Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Morality’ Category

A.J. Jacobs–The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment (2009)

Posted in A.J. Jacobs, Books about writers, Boredom, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Funny (ha ha), Marriage (Happy), Memoirs, Morality, Political Humor, Rheostatics, Smarty Pants, Technology, tagged on January 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS–Static Journey Volume 2: Melville (2008).

At this stage, I realized just what the fine creator of this box set has set out to do: he is basically recreating the Rheos’ discs with live tracks, demos and other cool things.  Initially I assumed that everything would be chronological (live concerts only from that tour, for instance).  But he has gone beyond that simple task and is selecting the best version he can find.  So a concert from, say, 2007 which features an awesome recording of a track from Melville will follows a track from a show circa 2000.  It’s a very cool way to experience the disc.

And of course, if there isn’t an available live track, he plays the album track.

All of this cool stuff is supplemented with interviews, stage banter introducing tracks (even if the banter is not from the same show as the track).  The live versions on this disc are spectacularly smoking, and the songs sounds fantastic.  And, there’s enough jamming on these tracks so you can see the band really let loose.

Interestingly, I am finding this an excellent way to get reintroduced to the album.   There’s something about an amazing live track that really lets you appreciate the quality of the song.

I’m totally hooked on this box set.

[READ: January 4, 2009] The Guinea Pig Diaries

This was another surprise Christmas gift from Sarah and it was another great one.  I’ve enjoyed AJ’s (as he calls himself in the book) experiments in Esquire.  The book contains at least three experiments which I’d already read in Esquire.  There are some minor changes to the stories (most of which are designed to have them fit in with the general narrative of the book).  But even if you’ve read them (and one of them goes back to 2005!) there’s a Coda at the end of each one with a sort of follow up to the experiment that was not included in the article.

The experiments include (read more about them on his site, but only after you finish all of this!):

My Life as  Beautiful Woman
My Outsourced Life
I Think You’re Fat
240 Minutes of Fame
The Rationality Project
The Truth About Nakedness
What Would George Washington Do?
The Unitasker
Whipped

Jacobs is a very funny writer.  He is neurotic and constantly trying to improve himself.  And so, he undertakes these fairly absurd tasks is an attempt to make his life better/easier/less stressful/more awesome. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ben Schott–Schott’s Miscellany 2009: An Almanac (2008)

Posted in Aesop Rock, Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Ben Schott, Bible, Bill Fox, Bob Dylan, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Collecting, Comedians, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Dip-in Books, Drinking, Drugs, Explosions in the Sky, Film & TV, Food, Foreign Books, Games (Non Video), Grizzly Bear, History, Holidays, I'm from Barcelona, Language, LGBTQ, Lightning Bolt, Magik Markers, Military, Morality, Nature, Nico, Of Montreal, Oxford Collapse, Poetry, Prison, Racism, Religion, Reykjavik!, Roger Federer, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sports, Sufjan Stevens, Technology, The Future, Travel, TSA, Violence, War, Word usage on December 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer June/July 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD: Cue the Bugle Turbulent (2007).

The 2007 Believer disc smashes the mold of folkie songs that they have established with the previous discs in the series.  The theme for this disc is that there’s no theme, although the liner notes give this amusing story:

one decaffeinated copy editor (“the new guy”) made a suggestion: “The Believer CD should be composed of eight a.m. music/breakfast-substitute jams, like that commercial from a while back with the guy who gets out of bed over and over again while ELO plays over his morning routine. You should tell all of the bands to write/contribute songs worth listening to within three minutes of waking up.”

So, without a theme, they just asked artists for some great songs.  There’s one or two tracks written especially for the disc (Sufjan Stevens, Lightning Bolt).  There’s a couple B-sides.  There are some wildly noisy raucous songs: and three of them come from duos!  No Age offers a very noisy blast of feedback.  Magik Markers play a super-fast distortion-fueled rocker, and Lightning Bolt play 5 minutes of noise noise noise.  Oh, and there’s even a rap (Aesop Rock)!

Tracks 3-7 are just about the 5 best songs in a row on any compilation.  Oxford Collapse plays a catchy and wonderfully angular song with “Please Visit Your National Parks.”  It’s followed by a song from Sufjan Stevens that sounds NOTHING like Sufjan Stevens, it’s a noisy distorted guitar blast of indie punk.  I’m from Barcelona follows with a supremely catchy horn driven song that would be huge on any college campus.  Aesop Rock comes next with a fantastic song.  I’d heard a lot about Aesop Rock but had never heard him before, and he raps the kind of rap that I like: cerebral and bouncy.  This is followed by Reykjavik! with a crazy, noisy surf-guitar type of song.  It reminds me of some great college rock from the early 90s.

Of Montreal, a band I’ve been hearing about a lot but who I’ve never heard (and didn’t think sounded like this) plays a wonderfully catchy two minute love song that sounds ironic, but which likely isn’t.  The melody is straight out of the Moody Blues’ “Wildest Dreams,” and yet it is still fun and quirky.

There’s a couple instrumentals as well: The Clogs do a cool, mellow instrumental and Explosions in the Sky do one of their typically fantastic emotional tracks.  Also on the disc, The Blow contribute a delightfully witty song and Bill Fox, a singer I’d never heard of (but who has a great article about him in the magazine), really impressed me with his Bob Dylan meets Nico delivery.  The disc ends with an alternate version of a song by Grizzly Bear.

This is definitely my favorite Believer disc thus far.  See the full track listing here.

[READ: Throughout 2009] Schott’s Miscellany 2008

This year’s edition of Schott’s Miscellany is very much like last year’s edition (see that review here).  I mean, it is an almanac after all.  However, it is a wondrous testament to Schott that even though I read every word of the 2008 edition, I was able to read every word of the 2009 edition and not feel like I was duplicating myself very much.

Obviously the news, facts and events of 2008-09 are different from last year.  And since Schott’s writing style is breezy and fun with a hint of sarcasm and amusement thrown in, you don’t get just a list of facts, you get sentences with subtle commentary on the facts.  And it’s a fun way to re-live the past year.  Plus, the Sci, Tech, Net section discusses science stories that sounded really impressive and important which I can’t believe I didn’t hear about at the time. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Albert Innaurato–Gemini (1978) & The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie (1978)

Posted in Albert Innaurato, Death, Demons, Donald Sutherland, Drinking, Drugs, Food, Funny (ha ha), Happy Birthday Gemini, Kate Bush, Marriage Trouble, Morality, Neurotics, Pink Floyd, Play (Drama), Short Books, Suicide, Universities, Unlikable main character on November 22, 2009| 1 Comment »

geminSOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-Hounds of Love (1985).

I have a very specific memory of the first time I heard the song  “Hounds of Love.”  I was in high school and the Wilderness Adventure Club was heading towards whatever destination we were going to (funny I can’t remember the destination, but I recall the car trip there).  The head of the club (who was a teacher, but not one I had) was driving a bunch of us in his station wagon and this song came on.  My friend Brad and I howled with laughter at the “barking” that Kate does. “Roo Roo Roo Roo.”

It only occurred to me recently that the driver probably enjoyed the music or else he wouldn’t have had it on, so that wasn’t very nice of us.  It also occurs to me that he must have had the disc (actually the tape, as there were no discs then) because I don’t imagine the song was ever on the radio.  (Although I also think there may have been a DJ talking about the songs, so my memory is shaky).  I just remember laughing and laughing and quite likely Roo Rooing for much of the trip.

So, it’s funny now how much I love this disc (my high school self was a metal head, my college self expanded his musical mind rather a lot).

Kate’s previous two records were a wonderful precursor to this monumental disc.  The big hits come at the top: “Hounds of Love” is indeed an amazing song, as is “Running Up That Hill.”  But they’re familiar enough that I don’t have to say anything.  “The Big Sky” is a rollicking romp of fun.  And “Cloudbusting” is just simply amazing.  (Look for the video with Donald Sutherland!).  It’s five minutes of intense storytelling.

But for me, the second side of the album (starting with track 6 on the disc) is the real selling point.  It’s something of a story called The Ninth Wave.  And what I love about it (in addition to the awesome music) are the amazing effects and sounds and voices that are all over the tracks.

It begins simply with a delicate piece, “And Dream of Sheep,” a beautiful piano ballad.  It’s followed by the mesmerizing “Under Ice.”  The opening string sounds evoke someone skating on an ice (which is what the song is about).  As the tension grows (is someone under the ice?) voices far back in the distance compete with Kate singing “Its me!”

The next track, “Waking the Witch” begins with some awesome headphone voice work.  Voices from various family members implore her to wake up.  Left, right, middle, back.  Then, a voices asks “Can you not see that light over there?”  With a far off voice whispering “over here.”  When the song finally bursts forth, her voice is manipulated in a creepy disjointed way.  Followed by different musical sections with cathedral bells.  All through the track a male authority figure condemns the girl for being a witch.  And as the song ends (with a sample of the helicopter from Pink Floyd’s The Wall she is found guilty.  It’s quite intense.

The intensity slackens somewhat with the mellow “Watching Me Without You.”  But it builds again with the manic intensity of “The Jig of Life” a traditional jig with uilleann pipes in the background and Kate’s vocals over the top.  The song breaks into a very traditional sounding step dance seisiun until Kate starts whispering “I put this moment here” (more of that cool headphone stuff) and the song takes of again.

“Hello Earth” starts as a simple ballad reminiscent of “And Dream of Sheep” but it grows in intensity only to break for a choir passage.  It then returns to the intensity of Kate’s voice which fades and ends with Kate’s whispered:  “Tiefer, tiefer.  Irgendwo in der Tiefe.  Gibt es ein licht.” (Roughly: Deeper Deeper, Somewhere in the depths there is a light.)

The disc ends with “The Morning Fog” a respite from the intensity of the music and the contents.  It’s a light ballad (with amazing fretless bass work) that seems like it could have been used in a John Hughes film.  Especially for the “I tell my mother/father/loved ones/brother how much I love them” lyrics.

The Ninth Wave is one of my favorite suites to listen to.  It not only demands attention, it usually gets it.

Hounds of Love is, simply put, fantastic.

[READ: November 15, 2009] Gemini & The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie

When I was a kid, watching cartoons on Channel 11, WPIX, there was a frequent, (in my memory it was incessant) commercial for a Broadway play.  And the only things I remember about the commercial were two snippets:  In the first, a young boy is gorging himself on food and his mother yells “TAKE HUMAN BITES!”  The second shows a woman who says “I’m  not hungry, I’ll just pick” who then grabs a handful of spaghetti from someone else’s plate.

This commercial was such a part of our culture, that my friends used to shout “TAKE HUMAN BITES” at each other all the time.  And yet, after all these years, I couldn’t remember what the play was.  So, out of curiosity, I did some searching to see if I could find this mysterious play (and, more importantly find the commercial).

So, thank you, internet, for helping me discover the play is Albert Innaurato’s Gemini.  No commercials have been forthcoming, sadly.

Well, I thought it would be fun to read this play and see if it was as funny as the commercial seemed.  Who could have guessed that the play would have turned out like this? (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–[Week 13] Infinite Jest (1996)

Posted in Adventure, Big Books, Boredom, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Dreams, Drinking, Drugs, Edith Wharton, Eschaton, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Humiliation, Infinite Summer, Marriage Trouble, Meta, Morality, Neurotics, Oddities, Postmoderism, Racism, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Sports, Supernatural, Technology, Tennis, The Future, Threats, Universities, Violence on September 18, 2009| 2 Comments »

ijestSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Nurse (2004).

nurse

After the glorious Murray Street, SY return with an even better disc: Sonic Nurse.  This is probably their most overtly catchy (and therefore in my opinion wonderful) record since the Goo/Dirty period of 1991.  (Can it really be 13 years between these discs?).

This disc features Jim O’Rourke as well.  I’m led to believe that he has been playing bass with the band in order to free Kim up to do other things.  Although what she is doing I can’t really imagine.

“Pattern Recognition” opens with the most catchy guitar line in Sonic Youth memory.  Such a great and easy guitar riff.  Kim’s voice is sultry and wondrous.  And Steve Shelly really gets a chance to shine with some fun drum parts.  And, as is typical lately, the catchy songs get some lengthy end treatments, so this song ends with a 2-minute noise fest.  But it’s a good one.  “Unmade Bed” is one of Thurston’s special mellow-singing songs but the guitar solo is weird and wonderful.

“Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” was originally called “Mariah Carey and the…” (and I have no idea if the original was different).  Is one of those noisy Kim-sung jams that SY are known for. But it also features a “Hey hey baby” sing along chorus too.

“Stones” continues this midtempo catchiness with another amazing guitar riff that runs throughout the song.  While “Dude Ranch Nurse” is another mellow Kim piece that has a great riff and wonderfully noisy bridges.  And of course, Lee is awesome on “Paper Cup Exit,” yet another fatastic song.  The cool breakdown in the song is a nice unexpected twist.

“I Love You Golden Blue” may be the most beautiful song the band has ever done.  Kim’s voice is delicate and delightful as she whisper/sings over a gorgeous guitar line.  The final song is another of Thurston’s beauties: “Peace Attack” a slow builder, complete with verse ending guitar solos.

Sonic Nurse is a beuaty.

[READ: Week of September 14, 2009] Infinite Jest (to page 949)

Flying in the face of potential spoilers, I was looking for any evidence of there ever being a “unedited Director’s Cut” version of Infinite Jest.  There is, supposedly, one copy of the full text floating around, and I’m actually quite surprised no one has tried to capitalize on DFW’s death by releasing it (I’d rather see that than another “This is Water” type publication).

But while looking around, I got this pleasant surprise from the Howling Fantods–these are comments on a first draft of IJ (without too much unpublished work shown).  But there’s also this disturbing (to me) item:

(N.B.: Wallace made numerous corrections for the paperback edition of 1997, so that edition is the one scholars should use. Put a Mylar cover on the pretty hardback and leave it on the shelf.)

Great. So I read the wrong copy?  Twice??

ijdot1
I haven’t said very much in any of these posts regarding DFW himself.  I don’t feel it is my place to comment on the man or his situation.   However, through a nice shout out to me, I found this really cool site: The Joy of Sox.  It’s primarily about the Red Sox but it has a delightful side venue in DFW information.  There’s not a ton, and he quotes extensively from others who have done more research than he–he’s a fan of DFW, but this is a sports blog after all.  But it is a delightful collection of miscellanea.  And he pointed me to this article, “Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open“, which I had never read (so thank you!).   So, do check out the site, he’s not doing Infinite Summer, but he’s likely going to read IJ again in the fall.

ijdot1
As this almost-final week opens, the book is flying downhill like an AFR wheelchair, paralleling Gately’s literal inability to talk with Hal’s metaphorical? literal? we’ll see? one.  But it really is the Gately show.  We learn more and more about him, and his back story makes him more and more likable.  Who ever would have guessed? (more…)

Read Full Post »

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…)

Read Full Post »

David Foster Wallace–This is Water [2005 commencement speech from Kenyan College] (2009)

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Demons, Essays, Infinite Summer, Morality, NPR/PRI/PBS, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Suicide, Universities on July 29, 2009| 4 Comments »

this-is-waterSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH in concert from NPR (July 7, 2009 at Washington DC’s 9:30 Club).

syI’m not sure how I learned that this show was online.  But I was pretty delighted to see NPR hosting a live Sonic Youth show (this is actually the 2nd Sonic Youth show they’ve hosted and the older one is still online.  Sorry, the previous concert is removed, but there’s a three song set from WXPN (with interview) available here).

The coolest aspect of this is that it is downloadable.  The uncool aspect is that it is one long stream, so it’s not easy to split.  Although they do give a track listing, which is nice.

This is a good, if somewhat mellow show.  It features all of their new album, The Eternal, as well as a few choice oldies: “Hey Joni,” “Shadow of a Doubt,” and the opener, “Tom Violence.”  There’s not a lot of crazy noise, and most of the songs don’t last more than 4 or 5 minutes.  In fact, the photos show pretty standard guitar setup (no drum sticks in guitar strings or anything).

I was only able to listen on really crappy headphones, which I ‘m sure do nothing to the layers of noise that the band produces, but as soon as I can get it switched over for car playing, I’m sure it’ll bust out the speakers.

The whole set is about 90 minutes.

And if anyone knows just what is going on at the 59 minute mark (just before “White Cross”), and possibly even what song that is, let me know!”

[READ: July 26, 2009] “This is Water” [sort of]

I hadn’t been planning to read any other DFW pieces before I finished Infinite Jest (why, I figured, confuse the issue?).  But when I was looking around Amazon for something or other, I saw this “new” book and was obviously intrigued.  Then I read the reviews, and almost every review (both 1 and 5 star) said that it is a speech from 2005 commencement at Kenyan College and that it’s available online.

But now, with the publication of the book, it pretty much isn’t available online anymore.  [I found my copy though the Internet Archive, and marginalia.org.]  The copy that I have isn’t exactly the same as the book (in the only part I compared, the word “uniquely” appears in the book where it didn’t in the transcript, while at the same time, in the transcript there’s a preface that is funny and endearing which isn’t in the book).  But for all intents and purposes, let’s say that I have read the book.  (Plus it was easier to put the cover image than to find an image from the speech). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jean-Paul Sartre–“A Fine Display of Capuchins” (Harper’s, August 2009)

Posted in Death, Essays, Harper's, Jean-Paul Sartre, Morality, Record Labels, Religion, Smarty Pants, Sonic Youth, Swans, Wikipedia on July 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

harpersaugSOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Sonic Death: Early Sonic 1981-1983 (1984).

sonicdThis document shows just how scary a Sonic Youth show could have been back in their early days.  Well, not scary so much as noisy!   They mention that they’ve been touring with the Swans, so you can imagine how intense these shows must have been.

This record is kind of a mess.  There’s no track listing (only 1 track on my copy of the disc). In fact, it’s mostly just snippets of songs and lots of distortion.  The Wikipedia Page shows the approximate breakdown of where the snippets are (and it gives you something of a track listing).  If you’re a fan of Sonic Youth circa Daydream Nation, and you haven’t heard their earlier stuff, don’t even bother with this.  If you like Confusion is Sex and you want to hear what they sounded like live back then, pick this up.

Under all of the noise, it shows the band being silly, with snippets of conversations and tape manipulation…exactly the kind of homemade tape that you might expect from Thurston Moore’s own record label (and one of the first releases on the label).  It seems like the kind of thing that nowadays would be included as bonus footage on a DVD, but heck, they didn’t do that back then.  So this feel more a home recording.

So, before you go hunting down this out of print title, be aware of just what you’re going to get!

[READ: July 18, 2009] “A Fine Display of Capuchins”

When I was a philosophy major I read only a small amount of Sartre.  I always wanted to read more, but never had call for it.  I especially wanted to read his fiction, which seemed like it would be interesting, or at the very least, some of his not too demanding essay work.

And lo, here is a piece that had been untranslated until now.

This is a fascinating piece.  Sartre goes into a crypt underneath a church in Rome.  In the crypt he finds that it contains the bones of thousand of friars which were exhumed and transferred there in 1631.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Stephen King–“Morality” (Esquire, July 2009)

Posted in Bible, Canadian Music, Esquire, Morality, Moxy Fruvous, Short Story, Stephen King, Talking Heads, Tom Waits, Violence on July 5, 2009| Leave a Comment »

esquireSOUNDTRACK: MOXY FRÜVOUS-Live Noise (1998).

livenoiseLive albums usually work as a “best of” and so, with Live Noise you get the crème de la crème of the Früvous catalog.  But, more than that, Früvous were amazing live.  I had the opportunity to see them once, and it was a fantastic show.

Just about every song I have mentioned in other reviews is here: “Michigan Militia,” “Horseshoes,” “Fly,” “King of Spain,” “Johnny Saucep’n” and “The Drinking Song” among many others.

They also do some interesting covers: Tom Wait’s “Jockey Full of Bourbon” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.”

And best of all, there’s a lot of between-song banter.  Interestingly, the banter is quite vulgar.  While Früvous is not a G rated band by any means, it’s a little surprising how many F bombs they drop (which is why it got a parental warning sticker).  But mostly they are funny bits, like the “Intra Pennsylvania Rivalry,” and the hilarious and factual crowd participation bit: “Lowest Highest Point.”

You can’t go wrong with this disc, it’s fantastic (although, I suppose I could do without the  second version of “King of Spain,” as it does go on a bit long), but aside from that?  Fantastic!

[READ: June 25, 2009] “Morality”

I’ve said a lot about Stephen King in the past, so I’ll just get right to the story.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this story or not.  I mean, it’s long, and I don’t jump at the chance to read Stephen King anymore.  But I read the first paragraph and I remembered why Stephen King is so popular, and why I liked him so much.  Whether or not he is a great writer or an artiste, he has a wondrous way with words.  With the first few paragraphs I was hooked into this story.  His prose is effortless, and before you know it you are engaged with the characters. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts