SOUNDTRACK: BUILT TO SPILL-“Carry the Zero” (1999).
For a time, before the bands each took off, I lumped Built to Spill, Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse into a pile of bands I really liked but wasn’t always sure who was who. They each have melodic sections, noisy sections and high pitched singers. (It also turns out that both Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie cite Built to Spill as a big influence). The big difference between the three is that Built to Spill’s Doug Martsch is a guitar god—he does amazing solos which is why his songs are so long (their Live album features a 20 minute version of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer.”
I have no real idea what this song is about, but I love it. It’s catchy and fun with a great melody. And, in this case it kind of ties in to JR, because JR is all about making money but his basic math is shaky. In the same way, carrying the zero won’t do anything in basic math. Although “you have become a fraction of the sum” is a nice refrain.
This was the song and album that introduced me to Built to Spill and I love it. Great 90s alt rock.
[READ: Week of June 25, 2012] JR Week 2
And since there are no paragraph breaks, week two picks up mid-flow. However, this proved to be a good breaking point because almost the entire read for this week is about Mrs Joubert and her class on their field trip to the New York Stock Exchange. And Edward Bast is steamrollered into doing (and paying for) everything. Gaddis’ style completely allows for the miscommunication and ease with which Bast is overtaken by Joubert and Gibbs. While it certainly calls into question Bast’s ability to stand up for himself, it also shows how easily one can be pushed into doing things (although in real life I suspect you’d just say “wait a minute, I can’t,” at some point). It’s still very funny and the action moves along so quickly that it works perfectly with the flow.
The scene begins with Mrs Joubert herding the kids onto a car and then talking to Mr Bast. He apologizes for what happened yesterday, Of course, he is talking about his disastrous TV meltdown but she thinks he means the loss of the bag of money and its turning up 3 pennies short. Through a series of unsubtle hints from Mrs Joubert, Mr Bast winds up joining their trip to the city. He had business to conduct in Manhattan so he was going in anyway, but now he’s roped in with the kids. There’s a lot of sexual tension on this trip–the boys are watching women bend over and Mr Bast keeps pressing his body again “her unyielding thigh.”
Then we get our first really big scene with JR. In this scene he and a friend (unnamed as far as I can tell) are going through all of their free mail publications and doing trades. Everything the boys try to trade is a load of crap (a word count on “crap” would be very high indeed). So the kids start looking through their brochures: K’ung-p’a, piano lessons, rare coins, scientific method builds powerful muscles,government surplus (a Tank that turns out to be an airplane gas tank (ha)), How to Make Big Profits Overseas, selling shoes, etc. There’s some very funny back and forth as smart-assed kids will do (he really has young kids’ dialogue down very well), like :What are you gonna do where it says “married” or what are you gonna do when it says shoe size and you put yours? (more…)
I Just Read About That... 