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Archive for the ‘Motels’ Category

Stephen King–“All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” (New Yorker, January 29, 2001)

Posted in Coronavirus, Dirty Projectors, Funny (ha ha), Motels, Pee, Poo, Quarantine, Short Story, Stephen King, Suicide, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert on July 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DIRTY PROJECTORS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #45 (July 6, 2020).

  I have a mixed reaction to Dirty Projectors.  I love some of their songs but am indifferent to a lot of other ones.  They have a new song “Overlord” (performed here) that I absolutely love.  But the final two songs are just okay to me.

That said, I love the overall sound of this session.

David Longstreth’s guitar sounds fantastic on “Lose Your Love”.  Although the highlight is obviously lead vocalist Felicia Douglass (her dancing is super fun).  The soaring gorgeous high notes of backing singers Maia Friedman and Kristin Slipp (with the keytar) are otherworldly.

Kristin introduces the second song, “Overlord” the one that I think is so great.  The lead vocals are from Maia.  There’s great guitar sound from David and a lot of fun percussion from Mike Johnson (and Felicia).  But once again it’s those vocals that are wonderful.

Kristin stars lead vocals on “Inner World” while David starts on piano and then jumps to bass.  Maia plays guitar on this one and it’s fun to see everything that Mike is banging on.  “Search for Life” ends the set with no drums.  David is back on guitar and Maia sings lead.  For this song she sings in a very deep voice–it’s quite arresting.  The backing vocals soar high as she sings.

Dirty Projectors’ lineup is always changing.

The lineup often shifts, but the creative nature of this band, headed by David Longstreth, doesn’t. It’s a band in which any member can take the lead, and that’s the beauty here. The band is releasing 5 EPs this year.

I think it’s time I give them more of my time.

[READ: July 10, 2020] “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away”

Stephen King is a truly masterful writer.  He can write a story about a man looking to commit suicide and have you laugh out loud in the middle of it.

It’s not explicitly stated why Alfie wants to kill himself.  He is a salesman (ahh).  He is (happily?) married and has a daughter.  It seems like perhaps the life of a salesman has gotten to him.  He plans to go to a motel and shoot himself.

So how can this terribly sad, genuinely terribly sad, story be funny?

Because for the last dozen years or so Alfie has been collecting graffiti in a book–a small spiral bound book that he has been carrying with him forever.  He looks for graffiti in bathrooms, in phone booths, anywhere he might find some.  He is not interested in the mundane–the ones you might see everywhere: Here I sit, broken hearted–he is looking for the poetic. (more…)

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Katherine Dunn–“The Resident Poet” (New Yorker, May 11, 2020)

Posted in Canadian Music, Circus, Feminism, Joy Division, Katherine Dunn, Motels, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, The Tea Party, Yuck! on May 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE TEA PARTY-“Isolation” (2020).

It seems like a number of bands have been covering Joy Divison’s “Isolation” lately. It is appropriate after all.

The Tea Party are a Canadian band known for its sound, which blends classic rock and influences from many countries around the world.  I like that they are referred to as “Moroccan Roll.”

Musically this songs sounds quite a lot like the original. I don’t think of The Tea Party has being especially synthy, but they get the synth sound pretty spot on.  Usually The Tea Party has all kinds of middle eastern instrumentation, but there’s nothing like that here.

Jeff Martin has a deep resonant voice that often sounds like Jim Morrison.  Here he gets the same tone as Ian Curtis, but his voice is much better, much more full than Curtis’.  In fact, the whole song sounds bigger–a sound that befits a band that is often compared to Led Zeppelin rather than an indie British club band.

The original certainly conveys “isolation” better (I mean, it is Ian Curtis after all), but this version sound great too and it really rocks.

[READ: May 11, 2020] “The Resident Poet”

I was surprised to realize that I had never read anything by Katherine Dunn.  Her novel Geek Love is one of those books that I feel is always mentioned as being notable.  I always assumed it was about nerds.  I just found out it is about carnies–circus geeks.  My mind is blown.

If I was wrong about the entire premise of her most famous book, I clearly have no idea what the rest of her output is like.

I didn’t realize she was the author of this story (I saw the author’s name but didn’t connect her to anything).  I doubt that knowing she wrote it would have made me think any differently about the story.  Mostly because I don’t know what to think about the story.

Essentially this story follows a college-aged woman as she deliberately degrades herself for a poet who comes to teach at their school.  But she seems empowered by her degradation, so I’m not sure how to read it. (more…)

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C.P. Boyko–“In the Palace of Cats” (The Walrus, July/August 2017)

Posted in Adventure, Alternate Reality, C.P. Boyko, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cats, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Motels, Pink Floyd, Rheostatics, Short Story, Spies, Surreal, The Tragically Hip, The Walrus, tagged on August 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Le Colisee, Quebec City, QC (November 30, 1996).

This is the same show that the Double Live version of “Saskatchewan” was taken from. It is also the show Dave wrote about in On A Cold Road.

This is also one of only two shows on Rheostatics Live that was recorded in Quebec.  Once again, they are opening for The Tragically Hip.

The show opens with some recording in French–no idea what it is–a hockey game?

The “Saskatchewan” is of course beautiful.  I love the way it gets really heavy near the end.  It’s also fun to hear a different recording of it (you can really hear them chanting “home Caroline, home Caroline.”

Next comes “Fat” one of the few songs they also played in Buffalo.  And then after a very brief “Digital Beach” they segue into “Claire.”  This version of “Claire” is really pretty on all counts.

As the band introduces themselves: “We are the Rheostatics,” you can hear someone in the audience shout slowly and clearly: “Bad. Time. To. Be. Poor.”  Dave asks what’s that man shouting?  “Bad. Time. To. Be. Poor.”  Martin shouts: “WHAT?”  The guy then deliberately shouts: “We came here to see you guys.”  I don’t think the band ever heard it, which is a shame as it’s such a nice sentiment and well executed.

The band plays “Four Little Songs” which is always fun live.  Afterwards, Martin says, “See four songs in one.”

Don (who is not as chatty as Dave Clark but does talk quite a bit) tells everyone “This next song [Bad Time to Be Poor] is the current single from our new record which you can buy here at the venue.”  Dave: “Well said, Donnie.”

The crowd is quite enthusiastic about the band prompting Dave to advise: “Save a bit for The Tragically Hip.”

This version of “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine” does not feature Tamara Williamson, but it still sounds good.  Although toward the end of the song things get kind of staticky which is a bummer.  The warpy sound continues for a bit but it clears up near the beginning of “Dope Fiends.”  The song is wonderful.  At the end, Martin repeats “dark side of the moon” first quietly and then a lengthy falsetto on “moooooooooon.”   The guys mutter things during this section: “Pink Floyd,” “Side 2” before launching into the rocking ending.  The roaring song ends with a gentle version of the “You Are Very Star” lullaby, possibly the first version on the site.   There is whistling and falsetto lyrics as the band whispers good night.

It’s like a complete show in miniature.

[READ: June 21, 2017] “In the Palace of Cats”

This is The Walrus‘ Summer Fiction Issue with new fiction & poetry from 6 writers in total.  I won’t be reviewing the poetry, but I’ll be talking about the three short stories.

This story was really fun and weird.  It began as one thing, turned into a few other things and then resolved itself all with bizarre turns without ever losing its internal logic.

The story opens as a teen spy caper with Andrew bringing Hillary a message in secret code.  The message from Andrew is for Hillary so obviously no code is needed,  But they are spies, so everything must be encoded.   She goes off to decipher it–using a dictionary and selecting the word just prior to the word that Andrew wrote.

Greetings Math Princess.  The Candy Ninja is ready to move.

She was amused/dismayed that even copying words out of the dictionary he spelled one wrong: needeled (for needled). (more…)

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