Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘NPR/PRI/PBS’ Category

Don DeLillo–“Hammer and Sickle” (Harper’s, December 2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Don DeLillo, Morality, Prison, Radiohead, Short Story on January 9, 2011| 7 Comments »

[SOUNDTRACK: RADIOHEAD-Live, August 28, 2008 (NPR download) (2008).

This was the first concert that I realized was free to download from NPR.  (Which started me on a downloading frenzy!)  I was really psyched to see it because Radiohead has been one of my favorite bands for years but I’ve never seen them (and only really know their live stuff from the Live EP.  This concert is essential listening for any fan of later Radiohead (they play all of In Rainbows).

I was thinking about Radiohead’s history.  They had a sort of left-field grunge hit with “Creep” and seemed like they would be destined to play their one hit in every show until they retired.  Then The Bends was released and it had a whole bunch of hits, solidifying that they were not just a one hit wonder band.  Then OK Computer blew everyone out of the water and Radiohead were easily the best band of the 90s.

Even though “Creep” was a huge smash, it would seem weird to hear them play it now.  Their discs since Kid A have turned Radiohead into a hugely different band.  So during this set when someone shouts out “Anyone Can Play Guitar” it’s almost as unexpected as hearing someone shout “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”  (They didn’t play it…although they did play “The Bends”, which sounded kind of, but not totally, out of place).

The rest of the set includes 4 songs from Kid A, 3 songs from Hail to the Thief and 4 songs from OK Computer (and one from Thom Yorke’s solo album).  Nothing from Amnesiac.

The band sounds great, they have such a wonderful sense of mixing techno drums and squiggles with rocking guitars.  And the songs from Kid A forward are really great.  “The National Anthem” from Thief substitutes the crazy horns from the disc with wonderful samples from commercials, which works wonders.

The songs from OK Computer sound good but rather different, as if the band has a different set of instruments or technology.  “Lucky” sounds great as do the simpler tracks of “Karma Police and “No Surprises.”  The only song that I was vaguely disappointed in was “Paranoid Android” (one of my favorite tracks ever).  It sounds good, just different.  And that song is so complicated with so many bits and pieces that hearing it in a stripped down to an almost acoustic version is unsettling.

What I did like about “Paranoid” and many other tracks was the backing vocals.  In my studio experience the only voice we hear is Yorke’s, but live, someone is doing some great backing vocals, remaining faithful to Yorke’s original sound but just different enough to be really interesting.

We obviously miss a lot by not seeing the visuals of the show, but the audio is great.  The quality of the recording is fantastic and any Radiohead fans would be foolish not to download it.

[READ: December 23, 2010] “Hammer and Sickle”

I feel like DeLillo is a such an influential author, I can’t believe that he’s a) still alive and b) publishing stories in the New Yorker.  This story starts in such a mundane setting that I was worried it was going to be a run of the mill tale of  life in a minimum security prison.  We see the narrator dressed in an orange jump suit on the side of the road with a group of other prisoners.  He is thoughtful as the traffic whizzes past.

But the scene quickly switches back to the prison and this is where DeLillo becomes “DeLillo.”  In the central prison room, the prisoners begin watching a show every day.  The show consists of two teenaged girls reading the financial news.  Except that their news is more like free-form poetry.

“The fear is Dubai. The talk is Dubai.  Dubai has the debt. Is it 58 billion dollars or 80 billion dollars?”
“Bankers are pacing marble floors.”
“Or is it 120 billion dollars.”
“Sheiks are gazing into hazy skies.”
“Even the numbers are panicking.”
…
“The world’s only seven-star hotel.”
“The world’s richest horse race.”
“The world’s tallest building.”
“All this in Dubai.”
…
“But where is the oil?”
“The oil is in Abu Dhabi.  Say the name.”
“Abu Dhabi “

And the prisoners (most of them guilty of financial fraud of some kind) love it.  Even the Elder Prisoner (sentenced to over 700 years…his fraud caused some MAJOR international problems), the man who controls the remote, has deemed it appointment TV.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Javier Marías–“One Night of Love” (Harper’s, December 2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Buke and Gass, Death, Funny (strange), Harper's, Margaret Jull Costa, Prostitution, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Translation on January 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BUKE AND GASS-“Page Break” (2010).

NPR has selected the 50 best CDs of 2010.  I knew a few of them but had never heard of a bunch of other ones (about 20% are classical).  This CD with the bizarre cover has a great write up:

The wannabe tech-geek in me was initially attracted to Buke and Gass for the band’s two handmade instruments, which modify a baritone-ukulele and a guitar/bass hybrid run through heavy-duty amps (also handmade, mind you).

The problem (and perhaps its because I’m listening at Xmas time) is that the main melody line of the bridge makes me want to sing “Hark, Hear the Bells” and so this feels like a Christmas song even though it’s not.

Whoops– check that.  That melody is certainly there, but I just learned that I was listening to it in mono.  The other speaker presents all kinds of interesting things that distract from that melody (and project much more coolness).

I like the intensity of the track (and the fact that it’s under 2 minutes long).  It’s pretty heavy and the female vocals are nicely aggressive.  And by the end of the song, the syncopation is downright awesome.

It’s amazing how listening to the ENTIRE song can really change your mind.  This is definitely a cool track and will make me investigate the band more.

[READ: December 22, 2010] “One Night of Love”

I had recently gotten interested in reading Javier Marías when I was looking for information about Roberto Bolaño.  I discovered that New Directions Press, the publisher of all of Bolaño’s smaller books also published translations of all of Marías’ books too.  This story comes from his new collection of short stories While the Women Are Sleeping.  (I had also forgotten that McSweeney’s published his book Voyage on the Horizon a few years ago).

I didn’t know where Marías was from when I first started this (I assumed he was Mexican because of the New Directions connection–he’s actually from Spain).  Anyhow, when I thought he was from Mexico, I wondered if there was some kind of connection between his style and Bolaño’s, but also if he was trying to reintroduce magical realism to Bolaño (who abhorred magical realism).

Well that’s moot, (he may be doing that but not because he is from Mexico).

So this story concerns a man who is dissatisfied with his wife’s sexual appetite and performance.  He has taken to visiting prostitutes (see why the Bolaño thing rang true?), but he is concerned because the prostitutes  have grown “increasingly nervous and increasingly expensive” ([Nervous]?). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Terry Moore–Echo #25 & #26 (2010)

Posted in Adventure, Death, Los Campesinos!, Mad Scientists, Military, Smarty Pants, Strangers in Paradise, Supernatural, Technology, Terry Moore, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Yuck! on January 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LOS CAMPESINOS!-Tiny Desk Concert #67 (July 5, 2010).

This Tiny Desk show really accentuates what fun can be had with the Tiny Desk format. Los Campesinos! are an eight piece band, but only four of them could come (or could fit, anyhow) in the tiny office.  And so we get a hugely stripped down set from the wonderful Welsh band.

One of the real benefits of these Tiny Desk shows is that it really highlights the songs themselves.  I enjoy Los Campesinos!, but sometimes I feel like their songs are so busy it’s not always easy to know exactly what’s going on.  This set shows how cool and interesting these three songs are underneath all the wild sounds and effects.

It’s also fascinating to watch these four folks perform in this room with nothing to hide behind.  The singer doesn’t even have a microphone, he’s just standing there with his arms behind his back singing to a small room.  And how odd it must be to sing to a dozen or strangers the a capella ending of “Straight in at 101.”

The three tracks all come from Romance is Boring and include the wonderfully titled: “A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me To Charlotte”, “Straight In At 101” and “The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future.”

As you might be able to guess from the titles, the band is wordy and articulate.  What you might not be able to guess is just how sexually explicit their lyrics are.  Not dirty (well, a little dirty) just unabashedly frank (and its made even more so in this quiet setting).

You can watch (and download here).

[READ: December 15, 2010] Echo #25 & #26

These next two books in the series are really fantastic.  Issue #25 brings the confrontation with Cain to a head.  It almost comes too quickly–there has been so much lead-up to it that when they finally meet the confrontation is (necessarily) brief and explosive.  They finally meet at the top of a mountain (where yet another really gruesome act is done to someone–although really it pales to what happened to the guy who was practically a skeleton).  The intensity of the confrontation, and the excitement of the denouement made me think that the series was just about to end.

But them comes Issue #26 in which the final panel changes the entire game!  (more…)

Read Full Post »

McSweeney’s #36

Posted in Adam Levin, Adventure, All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Andrew Kennedy Hutchinson Boyd, Bicycle Built for Two, Bob Boilen, Buke and Gass, Carrie Brownstein, Colm Tóibín, Corporate skewering, Death, Deerhunter, Essays, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Gregg Turkington, Ian Huebert, Ismael Reed, Ismet Prcic, Jack Pendarvis, Jónsi, Jesse Eisenberg a, John Brandon, Jules de Balincourt, Kanye West, Leon Krier, Lower Dens, Ma Su Mon, Marriage Trouble, Mary Miller, Matt Furie, McSweeney's, Michael Chabon, Paul Collins, Ricardo Nuila, Royal Baths, Set at School, Short Story, Sigur Rós, Sleater-Kinney, Sophia Cara Frydman, Steve Delahoyde, Sufjan Stevens, Suicide, Tame Impala, The Capstan Shafts, The Collins Library, The Head and the Heart, The National, Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, Tim Heidecker, Travel, Unlikable main character on January 1, 2011| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: All Songs Considered Year End Music Roundup (2010).

Every year, I like to check various sources to see if there were any albums that I missed.  My definition of good resources: allmusic, amazon, pitchfork.  (There’s another fascinating list available here at Best Albums Ever, a site I’ve never seen before, and I have a large portion of the Top 50 albums.  I didn’t buy a lot of music this year, but evidently I chose wisely!).  I don’t necessarily agree with these lists, but if I see the same album on a few lists, I know it’s worth at least listening to.

This year, since I spent so much time on All Songs Considered, I thought I’d see their Best of Lists.  What’s awesome about the site is that you can hear not only selected songs in their entirety, you can also download the audio of the original show…where the DJs talk about their selections and play excerpts from them.   There are many different lists to investigate.

The most obvious one to star with is 50 Favorite Albums of 2010.  This shows the staff’s 50 favorite albums in all genres.  I admit that there’s going to be a lot on this list that I won’t bother exploring (I’m not really that interested in new classical or jazz and I’m not too excited by most pop music, although I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the Kanye West songs here).

But some albums did stand out that I hadn’t heard, and I will investigate them further in 2011:

Buke And Gass, ‘Riposte’
Deerhunter, ‘Halcyon Digest’ (I know, this is on many best of lists)
The National, ‘High Violet’ (This is also on everyone’s list)

Bob Boilen, All Songs Considered’s most awesome host, picks his Top 9 of the year.  I’m on board with about 1/2 of his list (haven’t heard the other half).  Sufjan Stevens is his #1.

Robin Hilton, Boilen’s partner in crime, has a Top Ten which is remarkably similar to Boilen’s.  It has most of the same albums just appearing in a slightly different order.  Lower Dens is #1. (I’ve never heard of them).

Carrie Brownstein (of beloved Sleater-Kinney and now evidently a permanent member of the NPR team) has a Top Ten (Plus One)–funny that she liked more than ten when Boilen liked less than ten.  I’m really surprised by her selection of albums because her own music is so punk and abrasive, but her top ten features R&B and some folky bands.  Her top album is by Royal Baths, a band I’ve never heard of.

Stephen Thompson also picked his Top Ten.  He has an interesting mix of alt rock and jazz.  His number one is by Jonsi from Sigur Rós. (A great album).

Perhaps the best list comes from 5 Artists You Should Have Known in 2010.  I didn’t know any of the 5.  Sarah bought me two CDs for Christmas (and she was pleased to have gotten me good music that I hadn’t heard of!).  The Head and the Heart hasn’t arrived yet, but The Capstan Shafts is great.  I’m also really excited by Tame Impala.

Another great list is Viking’s Choice: Best Metal and Outer Sound (stay tuned for much more from this list).  It is dominated by black metal, but there are a few surprises in there as well.

Even the All Songs Considered Top 25 Listener’s List was great.  I had most of the list (except for The Black Keys who I simply cannot get into).

Although I enjoyed a lot of new music this year, it’s always nice to see that there is some new (to me) stuff to investigate.  Who knows maybe some day I’ll even have listened to enough new music in a year to make my own Top Ten.

[READ: December 31, 2010] McSweeney’s #36

With McSweeney’s #36, it’s like they made my conceptual ideal.  Its weird packaging is fantastic and the contents are simply wonderful.  But let’s start with the obvious: this issue comes in a box.  And the box is drawn to look like a head.  You open up the man’s head to get to the contents.  Brilliant.  The head is drawn by Matt Furie (with interior from Jules de Balincourt’s Power Flower.

Inside the box are eleven items.  The largest are smallish books (postcard sized) running between 32 and 144 pages.  The smaller items are a 12 page comic strip, a nineteenth century mediation (8 pages) and 4 postcards that create a whole picture.  The final item is a scroll of fortune cookie papers.   The scroll is forty inches long with cut lines for inserting them into your own fortunes (I wonder if they will sell this item separately?)

Aside from the bizarre head/box gimmick (and the fact that there is ample room in the box for more items), the contents are really top-notch.  For while many of the books included are individual titles, there is also an actual “issue” of McSweeney’s (with letter column and shorter stories) as well.  So let’s begin there

ISSUE #36: New Stories and Letters.  The resurrected letters page continues with more nonsense.  I’ve often wondered if these are really written like letters or if they are just short pieces that have no other place to reside.  (Oh, and the back of this booklet contains the bios for everyone in here as well as assorted other folks who don’t have room for a bio on their items).

LETTERS (more…)

Read Full Post »

Lauren Hall (editor)–I Live Real Close to Where You Used to Live: Kids’ Letters to Michelle Obama (and to Sasha, Malia, and Bo) (2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Barack Obama, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Heather Woods Broderick, Holidays, Lauren Hall, McSweeney's, Michele Obama, Political Humor, Sharon Van Etten, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert on December 31, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN-Tiny Desk Concert #91 (November 14, 2010).

I was introduced to Sharon Van Etten via NPR’s All Songs Considered, so it’s no surprise that they would have her on a Tiny Desk Concert as well.  I loved her song, “Save Yourself” more than I could imagine.  There was something about the way the intensity built and built that really blew me away.  The rest of her album is really enjoyable, but it has less intensity. It’s almost like an acoustic album.

So it’s funny that I find her Tiny Desk show mildly disappointing because it is also an acoustic set. In fact, it is just her and her guitar (and her singing partner who sings wonderful harmonies).

Okay, I shouldn’t really say disappointed because the set is quote good.  Her guitar laying is fine and her voice, he unique and slightly unsettling voice is in fine form here.  There’s just something about the stripped down nature that takes away that extra sparkle that I really love about the disc.  I imagine that if I hadn’t heard the whole CD first, I would have been blown away by this live recording.

The four songs (“Peace Signs,” “Save Yourself,” “One Day,” “For You”) are all from Epic, and they’re all really good.  It’s a nice accompaniment to the album, but I think the album is a bit better.

[READ: December 13, 2010] I Live Real Close to Where You Used to Live

Back in early 2009, McSweeney’s published Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids’ Letters to President Obama as a friendly kick off to the President’s new term. We’re now at the end of the second year of that term and the “Have Fun” part seems to be rather unlikely.  But just in time for the rise of Boehner, McSweeney’s has published this companion piece, letters to the rest of the Obama family.  And it is just as sweet, clever and at times odd as the first.

The kids from 826 National in several cities were asked to write letters to the first family.  It’s interesting to see how the different regions ask different questions, but perhaps more interesting is how some things seem to resonate no matter where the kids are from.  Two kids ask about Pokémon Black and White (this must be the hot new game).  Several kids ask how many rooms there are in the White House.  Naturally, several ask about her garden (what she has in it or what kind of fruits and veggies she likes).

But the most fun is the advice the kids give.  My favorite is the girl who says that her aunt thinks Mrs Obama should have one more child (but only if she wants to).

Sadder are the children who are clearly having a rough time.  One child talks about her parents’ separation, and another’s entire letter is: “Can you help my family? We’re about to lose our house. Make the world a better place. What is your favorite food?”  It must be tough to be a prominent person who clearly wants to help yet who is for the most part, impotent to do anything.

And for me that has to be the hardest part about writing to the first lady.  She has no clear “role.”  She’s a public figure and she advocates for good, but she can’t really “do” anything.  And that has to be hard to grasp.  Although judging by what the kids say, maybe they have no problem with it. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jonathan Franzen–“Agreeable” (New Yorker, May 31, 2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Art Brut, Jonathan Franzen, Violence, Virginity (Loss of) on December 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ART BRUT Live from the 9:30 Club, November 29, 2007 (2007).

I’ve really enjoyed Art Brut’s two albums.  They are funny but they are not jokey.  They also rock really hard with wonderful, angular punk.

Sometimes I’ve felt the albums are a little bit…shall we say…perfect.  They are very tight and polished on record (which actually serves the records very well).  But I wondered what a live show would be like for them.

And I’m delighted to say that their live set is more shambolic than their records.  The shambolicness suits them very well, because they are clearly a lot of fun live.  As you might expect from the vocals on the records, Eddie Argos is practically a ringleader on stage.  He has playful funny banter; I love the way he introduces almost every song with “Are you ready Art Brut?”

I was also quite delighted with the way he introduced every band member with a song that he was the first musician on.  It allowed for spreading out the various interruptions of the music and really kept the flow.

Some of the guitar bits sound muddied (and I have to admit the recording level is a little lower than I would like–or maybe that’s the radio I’m playing it out of), but again, that adds to their punkier stylings.  But my favorite song “My Little Brother” sounds like it’s on fire!  The band plays it magnificent and the bass sounds amazing.  I was surprised that my second favorite song “Formed a Band” was more or less tacked on as a segment of the final track, but it works well in that location.

Perhaps the most surprising thing was the “drum solo” at the very end.  I kept expecting Argos to tell him to knock it off.  It’s a great live show.

The end of the show includes an interview with Eddie Argos and the singer from The Hold Steady (Art Brut opened for them on this tour).  The questions are mostly for The Hold Steady, but there’s enough or an Art Brut fan to keep listening all the way through.

[READ: December 15, 2010] “Agreeable”

So this is the final work that I printed out from the New Yorker by Jonathan Franzen.  And this means that I am done reading short Franzen works (actually, there’s one other piece that was available in Harper’s but I’m going wait on that one for a while).  Starting sometime in 2011, (although not right away) I’m going to begin reading his novels.

So, I assume this story is also excerpted from Freedom.  It concerns the same character as in the previous short story, “Good Neighbors” although she is not yet Patty Berglund.  She is still Patty Emerson and is a jock in high school.  Tying this in to yesterday’s story, Patty was an outcast even in her own family.  She was taller than all of her siblings and was much more athletic and aggressive.  Her mother had little time for her (she loved her artsy other daughters) and her father, a defense attorney, was often too busy for her.

The interesting set up of the story comes when we see her as a young girl.  She is, as mentioned, an outcast in her own family, and it seems that her father is quite a joker, often at her expense.  As a defense attorney, her father deals with many clients who are guilty and he is not above mimicking them to his family.  And this carries over when it comes to Patty as well.  He mocks her intellectual gaffes in front of everyone. And it’s unclear whether this is an odd way of showing love or just a nasty thing to do (well, it is nasty, but it’s unclear if it’s a clumsy attempt at affection). (more…)

Read Full Post »

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…)

Read Full Post »

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…)

Read Full Post »

T.C. Boyle–”What Separates Us from the Animals” (Harper’s, October 2010)

Posted in Animals, Belle and Sebastian, Gilmore Girls, Harper's, NPR/PRI/PBS, Susan Faludi, T.C. Boyle, Unlikable main character, World Cafe Live on December 8, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BELLE AND SEBASTIAN-World Cafe Live [downloaded from NPR] (2006).

This is a live in-studio session promoting The Life Pursuit.  David Dye conducts an interview between songs (we learn what “Funny Little Frog” is about and how “Seymour Stein” came to be).

Stuart and Stevie are animated and in good form and the band sounds excellent.  On “Funny Little Frog” in particular they sound like they’re really enjoying themselves.

The session is only 25 minutes long, but they play 4 songs: “Funny Little Frog”, “Meat and Potatoes,” “Seymour Stein” and “Sukie in the Graveyard.”  It’s worth a listen and it’s available here.

[READ: November 6, 2010] “What Separates Us from the Animals”

For some reason I always put off reading T.C. Boyle stories, even though I invariably enjoy them.  And this was no exception.  I saw that it was a fairly long story and I waited to read other things in this issue of Harper’s (Susan Faludi–where has she been all these years? and another NASCAR article–my second one in a few months after the article in McSweeney’s, which is pretty surprising since I’ve never seen more than a second of a race).

But back to Boyle.  I loved the technique involved in this story.  The narrator is a critical woman who makes claims towards being reasonable about her criticisms.  And the thing is, her criticisms are entirely justified and yet her attitude makes you want to disagree with her. It’s a very cool conceit–an unlikable narrator whose opinions happened to be your own.

What she’s critical of is the new doctor who arrives on their island (I’m gathering it’s Nantucket).  He was picked out of a couple of applicants to be the island’s only doctor, handling basic problems and issues (especially during the summer tourism season) but always with the understanding that serious problems would have to go to the mainland.  In addition to his salary he would receive free lodging in an older, historic house.

She met him on the night of his arrival in order to get him set up in the house.  She immediately invited him to dinner. He accepted for the following night and arrived at their own beautiful house in paint-spattered jeans and dirty work boots.  He ate well and then fell asleep on their couch.  Obviously, this did not set things off on the right foot.  But what was worse was that this dirty demeanor spilled over into the rest of his life: his car has a flat tire for two months and worse, his examination office is filthy too (something I’m totally on board with criticizing).  They’re also concerned with the state of the historic house, which no one has seen yet–what no invitations to cocktails? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jonathan Franzen–”The Comfort Zone: Growing up with Charlie Brown” (New Yorker, November 29, 2004)

Posted in A Camp, Charles Schulz, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), History, New Yorker, Newspapers, NPR/PRI/PBS, The Cardigans, WFUV 90.7 FM--New York City on December 7, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: A CAMP-Studio Sessions on WFUV [available on NPR] (2009).

I rather enjoyed A Camp’s latest album Colonia.  I discovered this session while browsing through NPR’s archives.  There’s a pretty lengthy (and amusing) interview with the band and then they play three acoustic songs: “Love Has Left the Room,” “Stronger Than Jesus” and “I Signed the Line.”

Nina’s voice sounds fantstic, and in such a simple acoustic session it’s her voice that really sells the music.  But this is another instance where an acoustic, stripped down session reveals the strength of the songs themselves.  The album has a lot of production, but when it’s just bare bones guitar and bass, the melodies still hold up.  And again, Nina’s voice just soars through these meloides.  Anyone who got sick of The Cardigans needs to hear what Nina Persson can do in other settings.

Check it out here.

[READ: October 29, 2010] “The Comfort Zone”

The subtitle gives the foundation of the article: Franzen loved Peanuts when he was growing up.  This article was timed to coincide with the release of the awesome Fantagraphics collection of original Peanuts cartoons. I’ve only read the first of these Peanuts books, but it was really eye-opening and quite fascinating to see that such odd thoughts were published on a daily basis on the comic section!  And, I hate to sound curmudgeonly (that’s Charlie Brown’s job) but Franzen is right, the original Peanuts cartoons are far more existentially dark and satisfying than the fluffy Snoopy & Woodstock cartoons of the late 70s and 80s.

Anyhow, Franzen loved these early comics (and he makes a wonderful comment about spending a lot of time (probably age-inappropriate time) with talking animals: Snoopy, Narnia, A.A. Milne).   But as with all of these longer Franzen articles, it’s about much more than just Charlie Brown.   One night when he was a young boy, his older brother Tom had a huge fight with their parents and stormed out.   Franzen sets this up in the context of generation gap that was sweeping through the country in the late 60s/early 70s.

And it’s this unsettledness that also explains the popularity of the Peanuts cartoons. Despite all of the differences between generations, everyone agreed that they loved Peanuts (except for Franzen’s parents, evidently–his dad never read the funnies, and his mom only liked a strip called The Girls, which sounds like a prototype of Cathy).

The other angle that this article takes is about losers.  Charlie Brown was a loser, there’s no doubt.  But Franzen himself was a winner.  He was the king of spelling bees in his school. (This relates to Charlie Brown misspelling “maze” as MAYS, a perfect misspell for a sports fan).  And when a new kid comes to challenge him he steps up his game…and makes the kid cry.

This, of course, leads to guilt. Charlie Brown one said, “Everything I do makes me feel guilty.” And now Franzen feels guilty about the boy in his class, and about being mean to a frog as a kid and about the wash cloths at the bottom of the closet which don’t get used enough (Sarah and I have jokey guilt about that too) and even about the stuffed animals who don’t get cuddled enough. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »