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Archive for the ‘New Yorker’ Category

Mohsin Hamid–“The Third-Born” (New Yorker, September 24, 2012)

Posted in Culture Shock, Kathleen Edwards, Mohsin Hamid, New Yorker, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on October 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Tiny Desk Concert #206 (April 5, 2012).

Kathleen Edwards has a great voice and she writes great songs.  There’s not much more to this set than her singing four fantastic songs in the Tiny Desk setting.  Although her songs have full band arrangements on records, they do not sound out of place in this smaller, acoustic environment.

As she introduces the final song of the set “Change the Sheets” she says it’s the first time they’ve played it acoustically.  You’d ever know.  It sounds great.

There’s not a lot more to say about this Tiny Desk set–it highlights a great songwriter with a great voice.

[READ: October 15, 2012] “The Third Born”

I had a wee bit of trouble following this story, although I admit I didn’t give it my undivided attention at first.

If this isn’t an excerpt, then it’s a fairly disconnected story with large gaps–it reads like a few distinct scenes that happen so far apart as to be almost disconnected.  (I re-read it to make sure).

The story begins with a boy in a village in India.  He is sick and his mother knows how to help him with this not uncommon rural disease.  He watches the village as he lays there, more or less immobile–how the women seem to do a lot of work, although his mother doesn’t work outside the house.  Eventually his father returns from the city where he is a successful cook.  The boy’s mother asks if the whole family can move to the city.  He balks at the idea–he spends several month sat a time in the city where he makes good money, although he claims it is not enough for a family to live on in the city. (more…)

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T. Coraghessan Boyle–“Birnam Wood” (New Yorker, September 3, 2012)

Posted in Boredom, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, New Yorker, Short Story, T.C. Boyle, The Lumineers on October 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE LUMINEERS-Live at KEXP, April 3, 2012 (2012).

This was the first I’d heard of the Lumineers.  I found their second  song “Ho Hey” to be really engaging so I’ve since gotten their record.  There’s no denying that they are falling under the Mumford and Sons stomping folk-revival banner.

This four song set is good fun.  It features two catchy folkie songs up front “Flowers in Your Hair” and “Ho Hey” both of which total less than 4 minutes, but which really show what kind of music they make.  (Shall we call it Mumford without the banjos?  That’s dismissive but not inaccurate).  “Dead Sea” is a longer song and the length really shows the depth of the song.  The final song, “Stubborn Love” is even better than the others, with the whole band really rocking out with harmony vocals   It’s a great introduction to this band who have really been gaining a lot of airplay on the radio around here lately.

In the chat with the DJ, the guys reveal that they grew up in Ramsey, NJ!  Of course, they ran away to Denver to become famous.   Listen here.

[READ: October 12, 2012] “Birnam Wood”

I don’t quite know how authors get selected for the New Yorker.  Is it blind?  Do they just say, well, so and so has a new book out, lets put two of his stories in this year?  I ask this because Boyle had a story published in February and now another in September.  Perhaps he’s their equinox.

I liked this one quit a bit.  It opens with a destitute couple staying in a summer lodging past the end of the summer.  [I immediately related this to the place where we recently vacationed which would certainly not be habitable in November].  Nevertheless, they press on, freezing and cursing each other until the owner catches them.

They go seeking other lodging.  Keith works minimum wage and Nora doesn’t work, (which is a bit of  sticking point for him), so of necessity the new place has to be cheap.  Their first location proves even worse than their current place.  But then his friend Artie tells him of a basement apartment that a couple is looking to lease for the winter.  It’s part of a much larger house and they need people to watch over the whole property for the winter. (more…)

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Thomas McGuane–“The Casserole” (New Yorker, September 10, 2012)

Posted in Kiss, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Thomas McGuane on September 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Destroyer {Resurrected} (2012).

Bob Ezrin, überproducer, decided he wanted to remaster Kiss’ Destroyer album (for its 35 year anniversary).  If his notes are to believed, this was all Ezrin’s doing with little input from the band.  The notes are interesting and explain Bob’s rational at the time and his rationale for remastering it now.

The remastering isn’t major–the guitars sound more vibrant (there seems to be extra flourishes on “King of the Night Time World”, the vocals sound a little fuller (with some extra echo).  I actually think I’d like the drums to be a little louder–Peter does some great drumming here and it should be emphasized more.  Ezrin explains that do to the limitations of the originals there wasn’t a lot he could do to  re-mix the album.

The most exciting find of the remaster is the new guitar solo for “Sweet Pain.”  It’s not a huge deal, it’s only a few notes, but it is  fun to hear a new take (even if the “real: solo is better).

He adds a “Get Up/Get Down” at the end of the solo in “Detroit Rock City” (which I do not like).  He also repeats an “ahhh” in “Beth” in the middle which just makes me think the song should end.  In the liner notes, he says they added new car crashes at the end of “Detroit Rock City” although  I can’t really hear it. There seems to be more of the little kid’s voice in “God of Thunder” (I always wish they’d provided transcript of what he says).  And overall I think that song sounds the best with the new mix–more intense, more scary, more bombastic.  As for the mellower songs (“Great Expectations,” “Do You Love Me?”) there’s a bit more oomph in the backing vocals.

In the notes he says he fixed something that has been bugging him for 35 years.  The internet boards suggest that it is this: In “Detroit Rock City,” Paul sang “Moving fast down 95,” but 95 goes nowhere near Detroit, so he mixed Paul’s voice to say “moving fast doin’ 95.”  I never really understood which one he was saying to begin with, so I can’t be sure of this.  Overall, is it worth getting this remaster?  Well, probably not. It sounds better and fuller, but not radically different.

The only other  Kiss albums he produced were Revenge and The Elder–Bob, I’d love a remaster of The Elder!

[READ: September 23, 2012] “The Casserole”

This really short story (less than two pages) has a title that’s not terribly exciting.  It also prepares you very little for what will happen and just how the casserole will come into play.

The story is of a trip that a long-married husband and wife take to her family’s ancestral home–a large farm with tons of acres, tons of livestock and worth tons of money.  But he and his wife don’t want the farm (which her parents want to give them), they’re happy in the city, being school teachers who live frugally, saving for a rainy day.

The story is almost all flashback as the couple waits to board the ferry that crosses the river to the house.  He thinks about how they don’t have kids (and never wanted them) and how this drives her parents crazy (they desperately want an heir to their property).  He thinks about how they spend very little money on anything–keeping it squirreled away for their retirement.  Even if his wife might like to go to Belize to show off her still hot body.  He thinks about how the only thing he would spend money on is a beautiful room to house his record collection and maybe to buy an awesome stereo–and how his wife is unimpressed by this. (more…)

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Simon Rich–Elliot Allagash (2010) & “On Book-Writing” [New Yorker, May 18, 2010]

Posted in Advice, All Songs Considered, Boredom, Contests, Funny (ha ha), Jean-Dominique Bauby, Kishi Bashi, New Yorker, Set at School, Short Books, Simon Rich, YA Books on September 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISHI BASHI-Live at the 9:30 Club May 1, 2012 (2012).

I had never heard of Kishi Bashi before this concert.  Kishi Bashi is a one man band headed by K. Ishibashi.  He plays violin and sings and, as is the trend it seems, he records and loops his own beats and melodies.  Whether or not this is overdone by others, Kishi Bashi does an amazing job.  His songs are powerful and his soaring falsetto is fantastic.

I find myself singing lines from “Atticus in the Dessert” all the time.  And who could resist the title “I am the Antichrist to You.”  Hearing him pull this stuff off live is really impressive.  When he’s not sampling and beatboxing, his violin is gorgeous–I never really understood the folks who could violin and sing at the same time, but he does it wonderfully.  He’s got a funny, charming stage presence and this whole brief set is really enjoyable.  Check it out (audio and video!).

[READ: September 1, 2012] Elliot Allagash

I really enjoy Simon Rich’s humorous pieces.  But somehow I totally missed that he had written a novel (or two–the second one came out in August).

This novel eschews Rich’s humor style–there’s no absurdist takes on life–and focuses on a plot. The plot is pretty straightforward.  Seymour Herson is a middle school loser–everyone picks on him.  In a nice twist on the high school loser, Seymour’s family is pretty cool.  They play Monopoly every Friday night, they eat together and are generally supportive of each other.  While they might be somewhat geeky, they are not played as straw men for Seymour’s problems.

At his school there are three rows of lunch tables.  The popular kids sit at the first row.  The rest of the kids sit at the second row.  And Seymour sits in the final row.  By himself.  In part that is his plan, so he can score a minimum of 5 chocolate milks at lunchtime without the other kids seeing.  Then one day Elliot Allagash sits next to him. (more…)

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Joshua Cohen–3 book reviews (Harper’s, July 2012)

Posted in Ben Fountain, Book Reviews, Carly Rae Jepsen, Dan Deacon, Essays, Harper's, John Steinbeck, Joshua Cohen, Kirkus, New Yorker, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Scott Lasser, Thad Ziolkowski, The New York Times, Thomas Pynchon, William Faulkner, Zadie Smith on September 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAN DEACON-“Call Me Maybe Acapella 147 Times Exponentially Layered” (2012).

Dan Deacon (whose twitter handle is “ebaynetflix” ha!), created a cover of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe,” for a digital album with 43 artists covering the pop delicacy.  I listened to a few samples from the album and they span the gamut from kind of serious to kind of crazy to mocking to Deacon.

Stereogum describes Deacon’s version this way: “Dan Deacon piles “Call Me Maybe” on itself over and over again, creating the most dissonant, harrowing take on Carli Rae Jepsen’s [sic] hit known to man.”

He begins with a sample from the verse, then he adds some lines from the chorus (while the verse is playing). You can hear “here’s my number, so call me maybe” a few times, but the background is growing in intensity and menace.  By 90 seconds in, you can still hear her a little bit, but she is almost entirely consumed by noise.  Then around 2 minutes, things seems to calm down a bit (she’s still plugging away at the chorus).  By 4 minutes the whole thing has seemingly collapsed in on itself.  And the whole time, there seems to be a steady beat that you can dance to.  This track may indeed produce insanity.

You can listen to Deacon’s monstrosity below, or go to the original site.

  To see the lineup for the whole album, go here.

[READ: August 22, 2012] 3 Book Reviews

I don’t quite understand how Cohen pulled this off, but in the July issue of Harper‘s right after his story, “The College Borough,” which I mentioned yesterday, he also had three book reviews.  How does one get two bylines in Harper’s?  Has that ever happened before?

Because I liked the story so much, I decided I would read these reviews too.  Cohen sets up the reviews with the idea of political gestation periods (12 months for donkeys, 22 months for elephants) and how novelists work even slower when it comes to writing about events.  Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead came out 32 months after V-J Day, John Steinbeck wrote about the depression from 1937-1945.  So now in 2012 we see the “spawn of Bush’s two terms of excruciating contractions.”  Books that fictionalize the realities of post-9/11 life: “that the canniest distraction from class war is war-war.” (more…)

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Alessandro Baricco–“Without Blood” (New Yorker, December 23 & 30, 2002)

Posted in Alessandro Baricco, Ann Goldstein, Death, Douglas Gordon, Fears, Foreign Books, Gangsters, Marriage Trouble, Mogwai, New Yorker, Olaf Nicolai, Short Story, Translators, Violence on September 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-Music for a Forgotten Future (The Singing Mountain) (2011).

This track is a 23 minute instrumental that was used for an art installation by Douglas Gordon (who made the film Zidane, for which Mogwai provided the score) and Olaf Nicolai called “Monument for a Forgotten Future”.  The more I learn about  his installation, the more intrigued I am by it.  According to wikimedia, “Monument for a Forgotten Future” is a sculpture by Olaf Nicolai and Douglas Gordon on the so called “Wilde Insel” (wild island) in Gelsenkirchen-Horst, Germany. It is 1:1 replica of a rock formation in Joshua Tree National Park with a sound installation by Mogwai that can be heard from within the “rock.”  Someone has even posted a video of their trip to it.  In the video (which is literally of a rock), as the filmer approached you can hear the music only when he or she gets pretty close to the installation. It’s just barely audible.  Cool.

As for the music itself, it is very mellow an atmospheric, quite perfect for being on a Wild Island and sitting by/staring at a rock.  There are definitely hints of Mogwai’s sound in the music, although there are a lot more keyboards than guitars (which befits their more recent albums).  It’s very peaceful and quite beautiful.  At about 19 minutes it fades out and seems to being another string laden piece into the mix as well, but it more or less fades into static (which would be a lousy time to get to the installation!).

The music comes free with most editions of Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will.

[READ: August 2, 2012] “Without Blood”

After reading Baricco’s Emmaus, I wanted to see what else he had written.  I found this short story (which is also the name of one of his novels, although I’m not sure if this is an excerpt or the inspiration for the novel–Wikipedia says it is a “revised form” of the novel, whatever that means).

I was a little disconcerted by this story when it opened because it has a very violent introduction.  The farmhouse of Manuel Roca is the site of bloodshed.  Three men, Salinas, El Guerra, and Tito pull up in a Mercedes.  Manuel Roca is the man they are looking for.  He has two children a boy and a girl, Nina.  He tells Nina that she must hide when the men come.  Hide in the cellar and be absolutely still, no matter what happens.  And to not be afraid.  The son, slightly older, wants to help, he even has a gun, but Manuel tells him to hide in the woodshed.  And then the house was riddled with bullets.

Manuel survived that first round but when he looked up, Tito (who was described as a boy but was in fact 20) was standing there with a gun pointed at Manuel.  And he shouted to  Salinas “IT’S TITO.  I’VE GOT HIM.”  When the threesome get inside, they see that Tito has shot Roca in the arm because he had a gun.

When the two men come face to face we learn that this fight has to do with the war.  Roca says the war is over, although Salinas, says “Not yours, Not mine, Doctor.”  Salinas was known as the rat because he deciphered Roca’s men’s coded messages.   But despite the war, Salinas has only shot a gun twice.  The first one was at no one, the second was at his brother who was in the hospital when the war ended.  Salinas went to the hospital with the intent of killing Doctor Roca and his men, but they had fled, leaving all of the sick and dying unattended.  When Salinas’ brother asked him to kill him…please, he could only comply.

After this flashback, Roca’s son came into the room with a shotgun.  From here the scene gets really violent with both Roca and his son killed.  The men realize that Nina must be there as well, so they look all over for her.  It is the boy Tito who finds her in the cellar.  They stared at each other, but Tito let her live.  And the men left.  After they set the house on fire.

Three days later a man on horseback found Nina and took her away.

Wow. (more…)

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Vladimir Nabokov–“Signs and Symbols” (New Yorker, May 15, 1948)

Posted in Divine Fits, Handsome Furs, Lorrie Moore, Marriage (Happy), Neurotics, New Bomb Turks, New Yorker, Spoon, Today's Top Tune on KCRW, Vladimir Nabokov, Wolf Parade on September 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DIVINE FITS-“Would That Not Be Nice” (2012).

This song was KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune on August 13, 2012.  Divine Fits are a supergroup of sorts with Spoon’s Britt Daniels, New Bomb Turks drummer Sam Brown and Wolf Parade/Handsome Furs member Dan Boeckner.  When I heard who was in the band, I was pretty excited to hear the track.  But I have to say that this sounds kind of like a over-polished Spoon song with keyboards.  Daniels’ voice and musical style are individual enough that he pretty much dominates whatever he does.  But at the same time, I feel like the jagged edges that make Spoon so interesting have been removed.

I assume that Boeckner is responsible for the keyboards and the interesting echo effect on the vocals.  They add an interesting balance to Daniels, but this doesn’t excite me the way Spoon does.

[READ: August 10, 2012] “Signs and Symbols”

I discovered this story because in my post of Lorrie Moore’s “Referential” someone commented that her story was plagiarized from this one.  I had intended to read this Nabokov story immediately so Moore’s would be fresh and I could lay down the “J’accuse.”  It’s been a couple of months but I can say that while her story is obviously inspired by this Nabokov–to the point where she uses elements from this story in her own, it’s a different take on the same idea.

But before we do any comparison, let’s look at this story.  The story begins by stating that for the fourth time in as many years, a young man’s parents don’t know what to take him for his birthday.  The problem is that he is in an institution and many things are forbidden.  And also, for their son man-made objects are either hives of evil or gross comforts–more on that shortly.  They knew they couldn’t get him a gadget of any kind, so they settled on a basket with a set of colorful jellies.  When they travel to him with the gift, everything goes wrong–the train breaks down, there are no busses, and when they finally get there, the nurses inform them that there has been an incident and he cannot see them now.  So they return home with the jellies.

The story describes what is wrong with their son as referential mania.  It’s an interesting situation, and an article about him had appeared in a scientific monthly.  It says that the patient believes that everything happening around him is somehow related to himself.  So clouds transmit details about him, trees talk about him, etc.  And this was driving him crazy (obviously).  He had even tried to kill himself via, what the doctor described as “a masterpiece of inventiveness.” (more…)

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Justin Taylor–“After Ellen” (New Yorker, August 13 & 20, 2012)

Posted in Dogs, Justin Taylor, Kiss, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Travel, Unlikable main character on August 23, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Revenge (1992).

Having not learned from Creatures of the Night, this time when I blew off Kiss for a few years, they came out with Revenge, a very heavy, very aggressive album.  It’s certainly one of their best post-70s albums.  I didn’t pick it up until many years later, so I never got to appreciate it to its fullest extent.  And I really like it.  But in typical Kiss fashion it is marred by a few truly ghastly songs.  Ghastly in and of themselves, but also ghastly because they do not belong anywhere near this album.

The band was having a hard time by 1992.  Eric Carr died in 1991, and that had to be pretty rough (even for the businessmen of Kiss).  Nevertheless, they regrouped with a new drummer, Eric Singer (who is blond, for god’s sake!) and came up with an album that fit in more with the aggressive alt sound of the early 90s.  It opens with “Unholy” a heavy dark song, very much like early Kiss (and interestingly co written with Vinnie Vincent, although he doesn’t play on the record).  This is the kind of aggressive song that Gene is meant to sing.  “Take It Off” is a cheesy song about going to strip clubs.  Kiss seems to live in the world of metaphor, so this very explicit song is quite shocking from them—even if the content is no surprise at all.  And Paul’s voice doesn’t seem to work with the music very well.  Although in a rare twist for Kiss, the slow middle section is actually pretty good.  “Tough Love” sounds like a very different style of Kiss–it’s all minor key and menacing.  This is especially odd for a Paul song.  It’s a respectable change of style.

“Spit” is another really weird Kiss song.  The guitar is very rough and raw—almost industrial.  But having Gene sing “It don’t mean spit to me” seems like a total cop out.  Of course, when the bridge comes in and Paul actually sings “the bigger the cushion the better the pushing” which is literally a Spinal Tap lyric (and given all the groupie photos I’ve ever seen, completely untrue) the song hits rock bottom.  The chorus “I need a whole lotta woman” actually makes it worse.  Although the odd solo section in which Gene scat-sings along with the solo is pretty wild.

“God Gave Rock and Roll to You II” may be an anthem and may have been Kiss’ biggest hit in years, but I think it’s pretty awful.  Kiss doesn’t need yet another song about rock n roll being awesome.  Although they sound very good in the little Beatles-esque breakdown near the end.

“Domino” is a popular song still, and it’s got that old school swagger.  I happen to dislike Gene’s lascivious opening and frankly, the lyrics are really, really gross.  I mean, sure, he wants to sleep with young girls, but you’re 43 and she “ain’t old enough to vote.”  Couldn’t you just make her 22 and make us all feel a lot less queasy?  I mean in “Goin’ Blind,” you were 93 and she was 16, but somehow that doesn’t seem as gross.  “Heart of Chrome” (also co written by Vinnie Vincent) is a fast rocker—another odd one for Paul (this whole album feels like it should be sung by Gene), but Paul works it very well.  “Thou Shalt Not” is mildly blasphemous and kind of interesting (Gene was born in the promised land!).

“Every Time I Look at You” is the obligatory ballad.  It sounds so crazily out of place on this heavy disc.  And it’s a pretty typical metal ballad of the time.  “Paralyzed” is an example of how Kulick’s wild soloing fits with the heavy sound of the album—it’s noisy and rough like the songs themselves. Of course the actual song, a near the end of the album track by gene, is pretty much filler.  But it’s good filler.

The end of the album has the stupid, but fun “I Just Wanna.”  I hate that the vocal melody is ripped straight out of “Summertime Blues.”  And it’s got a “naughty” chorus straight out of 7th grade—”I just wanna Fuh I just wanna Fuh I just wanna Forget you.” Okay, it is kind of fun to sing that part.  “Carr Jam 1981” is an instrumental jam that is dominated by Eric Carr’s drum solo.  It’s nice tribute to Eric (even if they did have Bruce record over Ace’s original guitar work).

I hadn’t really listened to this album all that much, but I found that when I listened to it again recently (aside from those three or four bad songs) it was a really good, rocking album.

[READ: August 13, 2012] “After Ellen”

This is a story about an asshole.  And that is deliberate.

The title is “After Ellen” and the first 8 or so paragraphs are all about what a cowardly shit Scott is.  He doesn’t want to get too serious with Ellen.  They have already picked up stakes from Long Island and moved to Portland together.  But he knew an evil seed was planted when they got there.  And so, on the day after they talked about adopting a dog, he packed all of his things into their shared car and just left.  While she was at work.  Giving her no warning.  And now, leaving her with no ride home.

How is it possible that one would want to read any more about this guy?  Perhaps to see if he gets a comeuppance or to see if he changes his mind (although one hopes that Ellen would never take him back after that).  But Taylor is a good writer and I want to read on.

He heads south to stay with his sister in Los Angeles–unannounced of course.  But he stops in San Francisco to rest for the night.  He checks his phone for the first time in two days.  Ellen called 16 times and has gone from pleading to rage. There’s also messages from his parents (who are going to cut him off if he doesn’t call) and from Andy, a college friend from Portland who says he is a shit for taking the car–how is Ellen supposed to get to work?  He texts Alan who immediate writes back and says to never even think about Ellen again.

After he settles in, he had deliberately avoided checking his past life, but when he finally logs into Facebook he sees that Ellen has not unfriended him (she was always a lazy Facebooker).  And her most recent post is Fffrrryyydddaaayyy (and five people “like It).  But Andy has unfriended him and Andy’s new profile picture is of him and Ellen.

And here’s where I say the asshole part of the story is deliberate.  (more…)

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Zadie Smith–“Permission to Enter” (New Yorker, July 30, 2012)

Posted in Boredom, Food, Kiss, Masturbation, Monie Love, New Yorker, Set at School, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Zadie Smith on August 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Lick It Up (1983).

Kiss takes off their makeup!  And they look…like normal guys with lots of hair (How has Paul’s hair stayed so spectacular for so long?).

Lick It Up was a transformative album for Kiss, in which they suddenly gained new respect and new fans.  And yet somehow, that impressive amazing tongue really looks kind of dumb without all the makeup on, sorry Gene.  They also added (officially) Vinnie Vincent to the band (see he’s right there on the cover!). I tend to hate the song “Lick It Up” with a real passion.  In part because it was overplayed and in part because it’s terrible.  Vinnie Vincent was supposed to be this amazing guitarist and that’s what he came up with?  Blah.  Maybe he felt hampered by Kiss and that’s why he made the wank-fest that was Vinnie Vincent Invasion.

As a result I tend to overlook this album, but “Exciter” is a great, rocking track.  It’s fast and heavy and is really propulsive.  “Not for the Innocent” is one Gene’s great songs—heavy and dark with a cool chorus (Much better than some of his recent affairs).  “Young and Wasted” starts out kind of tripping over itself but man the chorus is great.

“Give Me More” is a straight out fast rocker.  The song never stops and there’s a great old-school Kiss Chorus  too.  “All Hell’s Breaking Loose” also has an old school sound—a kind of “Hotter Than Hell” feel.  And of course, who doesn’t love when Paul rambles nonsensically, “Hey man, I am cool, I am the breeze.”  “A Million to One” is kind of a generic Kiss song—not bad (certainly not as bad as some of their songs) but nothing terribly exciting.

“Fits Like a Glove” is one of Gene’s dirty songs, it has a good bridge/chorus structure.  Kiss may have set a record for the most similes when it comes to sex.  “Dance All Over Your Face” is pretty silly, probably the worst song on the disc.  The lyrics are, well, Gene, and it even has a break where it’s just drums (a terrible way to force a song to be an anthem).  At least the album ends on a high note with “And on the 8th Day.”  True it’s yet another attempt for the band to have an anthem about rock, and it starts out a little anemic, but this is what they do best, and even a middling Kiss anthem is a good one.   Somehow I think about Eric Carr singing along to this and it makes the song seem better.

Whereas Creatures of the Night was overlooked by most people, Lick It Up is overlooked by me.  It needs a higher ranking in my Kiss lists.

[READ: July 30, 2012] “Permission to Enter”

I’m very happy to see a new Zadie Smith story in The New Yorker.  I know she left her gig at Harper’s to work more on writing.  And here’s some of the fruits.  It’s funny to me that this one is done in a series of numbered sections–a strange microtrend that I have been experiencing lately.  It’s strange for Zadie because I find that her transitions and narrative structure are always very strong, so to eschew that for these little chapter breaks is surprising.  Of course, if she spelled everything out it would have been much longer and–given the content, potentially less effective.

So this is the story of Keisha Blake and Leah Hanwell.  When they first met they were four years old.  They were “swimming” in a shallow trough in a park in Hampstead when (and no one saw it happen) Keisha rescued Leah from drowning.  Leah’s mother was so grateful that she invited Keisha over and Keisha and Leah became best friends (even though there are so may differences between their families and they clearly would have never been friends otherwise, really under any circumstances).

And so each titled section reveals something new about their young friendship.  For example, “6. Some Answers” gives just the answers to a series of questions which economically show the difference and similarities between these two girls).  The girls grow up together.  They grow apart a little as friends will.  While Leah and her other friends liked Sonic Youth, Keisha (and no other friends) liked Monie Love. But they stayed close friends anyhow (never really questioning why they were friends–a wonderful detail). (more…)

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William Gaddis–[Week 7] JR [#OccupyGaddis pages 461-535] (1975)

Posted in #OccupyGaddis, Big Books, Books about music, Death, Georges Bizet, Huh?, Marriage Trouble, Ms., New Yorker, Religion, Seinfeld, Sex on August 6, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: GEORGES BIZET-Overture/Habanera (1874), Nocturne in D major (1867).

Bizet is best known (to me anyway) as the creator of Carmen.  And the Overture is utterly recognizable while “Habanera” is probably one of  the more recognizable vocal operas (you know it).  But Bast and co. seem to known Bizet from his piano work, which I didn’t know at all.

I chose “Nocturne in D major” at random.  It’s very pretty, but nowhere near as memorable as say “Habanera.”

I don’t play piano and I’m not a huge classical music fan (although I do know many composers).  Listening to this piece anyhow, I find it hard to understand how people could recognize Bizet in Bast’s work.  Obviously there are dozens of other pieces that may be more representative of a signature sound, but this just sounds like a beautiful (and not overly challenging like Chopin) piano piece to me.  It’s also true that this piano piece was written ten years before Carmen, and maybe they are thinking of the music of Carmen as recognizably Bizet (can you even play Carmen on the piano?).

I forgot how much I enjoy this opera though, (or at least the highlights).

[READ: Week of July 30, 2012] JR Week 7

I enjoyed this week’s read very much.  It had some real emotional scenes–and a scene that stayed with just the same two people for a long time.  It was also interesting to see Gaddis handle sex–in his own detached mechanical way.  And I liked starting to see the pieces (Davidoff, the Waldorf) start falling into place (as they may also be falling apart).

But before we get to that we must look at a doctored photo.  The photo from Mrs Joubert’s class’ interaction with the folks at Diamond Cable has come back and they have added black to the class.  Mr Hyde notices immediately  that his son (“tell by his haircut” (461)) has been darkened, “Blackface in every one of them.”  “Looks like he’s about ready to get down on one knee and sing Mammy” (461).  While Hyde is outraged, the rest of the room is complementing Whiteback and the company for promoting racial diversity.  It’s even suggested that this will help the Major’s image on the other side of town.   Of course underneath all of this is some festering racism: (more…)

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