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Archive for the ‘Magazines’ Category

Jeffrey Eugenides–The Marriage Plot (2011)

Posted in Culture Shock, Drinking, Drugs, Edith Wharton, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Religion, Research, Sex, Thomas Pynchon, Ulver, XTC on March 20, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: ULVER-Shadows of the Sun (2007).

I really wanted to like this album because of the cover–which is striking.  I know, I know, never judge…  My initial reaction to the disc was kind of poor.  I’ve followed Ulver’s progress through their many incarnations, and it’s not entirely surprising that they should make an entirely ambient record.  It just strikes me as an odd release–mellow and almost lullaby-ish but also a little creepy (the voice mostly).

But at the same time, musically it’s quite pretty.  And while it wasn’t a very good listen for a car trip to work, it was actually really perfect for listening to at work–where headphones allowed for hearing so many nuances.

There’s not much point in a song by song listing, as the songs are similar–washes of music with slightly distorted, deep vocals.   But there are some interesting musical choices that make each song unique, and consequently better than a lot of ambient in which all of the songs use the same musical palette.  “All the Love” employs piano and come cool electronic sounds near the end.

“Let the Children Go” is a much darker song (with drums!).  “Solitude” is the most melodic song of the bunch.  It reminds me of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” (which should tell you something about the overall tone of the album).  It has a noticeable vocal line (and really audible lyrics, which are quite melancholy and more emotional that I would have expected: “You just left when I begged you to stay.  I’ve not stopped crying since you went away.”

Another observation.  At times when he actually sings, the vocals sound a bit like XTC–“Shadows of the Sun” in particular.  And since that song has pianos it’s not inconceivable that this could sound like XTC (although not really).

With the right atmosphere, this record proves to be a very impressive listen.  Kristoffer Rygg’s vocals really suit the mood and, all in all, it does reflect the album cover rather more than I initially thought.

[READ: March 18, 2012] The Marriage Plot

I had put this book on hold a few months ago.  And I was ninety-something on the list, so I didn’t think too much about it.  I looked the other day and I was 10.  Yipes.  How was I going to read this 400 page book  in three weeks while also reading Gravity’s Rainbow??

Well, amazingly, The Marriage Plot worked as a nice foil to GR. It is a supremely easy read.  It is completely uncomplicated.  And, it actually has some unexpected parallels to GR–specifically, two of the characters travel to Europe, one on a pilgrimage the other on a honeymoon, and they travel to Paris, Geneva, Spain, Zürich, and even Nice.  There is literally no connection between these two books (although Mitchell does bring Pynchon’s V along with him), but it was fun to see new people go to the cities that Slothrop has been traveling to for very different reasons.

I powered through the book, reading large chunks and staying up way too late both because I liked the book and because I wanted to get it back on time (beware the library police!).  And there really is something about finishing a book quickly, it really keeps the story and characters fresh and makes the experience more enjoyable.

But on to the book.

This book centers around three people in a kind of lover’s triangle.  The woman at the center is Madeleine (and yes there are wonderful tie-ins to Madeline the children’s book series). The two men are Leonard and Mitchell.  All three of them are graduating from Brown in the mid 80s.

I identified with the book immediately because Madeleine is an English major (as was I).  She studies the Victorian era [and I had just read the piece by Franzen about Edith Wharton] and is on track to write her thesis on this era.  The title of the book comes from this section–novels written at that time were especially focused on marriage–if a woman did not marry, she was more or less doomed, and so the plots centered around her quest to find a suitable mate.  As Franzen noted in the above article, Wharton and some of her predecessors sounded the death knell for the “marriage plot” and Madeleine was going to do her thesis on that.

As the pieces of the triangle fall into place we learn (skeletal at first with much detail added later) that Madeleine and Mitchell were very good friends initially.  So good, in fact, that she invited him back to her parents house for a vacation.  He was head over heels in love with; however, out of fear (mostly) he never acted on the opportunities she gave him, and she thought that he wasn’t interested in anything more than friendship.  Basically, he blew it (although he doesn’t learn this until much later–I can relate to this all too well). As the story opens, she has just woken up, hungover, smelling of a party, with a mysterious stain on her dress.  She knows she did something with someone last night but she’s not sure what.  Not atypical college behavior.  But the kicker is that it is graduation morning and her parents are ringing the doorbell of her dorm right now. (more…)

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Donald Antrim–“Ever Since” (New Yorker, March 12, 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Arctic Monkeys, Cloud Nothings, Donald Antrim, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, The Strokes, Unlikable main character on March 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CLOUD NOTHINGS-“Stay Useless” (2012).

This was the song of the day on NPR on March 14th.  While NPR describes it as like 90s indie rock, I find it to be much more like early 2000s indie rock (think The Strokes or Arctic Monkeys).  True, those bands were playing in the spirit of 90s rock, but they had a slightly different take on things–cleaner, perhaps.

So, while the guitars are buzzy and distorted, the vocals are up front and clear (even if the words aren’t entirely understandable–a neat trick that).  The song is under three minutes and has a catchy, powerful chorus.  I’ll bet it’s a lot of fun to hear live, although honestly I don’t think it’s anything all that special.

[READ: March 9, 2012] “Ever Since”

I’ve enjoyed many of Antrim’s stories in the past.  And, I rather enjoyed this one as well.

This was a fairly simple story of a man who has not let go of the woman who broke up with him a year earlier.  And how she haunts him and his current relationship still.

The opening of the story is really quite wonderful.  It didn’t really have an impact on me at first but when I reread it, I realized it’s a wonderful precis of the story:

Ever since his wife had left him–but she wasn’t his wife, was she? he’d only thought of her that way, had begun to think of her that way, since her abrupt departure, the year before, with Richard Bishop [I’m interrupting to say wow, has he packed a lot into a dependent clause.  And then he continues with the rest of the powerful descriptor]–Jonathan had taken up a new side of his personality, and become the sort of lurking man who, say at work or at a party, mainly hovers on the outskirts of other people’s conversations, leaning close but not too close, listening in while gazing out vaguely over their heads in order to seem distracted and inattentive waiting for the conversation to wind down, so that he can weigh in gloomily and summarize whatever has just been said.

Now, THAT, dear readers, is a SENTENCE!

To make him even more pathetic, when he summarizes an idea he often claims that his ex-wife felt a certain way about it…and then explaining that she wasn’t really his ex-wife.

The crazy thing is that Jonathan has a new love in his life: Sarah, the kind of woman who  appears by his side at a party (a work party for her) and says, “Hey Buster, lets’ go fuck in the bathroom.”  It’s unclear whether she was joking, which makes it even more fun. (more…)

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Michael Chabon–“Citizen Conn” (New Yorker, Febraury 13 & 20, 2012)

Posted in Bob Mould, Caesars, Cancer as plot device, Death, Graphic Novel, Hüsker Dü, Michael Chabon, New Yorker, Short Story, Swedish Music on March 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CAESARS-Strawberry Weed (2008).

This Caesars disc is the final of the donated library discs that I received.  And the guy who donated these has some great taste. I feel like I need to track him down and see what else he likes.  I was initially skeptical of this disc because it is so crazy poppy, but it has a few cool elements to it that make it more interesting than typical pop music.  I’ll claim that it’s because they’re from Sweden, where they skew things a little differently.

The melodies are wonderfully catchy, and yet “Fools Parade” starts with some crazy noises and wild drumming before switching over to pure pop sensibilities.   “Waking Up” features that sure-fire sign of a pop hit, the word “alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight” sung with many changes in pitch.  It’s not always easy to pull off but they do it perfectly.

“Boo Boo Goo Goo” is as crazily catchy as its title suggests it would be.   The lyrics aren’t as inane as the title suggests with the catchy ender: “you’re not gonna get that far climbing those monkey bars”.  “Crystal” has some great old-time Farfisa organs on it which make it sound simultaneously retro and (because of the guitars and such) very contemporary.

It’s actually hard to write about this disc effectively because there are so many great catchy pop songs on it–it would just be “this is poppy and fun” over and over again.

I think the poppiness of Caesars can be summed up by “Stuck with You” in which there’s a wonderful “ooh ooh ooh ooh” section, but it’s a little fuzzy and distorted, just slightly off from pristine.  Similarly, “No Tomorrow” has great fuzzy guitars and more oh oh ohs, this time ending in a super catchy “oh yeah!”  Or how about the “oooh wee oooh” that opens “In Orbit” which sounds spacey and otherworldly.

“Up All Night” introduces a minor key song to this intrinsically poppy album, and even the minor key song is upbeat.

This is a great album if you’re looking for something catchy and easy to sing to, but which isn’t completely made of bubblegum.

[READ: March 11, 2012] “Citizen Conn”

Michael Chabon does not shy away from comics.  I almost fear he’s endangering himself as being the guy who writes about comics (fortunately he has written very well about other topics too).  But for this short story he’s back in that familiar realm.

This story is about two men, Morton Feather and Artie Conn.  They were comic book artists back in the day, writing failing books for a failing company.  But they’re in the right place at the right time when an accidental mailing reveals that men in tights are making a comeback.

So Feather and Conn work together to creator some of the most powerful and long-lasting comic book superheroes.  They ride so high that they are offered to sell their creations to a very high bidder.  Feather refuses but Conn accepts.  And so begins the rift between them.  Later, since Feather lost the fire of his convictions after the sell-out, he is fired and Conn becomes solely responsible for these creations. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Haven” (New Yorker, March 5, 2012)

Posted in Alice Munro, Bidiniband, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Rheostatics, Short Story on March 7, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BIDINIBAND-The Land Is Wild (2009).

Dave Bidini was a driving force behind Rheostatics.  Although when I think of the band, I think of Martin Tielli’s wackiness and Tim Vesely’s hits, which kind of makes Bidini the sort of stable, middle of the road guy.  But I don’t think that’s right either as Bidini has both a wacky side and a hit-making side.  But this “solo” project focuses mainly on Bidini’s storytelling skills.  Most of the songs are little narratives, which is always enjoyable.

“Desert Island Poem” is actually a story of the dissolution of the Rheostatics–when they survived a plane crash in Drumhella and ate the drummer.   “Memorial Day” surprises because of the clarinet solo (which works wonderfully).  “We Like to Rock” and “Song Ain’t Any Good” are the other kind of song that Bidini writes–songs about playing music.  These kind of songs are always dopey and “We Like to Rock” is no exception–I think I ‘d like it more if it weren’t so tinny sounding.  “Song Ain’t Any Good” is kind of funny, especially if you get through the whole song, although I don’t know if multiple listens are rewarded.

On the other hand, “The Land is Wild” is a great song about Bidini’s other passion: hockey.  This is a lengthy (nearly 7 minute) story about Bryan Fogarty, a young hockey player who was a star at 21 but a forgotten addict by 31.  It’s a sad, cautionary tale about how the hockey establishment all but ignored him as he wasted away.   “How Zeke Roberts Died” is a very similar song,  it’s an 8 minute biography of Liberian singer Zeke Roberts.  This song has lead vocals by a variety of singers.

“Last Good Cigarette” is a delightful ditty about smoking with famous people (and it is super catchy–ha-cha!).  “Pornography” is a funny political song about George W. Bush that is also quite catchy.  And the wonderfully titled, “The Story of Canadiana and Canadiandy” is about living close to America.

Although the album is mostly folky and kind of mellow, “Terrorize Me Now” shows some of Bidini’s more wild guitar noises.  And the final song, “The Ballad of 1969” is a great song that is reminiscent of the kind of highs that the Rheos would hit.  There’s a bonus untitled song [later called “The List (Killing Us Now)”] which is a simple song of people who have aggrieved him.  It’s funny, especially in the live context it is given.

While not as great as a Rheostatics album, this release is like an extension of the band.  Bidini has a new album out which I haven’t heard yet, but I’ll certainly be checking it out.

[READ: March 5, 2012] “Haven”

Munro is back (talk about prolific!) and she has created a darkly claustrophobic house in which to place the young protagonist of this story.

The story is set in the seventies.  The protagonist is from Vancouver, but her parents are heading off to Africa for a year so they have sent her to live with her Uncle Jasper and Aunt Dawn.  Despite this mission to Africa, they are not going there for a missionary purpose, they are going there to teach (and haven’t come across many heathen).  They’re also Unitarian.  Uncle Jasper, on the other hand, insists on saying grace before meals and gets on the protagonist when she starts eating before the prayers.

It turns out that Uncle Jasper is the man of the house.  Aunt Dawn does not begin eating her meal until the discussion of grace is over (after receiving an invisible nod from Jasper).  More examples of her deference are given, but the quote that sums up Aunt Dawn (whether she said it or not) is “A Woman’s most important job is making a haven for her man.”  Although, given that, Jasper does show her some affection: a gift and some closeness towards the end of the story. (more…)

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Thomas McGuane–“A Prairie Girl” (New Yorker, February 27, 2012)

Posted in Calla, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Prostitution, Scenic, Short Story, Thomas McGuane on March 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CALLA-Calla (1999).

I got this album when a patron donated it to the library.  I had never heard of this band, but the other CDs he donated were really cool so I grabbed this one, too.  This is an almost entirely instrumental album (vocals are whispered when present) that feels like a soundtrack to a futuristic Western.  “Tarantula” opens with some creepy, ghostly sounds and then what sounds like spurs walking across the landscape.  When the guitar comes in it sounds like an old Western.  In many ways this album reminds me of a great band called Scenic, although this one makes more use of electronics, which gives it a more eerie feeling.

“Custom Car Crash” has a very Western feel.  Over creepy scraping sounds, a clean guitar plays very simple guitar lines and chords.  When the keyboard lilts over the noise, it’s quite eerie.  This song has vocals; deep, almost whispered vocals, and I can’t really make them out,  There’s also a live bonus version at the end which really captures the studio version, but which I think is better.  “June” has a slow droney sound: more atmospheric than anything else–it seems maybe ten years ahead of its time).  The 8 minute “Only Drowning Men:” introduces more guitars and a lit of tension.   From the noise a delicate guitar pattern emerges for the last minute of the song.

“Elsewhere” is full of buzzy guitars; there’s a live version at the end of the disc as well.  “Truth About Robots” is my favorite track, a real melody over the noise.  Despite its length (just over 2:30), it tells a full story.

“Trinidad” comes a surprise because it opens with bass (you don’t hear much bass on this album).  But “Keyes” is so quiet as to be almost not there.  “Awake and Under” on the other hand has a great guitar and bass sequence with spoken lyrics (reminiscent of many indie bands of the 90s) but which is very effective here.  There’s a live version as a bonus track and it is a highlight.

This is more interesting music for creating atmosphere, but not something I’d listen to a lot.  I was surprised to find out how many albums they had out.

[READ: March 2, 2012] “A Prairie Girl”

I’ve enjoyed Thomas McGuane stories before, but I wasn’t sure if I’d like this one as it opens with a brothel.  Since I’m thinking about the implications of sex in Gravity’s Rainbow, the last thing I needed was a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story.  But this isn’t that.  And it has a brothel with a very funny name: The Butt Hut .  The Butt Hut closes down when the madam dies.  Most of the women moved away (either with local men (to the dismay of many) or on their own).  But one girl who stayed was Mary Elizabeth Foley.

Mary Elizabeth attended church weekly, but most of the people gave her a wide berth—literally an empty pew.  It was finally decided that someone should speak to her since she wasn’t going away.  And so Mrs Gladstone Chandler, wife of the town’s bank owner and all around respected individual, sat near her during the mass.  Afterward, she asked Mary Elizabeth: “Where are you from?”  Mary Elizabeth answered “What business is it of yours?”  And she soon had her pew back. (more…)

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Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer–“Laikas” (Significant Objects, April 26, 2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Dogs, Huh?, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Los Campesinos!, Significant Objects on March 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LOS CAMPESINOS! We Are Beautiful We Are Doomed (2008).

This is Los Campesinos! second disc in a year (after the smashing success of their debut).

The disc opens with a blast in “Make It Through the Walls”–great male and female shared vocals as well as gang screamed vocals; and by the end: violins.  It’s like the Los Campesinos! catalog packed into four minutes.  It’s followed by “Miserabilia” a perfect three-minute pop song (except for all those rough edges, of course), but it very nicely combines melody and punk attitude.

The title track continues with the frantically happy sounding music that backs off for lyrics like “We kid ourselves that there’s future in the fucking, but there is no fucking future.”   Meanwhile, “You’ll Need Those Fingers for Crossing” emphasizes their low end, which doesn’t often get a lot of emphasis.  “It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It?” has some great violins and group vocals (not screamed for a change).  “The End of the Asterisk” is an under two-minute blast of fun nonsense (with a fun chorus).

I’ve talked about the music but not much about the lyrics–but rest assured they are just as literate and darkly comic as on Romance is Boring.  Although the titles are certainly a giveaway, none sum up Los Campesinos! as much as “Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1” (which has some very cool sound effects thrown in too).

“Heart Swells–Pacific Daylight Time” is one of their achingly slow songs that reminds me of “The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future” (I know, that song came later, but I’m reviewing them backwards).  Although this one is much shorter.  The disc ends with “All Your Kayfabe Friends” which has these fun triplet notes that ascend and descend with each line.

My copy came with a bonus DVD.  The disc contains a 30 minute home movie of the band on tour.  It’s nothing terribly revelatory, although it is amusing in places.  The home movie quality of it makes it a bit more personal, but also means that some shots are totally missed, which is a shame.   There’s also a few minutes of the band on various stages, which is quite a treat as I’ve never seen them live–they really embody their music and Gareth Campesinos! is a great front man.

At only 32 minutes, this is certainly a short release.  Wikipedia says that they argued that this was not a cash grab after the success of their first album.  And that’s believable, even if the only thing that makes this more than half an hour is the fiddly instrumental “Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky.”   Nevertheless, Los Campesinos! released some wonderfully cool songs.

[READ: February 28, 2012] “Laikas”

I complained recently that although Kuitenbrouwer calls this piece “Laikas” when you click on the link to Significant Objects, it is listed as “Greek Ashtray-Plate.”  This evidently has something to do with the nature of its publication.  Although I don’t know the pre-publication information, underneath the story it says:

The bidding on this object, with story by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, has ended. Original price: 69 cents. Final price: $30. Proceeds from this auction go to Girls Write Now

So, one assumes that Kuitenbrouwer wrote this short (very short) story about the ashtray-plate–after all, the full name of the website is Significant Objects…and how they got that way–so it all pieces together nicely.

As I said this is a very short piece (a page and a half, tops) that works as a quick sketch of why the ashtray-plate looks the way it does as well as a brief sketch of its owner. The details about the ashtray-plate are wonderful, vivid and violent in ways that I wouldn’t have expected–the placement of the burns is wonderfully described.

The rest of the story is strange, though. (more…)

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Max Barry–“How I Met My Daughter” (The Bulletin, December 18, 2007-January 8, 2008)

Posted in Babies, Max Barry, Stereolab, The Beatles, The Bulletin, Unlikable main character on March 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STEREOLAB-Chemical Chords (2008).

You never really know what you’re going to get with Stereolab. Well, that’s not entirely true, you know you’re going to get some unusual sounding loungey keyboard songs with lyrics that are either in French or in highly accented English.  But beyond that each Stereolab album tends to go in its own direction.

Chemical Chords creates its own poppy bouncy bliss, making it one of their most approachable albums.  “Neon Beanbag” even features the chorus: “there’s nothing to be sad about” over a set of the bounciest keyboard riffs around.  “Three Women” has a brisk pace and some bright horns.   “One Finger Symphony” has a minor key and as lightly sinister tone (but it’s only 2 minutes long).

The title track has some cool echoed vocals and a wonderful break in the song that allows a sweet little string section to sneak through.  “The Ecstatic Static” is another pulsing song that seems alive somehow and “Valley Hi!” is a short darker piece with cool sound effects.

“Silver Sands” is a wonderfully bubbly pop song–the kind that Stereolab does so well, with vocals that seem like they might belong to another song.  “Pop Molecule” is a great minor key instrumental, which is a nice introduction to the super pop of “Self Portrait with ‘Electric Brain'” another bubbly song with a cool break in it.  “Nous Vous Demandons Pardon” opens with a martial beat before it settles down into a groovy song with French lyrics.

“Daisy Click Clack” shows off Stereolab’s totally unexpected lyrics:  “Snap snap snap snap with your fingers/Off beat on time make it linger/Enriching the rhythm/Do away with skepticism/Come and join the hymn, tap/Sensing the symbiotic force.”  From nonsense to the sublime in just a few short lines.

The final song “Vortial Phonotheque” reminds me of “I am the Walrus” in the music, but the gentle lyrics change the tone completely.  It’s a wonderful disc full of all of the bright sounds Stereolab does so well.  This would be their second to last disc before they went on a hiatus.

[READ: February 28, 2012] “How I Met My Daughter”

Two baby stories in a row!

Those following closely think that I was done with Max Barry last week.  But there was one final piece for me to read.  Technically this doesn’t make the last post wrong because although this story was on his website, it was also published in a magazine called The Bulletin.

If I thought that last week’s “Cement” story was dark, it’s nothing compared to this one!  Barry, while a somewhat violent writer (his last book was all about surgical procedures), is usually quite funny as well.  But this story eschews all humor for a walk through the dark side of man’s nature.

It opens with this incredibly dark couple of sentences:

They dragged this bloody, howling thing from my wife’s abdomen, its limbs twitching and clawing, its face like an angry pumpkin, and asked me, “Do you want to take a photo?”

Yes. I want to take a photo, so I can look back on the end of my life.

This story explores the feeling that men apparently have when their baby is born–jealousy at the lack of attention they will now receive.  I didn’t experience this at all and frankly it seems like a fictional thing to me, because I don’t know of any men who felt real jealousy of their babies.  But it makes for an interesting story. (more…)

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Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer–“The Longest Detroyed Poem” (Numéro Cinq, August 24, 2010)

Posted in Babies, Canadian Content, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Nick Cave, Numéro Cinq, Pregnancy, Sex, Short Story, The Road, The Walrus, Violence, Warren Ellis on March 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: NICK CAVE AND WARREN ELLIS-The Road: Original Film Score (2009).

I haven’t seen The Road, and I probably never will.  Nor have I read it.  The only reason I was listening to the soundtrack was because I like Nick Cave.  So this is a contextless review.  Of course, I know what the book is about and I rather assume that the film is equally harrowing.  I expected the soundtrack to be full of desolation and horror.

So I was quite surprised that most of the main themes are played on a piano with gentle strings or simply violins.  True there is a sense of emptiness and loss in these songs (they’re not jaunty piano pieces or anything) but they are still unexpectedly pretty.

Of course,a song like “The Cannibals” is bound to be more disconcerting, which it is.  It starts with creepy scratchy violins and then tribal drums take over–all set over a buzzing background.  This is more of what I expected the whole score to be like.   Similarly, “The House” must be a very frightening scene, as the music is threatening, loud, intense and quite scary with, again, more creepy percussion.  Unsurprisingly, a track called “The Cellar” is also spooky; it is only a minute long.

But then songs like “The Church” are so delicate and beautiful and not even all that sad–it actually makes me wonder what the scene in the film is showing.  The end of the score feels like the end of a movie, which I know it is, but it feels like a conventional movie, with closure, something I’m led to believe the book doesn’t have a lot of.

Taken away from the movie, this soundtrack is quite nice.  Aside from the three scarier tracks, this would make for some nice listening on a sad, rainy Sunday.

[READ: February 28, 2012] “The Longest Destroyed Poem”

I enjoyed Kuitenbrouwer’s “Corpse” so much that I decided to see what else she had written.  It comes to three books and four uncollected short stories.  There’s “Corpse” from The Walrus, this one here, another one called “Laikas” (which has a different title on the site where it lives) and a fourth with a broken link.  Boo.

But that’s okay because I’ll certainly investigate her books too.

Like “Corpse,” this story explores women’s sexuality, but it explores it in a very different way.  In fact, I loved the way it was introduced–especially because of the wonderfully convoluted way the sentence reveals it (and how it’s not even the main point of the sentence):

She looked fabulous. Better than back then, when she’d thought she wanted to be an artist, and Victor had made a point — she realized this as she realized many many things, that is she realized it in retrospect — of dropping into the conversation — the one she hadn’t actually been having with him, because she was instead focused almost solely on the fact his much younger roommate had a hand under the blanket her crotch also happened to be under — that he was off to bed early so he could work on a poem he’d been having trouble with.

I had to read it twice because I thought it was funny the first time, and when I fully parsed it, it was even funnier.

So yes, sex.  But as the story opens, years after the above event, Rosa sees Victor and decides to crash into him with her car.  It’s shocking and it’s shockingly well told.

I love the way Kuitenbrouwer uses language.  I could probably quote from this story six or seven times, but I love this sentence that forecasts the trouble ahead:  “Victor noticed her in that split second, too, and he knew what Rosa was up to, for his face changed, channel surfing from neutral smug — well, this was his everyday face — to impending doom.”

As she’s about to ram him (with a Prius, no less), we flash back to their spirited relationship. (more…)

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Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer–“Corpse” (The Walrus, January/February 2012)

Posted in Death, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Hunting, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Mumford and Sons, Short Story, The Pogues, The Walrus, The Waterboys on February 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MUMFORD & SONS-Sigh No More (2011).

I had assumed that this album was massive until an email sent around to some of my friends revealed that many of them had never even heard of the band.  So I guess it’s massive in my own little world.  Well that’s fine, I’ve always liked rougher folk music.  And there are two or three songs on this album that absolutely deserve to be massive.

If you’re like my friends and you don’t know Mumford & Sons, this album is a kind of rocking folk album (lots of banjos and harmonies).  But it’s less Fleet Foxes and more Waterboys–earnest folk with updates to the traditional sound.  The disc opens kind of slowly with “Sigh No More.” It take about two minutes to get going (and for the banjo to kick in).  In addition to the banjo (seriously, who knew a banjo could be so catchy?–well, bluegrass musicians, for one), the main selling point is main Mumford’s voice–it’s powerful, bellowing and quite emotive.

“The Cave” is the first indication that this album is going to be impressive.  It starts out deceptively simple. Once you get to the second round of the bridge, “and I….” the song soars to the heavens in catchiness, (the singer’s enunciated vowels are weird and fun too).  “Winter Winds” has a bit more Irish feel to it (Irish via The Pogues), but it also has the same kind of soaring qualities as “The Cave.”

“Roll Away the Stone” features the banjo heavily and is all the better for it.  And “White Blank Page” really features the rough-hewn vocals that are the signature of Mumford & Sons.  Never has the word “raaaaage” been so singable!

Some of the slower moments of the album kind of bog the disc down.  Of course you couldn’t play everything at breakneck speed and still have your dynamic parts sound dynamic.  So a song like “I Gave You All” opens slowly but it builds in power.  The break is welcome (although quite a lot of songs start out slow and then get faster).  But the chorus is outstanding.

The pinnacle of the album comes with “Little Lion Man” an amazingly catchy chorus (with a very bad word in it) and more raucous banjo playing.  It’s almost impossible not to stomp your feet along.  “Thistle & Weeds” is another slow builder–you can really hear the angst in his voice by the end.  The end of the album is kind of a denouement.  On my first few listens I didn’t care for the end of the disc so much but by now the album has so won me over that I can just enjoy this folkier ending.

In many ways there’s no major surprises on this disc–it’s rocking folk after all–except for just how damn catchy the band is.

[READ: February 22, 2012] “Corpse”

I wasn’t too keen on reading this story (one of the Walrus‘ longer stories) because of the title (and the accompanying picture of two boys with a deer in their sites).  I didn’t think I would enjoy a hunting story.  And yet, it started out so peaceful and zen that it sucked me right in.

It opens in a very female space.  Maura and Angie are relaxing in Maura’s house.  Well, Maura is doing yoga while Angie is relaxing.  Maura is talking about the yoni, the great universal twat. Angie visualizes a massive latex vulva that she and her boyfriend Gordon enter.  After a few moments, Angie and Maura look at each other and start cracking up.

The female space is penetrated by Malcom, Maura’s 13-year-old son, carrying the beginnings of a bow and arrow.  He wants to know what’s so funny.  They pass of a few lame jokes which he doesn’t fall for until Angie comes up with a really funny one.  One that is especially funny in the printed delivery, in which you’re not entirely sure that  joke is being told (a nice trick!).  So I won’t spoil it here.

Malcolm informs them that he is just going to shoot his arrows at cans with his friend Andrew.  But in fact they have bigger plans.  A deer has been spotted in the local dog park (they live in the city so the deer are a rarity).  After laughing at the joke, he runs off with Andrew to go hunting. (more…)

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Yiyun Li–“The Science of Flight” (New Yorker, August 30, 2010) [RECONSIDERED]

Posted in 20 Under 40, cuppa joe, Dromedary Records, New Yorker, Short Story, Travel, Yiyun Li on February 26, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: cuppa joe-“Better in Your Head” (2012).

After an eternity (okay, 18 years), Cuppa Joe is back with another release on Dromedary Records.  Things have changed over the years in cuppa joe’s world.  Their previous release, nurture was a delightful twee pop confection.  This track (you can see the video here) adds an unexpected depth to their catalog.

The first change comes from the minor chord guitar strums; the second comes from the bass, which is following its own cool riff–although it melds nicely with the verse, it’s unexpected from cuppa joe.  The pace of the song is much slower than the frantic songs on nurture.  Even the vocals, while noticably cuppa joe, seem less so–call it a more mature version of the vocals. Indeed, the whole sounds seems to have relinquished their more childlike qualities  and embraced a more mature outlook.

This could be a death knell for a band, but not in this case.  All of their songwriting sensibilities remain intact.  Indeed, they have added a wonderful new component: terrific harmonies in the chorus (which may have been there before, but which really stand out here).

It would almost seem like an entirely new band (18 years will do that to you).  But rather than a new band it’s like an old band coming out of a coocoon like a butterfly.  (That’s too treacly, sorry guys–maybe we’ll just stick with them being older and wiser.  Welcome back guys.

The new cuppa joe album Tunnel Trees is available here.

[READ: September 8, 2010] “The Science of Flight”

I read this story in September of 2010.  I liked it but I wasn’t that impressed by it.  Well, it turns out I either skipped or missed an important section of the story.  So I’m trying again.  here’s the start of my original post

Yiyun Li’s is one of the 20 Under 40 from the New Yorker.  This story (which I assume is not an excerpt) is about Zichen.  Zichen (whose name is unpronounceable to Westerners) emigrated from China to live in America with her then new husband.

As the story opens, we see Zichen at work at an animal-care center.  She is talking with her coworkers about her upcoming visit to England (this will be her first-ever vacation that is not to China).  The men are teasing her about the trip (why would she want to go to the ocean in the winter, she doesn’t know anyone there, etc).  The teasing is friendly, because they are friendly, although Zichen is very reserved around them.  Of course, of all the people she has known, she has opened up to them the most–which still isn’t very much.

That much is accurate.  However, the rest of my post about this story is completely (and rather ineptly, I must admit) incorrect.  Recently, Carol Schoen commented on my original post and informed me that I was a bonehead (although she said it much more politely than that).  I had completely missed the point of this story the first time around.  And indeed, re-reading it this time, I can’t help but wonder what happened last time.

Zichen is a bastard, literally.  She was born our of wedlock to a man who ran away.  In China, this was like compounding one sin atop another one.  Her grandmother agreed to raise her (after a failed adoption) more or less to spite Zichen’s mother, provided Zichen’s mother had nothing to so with her.  And so, Zichen’s grandmother worked in her shop extra long hours to care for a child who was a visible symbol of the family’s disgrace.  (I seem to have gotten the point about her grandmother raising her, but seem to have missed the important part about her parents not being in her life at all). (more…)

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