[READ: February 18, 2010] “Vagabonds”
After reading Infinite Jest, I got totally het up about reading all of David Foster Wallace’s works. Of course, I discovered that he had an awful lot of uncollected works (which were all conveniently gathered in one location by a much bigger DFW fan than I). Since I’m reading 2666 as part of an online group, I wondered if I would be similarly obsessed with Bolaño’s output.
Well first, I’m not loving 2666 as much as I did Infinite Jest (but I’m only 1/3 of the way through, so that may change). But, on a more literal note, there seems to be very few short stories literred around the place. A very cursory search revealed a couple things in Harper’s and a couple things in the New Yorker, but very little else. Now, I assume that’s primarily because his stories need to be translated first, so there’s possibly a bunch of uncollected Spanish stories, but as for English ones? Well, let’s just say that scouring the globe for a complete list of short stories in English that are not part of a previously released collections is something of a dificult task.
In fact, further investigation into the stories from The New Yorker and Harper’s shows that these stories are either already released or soon to be published in translated collections.
One of the things I found in my search was this article which is more or less a review of Bolano’s, The Savage Detectives. However, in true New Yorker fashion, it is also a detailed overview of Bolaño’s life as well. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Live from the Vault-Volume 4 (2009).
Faithful reader will recall that this disc got trapped in my car’s CD changer. When I had it the player replaced, they sent the old one back to mysterious Toyota offices far away. And, about a month or so after sending it out, I received a package from Toyota with my three lost discs (this one, a Black Sabbath disc and, a promo disc I took from the library to try and wedge into the player to get it to eject the other discs (that doesn’t work, by the way) which was, embarrassingly, Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne doing a duet of something or other).
SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Alive! (1975).
This was the first Kiss live album and was the album that broke Kiss worldwide. I’m not entirely sure why a live album of songs that didn’t sell very well would do better than the original studio albums, but so it was.
SOUNDTRACK: Songs That Got Us Through WW2 (1993).
My 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).
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Bad Moon Rising (1985).
nother 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!
SOUNDTRACK: BELLE AND SEBASTIAN-BBC Sessions & Live in Belfast 2001 (2008).
Virtually every review of the BBC Sessions says the same thing: these tracks barely differ from the original recordings. And, for better or worse, that is very true. In fact, even the trumpets and other instruments sound so perfect, you tend to forget it’s a live recording. Clearly this sends a positive message about their live playing. But if that’s the case, why would you buy this?
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Live on Two Legs (1998).
This is the first official Pearl Jam live release. It is compiled from a number of different concerts, yet it flows pretty seamlessly. It highlights how much faster many of the songs became during their live shows. This increased their power almost uniformly.
I Just Read About That... 