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Archive for the ‘Marriage Trouble’ Category

Jonathan Franzen–“Good Neighbors” (New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2009)

Posted in Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, Minnesota, New Yorker, Tiny Desk Concert on December 29, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PHOENIX-Tiny Desk Concert #60 (May 18, 2010).

I’m really enjoying these Tiny Desk concerts.  They’re sort of unplugged, but even less so, because they just don’t give the band room enough for more than guitars and small accessories. If you watch the video, you can see that they are literally in someone’s office!

This set comes during Phoenix’s American tour of Wolfganag Amadeus Phoenix.  They play four songs: “Lisztomania” “Armistice” and “1901” from the album.  The big surprise at the end is a cover of Air’s “Playground Love” from The Virgin Suicides.  (I can’t confirm this, but the page notes say that Phoenix (or at least the singer) was involved with the original).  All four songs sound great.  Even though the album is very electronic and very keyboard heavy, these simple stripped down acoustic versions show how wonderful the songs are.  And of course “Playground Love” is a wonderfully unexpected treat.

[READ: December 14, 2010] “Good Neighbors”

This is one of the final two pieces by Franzen that are from the New Yorker.  This (and the other) is a short story that I am fairly certain is an excerpt from Freedom.  I believe that the main character of this piece is in Freedom, but I don’t know if this passage (or story arc) is in the book.  (I’ll be reading Freedom sometime in 2011).

It’s nice to get back to Franzen’s fiction after reading so much of his non-fiction; I am forever more of a fan of fiction than non-.  This story is about Patty Berglund and her family.  They were the first white family to move to the Ramsey Hill section of St. Paul, Minn.   Despite the abuse that her family took, they stuck it out and built up their home, investing their life into it and the community.

Slowly, the neighborhood grew more affluent (ie., white).  Yet for all of Patty’s pioneering work, she was never widely embraced by the new community members.   She was accepted, of course, and people wouldn’t say anything bad about her, but she never opened up enough  for people to feel they really knew her.

And that may be the moral of the story. (more…)

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Pseudonymous Bosch–This Isn’t What It Looks Like (2010)

Posted in Adventure, Anachronisms, Children's Books, Fears, Marriage Trouble, Mystery, Peter, Bjorn & John, Pseudonymous Bosch, Smarty Pants, Spoon, Supernatural, Time Travel on December 22, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: SPOON-Transference (2010).

The first thing I think of when I think of this disc is staccato.  I’ve read that the disc sounds like a demo, which I don’t quite agree with, although it does sound very raw and spare (in the way the Peter, Bjorn and John’s Living Thing does).

Although the opener “Before Destruction” has a lot of guitars washing around, the dominant sound is a loud short chord and drum combination.  And from the second song on pretty much, things get very chunky.

“Is Love Forever?” has a riff based on tight military beat with guitar chords that match.  There’s very little in the way of extended notes or washes of sound.  “Mystery Zone,” an insanely catchy little ditty, has a similar staccato/spare sound.  Britt Daniel’s voice is pretty much the only instrument that holds a note for more than a beat.  (That’s not literally true, but it seems like it).  Meanwhile, “Who Makes  Your Money” is all drum beats and single keyboard notes.

It’s surprising that this spare musical accompaniment works so effectively, but it does.  Especially on “Written in Reverse” a predominantly pizzicato piano track that rocks in a maniacally-echoed fashion.  Or even more so on the 5 minute “I Saw the Light” which is basically drums and a propulsive bass.  There’s occasional guitar chords which build until the 2 minute mark, when a  3 minute minor chord piano & drum coda takes over.

“Good Night Laura” is a simple piano ballad (again with pizzicato piano chords), while the final song “Nobody Gets Me But You” is full of cacophonous piano runs, most of which sounding precariously on the verge of being random and out of tune, but which always manage to be weird and cool.

Spoon’s last album had a pretty big hit with “Don’t Make Me a Target” which was similar in style to these songs but which had more orchestration.  These songs feel like an attempt to strip away as much as possible and see what remains.  And I guess it’s a testament to the quality of the songs that it works.

[READ: December 1, 2010] This Isn’t What It Looks Like

Is it the nature of children’s books in the 21st century that they are all parts of a series?  Do authors write singular books with no plan of a sequel?  I don’t know.  And I’m not sure that I mind all that much.

This is the fourth book in the “Secret” series, and Bosch hasn’t lost any steam or quality for this part of the saga.  When we last left our heroes, Cass was in a “coma,” induced from eating a time traveling chocolate bar.  Max-Ernest has more or less given up speaking (which is impossible for him) because he feels so guilty about encouraging Cass to eat the chocolate.  And, Yo-Yoji, their erstwhile third member, is off in Japan with his family.  What is M-E to do?

Luckily for M-E, an old friend has returned to school, and he’s causing quite a stir.  Benjamin Blake (the awkward synesthetic artist from the first book) has returned from his finishing school.  He is polished and refined, he uses words like “chum,” and people seem to be well, interested, in him.  And most interesting of all (as only M-E knows), he seems to be able to read people’s minds!  And that’s just what M-E was hoping to do with Cass while she’s in the coma.

For Cass, you see, is “living” in the past.  In our time, she is in the coma, but her mind has traveled back in time to meet The Jester, the man who holds “The Secret” and the man who is her great- great- great- (etc) grandfather.  She is fully conscious in Renaissance times.  The big difference, though, is that she is invisible!  And, in a wonderful publishing joke (the kind of thing that Bosch does so well) all of the chapters that are about Cass are listed as negative (so the book starts with Chapter “-Ten”).  M-E’s chapters start at one, mind you, so you have positive and negative chapters which all converge at a hilarious interlude called Chapter Zero.

The bit about the Renaissance also works very well because their school is having its annual Renaissance Faire (I wish I went to THAT school!) which is sponsored by a theme restaurant which features jousting and medieval times (but which is not Medieval Times, ha ha–I love that everyone says how bad the burgers are but they love the experience).  The Ren Faire is a wonderful plot set-up because with Cass lost in “real” Renaissance, the parallels to the Ren Faire are very clever and often very funny.  (I also love that M-E keeps trying to explain that there is a big difference between Renaissance and Medieval but no one will listen).

And, indeed, cleverness is the word of the book (and the series).  Bosch is having continued great fun with word play (and footnotes!).  He also has some clever puzzles to solve.  The biggest one is the “Hint to the Secret” that the Jester leaves for Cass (and which even a fortune teller tells her about).  I was convinced I had the puzzle sorted out but I was wrong (and it was so obvious when it was revealed!).  And, there’s also a revelation as to the true identity of Pseudonymous Bosch (not the real life author, but the “author” of the books).  I had put a little of this together myself when reading the dialogue in M-E’s head.  But I won’t spoil the revelation of that.

The only secret I will reveal is to say that this is not the final book in the series.  For awhile it seemed like it was heading towards a conclusion.  But as we dramatically learn, there will be more adventures to come.  And that’s pretty cool.

I love an exciting series, but I especially love an exciting series that doesn’t talk down to its readers.  The footnotes and clever games are very fun and thought-provoking (there’s even two emails that are written in code that you need to decipher (unless you cheat and look in the appendix).  And speaking of the Appendix, there’s also a one-way staring contest and directions on how to make a camera obscura (which features in the book and seems like a fun project).

I honestly have no idea how nay books Bosch plans to write in this series (and I have no idea who Pseudonymous Bosch (the author) is for real.  It’s all part of the mystery that I enjoy quite a lot.

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Jonathan Franzen–“My Bird Problem” (New Yorker, August 8 & 15, 2005)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, All Songs Considered, Birds, Death, Essays, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Phoenix, Public Image Ltd, Radiohead, Sharon Van Etten, Superchunk, The New Pornographers, Tom Waits, Unlikable main character on December 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered (Podcasts).

For a couple of months now I have been exploring the All Songs Considered Podcasts.  I recently stumbled upon a link to a whole slew of Live Recordings that are available for free.  All of them are available for listening and most of them are available for downloading.

Some of the recordings seem to be acoustic in-studio sessions that last about 15 minutes (called the Tiny Desk Concerts), but there are many which are full concerts recorded from the soundboard.  I happened upon this site because of a 2008 Radiohead show which runs just over 2 hours.  Some other full concerts (most of which are recorded at the 9:30 club in Washington D.C. include: Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., New Pornographers, Public Image Ltd., Tom Waits, and a whole bunch of shows from SXSW.  The Tiny Desk shows include “Weird Al” Yankovic, Phoenix and my new discovery Sharon Van Etten.  And there’s even videos of many of the shows, too.

I’m pretty excited to have discovered this, as there are a surprising number of great shows available here (as I’m scrolling to the bottom of the list, I keep finding more and more bands that I like).  And all you need is to download iTunes to hear them (and if you’re a geek like me, you download Audacity and insert track numbers for ease of cataloging).

[READ: November 21, 2010] “My Bird Problem”

Of all of the Franzen non-fiction pieces that I’ve read, this one has been my least favorite.  And one of the reasons for that is that it made me feel kind of uncomfortable.   Not because of the main content of the article (bird watching) but because of some of the personal information that he (as per usual) included in the article.

The first uncomfortable part concerns his at-the-time-wife.  It feels the like he is including information that seems like he would have needed her permission to write (especially since we know who he is and therefore know who she is,  I can’t believe she would give it).

The second thing was just how misanthropic Franzen is.  When he goes out into the woods to look for birds, he finds that the mere awareness of other people sends him into a fury.  (“Oh no, were those human voices coming up behind us?”).  And while I’ve certainly felt like that, to see it in print and to see it so often is more than a little unsettling. (more…)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good on ya Finland.

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

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

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

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

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Nathan Englander–”Peep Show” (New Yorker, July 26, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Cocteau Twins, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Masturbation, Nathan Englander, New Yorker, Sex, Sharon Van Etten, Throwing Muses, Woody Allen on November 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-“Don’t Do It” (2010).

This song is available from NPR’s All Songs Considered.  I’d never heard of Sharon Van Etten before, so I didn’t know what to expect.  And this was a great way to learn about someone new (to me) and to find a song that I fell in love with.

This is a dreamy kind of track, sort of like later period Cocteau Twins, but less ethereal.  And I have to say on first listen I was really blown away because what starts as a simple song really blossoms into a full blow epic.

The song isn’t staggeringly original, by which I mean I can hear many precedents in the song (Throwing Muses, perhaps, but again, not as extreme).  And yet, she takes this template and really makes it shine in her own way.  This song is layered and textured with more depth of sound coming on each verse.  And it feels like by around the third minute or so, you’re totally caught up in the song.

On further listens, that effect is still there.  It’s very subtle, but really effective.  And I keep getting sucked right in.  I’ll definitely check out her full length, Epic.

[READ: October 20, 2010] “Peep Show”

This was the final story of the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 40 collection that I read (there’s one more after this, but I read them out of order).  The excerpt in the main issue was intriguing but very short and the whole story blew my mind with its unexpected surrealism.

Allen Fein, a man with his shit together, trips over a curb on his way to Port Authority.  It throws off his stride and his whole day.   When he straightens up, he looks up to see a barker offering peep shows for 25 cents.  Fein had been to a peeps how once before as a teen, and he sort of thinks that his day is a mess anyhow, so why not.

When he goes in, things are not as the were when he was a kid.  In fact, the glass that usually keeps peeper from peepee is removed, and the first word that the woman says when the door goes up is “Touch.”  And Allen finds himself in a weird position, especially when he touches the woman and his erection won’t subside. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–”My Father’s Brain” (New Yorker, September 10, 2001)

Posted in Death, Depression, fIREHOSE, Jonathan Franzen, Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Minutemen, New Yorker on November 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: fIREHOSE-“fROMOHIO” (1989).

After the punk of The Minutemen, you wouldn’t expect the sound of fROMOHIO to come from Mike Watt and friends.  This is fIREHOSE’s second album and the opening song, “Riddle of the Eighties” is quite poppy, but with a countryish flair.  In fact, much of the beginning of the disc sounds like Meat Puppets-inspired-southwestern punk.  Track two, “In My Mind,” has a wonderful latin/Mexican feel to it (singer Ed Crawford has that whole southwestern vibe down quite well, even if they are from Pedro).

The disc also has what I’ve learned is that peculiar SST Records sound–almost nonexistent bass, despite what Watt is accomplishing.  Actually the bass is there, and it’s mixed fine but it’s lower than you might expect for what the kind of punk they’re playing.

Even track three “Whisperin’ While Hollerin'” which is all about the bass (with funk bass and cool blasts of guitar over the top) doesn’t have a lot of low end in it.  The bass sounds crisp and clear (which is good), just not very deep.  “Mas Cojones” is a weird one.  Funk bass with disco guitars over the top and some odd spoken word from Watt.

The highlight is “What Gets Heard,” a great funky fast bassline with angular guitars and vocals by Watt.  Near the end of the disc, “Some Things” is another solid song, really typical of this period: great bass, great guitar work and yet still a lot of punk.  There’s also some fun, unexpected bits.  There’s a pretty acoustic guitar solo called, “Vastopol” and two (!) drum solos: “Let the Drummer Have Some,” and the wonderfully titled, “‘Nuf That Shit, George.”  Finally, “Liberty for Our Friend” is a great folk singalong, and I dare you not to singalong by the end.

Its all packaged in really short songs (most around 2 minutes, with later songs running longer).  fIREHOSE was a successful SST band that burnt out rather quickly.

[READ: October 22, 2010] “My Father’s Brain”

This is a story about, yes Franzen’s father’s brain.  But it’s not in any way what I imagined it would be like.  As the piece opens, Franzen receives an autopsy report about his father’s brain from his mother.  It comes in a package with other items, and the occasion of the package is, hilariously enough, Valentine’s Day.  (And the darkly humorous anecdote of his mother sending this on Valentine’s Day is spoken quite often to friends and really anyone who will listen).

We pull back from the incident to look at Franzen’s family in toto and the story becomes a far more personal/familial story than I imagined it would.  We learn about his parents’ unhappy marriage and all of the complaints that his mother had about his father.  Franzen’s mother would regularly send Jonathan letters bemoaning her husband’s lack of concern/empathy/sense of humor.  And then soon enough, the letters started expressing fear that Franzen’s father simply couldn’t be left by himself–for his own safety and the safety of the house.  Frazen’s father was eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

The bulk of the middle of the article is given over to the science of brain study.  Although this article is 10 years old I was surprised that I thought they were just learning about the brain were evidently known back then (for instance, how faulty our memories are).  He also gives an argument that I have felt–not about Alzheimer’s specifically but about the “diagnosing” of people in general–that science or the medical community wants to quickly label people to make it easier for them.   He feels this way several years before his father is diagnosed and is a bit resistance to the initial diagnosis; however, when he finally sees him, he agrees with the assessment. (more…)

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Junot Díaz–”Otravida, Otravez” (New Yorker, June 21 & 28, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, All Songs Considered, Junot Díaz, Language, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Set in New Jersey!, Short Story, The Decemberists on November 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-Live at the Newport Folk Festival [excerpts] (downloaded from NPR) (2010).

The Decemberists played at the Newport Folk Festival this year. NPR audio has an excerpt for free listen/download on their audio site.

They say that they were not going to play the entire Hazards of Love album at this show, as had been their wont on this tour.  I’m not sure what their entire set consisted of, but the three excerpts here include: “The Crane Wife Pt 3,” “Yankee Bayonet” and a very extended “Sons and Daughters.”

It surprises me how well The Decemberists work in a live setting.  I think of their music as  complex and convoluted with strange instrumentation, and yet, perhaps because of the theatricality of it all, it all sounds great in a live setting.

I can’t really imagine them releasing a proper live album, so for those of us who don’t get to concerts much, this is the next best thing (the recording quality is excellent–I only wish it was their whole set).

[READ: October 12, 2010] “Otravida, Otravez”

Junot Díaz is the next writer in the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 4o issue.

I didn’t like this story in the beginning because I couldn’t tell for quite some time the gender of the narrator.  Normally this doesn’t make a difference, but when the narrator climbs into bed with the man in the room, I had a hard time deciding if this was a subversive act or just a straight act of romance.  [I admit that since the author was male, I assumed the narrator was male, too].

It turns out the narrator is a woman (there is a clue when he says “Yasmin,” but in the first read I was unclear if he was saying her name or just a name in general).

In fact, to me, the entire beginning was very strangely set up and it took a few paragraphs (when she describes her job) before I felt the flow really took off.  However, once it did I found this story fascinating and convoluted in a very good and clever way. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–The Broom of the System (1987)

Posted in Air, Big Books, Books about writers, Broken Bells, Danger Mouse, David Foster Wallace, Drinking, Drugs, Ennio Morricone, Fears, Fun Boy Three, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gilligan's Island, Language, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marriage Trouble, Nature, Neurotics, The Future, The Shins, Travel, Universities, Word usage on November 1, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BROKEN BELLS-Broken Bells (2010).

When I first played this disc I was really disappointed by it.  I’ve grown to expect crazy magic from Danger Mouse, and I assumed that this collaboration with James Mercer of The Shins would be crazy awesome.  But it seemed very mellow to me.  Mellow in a way that just kind of sat there.  So I put it aside for a while.

Then I listened to it again a little later and I found that I really liked it this time.  In fact, it rapidly grew into one of my favorite releases of 2010.

The disc is a wonderfully paced mixture of acoustic guitars, interesting keyboard sounds and, often, downright bizarre electronic choices (subtle, yet bizarre).  The weird sounds that open the disc, a kind of backwards keyboard, are disorienting but also very catchy.  And the song itself is instantly familiar.  It’s followed by “Vaporize” a simple acoustic number that bursts out with some great organ and (very) distorted drums.  It also features a fascinating horn solo!

“Your Head is on Fire” settles things down a bit with a mellow track which, after some cool introduction, sounds like a  pretty typical sounding Shins track (ie, very nice indeed–and more on this in a moment).

“The Ghost Inside” feels like a ubiquitous single.  I’m not sure if it is or if it’s just so catchy (with dancey bits and hand claps and a great falsetto) that it should be everywhere.  “Sailing to Nowhere” reminds me, I think, of Air.  And the great weird drums/cymbals that punctuate each verse are weird and cool.

One of the best songs is “Mongrel Heart” it opens with a western-inspired sound, but quickly shifts to a quiet verse.  The bridge picks up the electronics to add a sinister air (and all of this is accompanied by nice backing vocals, too).  But it’s the mid section of the song that’s really a surprise: it suddenly breaks into a Western movie soundtrack (ala Morricone) with a lone trumpet playing a melancholy solo.  And this surprise is, paradoxically, somewhat typical of the disc: lots of songs have quirky surprises in them, which is pretty cool.

Having said all this, there are a few tracks where it feels like the two aren’t so much collaborating as just playing with each other.  And that may have been my initial disappointment.  I was expecting a great work from a combined powerhouse, and I think what we get is two artists writing great stuff while seemingly respecting each other too much to step on each others toes.

There is another Broken Bells disc in the works.  And I have to assume that they’ll feel more comfortable with each other and simply knock our socks off next time.  But in the meantime we have this really wonderful disc to enjoy.

[READ: October 21, 2010] The Broom of the System

It dawned on me sometime last summer that I had never read DFW’s first novel.  I bought it not long after reading Infinite Jest and then for some reason, never read it.  And by around this time I had a not very convincing reason for not reading it.  DFW seemed to dismiss his “earlier work” as not very good.  I now assume that he’s referring to his pre-Broom writings, but I was a little nervous that maybe this book was just not very good.

Well I need not have worried.

It’s hard not to talk about this book in the context of his other books, but I’m going to try.  Broom is set in the (then) future of 1990.  But the past of the book is not the same past that we inhabited.  While the world that we know is not radically different, there is one huge difference in the United States: the Great Ohio Desert.  The scene in which the desert comes about (in 1972) is one of the many outstanding set pieces of the book, so I’ll refrain from revealing the details of it.  Suffice it to say that the desert is important for many reasons in the book, and its origin is fascinating and rather funny. (more…)

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James Joyce–Dubliners (Part II) (1914) [audiobook 2004–Jim Norton]

Posted in Audiobooks, Death, Drinking, Dublin, Ireland, Holidays, Irish Writer, James Joyce, Language, Marriage Trouble, Religion, Short Story on October 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: October 20, 2010] Dubliners Part II

This collection covers the last five stories from the book.  They are all longer stories, especially the fantastic novella “The Dead,” which runs well over an hour.  The titles included in Part II are:

A Painful Case
Ivy Day in the Committee Room
A Mother
Grace
The Dead

These last five stories look at (continuing the theme from my previous post) middle age and later life.  The protagonists are all older, and as with the first part, they all must deal with harsh realities and even death.

“A Painful Case” is the first story in the book where the title doesn’t directly apply to the protagonist (even  though, of course, it does).  Mr Duffy is a solitary man.  He goes out from time to time but is not really social.  At a concert he meets Mrs Sinico and they form a friendship.  Her husband approves of the friendship because he believes that Mr Duffy is really after their daughter.  The relationship grows stronger and stronger and Mrs Sinico feels closer to him than she does to her husband.  Then, Mrs Sinico make a gesture indicating she’d like a more intimate relationship.  Mr Duffy is immediately turned off by this and vows to himself to see her no more.  This leads to a quote that I assume is not original to Joyce, and yet it is still common today: “Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.”  The strange thing about this story is that it then jumps ahead four years.  We learn that Mrs Sinico took the dissolution of their friendship very hard indeed.  And naturally, Mr Duffy is made to rethink his life choices.  It’s yet another story of despair. (more…)

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