has enough going on to not be completely obvious.

[READ: April 21, 2013] “The Judge’s Will”

I read this awhile back and never posted on it.  So here it is.

This is the story of a judge and the women in his life.  He has survived a second heart attack but knows he is not long for the world.  The judge is married, but he has been keeping a woman on the side for twenty-five years.  And she is concerned for her future–he has always taken care of her but she has no legal rights.  He has ensured that she will be okay in his will, but he is afraid that his wife and son will cause trouble when the time came.

His wife Binny did not react at all when he told her of his multi-decade infidelity–she acted like it was idle gossip.  But she did share the news with her son Yasi.  They knew the judge wouldn’t leave everything to the other woman.  The judge is rather surprised by this reaction and indeed, it proves to be false.

When the judge went back to the hospital, he called on Yasi and asked him to bring things to the other woman.  Which he did–although he says he left as soon as he could.  When the judge returns home, he asks Yasi to bring the other woman, Phul, to their house. Binny was upset, but accepted the news. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Steven Millhauser–“Thirteen Wives” (New Yorker, May 27, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Chance the Rapper, Childish Gambino, Marriage (Happy), New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Steven Millhauser on June 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_05_27_13Juan.inddSOUNDTRACK: CHANCE THE RAPPER-“Juice” & “NaNa”(2013).

chancetherapper-acidrapNPR has raved about Chance the Rapper, both at SXSW and now with Acidrap as one of their favorite albums of 2013.

Chance the Rapper has a couple of different vocals styles (kind of Jamaican, kind of falsetto, also a deeper voice) and his lyrics are crazily all over the place.

I have no idea what “Juice” is about (I’m not hip to the slang, man), and of the two I like that one less.  “NaNa” is just crazy fun–it’s got a great bass riff–weird and all over the place, like slow funk.  He sounds more Jamaican here, and the lyrics are just nutty

In terms of rap, his style is quite different–fun and weird (there’s a lot of laughing during “Juice”).  The chorus of “NaNa” is a kind of whine and taunt.  And various things keep interrupting the song (is that part of the video or the song?  I don’t know).  And by the end, the song keeps telling him (or us) to shut up.

It has a feel like Childish Gambino, which i like. And I like that he’s doing something different.  I suspect with a few listens this could be a great mixtape.  You can get the whole thing for free at his website.

[READ: June 9, 2013] “Thirteen Wives”

I’ve read a number of Millhauser stories before, although I don’t recall if I generally like him or not.  (hmm, it seems that I do).

This story seemed more like an exercise or a challenge—can I write about 13 different women and given them all different characteristics.  For indeed, that is what the story is.  The narrator explains that he has 13 wives and they are all equal in his eyes.  After some perfunctory explanation about how this works, he sets out to describe them all.

And then we get the 13 one-dimensional women that he has married and the one defining characteristic about her (the one who is always in sync with him, the one who is submissive, the one who is bitchy, etc).

And really that’s all there is to it. (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Sedaris–“Company Man” (New Yorker, June 3, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, David Sedaris, Deafheaven, Explosions in the Sky, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, New Yorker, Travel on June 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_06_03_13Hall.inddSOUNDTRACK: DEAFHEAVEN-“Dream House” (2013).

deafheavenNPR’s Lars Gotrich always picks songs that I like–even if I would never have found them any other way.

His favorite album of the year so far is by this band Deafheaven whom I have never heard of.  The song is 9 minutes long and it combines big loud guitars, super fast crashing drums, and cookie monster vocals (mixed so low in the mix that they almost sound just like noise–a neat trick).  The waves and layers of sound give it a kind of My Bloody Valentine feel.

For the first half of the song, the drums are absolutely speed metal fast–pounding and pounding with wild cymbals.  But they too are mixed low in the mix–setting a beat but not dominating the song.  For really this song seems to be all about the guitar–which is not exactly playing along with them.  Sure, there are fast  moments, and the guitar is largely distorted and noisy.  But the tone of the guitar is very bright–especially when he starts playing some simple but pretty riffs (amid the noise).

And then about half way through, the noise drops away and the music become quiet and pretty.  Two guitars interweave slow melodies.  Until the music crashes back in, but with a different tempo and a feeling like Explosions in the Sky or Mogwai.

I know many will be turned off by the vocals (I think I might even like it more if it were purely instrumental), but the way they are mixed, shows that the music is the dominant sound, and I can get behind that.

[READ: June 12, 2013] “Company Man”

I always enjoying reading a David Sedaris Personal History (interestingly I haven’t read all of his books—I seem to stick to the articles instead).  This one is about having a  guest room.  He considers it a true sign of aging gracefully that his new house has a guest room (with its own bathroom).

Their previous house in Normandy had nothing of the sort and he gives typically humorous anecdotes about being embarrassed for the guests who don’t have any privacy in the bathroom (“we’ll be going out for about twenty minutes if you need anything.”)  But now they have this new space.

Which means of course that they have guests.  I enjoyed the part when Hugh’s friends come to visit–based on his father’s behaviors, David is allowed to leave in the middle of a conversation because he is not the one entertaining the guests).  But the bulk of the second half concerns David’s family.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Akhil Sharma–“We Didn’t Like Him” (New Yorker, June 3, 2013)

Posted in Akhil Sharma, All Songs Considered, Death, DJ Koze, New Yorker, Religion, Short Story on June 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_06_03_13Hall.inddSOUNDTRACK: DJ KOZE-“Track ID Anyone?” (2013).

koze-electronic-beats-amygdalaThis album was selected as one of NPR’s favorite of 2013 (so far).  I really don’t know what to make of it. It opens with what sounds like a massage going on–there’s talk of things feeling good.  And then the music kicks in, or shambles in.

The main riff is weird and stifled, awkward.  But in a way that’s hard to look away from.  Then after almost 3 minutes of a 5 minute song the vocals come in.  They are quiet and harmonied.

The write up of the album says that it is quirky and compelling.  It’s definitely quirky, I’m not entirely sure ho compelling it is.  I was really intrigued where a song with that opening would go, but I wasn’t really that excited by the route it took to get there,

[READ: June 10, 2013] “We Didn’t Like Him”

This was a fascinating story about the growth of a bully named Manshu.  The narrator (I honestly couldn’t tell the gender of the narrator—I assumed it was a girl until much later when I changed my mind.  Actually I see now that the opening says “boys his own age” so I guess the narrator is a boy, but it was never really explicit) is embarrassed by Manshu.  Manshu is “my father’s sister’s husband’s sister’s son” and as such, he is “family” with the narrator.  But Manshu doesn’t play with boys his own age—he plays with the younger kids (like the narrator) and he always beats them—in whatever.  For example, in cricket he would keep batting all day.

There was some degree of sympathy for Mansu because his father died when Manshu was six and his mother had diabetes, but he was still a pain.  Then Manshu’s mother unexpectedly died.  And Manshu changed.  He lived with the narrator’s aunt’s husband who did not like him.  Manshu became quiet and, if possible, spiritual.

The rest of the story concerns Manshu’s spirituality and the community’s temple.  The narrator’s father was on the committee which oversaw the temple and when their current pandit, Gaurji, was deemed to be doing an insufficient job at the temple, he was kicked out and Manshu took over the position.  Of course, there were cries of nepotism, but Manshu seemed to be very holy now.

Until he started to go seemingly against their Brahmin ways.  Well, first he married a woman out of his caste.  Then he started asking about how to get on TV.  Then he started promising that praying in his temple could cure cancer. (more…)

Read Full Post »

T. Coraghessan Boyle–“The Night of the Satellite” (New Yorker, April 15, 2013)

Posted in Akron/Family, All Songs Considered, Dogs, Fucked Up, Funny (strange), NASA, New Yorker, Outer Space, Pets, Short Story, Swans, T.C. Boyle, Technology on June 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_04_15_13Sorel.inddSOUNDTRACK: AKRON/FAMILY-“Sand Talk” (2013).

akronfamThe folks on NPR played this song as part of a “new songs” segment and I couldn’t get over how noisy and chaotic it was.  I had always thought of Akron/Family as being kind of an indie folk outfit (I know they were on Swans’ label, but I still thought of them as more folkie than noisy).  So I was surprised by just how chaotic and wild this song was.

It opens with a distorted, echoey guitar that settles into a ringing sound which reminds me of Fucked Up.  Then the drums come in (tribal and various) until it all settles down into a thumping song with a kind of spastic guitar riff.  Then the vocals come in–full bodied and sounding like more than one person.  And after the first verse, it seems like everything that happened before happens again–this time all at once.  But now, the music occasionally pauses to let the vocals come to the fore.  And at one point everything stops and a chorus of voices sings a nice melody as the band slowly resumes playing.   And this echoing fugue-like music continues apace until it all kind of slows down and then ends.

It’s quite a challenging song and one that I found rewarding after just a few listens.  I have to reevaluate what I think this band sounds like, and I definitely have to listen to the rest of this album.

[READ: May 1, 2013] “The Night of the Satellite”

What I really liked about this story was the way that Boyle plays with two ideas of randomness.  The first is the possibility of a piece of a satellite falling out of the sky and landing on you.  The second is of running into a couple in several different and unrelated locations.

As the story starts, a couple (graduate-school aged) are excited that the summer is upon them.  They plan to take a trip to visit some friends (with their dog) to get away from it all.  En route they see a car pulled over at the side of the road facing the wrong way.  The young man is sitting on the hood, the young woman is crying near the road.  Mallory tells him to stop the car.  He is reluctant but does so (childlocking the doors).  The girl says that her boyfriend is a jerk.  She is crying but says she is not hurt.  The boyfriend is yelling across the road that she should just get in the car and leave with them.  But after a few minutes, she decides not too.  So he drives on despite Mallory’s protests. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ben Marcus–“The Dark Arts” (New Yorker, May 20, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Ben Marcus, Hospitals, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, New Yorker, Patti Smith, Punks, Savages, Short Story, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Travel on May 29, 2013| 1 Comment »

5.20SOUNDTRACK: SAVAGES-Live at KEXP (May 16, 2013).

savagesI heard some songs from the Savages album, and I loved them–that combination of 80’s punk and goth all wrapped up in current technologies and attitude.  A couple of their songs are some of my favorite of the year so far.  I’d also heard that they were even better live.  So here are four songs played live in the studio from KEXP.  And while the audio is awesome, they are a lot of fun to watch.

In fact, the more I watch the less I know who I am most impressed by–the amazing guitarist?  the great unaffected bassist?  the wild drummer?  They’re all a pleasure to watch.

But it also sounds great.  There’s some great soaring guitar sounds on “City’s Full” which really has a Patti Smith meets Siouxsie vibe.  And there’s that whole goth feel–the bass up front and dominant but with really big guitar chords and cool riffs.  And the drums, man she rocks out in the whole first half of “City’s Full.”   Then listen to the fabulous bass line that runs through “Shut Up.”   I love the way the low bass plays off the high guitars  (and the vocals sound very Siouxsie there).    And the drummer is amazing at the end of the song.

A great 80s echoey riff opens “She Will.”  I love when the song almost stops and it’s all fast cymbals and faster guitar (which is really cool in and of itself) until it builds back up.  And just look at her drumming at 10:20.  Wow. 

And the closer, Husbands” just gets more and more intense.  Like the crazy noisy cymbals.  And the way her voice soars and soars until it just stops.  Wow.

[READ: May 23, 2013] “The Dark Arts”

Julian is sick. Very sick.  So sick, in fact, that American doctors can’t seem to help him, can’t even seem to effectively diagnose him.  So he and his girlfriend Hayley have traveled to Europe for new medicines that the AMA hasn’t approved yet.  They travel to a few places first as a kind of romantic vacation and their ultimate destination is Düsseldorf.  It’s there where Julian will have his bone marrow drawn out, then boiled and tinkered with and then injected back into him.

Ouch.

But there’s been a snag.  On their way to Düsseldorf, they had a fight and Hayley stayed behind.  So Julian went to Düsseldorf to a hostel.  Every day he goes to the train station hoping to see Hayley show up.  He imagines what he must look like to the locals–a skeletal American wearing what must look like a death shroud.  He barely eats, he barely does anything.  In fact, he has more or less given up.

But his father and Hayley, they believe in him, they believe that these cures can help.  Indeed, his father has been so great through all this offering him anything he needs–money they don’t really have and unwavering support.

And then the story gets even more interesting–we find out that American doctors not only couldn’t diagnose him, but actually believed that there as nothing wrong with him. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jonathan Lethem–“The Gray Goose” (New Yorker, May 6, 2013)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boy, Communists, Culture Shock, Drinking, Feist, Jonathan Lethem, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, New Yorker, Norman Mailer, Sex, Short Story, Virginity (Loss of) on May 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_05_06_13Schossow.inddSOUNDTRACK: BOY-“Little Numbers” (Live at The Current, April 6, 2013) (2013).

boyI am totally hooked by this single–a song which sounds like the next huge Feist hit.  It’s got a great piano melody that just grabs on and won’t let go.

So how does the song hold up on acoustic guitars?  In a recent interview the two Swiss/German band members, Valeska Steiner and Sonja Glass, say that the song was originally written in this slower more acoustic vein.  On first listen this version is not very appealing–there’s something so bubbly and bouncy and joyous about the single version.

The immediacy of the song is gone and the “woah-o” section seems more mournful than joyous.  I suppose it is actually more true to the original intent of the song (I read your name on every wall, is there  cure for me at all).  Although this version features Boy’s beautiful harmonies, especially the concluding moments, I still prefer the more upbeat single version.

[READ: May 21, 2013] “The Gray Goose”

When this story started, I was a little concerned that it was going to be another story about a repressed childhood under the thumb of an oppressive Jewish mother.  It begins by telling us that Miraim’s father left in 1948, when she was little.  One of the only presents she had been given was an album by Burl Ives.  And that album could be played on her family’s hi-fi/radio housed in a rosewood cabinet—“the most fantastical item of furniture in their lives.” Her father hated that they gave into consumerism to buy such a thing, but it was revered.  And all vinyl was held very delicately, as if a breath of air might warp it.

“The Gray Goose” was her favorite song and she listened to it often, trying to scrutinize the songs—just what was this gray goose that could not be killed, Lord, Lord, Lord.  (The traditional meaning of the gray goose that could not be killed appears to have something to do that with the hunter went hunting on the Sabbath, so the goose could not be killed). Although in the story, Miriam’s mother, Rose, says that the goose represents the heart of the working class.  For Rose and her husband, Albert were fiercely Communist.  We learn about Rose and Albert’s marriage—they were passionate about their beliefs, and this passion seemed to transmit to each other.  And then Rose got pregnant, so they married.  And then Rose had a miscarriage, but now they were stuck with each other so they decided to have a child—Miriam.  (His parents didn’t approve of any of it, especially Rose).

Then Albert was offered a job back in Germany—the only Jew to return to Germany so soon, and Rose and Miriam were on their own.  Well, Miriam was on her own, Rose had many many suitors, although none could stay the night.

That’s all back story for the evening of the action—the evening that Miriam and some friends have gone to Greenwich Village to a jazz club.  Miriam is precocious, having finished school a year early and started college (and apparently already dropped out).  She is out with some friends, the wonderfully named Rye Gogan, the horn-rimmed glasses-wearing Porter, assorted girlfriends and Miriam’s boyfriend who is referred to hilariously as Forgettable.  As in “of course Forgettable weighed in with, ‘What?’” (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »