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David Foster Wallace–“The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s ‘Wittgenstein’s Mistress'” (Review of Contemporary Fiction 1990)

Posted in Beth Orton, Bjork, Book Reviews, David Foster Wallace, David Markson, Essays, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Smarty Pants, Thao Nguyen, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Thomas Pynchon, Tiny Desk Concert, William Gaddis, Wittgenstein's Halloween on November 21, 2013| 1 Comment »

contficSOUNDTRACK: THAO NGUYEN-Tiny Desk Concert #5 (September 4, 2008).

thaoI had never heard of Thao Ngyuen (who admits that her last name is a phonetic disaster–it’s pronounced When) before this concert and man is she a lot of fun.

  She plays a great acoustic guitar—very percussive on the strings (and even some percussive noises from her mouth before the first song starts).  Her voice is a strange mix of a few singers, reminding me a bit of Björk (but with a kind of Southern sounding accent) and maybe Beth Orton, if Beth was a bit more excited.   Thao plays her guitar very loosely—a kind of sloppiness that is really fun—but not in a “she can’t really play” way.  It’s an I’m having a lot of fun style.

NPR dude Mike Katzif heard her band Get Down Stay Down opening for another band.  And he loved her off-kilter melodies (which are ample).  “Bag of Hammers” is played on the high strings and it has an almost Caribbean feel—boppy and fun and totally made for dancing. Her guitar playing is very fast strumming, especially on “Beat (Health, Life and Fire),” I love watching the chords she is playing up and down the neck of the guitar.

I really enjoyed the conceit of “Big Kid Table” and the Hawaiian vibe she gets from her guitar.  “Feet Asleep” brings out a bit more of a country vibe from her singing (she is from Virginia).  I love the diversity of her music and I’m looking forward to checking out both her band and her solo work. In addition to being a great singer and songwriter, she is also quite funny—the story about her grandma and her calves is very funny indeed.

This continues the greatness of the Tiny Desk concerts.

[READ: November 14, 2013]  “The Empty Plenum”

The reason I got involved with Wittgenstein’s Halloween was because David Foster Wallace had said Wittgenstein’s Mistress was one of the best books of the 1990s.

The whole list is on Salon, but here’s the quote about WM:

“Wittgenstein’s Mistress” by David Markson (1988)
“W’s M” is a dramatic rendering of what it would be like to live in the sort of universe described by logical atomism. A monologue, formally very odd, mostly one-sentence ¶s. Tied with “Omensetter’s Luck” for the all-time best U.S. book about human loneliness. These wouldnt constitute ringing endorsements if they didnt happen all to be simultaneously true — i.e., that a novel this abstract and erudite and avant-garde that could also be so moving makes “Wittgenstein’s Mistress” pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country.

I had also read his review of the book before [I copy everything I said then below].  I admit I didn’t get that much out of it before because it was mostly about Wittgenstein and a book I hadn’t read.  Well, now that I’ve read the Markson book, it seemed like a good time to revisit the review.

Two things strike me immediately–this was written after Wallace had written Broom of the System and some other fiction and yet he speaks of himself as a “would-be writer,” not a writer.  And two, this review really belongs in a philosophy journal rather than a literary journal–DFW was making the jump from philosophy to literature, but his knowledge of philosophy is very strong, so he is focusing on that aspect of the story. (more…)

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Jonathan Littell–“A Summer Sunday” (Harper’s, November 2013)

Posted in Band of Horses, Carissa's Wierd, Harper's, Jonathan Littell, Sera Cahoone, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, War on November 20, 2013| Leave a Comment »

nov 2013SOUNDTRACK: SERA CAHOONE-Tiny Desk Concert #4 (July 10, 2008).

seraI had never heard of Sera Cahoone before this show.  NPR dude Stephen Thompson is the one who brought her to the Tiny Desk.

Sera used to be a drummer (for Band of Horses and Carissa’s Wierd) but then she picked up a guitar and started writing songs for her 2006 debut album.  Cahoone plays five songs (in about 21 minutes) for this set.  She plays acoustic guitar (and harmonica).

The songs are pretty, folky songs.  Thompson describes them as “hammock music” in that it simulates the sensation of lying in a hammock and sipping an iced tea, possibly while being fanned.  And that’s pretty accurate.  The songs are soothing and gentle, simple chords played in the right order (F/C/G/C).  Her voice is slightly husky, but she still manages high notes. easily.

“Runnin’ Your Way” is a very standard, pretty folk song.  “Couch Song” introduces some mild picking which changes the tone but retains the hammock atmosphere.  “Only As The Day Is Long” is probably my favorite of the five–I like the way she sings the verses and adds an interesting chord progression to the verse.  I’m not thrilled with the harmonica part but it’s fine.  “The Colder the Air” is a minor chord song that adds some tension to the proceedings–it’s really quite good.  “Last Time” is from her first record.  Its a little faster, and I like the change it introduces.

Although Cahoone’s music is similar throughout there’s enough variety for it to be interesting and very enjoyable. This was yet another great Tiny Desk set.

[READ: November 20, 2013] “A Summer Sunday”

This story is an interesting concept–an attempt at the narrator to not tell us something.

I admit that I found the beginning confusing.  I’m not sure when it was written but while before 2001 “two towers” may have referenced Tolkien, in 2013 it can only reference one event.  But after a few paragraphs we learn that the story is not even set in the United States (although the exact location remains a mystery).

In addition to the towers, there is a cemetery.  Near the cemetery is a house which the narrator has visited.  While they were there shells started falling near the General’s Residence, which was not too far away.  It had been a very bad day–lots of people were killed in the gunfire, but for the narrator and his family it was a pleasant Sunday.  Indeed, the whole weekend was nice, even if when he was sitting in a cafe on Saturday a piece of shrapnel landed near him.  He gleefully ran to collect it.  Later that evening he and friends were drinking in a garden when “rockets came screaming overhead.”  Several people dove for cover or huddled in a ball. The next line?  “It was very funny and we laughed a lot.”

Interesting reaction, but that appears to be all because of “that other thing I shouldn’t talk about.” (more…)

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Tahar Ben Jelloun–“By Fire” (New Yorker, September 16, 2013)

Posted in Anarchy, Fears, Gilmore Girls, Lisa Moore, New Yorker, Rita S. Nezami, Sam Phillips, Short Story, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Tiny Desk Concert, Vic Chesnutt on November 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_09_16_13Tomine.inddSOUNDTRACK: SAM PHILLIPS-Tiny Desk Concert #3 (June 25, 2008). 

Isamt took a month and a half to get the second Tiny Desk player in, but it took only 20 days to get Sam Phillips to come in after Vic Chesnutt.  Sam Phillips plays four songs (in what is sauna-like conditions apparently) all from her then new album Don’t Do Anything.

Phillips has had a couple of incarnations as a performer (first as “Leslie Phillips” Christian singer).  This incarnation sees her as a kind of folky troubadour with dramatic flair.  She played a lot of the music on the Gilmore Girls (she does the la las), so of course I’m a fan.

Sam is a funny performer, introducing herself (and then asking is she is allowed to talk) and later playing Bob Boilen’s cow in the can (and even questioning the way to say This is NPR).  She is accompanied by Erik Gorfain, who plays a Stroh violin which you can sort of see in this picture (there’s a better one below) and which Phillips suggests is plenty loud enough thank you.

Her first song, “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” opens with big strumming guitars and a bouncy melody.  It’s a great song that is a lot of fun–that violin brings great counterpoint.  “No Explanations” is a bit more rocking (with Gorfain on electric guitar).  It has a catchy chorus.  “Signal” returns to that kind of bouncy tin pan alley style which she does very well.  “Little Plastic Life” ends the set with… a screw up, which she handles wonderfully, and which makes the song seem all the better when she plays it again.

I really enjoyed this Tiny Desk and am going to have to listen to more of her work.

Check out what a Stroh violin looks like:

stroh

[READ: September 25, 2013] “By Fire”

Here’s another story about unemployment.  I had intended to post this back in September, so when I originally typed that this story is more dramatic than “yesterday’s,” I meant Lisa Moore’s story from September which was also about unemployment.

I wasn’t sure where this story took place (it was originally written in French).  The story is about Mohammed.  He graduated from University a few years ago with a degree in history.  It has been useless thus far.  When his father dies, and he is once again incapable of getting a teaching job, he gives up and burns all of his paperwork.

Then he sets out with his father’s fruit cart, determined to make some money selling fruit so he can move out of his house and in with his girlfriend.

There is ample back story in this piece.  We learn about Mohammed’s family—his mother has crippling diabetes, his brothers work but not very hard (one is downright lazy).  And we learn that the person who Mohammed’s father bought his fruit from was a crook who demands more and more money from Mohammed.

But the bulk of the story shows the daily life of Mohammed.  He is routinely harassed by the police for not having the proper paperwork or for being in the wrong place or just for being.  They start with simple harassment, but soon they turn to beatings.  Mohammed refuses to bribe anyone, even when the police give him the opportunity to turn in his former students. (more…)

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Joyce Carol Oates–“Lovely, Dark, Deep” (Harper’s, November 2013)

Posted in Harper's, Hoagy Carmichael, Interviews, Joyce Carol Oates, Kristin Hersh, Poetry, Poets, Robert Frost, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Vic Chesnutt on November 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

nov 2013SOUNDTRACK: VIC CHESNUTT-Tiny Desk Concert #2 (June 5, 2008).

chesnuttVic Chesnutt seems to have come into my life at random times. I bought the charity record/tribute album (Sweet Relief II) only because I liked a lot of the artists on it–I’d never heard of him at the time.  More recently his records were released on Constellation, a label I trust wholeheartedly.  And then just as I was really starting to appreciate him, he died in 2009 from an overdose of muscle relaxants.

He was a fascinating person.  A 1983 car accident left him partially paralyzed; he used a wheelchair and had limited use of his hands (which you can see in the video).   He struggled with drugs and alcohol and depression.  Despite all of this, he released his first album in 1990.

Robin Hilton, music dude at NPR, introduces him here and talks about how much he loves his music.  But even Hilton’s association with Chesnutt is checkered.  He writes that when he was younger and went to see him in concert, “[Chesnutt] was often drunk and sometimes belligerent. I walked out of at least one performance,” and “all of this probably made it easy to dismiss Vic Chesnutt’s music. He was a challenging guy, and his unpolished, idiosyncratic songs weren’t easily digested.”

And yet for all of that Chesnutt seems rather shy and unsettled in this Tiny Desk setting.  He seems unsure about what he wants to play and often asks if he should play this or that song.

He plays 5 songs (for 26 minutes total).  The opener is “When the Bottom Fell Out.”  A lot of Chesnutt’s songs, especially in this setting sound similar.  His voice is incredibly distinctive, as is his playing.  But since most of his songs are just him strumming and singing, they sound quite similar.  The second song, “Very Friendly Lighthouses” sounds a little different because he plays a “horn” solo using his mouth as a trumpet. It is a web request which he says he’ll “try” to do (and that he needs a cheat sheet).  I don’t know the song but it sounds fine to me.  He also emphatically states that the song is not about Kristin Hersh (something she has claimed).

“Panic Pure” also has a Kristin Hersh connection (she recorded it on Sweet Relief).  He says he stole the melody from “Two Sleepy People” by Hoagy Carmichael.  He turned it to a minor key and wrote his song.

For the next track, he asks if he should try a new song that he just wrote–more or less asking permission to do this unreleased track.  “You really want me to try out a new song that might suuuck?” (resounding yes). “We Were Strolling Hand in Hand” proves to be a very good song indeed.

The final track “Glossolalia” comes from North Star Deserter, the album I own.  It’s about being an atheist songwriter in a Christian country.  It’s funny that he says he hasn’t played it in a long time (it’s from his then new album…).

Chesnutt was not for everyone, clearly.  But his music is haunting and beautiful in its own way, and this is a very engaging setting to see him perform.

[READ: November 8, 2013] “Lovely, Dark, Deep”

Karen told me to check out this story and while I was planning to, she got me to move it up higher on my pile.  And I’m really glad she did because there is so much going on in this story that I was glad to be prepared for it.

The story seems simple enough, a young girl goes to interview famed poet Robert Frost at a writer’s workshop.  She is an unknown writer writing for a small college journal (Poetry Parnassus) and really has no business interviewing the Poet Himself.  She is shy and literally virginal.  When she walks up on Frost, he is sound asleep on a porch.  She dares to take a few pictures of the man (which later sold for a lot of money…although presumably not for her).

When Frost wakes up he is surprised and a little disconcerted by the young girl.  And then he gets cocky with her, suggesting she sit on the bench with him.  She demurs and begins trying to be as professional as possible.

Frost proves to be an obnoxious interviewee, full of ego for himself and nothing but disdain for all other poets.  She is intimidated by him, fearing that all of her questions are silly.  Then she tries to ask him some insightful questions but he tends to dismiss them as obvious or simply ignore them.  Eventually she asks one personal question too many and he becomes blatantly offensive.  He asks about her panties and if they are now wet (the cushion she is sitting on is damp from rain).  And he bullies her terribly.  She is offended but remains strong and continues to ask him questions. (more…)

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Daniel Alarcón reads Robert Bolaño’s “Gomez Palacio” (New Yorker fiction podcast “A Wall of Night” March 18, 2011) )

Posted in Audiobooks, Daniel Alarcón, New Yorker, Podcast, Roberto Bolaño on November 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: November 8, 2013] Daniel Alarcón reads “Gomez Palacio”

alarcon The New Yorker has a Fiction podcast of current authors reading a story from the New Yorker archives.  I was unaware of this podcast until I recently stumbled upon this Alarcón reading.  I am trying to find out the breadth and depth of this podcast, but I find the navigation really unclear.  It seems like there are a lot of stories in this series.  (You can see the archives list here, although I wish it was a little easier to navigate).

The podcast is 30 minutes long.  What you get is a brief interview with Alarcón, in which he talks primarily about his exposure to Bolaño and his interpretation of this story.  And then he reads the story itself.

The interview was very interesting.  He talks about reading Bolaño when 2666 had come out in Chile.  What I enjoyed hearing him talk about was the Bolaño universe and him “sampling himself.”  And also how the shorter works reference each other and different characters appear and reappear–that Bolaño has created an entire world in which all of his stories are set.  These are things that I noticed, of course, but it is always comforting to hear others confirm your ideas. (more…)

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Tom Bissell–“A Comet’s Tale: on the science of Apocalypse” (Harper’s, February 2003)

Posted in Death, End of the World, Environmentalism, Essays, Harper's, History, Laura Gibson, NASA, Natural Disasters, Scientists, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Bissell on November 15, 2013| 1 Comment »

feb2003SOUNDTRACK: LAURA GIBSON-Tiny Desk Concert #1 (April 22, 2008).

gibsonI have enjoyed many of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts over the years.  And while I was listening to an All Songs Considered show, it was mentioned that there have been over 200 shows (I believe it is now over 300).  And I realized that I had missed dozens of good ones.  So, being the kind of person I am, I decided to start watching/listening to them all.  I don’t typically watch most of them as they’re usually not very visually interesting–they’re fun to watch for a minute or so, but most of the artists are there to sing, not to do visual entertainment.  So usually I just listen while doing something else.

I toyed with the idea of writing about one a day until I was done.  But the logistics of that made my head hurt.  So instead, I will write about them all over the course of however long it takes.  (And since they don’t post one every day, I will catch up eventually).

Laura Gibson had the first ever Tiny Desk show, and there’s some notable things about the show itself.  First, look how empty Bob’s shelves are!   And the camera work is a little wonky, I think.  I also enjoy how they introduce this performance without a clue as to whether there would be more of them!

I had never heard of Laura Gibson before listening to this.  She plays simple but beautiful guitar (I enjoyed watching how confidently she played the chords and individual strings).  But the big selling point is her voice.  Her voice is very quiet (this was the impetus for the Tiny Desk concept–they saw her in a club and the crowd was too loud for them to enjoy her so they invited her up to their office).  But her voice is also slightly peculiar (in a very engaging way), which you can especially hear on “A Good Word, An Honest Man,” where she is practically a capella.

She sings four songs: “Hands in Pockets,” “A Good Word, An Honest Man,” “Come by Storm,” “Night Watch.”  The sing-along at the end of the last song is really pretty–shame the audience wasn’t mic’d.  All four songs are beautiful and slightly haunting–her delivery is so spare you kind of lean in to hear more.  She currently has three albums out, and I’d like to investigate her music further.

[READ: October 31, 2013] “A Comet’s Tale”

Despite the fact that this article talks about and more or less guarantees the end of the world by asteroid or comet it was incredibly enjoyable and staggeringly informative.

Bissell begins by talking about the Biblical Apocalypse and how in 1862 Premillennial Dispensationalism (premillennialism is the belief that Christ will return before setting up his millennial kingdom and dispensationalism divides up the Bible and human history into various eras or dispensations, based on how God deals with humanity) was smuggled into the Americas and it has never left.  Fully 59% of Americans now believe that Revelations will come to pass (although what that could possibly literally mean is another question).  [Incidentally the book is not called Revelations, it is Revelation or more specifically Revelation to John.  And all of that numerology (666) must mean something right?  Well, yes, it means that the Ancient world was obsessed with numerology. The bible makes great use of the trick of predicting the future by describing the past.

Bissell pulls back from the bible to look at planet Earth “the most ambitious mass murderer in the galaxy.”  He then lists all the atrocities that have happened from natural causes to all species in the history of the planet.  But even recent tragedies (which seem to only happen to people in far off countries says the westerner) are only by happenstance happening there.  Between overpopulation and global warming we are preparing for our own apocalypse.  Although we also mustn’t look too crazy like in The Late Great Planet Earth (which still sells around 10,00 copies a year).  In that book Hal Lindsey predicted the end of the world but also the rise of a single world religion, a Soviet Ethiopian invasion of Israel and the obliteration of Tokyo, London and New York.  But astonishingly, Lindsey also worked for the Reagan administration, much like Tim LeHaye (famed “author” of the Left Behind series) was co-chairman of Jack Kemp’s 1988 presidential campaign.  Apocalyptos have way too much power in this country.

But even if we weren’t preparing for our own doom, there would still be space items to do it for us. Like 1950DA an asteroid that has near-missed the earth fifteen times and may just not miss us in the future. (more…)

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Tom Bissell and Webster Younce–“All is Vanity” (Harper’s, December 2000)

Posted in Book Reviews, Books about writers, Fly Ashtray, Harper's, Herman Melville, Sergio De La Pava, Tom Bissell, Toni Morrison, Webster Younce on November 10, 2013| Leave a Comment »

dec2000SOUNDTRACK: FLY ASHTRAY-“Also Muffins” (2013).

flyRecently I was thinking to myself that I don’t hear much music that is just weird anymore.  It could be that I am exposed to it a lot less than I used to be (when I was music director at my college station I received all kinds of crazy stuff) or maybe people just don’t do unconventional music as much.  This latter option seems very unlikely give the preponderance of cheap home recording equipment.  But bands that are not exactly novelty acts, but who are just totally out there (and amazingly used to get album releases).

And then my friend Paula forwarded me this absolutely weird song from Fly Ashtray.  Not only was I delighted to hear a weird song, I loved how good it was.

“Also Muffins” starts with big sloppy guitars and a piercing guitar riff which is simple but slightly off.  This goes for about 20 seconds before a staccato decrescendo brings the riff to a halt.  This fun chaos is repeated three times. It’s a crazy wonderful punk intro.

Then at a minute an a half the song turns almost folkie, with strummed acoustic guitars.  The band starts singing together (in no-part harmony) about how good their delicatessen is (they also sell muffins).  They all seem somewhat flat in their delivery, as a deliberate let down from the frenetic earlier section.  Then for part 3, an electric guitar comes back in with a kind of great alt 90s solo and a series of fast chords.  I love this section a lot.

The final section comes in and opens with another simple riff that is at once catchy even if the last note is flat.  It is fast and vaguely sinister (with a kind of siren sound in the background) and with some skittery guitars and an occasional bass element thrown in.  This last part lasts for over a minute and then the whole song fades out.

The video is low budget and fun and gives a kind of explanation to the music, although I have found that i enjoy it without the video as well.

And visit the band’s website.

[READ: November 1, 2013] “All is Vanity”

This is not an actual article by Bissell, it is one of those “annotation” items in Harper’s in which an advertisement or press release is critiqued.  in this one they analyze an Xlibris ad.

Bissell was an editor at Henry Holt (and may still be) when he wrote this.  And he is snarky from the start (as the Annotation always is), emphasizing the “Publishing Services Provider” and noting with numbers why Xlibris is a foolish vanity project.

“70 percent of the books the company has sold have been bought by their own authors.”

And how in general

“90 percent of the half-million [books] written each year remain unpublished.” (more…)

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Neal Pollock–“I loved Lou Reed more than you” (Salon, October 29, 2013)

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Death, Jean-Luc Godard, Lou Reed, Neal Pollack, Salon.com, Slayer, Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground on November 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

lou_reed-620x412 SOUNDTRACK: LOU REED-Metal Machine Music (1975).

mmmfrom Wikipedia:

Metal Machine Music is generally considered to be either a joke, a grudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation, or an early example of noise music. The album features no songs or even recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for an hour of over-modulated feedback and guitar effects, intricately mixed at varying speeds by Reed himself. In the album’s liner notes he claimed to have invented heavy metal and asserted that Metal Machine Music was the ultimate conclusion of that genre.

I don’t know how many people have actually listened to this album all the way through.  There are four 16-minute tracks.  Each one is, on the surface, exactly the same: feedback and more feedback.  In truth, the album is a bit more complicated than that.

There is a guitar in the left speaker and a guitar in the right speaker and each one is feedbacking in very different ways.  Indeed, if you listen to only one speaker at a time, you get a very different experience (I haven’t done that with the whole album, although that’s only because I really only found out about that recently, I did for a few minutes and it was pretty fascinating).

And fascinating is what this release is.  It was unlistenable in 1975, there is no question.  Just as something like Slayer would have been unlistenable in 1975.  But twenty years later, when Sonic Youth was riding high, Metal Machine Music seemed a lot less outrageous (indeed, their 1998 release Silver Sessions was essentially the same structure of feedback).

And now MMM seems very forward thinking.  Whether or not it was a joke or some kind of payback to the label or whatever (liner notes suggest he just really enjoyed enveloping himself in feedback), it’s a remarkable record.  If you can actually sit through it, there are some really interesting moments in it.  There are times when the squall and noise turns eerily beautiful, when the ringing notes take on chime-like status.

And unlike the aforementioned SY album in which they just turned up their amps and left, it sounds like Reed was actually hanging around and manipulating the sound.  You can hear times when new notes/strumming comes in and changes the mood.  And of course, Reed had to edit it for the album.

One of the more interesting moments comes right at the end of the disc.  On the vinyl release, he made a locked groove so the final rotation would keep repeating over and over until you had to get up and manually lift the needle (as if the album wasn’t difficult enough).  On the CD, they repeat that section for about a minute.  And that little repeated section is noteworthy for the rough distorted guitar and chiming feedback that all sounds very cool.

All of this is not to say that this album is enjoyable.  It’s really not.  It’s brutal and harsh and best handled in small doses (even Reed admits that in the notes).  But it is noteworthy and fascinating.  And it may have inspired as many feedback based bands as the Velvet Underground inspired droning bands.

[READ: November 2, 2013] “I loved Lou Reed more than you”

I was sad at the passing of Lou Reed, although I’ve never been a huge fan.  But of all of the eulogies, I knew that Neal Pollack would write the best one.

Neal Pollock is a wonderfully pompous “character” (who is the main character in most of the writing of his that I have read).  This article—while much briefer than most of Pollack’s short pieces—is an honest eulogy of Reed, but is also a hilariously over the top profession of fandom.

When Pollock heard the news of Reed’s death, he was polishing the acetate of his producer’s cut of Metal Machine Music.  He wept, mostly for himself but also “on behalf of all cultured people everywhere.” (more…)

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Tom Bissell–“Eternal Winter: Lessons of the Aral Sea Disaster” (Harper’s, April 2002)

Posted in Culture Shock, Death, Environmentalism, Frank Zappa, Genocide, Harper's, History, Phish, Tom Bissell on November 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

april 2002SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-The Siket Disc (1999).

siketThis is an (almost) entirely instrumental disc.  It’s exactly the kind of thing that people think of when they imagine Phish—long jams with no structure.  But unlike some of their more frenetic jams, this is a kind of enjoyable chilling out disc.  The compositions are actually select excerpts from the long-form improvisations of the “Ghost Sessions.”

There are 9 songs and most of them are short.  Except for “Whats the Use” which is an 11 minute track with a very cool guitar riff (that reminds me again of Frank Zappa) and some cool accompanying keyboard sounds.

“Me Left Toe” is about 5 minutes and has a nice build up within  it.  And “The Name is Slick” is a bit more staccato and less smooth than the other songs and it holds up for 4 minutes.

Most of the other songs are short jams (with 4 tracks being about 2 minutes or less).  Although there are a couple of weird, nonsensey tracks like “Fish Bass” which is just a weird series of noises.  Or “Quadrophonic Toppling” which has some spoken words (just the title repeated) as does “Title Track” which has the repeated word “Siket”and laughing.  “Insects” is a little unsettling as well.

“The Happy Whip and Dung Song” is 5 minutes long and, despite some weird effect on the keyboards, feels like a full song.  “Albert” is a short, pretty, gentle ballad.  It’s a nice ending to this disc.  While this is by no means an essential Phish disc, it is an interesting insight into their recording process and is as I said, a good chill out album.

[READ: October 28, 2013] “Eternal Winter”

I had never heard of the Aral Sea before reading this article and I am surprised that I haven’t and I’m shocked by what has happened there.  Near the city of Karalpakistan (no connection to Pakistan), near Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, lies the Aral Sea. It was once the fourth largest body of water on Earth, larger than lake Michigan.  It is now shrunk by approximately 74%.

It was through the Soviet Union’s thirst for development and “progress” that canals were built which diverted water away from the Sea.  This effectively slowly dried out the lake (which the Soviet Union knew would happen).  The Soviet Union also dumped insecticides and toxic waste into it, rendering what is left of the sea bed largely poisonous. Anything that is not poisonous is heavily salinated making it worse than useless.  And to make it worse (if that is possible), the windstorms that frequently occur simply pick up the toxic dirt and dust and blow it all around the land.  Without the water, the temperature soars in the region–often reaching 120 degrees.

One of the reasons for the diversion of the water was cotton.  Cotton is a thirsty crop and it was discovered that Uzbekistan was well suited to the climate for the crop.  They just needed more water.  And so in the 1950s, the Amu Darya river was diverted away from the Aral Sea and into the Uzbekistan deserts.  And cotton flourished there.  Then in 1960, the Aral Sea began to shrink. (more…)

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Tom Bissell–“Escanaba’s Magic Hour: Movies, robot deer, and the American small town” (Harper’s, September 2000)

Posted in Acting, Boredom, Culture Shock, Drinking, Escanaba in Da Moonlight, Essays, Harper's, Hunting, Jeff Daniels, Michigan, Pearl Jam, Phish, Tom Bissell on November 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

sep2000SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Rift (1993).

riftRift has a kind of story to it (albeit it’s not a real concept album) and you can tell by the full cover (see the bottom) that the story is complex–thank you gatefold sleeves).  The album starts with “Rift” a fast guitar spiral that opens with a harmony vocals on the opening lyric and then a call and response between I believe, Page and Trey as they each take a line of the verse—it’s a cool and surprising opening.

“Fast Enough for You” is a slow country-tinged song (with slide guitar).  This is the first song of their early records that I really don’t know that well.  So it must not get played very much.  It’s a pretty song.  “Lengthwise” is a cute little a capella song (with snoring and clock ticking) which I think about whenever I am alone in a bed: “When you’re there I sleep lengthwise and when you’re gone I sleep diagonal in my bed.”

“Maze” is one of my favorite Phish songs and it sounds great here.  I love the bomp bomp at the end of the verses and the fugue vocals at the end of the song.  This version is fantastic.  “Sparkle” also features fugue and barbershop type vocals (with Mike’s deep voice added in) in a funny silly roping song.  It’s another highlight.  “Horn” has a great opening guitar line (that reminds me of Pearl Jam for some reason).  I’ve always enjoyed this one.  It sounds great here (because you can actually hear what the harmony voices are saying (something you usually can’t in the live setting).  “The Wedge” is a mid tempo song that sounds different from their live versions.

“My Friend My Friend” is a pretty dark song (“My friend, my friend he;s got a knife”) but the opening is a beautiful instrumental with lovely guitar sequences until at 2:30 when the piano takes over and the song becomes slightly menacing.  “Weigh” is a weird song that I rather like.  It’s very piano heavy and very boppy despite the crazy lyrics:  “I’d like to cut your head off to weight it, whaddya say?  5 pounds, 6 pounds, 7 pounds.”  “All Things Reconsidered” a nice NPR joke.  This is a 2 and a half minute instrumental of guitar and keyboards that sort of plays with the NPR “All Things Considered” music.

“Mound” starts with some wonderful out of time signature riffing—4/4 drums and bass and then super fast guitars that don’t quite match until the drums and bass then catch up.  It’s hard to believe that that unusual opening leads to the big catchy bouncy chorus: “And it’s time, time, time for the last rewind.”  “It’s Ice” is a little slower here than live but I kind of like it in this slightly slower version (you can really hear the riffs).  This is another song with fugue-like vocals (they do all of their vocal tricks very well).  “The Horse’ begins as a beautiful Spanish style guitar piece and morphs into a simple acoustic song (it’s al of 90 seconds) which bleeds into “Silent in the Morning,” another highlight from their live shows and a standout here.

Rift might just be my favorite Phish album.

[READ: October 23, 2013] “Escanaba’s Magic Hour”

Once I found out that Tom Bissell had written a number of articles in Harper’s I decided to read them all, especially since some of them already appeared in his book Magic Hours.  This was his first piece for Harper’s and it is the one I remembered most from the book.  So I enjoyed reading it again.

I’m also glad I read the Harper’s version because although I don’t think it varies from the book version at all (and I’m not willing to check), it had pictures from the movie and from Escanaba, which brought a bit more reality to the article.

So, what’s this about a movie?

Well, this article is about Jeff Daniels making a movie in Escanaba, Michigan called Escanaba in da Moonlight (which I haven’t seen, but as I said after reading this the first time, I now feel invested enough in it to want to watch it–reviews are mixed).  And it sounds kind of interesting.  I also really enjoyed the comment that Daniels’ appeal “has something to do with the fact that many men, if asked to cast their lives without undue conceit, might settle on Jeff Daniels to play themselves.” (more…)

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