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Archive for the ‘Military’ Category

Periodical: The Walrus

Posted in Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 2, Contests, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, Marie-Claire Blais, Memoirs, Military, Nature, Religion, Research, Suicide, Technology, The Future, The Walrus on October 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »

walrus1I found out about The Walrus while watching an interview with Noah Richler on Book Television (back when I had Canadian satellite).  During the interview, they mentioned that the first issue of this cool new magazine, The Walrus, had just come out.  I was very intrigued; amazingly, the local Barnes & Noble had a copy!  I was delighted.  And since then The Walrus has become one of my favorite magazines.

In fact, in comparison to similar magazines (Harper’s, maybe The New Yorker) it is the only magazine that I read cover to cover.  I’m not sure why I insist on this (it’s probably got to do with it being an import from Canada, but really it’s just so well written that I enjoy everything), but I never regret reading every piece.

The magazine has recently had a face lift, a new cover design and, what seems to me to be a little more white space…it feels like each issue is a little less text-heavy.  Which is obviously a little disappointing, and yet when you have a lack of free time, as I do, it makes it a bit easier. (more…)

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Periodical: The Week

Posted in Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Content, Children's Books, Comedians, Comic Strips, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Esquire, Essays, Film & TV, Free Speech, History, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Morality, Music, Natural Disasters, Neurotics, New Yorker, Oddities, Outer Space, Political Humor, Prison, Racism, Radar, Religion, Research, Robots, Russia, Salon.com, Sex, Sports Illustrated, Suicide, Technology, The Week, Violence, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me, War, WMDs on September 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

weekI’m not sure how I first learned about The Week. I think I received a trial issue in the mail. But after just one or two issues we were hooked.  The Week is a comprehensive newsweekly, although it offers virtually no original reporting.  It collates news stories and offers opinions from a variety of sources: newspapers, online magazines, political journals etc. And it provides opinions from across the political spectrum.

Each issue has the same set up (although they recently had an image makeover: a new cover design and some unexpected font changes in a few sections, which I suppose does lend to an easier read).

Each issue starts with The main stories… …and how they were covered. The first article is a look at whatever major story captivated the editorials that week.  (The growing gloom in Afghanistan).  And in a general sense of what you get for long articles (the long articles are about 3/4 of a page) You get WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE EDITORIALS SAID, and WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAID.  The What Happened section is a paragraph or two summary of the story.  The editorials offer a one or two sentence summary from sources like USA Today, L.A. Times and The Financial Times, while The Columnists are from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time.com, for example. (more…)

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Helen Humphries–“On the Plains of Abraham” (The Walrus, September 2009)

Posted in 18th Century, Death Cab For Cutie, Helen Humphries, History, Military, Research, The Walrus, Violence, War on September 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

walrus 99 SOUNDTRACK: DEATH CAB FOR CUTE: Narrow Stairs EP (2009).

This EP follows the release of Narrow Stairs and is sort of a collection of outtakes from that session.  And the impressive thing is that these are the outtakes. There are four original songs and one demo version of a track from Narrow Stairs.

All of the originals are what you’ve come to expect from recent Death Cab: catchy, somewhat somber and yet strangely uplifting tunes. The demo track is “Talking Bird” with just Ben Gibbard and a ukulele, although frankly it is the most well produced, “biggest” sounding ukulele I have ever heard.  If you’re a fan of DCFC, you won’t be disappointed by this disc.  If you’re not too familiar, this is a pretty good place to start as it is a cheaper EP (although really, the full-lengths are the place to go).  

Basically, you can’t go wrong with this disc.

[READ: August 21, 2009] “On the Plains of Abraham”

If I had a bit more Canadian history knowledge, I would know this battle (one of Canada’s Greatest), well, at all.

This piece is a historical recreation of The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (or the Battle of Québec) from one soldier’s point of view.  The Canadian Encyclopedia states:

A powerful British force under Major-General James WOLFE and Vice-Admiral Charles Saunders was sent up the St Lawrence to capture Québec. The French, commanded by Lieutenant-General the Marquis de MONTCALM, at first held the British at bay….  Québec surrendered on September 18. A French attack early in 1760 failed to recover the city, and later in the year the British captured Montréal and NEW FRANCE fell.

The fascinating thing about this “story” is that Humphries chooses a soldier from the losing side.  (more…)

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Sherman Alexie–“War Dances” (New Yorker, August 10 & 17, 2009)

Posted in Cancer as plot device, Death, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Military, New Yorker, Sherman Alexie, Sonic Youth on August 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

nySOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Dirty (1991).

dirtyI think of Dirty as a pretty commercial album.  I mean, it’s got Butch Vig as a producer for crying out loud.  And, it has three singles released from it.

The lead off track “100%,” and track three “Theresa’s Sound World” are as catchy as anything.

And of course, Lee’s “Wish Fulfillment” is just an amazing track, and is certainly a nod to a more poppy sound.  But it is “Sugar Kane” that strikes me as their most commercial attempt yet. Of course, saying all this, one must remember that Daydream Nation & even Sister had tracks that were short and catchy.  Dirty almost feels like a condensation of that sound.

“Orange Rolls, Angel’s Spit” is one of those songs that mixes catchy sections and utter noise so successfully.  And “Youth Aginst Fascism” has a wonderfully catchy vocal line but it is backed by the squeakiest most unmusical guitars on the record (and has the memorable “I Believe Anita Hill” line).

But despite all that, there’s also two completely un-Sonic Youth songs on the disc: “Nic Fit” is a one minute hardcore punk blast while “Creme Brulee” is a solo guitar (a sort of out-of-tune, cheapo amp effect) strumalong sung by Kim.  Kim also gets “Drunken Butterfly” which is certainly not easy listening, (although the mocking of The Door’s lyrics is pretty funny).  And “Shoot,” which is one of Kim’s menacing spoken-wordish pieces that changes the overall temperament of the disc.

But, yea, there’s no denying that this is a commercial album. It features some of their catchiest and easiest-listening tracks.  And yet, the disc is certainly done on SY’s terms.  For even if they did make it onto the Billboard charts (#83), they certainly never got played on Top 40 radio.

[READ: August 6, 2009] “War Dances”

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this short story or not.  But then this story is broken down into multiple small sections and the heading on the first was My Kafka Baggage. Now, I like Kafka, but Kafka can also be an “lazy” indicator for “weird stuff ahead”.   Nevertheless, I read the opening and I was intrigued. By the end of that section I was hooked.

And even though I felt the second section wrapped up things really nicely (it wraps up a story about the narrator’s father, but not the whole story itself), I pressed on.

All of this sounds like it’s not a strong vote of confidence for this story, but that’s far from the truth. The story was fantastic. I couldn’t get enough right up until the end, which was very satisfying.

The story concerns a forty year old Native American Indian guy. He has two kids and his wife is away in Rome on vacation. When his kids start clamoring for food, he realizes that he can’t hear them very well.  And sure enough, when he goes to the doctor, his hearing has suddenly dropped to about 30% of his normal ability. (more…)

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Danica Novgorodoff, James Ponsoldt & Benjamin Percy–Refresh Refresh (2009)

Posted in Benjamin Percy, Death, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Kiss, Military, Sonic Youth, Threats, Unlikable main character, Violence, War, YA Books on August 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

rerefreshSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sister (1987).

sister

It’s surprising how catchy Sister starts.  “Schizophrenia” is wonderfully sing-songy.  And “Catholic Block,” while noisy, is certainly single-worthy (and would likley be one if it were released today).  Kim has two tracks, “Beauty Lies in the Eye” which is a spoken word piece ala “Shadow of a Doubt.”  While “Pacific Coast Highway” is one of her scarier/noisier pieces.

Track #5, “Pipeline/Kill Time” is Lee’s first entry on the disc.  It starts as an instrumental and continues into a raucous Lee track.  “Kotton Krown” is a mellow mantra-like piece, while “White Cross” returns the band to its noisier roots.  The disc ends with “Master-Dik.” It’s a noise fueled riotous song.  It starts in something of a rap style (hard to call it actual rap).  It features a Kiss sample (from “Strutter”) as well as some of the first references to Ciccone Youth.

Overall it’s a rocking, great album, and it contains everything from poppy singles to outright noise.  It’s  an excellent middle piece to the great triumvirate of EVOL, Sister and Daydream Nation.

[READ: July 20, 2009] Refresh, Refresh

Sarah received a copy of this book, and since it came from the very cool comics press First Second, I was very excited to read it.

I have to say right up front, the content of this book is just not my thing.  It concerns teenaged boys whose fathers are in the Iraq war.  Violence is all they know, and violence is what they do.  I just don’t read this kind of book at all.

However, the story was very gripping.  First, of course, because it could very well be real, but second because it is told so well.

The three boys of the story have started a fight club of sorts to toughen each other up.  And despite the possibility of that being an overused premise, you can almost assume that the boys aren’t trying to copy the movie Fight Club.  They are Oregon youths with virtually nothing to do.  They’re not trying to be hip and cool like Brad Pitt, they’re just bored.  And they’re angry. (more…)

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William H. Gass–“Kinds of Killing: The Flourishing Evil of the Third Reich” [a review of The Third Reich at War] (Harper’s, August 2009)

Posted in Book Reviews, Death, Essays, Harper's, History, Military, Nazis, Racism, Religion, Richard J. Evans, Suicide, Threats, Violence, War, William H. Gass on July 24, 2009| Leave a Comment »

harpersaugSOUNDTRACK: Songs That Got Us Through WW2 (1993).

ww2My dad was in World War II. He was a Navy man, and he worked on airplanes.  He was stationed in the South Pacific.  When I was growing up, he listened to a lot of big band music (while most of my friends’ parents were listening to folk music).

This collection of songs is a favorite of mine whenever I’m feeling nostalgic for my parents.  Although not every song on this disc was one I knew, the majority are greatly familiar.  My dad even had a lot of these records on 78 vinyl (and I have begun a small 78 RPM collection of my own).

When I think of a lot of these songs and what they meant to the people back home they go from being upbeat fun dance songs to being songs that people held onto during such a tough time.  There hasn’t been a lot of documentation about what families hold onto during our current wars (emails I gather are pretty important), and I suspect that with popular culture being fragmented so much, there aren’t really any unifying songs like in WWII. I’m not sure if that’s a shame, but it does mean less that nostalgia like this isn’t as likely 60 years from now.

[READ: July 19, 2009] “Kinds of Killing”

Normally I don’t write about book reviews.  However, since I enjoyed William Gass’ The Tunnel, and I am fond of his writing in general.  In fact, Gass is such a powerful writer, and he spends such a great deal of time honing his words, that anything he writes is worthy of a read.  And since this book review was something like 8 pages long, it seemed worthy of a few words. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death (1969)

Posted in Death, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage (Happy), Military, Nazis, Prison, Record Labels, Sex, Slaughterhouse Five, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, War on July 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

s5SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Bad Moon Rising (1985).

Abadmoonnother Sonic Youth record, another record label.  Bad Moon Rising is a pretty big leap from Confusion is Sex, in that there are actual songs.  Well, that’s not fair, what I mean is that the songs have structure like proper songs do. In fact, “Death Valley ’69” (with vocals by Lydia Lunch) is quite catchy!

Indeed, the band doesn’t shy away from catchy at all.  The opening track, “Intro” is a pretty one-minute guitar piece.  And it’s followed by “Brave Men Run (In My Family)” a catchy (!) song sung by Kim.  The third track “Society is a Hole” returns to the stark tracks of yore, with Thurston’s despairing vocals, but it introduces guitar harmonics, a key SY staple in songs to come.

And if you like ” I Love Her All the Time,” and who doesn’t, check out this footage from a 1991 concert (complete with Thurston using drumsticks on his guitar).

Despite these signs of lightening up, there are some pretty heavy sounds on this disc.  “I’m Insane” and “Justice is Might” sounds kind of like you might think they would based on their titles.

The band has definitely gotten control over the noise they want to make; it doesn’t seem to be enveloping them, (like it envelopes the listener), it’s more at their beck and call.  We’re not quite to the levels that prime SY will sound, but it’s pretty darn close.

And songs from the attached Flower EP are okay, but “Flower” is especially good. It has a cool “Love the power of women” spoken piece from Kim that foreshadows some of her really fantastic songs to come.

And just to be difficult, they end the disc with the one-minute “Echo Canyon” which is just as it sounds,an echoic noisefest.

[READ: July 16, 2009] Slaughterhouse Five.

What is worse?  Reading a book and not remembering a single thing about it, or not reading a book but convincing yourself that you have?  I am stuck with this dilemma as I realize that one of the two options applies to me and Slaughterhouse Five.

I was certain that I read Slaughterhouse Five.  In fact, I was certain that I knew exactly when I read it (my junior year of college on Super Bowl Sunday, when I blew off the Super Bowl party to read the book).  I realize now that it must have been some other book (but what could it have been?) as I had no recollection of Slaughterhouse Five.  At all.  Even though the cover of my mass market paperback  (which I can’t find online anywhere) was completely familiar and there’s even a dog eared page or two.  Huh.

The first thing I want to say about the book is, having read all of the novels that Vonnegut wrote before S5 was a real boon to reading it because so many of the characters from the other books appear in this one!  More on that in a moment.

The book is also about the air attack that obliterated Dresden, Germany.

Amazingly, and this is common knowledge after you read the book, Vonnegut was in Dresden at the time of the air attack.  (more…)

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Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen Adventures (Issues 1-5)

Posted in Adventure, Canadian Music, Fantasy, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jim Massey, John Layman, Military, Outer Space, Robbi Rodriguez, Rush, Sci-fi, Scott Chantler, Sex, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Tom Peyer, Violence, Wikipedia on July 21, 2009| Leave a Comment »

tekSOUNDTRACK: RUSH-Retrospective 3 (2009).

retro 3This disc filled a hole that the public had been really clamoring for: a collection of the most popular songs by Rush from the 1990s until today.  [cue crickets chirping]. Okay so this period isn’t exactly the best selling Rush era, and many people probably didn’t even know that they were still around (they weren’t for a while, but then they came back with an amazing vengeance).

Back in the 1980s I was a huge Rush fan. They were hands down my favorite band. I don’t like them any less than I used to, I just like a lot of other bands more now.  And yet this era of Rush’s music has some of my favorite of their songs, and they’re pretty much all here.

Disc One is a selection of tracks and Disc Two is a DVD of all of their videos. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is that if you compare the videos track list to the audio tracklist, they don’t jibe as much as you might think.  This leads me to believe that the band doesn’t think that their original singles were the best songs from the discs (and I agree, I think the track listing of the CD is much stronger than that of the videos).

Presto is one of my favorite discs of this era, as are their two most recent releases Vapor Trails and Snakes and Arrows.  Test for Echo, on the other hand is one of my least favorite discs of theirs.  The last time I listened to it I thought it was pretty terrible (and yet I am very surprised to see how well liked it is by Rush fans in general).  Nevertheless, all of these discs are well represented here.

And speaking of their videos, I have to say that Rush has some of the w(and every one was directed by someone different it seems) they’re just terrible.  They always seem to have a “plot” of some sort, yet it is elliptical and lacking in specifics.  It frequently involves a teenaged boy, often shirtless, in some kind of peril.  The only parts I like are the band scenes, because it’s fun to see a) Alex’s hair b) Geddy’s hair and c) Neil’s scowl.

One of the major selling points of this disc is that the two tracks from Vapor Trails are remixed.  Anyone who knows Rush knows that their releases are definitive.  You don’t get remixes or even B-sides out of this band.  So for them to release a different version of these songs is pretty amazing.  I wonder what’s up with that.  Research suggests that the band was never happy with the quality of Vapor Trails, and there are rumblings that they’d like to remix the whole disc.  I hope they do, as these sound great.

But the real selling point is the bonus video: a live interview/recording from The Colbert Report.  As I mention below, I simply don’t watch the Report as often as I ought, so I had no idea the band was even on.  I wish that Colbert had let them speak a little bit more, even if the fawning and funny questions are really great and show what a sense of humor the band has (as does the “cheering fans” that Alex has on his board).  And “Tom Sawyer” (which, I get as it’s their hugest song, but really they had to play a song that’s 27 years old?) sounds great.  And they clearly have fun with it.

If you’re on the fence about getting this disc, those two items should convince you to pick it up.

[READ: June 30, 2009] Tek Jansen

I enjoy the Colbert Report.  Quite a lot.  And yet, I don’t watch it very often.  I find the idea of committing to a daily show (like The Daily Show) is just impractical.  And so, even though Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are queued up on my TiVo, I rarely have the time to watch them.

And so, it was news to me that Colbert had the character of Tek Jansen on his show. I heard about this series via Oni (who publishes it, and all good comics).  I also just learned, (thanks Wikipedia) that there are animated shorts of this character which I must track down.  In fact, heck, for the hilarious background of the origin of this comic, just read this. (more…)

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Periodical: Mother Jones

Posted in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Book Reviews, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drugs, Essays, Military, Mother Jones, Political Humor, Racism, Religion, Smarty Pants, The Progressive, Threats, Violence, War, William T. Vollmann, WMDs on June 30, 2009| 1 Comment »

mojoBack oh, fifteen years ago, I subscribed to Mother Jones.  I also subscribed to an unvaried assortment of political mags: The Nation, The Progressive, and In These Times.  But as I grew less politically motivated, I slacked off on the subscriptions.  I just didn’t have time to read all of that.

Recently, I added Mother Jones to my Google Home page.  I started seeing some good headlines, so I thought I’d look into resubscribing.  And for $10, I got a year.

At first I was a bit disappointed in it.  The first issue I received had the cover story: Who Ran Away With Your 401K?  And frankly, it’s gone, I don’t really need to see the trail of footprints leading to a culprit that will never be punished.  And that is the general focus of MoJo: Follow stories that no one is covering; muckrake, if you will.  And they’re very good at it.  And yet, most of the time I feel like nothing really comes of it.  Knowing that someone is at fault doesn’t make them pay for it (most of the time).

The other problem I had was with what we can call liberal guilt.  I’ve got better things to worry about, frankly.  So, when I get an article like this in the current issue: What’s Your Water Footprint? And the subtitle is If you thought calculating your carbon impact made you feel guilty, just wait….  Well, I’m not going to read that.

So the magazine starts like most magazines: the Out Front section is full of short articles that are usually depressing.

I do enjoy Conspiracy Watch, a small box that delves into a current conspiracy (by any side of the political spectrum) and sees if there’s any merit to it (with a rating in tinfoil hats).

There’s usually a look at someone in the administration and then some heavy-hitting articles.  This particular issue is all about the Drug War.  So there’s an article about drug violence in Mexico.  But then a more light-hearted, I suppose, article about drugs in the U.S., including a timeline for drug issues, was more interesting.  This particular one was a first-person account of the war on drugs.

The muckraking article was about the car dealers who steal from military families. (more…)

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Periodical: Harper’s

Posted in 19th Century, Abba, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Essays, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Lewis Lapham, Military, Natural Disasters, Phish, Political Humor, Religion, Smarty Pants, War, WMDs on May 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

harpers 1993I first heard about this magazine from my friend Ailish’s then-boyfriend, Dave (this was sometime in 1993, I would guess).  Dave fancied himself an artiste: he typed his novel on a portable Underwood, loved Henry Miller and read Harper‘s.   I liked him, but was always confused by his pretensions since he didn’t really fit the bill.  But regardless, when we visited, I always read his Harper’s. I very quickly got hooked on it and have been subscribing ever since.

Harper’s is another one of those magazines that I don’t immediately get excited about receiving because there’s always the possibility that there will be five really long articles that I want to read in it.  And who has the time for all of that? Perversely, I am secretly delighted when there is only one story that I want to read in that month’s issue. But I know that if I’m going to read something in it, it will be good.

Clearly the high point of the magazine is Harper’s Index.  The index is a list of various statistics.  The gimmick, if you will is that everything is written in such a way that the answer can be given in a numerical value.  for example: “Amount the ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again says it was paid to play a concert for Vladimir Putin in January (2009): $27,500; Estimated street value of drugs seized last March at three Phish reunion shows in Hampton, Virginia: $1,200,000.” (more…)

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