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Archive for the ‘Mennonites’ Category

Chris Ying–The Wurst of Lucky Peach: A treasury of encased meat (2016)

Posted in Ach'ii', Adam Leith Gollner, Amelia Gray, Australia, Chicago, IL, Chicago-style Hot Dogs, Chili, Chris Ying, Corn Dog, currywurst, Food, France, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Huitlacoche, Kanga Bangas, Ketchup, kielbasa, Libya, Lisa Abend, Lucky Peach, Mennonites, Mustard, Nem Nuong, North Korea, Peter Meehan, Pigs in a Blankets, Poo, Pork Roll, Portugal, Sausage Sizzle, Sausages, Scotland, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Toad in the Hole, Tunisia, Vietnam, Waffle Hot Dogs, Würst Nürse, white pudding, Yuck! on November 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WÜRST NÜRSE-Hot Hot Hot (2018).

I wanted to find a soundtrack that would go with a book about wurst.  I found this fantastic Australian band with a hilariously appropriate name who also happen to be a band that rails against sexism.

In fact, one of the members of the band is in the fantastic feminist band Camp Cope!

Their story:

In 2016, five nurses with a sick-of-your-shit attitude put down their scalpels to pick up their instruments and Würst Nürse was born!  Würst Nürse are ripping out the stitches of the patriarchy with their dominating & satirical lyrics.  The band consists of Georgia McDonald (Camp Cope) as singing nurse, Anna Stein & Stephanie Butigan as guitar nurses, Morgan Sterley as bass nurse & Abbie Laderman as drummer nurse. Since Würst Nürse’s Fürst Rehürsal they have been administrating sludgey fever-inducing riffs & a power pop energy hot enough to send you into heart block.

This EP has four songs and is 13 minutes long.

It is musically brash with catchy melodies and sing-along choruses.  But its the biting lyrics that are so much fun

Like on “Hot Doctor” which is three chords and a sing along chorus of:
Hot Doctor
Hot Doctor
He’s gonna pay my bills
He’s gonna pay my rent
Hot Doctor
Hot Doctor
Gonna quit my job
Never have to work again

Although the verses are a bit more subversive

I give the wrong meds to get your attention
I want your hot beef injection
Hot Doctor
So, it turns out I didn’t even need that bachelor’s degree anyway
When I saw you walking down the hallway
Oh, Hot Doctor are you coming back to my place?
Your blue scrubs they rub up the right way

“Hot Surgeon” is very different from “Hot Doctor.”  There’s no big chanting chorus, but the lyrics are very different:

I wanna drill into your head
You’re such a hot surgeon
I bet you give great head
I know you’ve got your doctorate
Hot Surgeon
Know your way around a woman
I could help you out in theatre
You could help me put in a catheter
You, me and the Hot Doctor could get it on after hours

Okay maybe not that different.  But it turns out that they are connected:

I wanna get with the hot surgeon
Nobody tell the hot doctor
I don’t wanna ruin my chances

“Hot Brown Rain” is very different from the other “hot” songs because it is a hilariously revolting song about, well, being “number 8 on the Bristol stool chart” [The chart only goes up to 7, ew].  “from your underwear, how did it get in my hair?”  The chorus is surprisingly catching or catchy.

“Dedication Doesn’t Pay The Rent” has big stomping verses and much more pointed lyrics:

Knowledge learnt
Is money spent
And I still owe
The government
And they cut
My pay again
Those suit wearing white men

The chorus is very satisfying too:

No dedication don’t pay the rent
If you cut my pay
I’ll cut your oxygen

Of course I don’t want to see Camp Cope end, but I sure hope Würst Nürse releases more music.

[READ: Summer 2019] The Wurst of Lucky Peach

I really enjoyed Lucky Peach magazine.  It was often exhausting to read them since they were so packed with content (not unlike a sausage).  I was bummed when the magazine folded.  But in addition to several great issues, they also left behind some of these really fun and interesting cookbook-type collections.

This book is more than a series of recipes that I will likely never make or eat.  It is a fun history of the sausage that travels from Europe to the Americas to Australia and beyond.

Chris Ying says he loves sausage.  He says he might be in the world’s best lobster restaurant, but if there’s sausage on the menu that’s what he’s getting.  This book is fill of sausage history, sausage based humor (they tried to limit the number of dirty jokes, but failed often and with gusto). (more…)

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Jonathan Dyck & Christine Kampen Robinson–“Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Bolivia, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Chris Ware, Christine Kampen Robinson, Jonathan Dyck, Mennonites, Miriam Toews, Radco, Religion, Sexism, Sexual Assault, The Poubelles, The Walrus on July 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RADCO-“Didn’t You Know” (2017).

Since this essay is about Mennonites, I decided to see if I could find any Mennonite rock bands.  Well, Radco was a “punk” rock band from Vancouver, BC.

Drummer Amber Banman described their music as

A heart crushing, unstoppable, rock and roll machine. Ha-ha .We like to say we’re too polite for punk rock as we all generally mind our P’s and Q’s. But oh boy, can we rock!

They have a few songs on bandcamp.

This song does rock (although there is a xylophone melody at the end).  It’s catchy with solid guitars.

The lyrics are indeed a polite diss track:

Pay attention
Before you miss
All of these things
That you could have kissed
Didn’t you know I wanted to go
But you left me standing by my front door

As of 2018 Radco were no more, although three of them went on to form The Poubelles (Amber sings lead in this band).

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows.  I haven’t read her book A Complicated Kindness, but I gather that it (like Sorrows) shines a light on Mennonite culture.

The introduction to this piece says that Kindness introduced the world to the Mennonites of Manitoba’s Bible belt.  Her 2018 novel Women Talking is a fictionalized account of women living in the aftermath of sexual assault in an ultraconservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia (that book sounds painful to read).

This piece is a collection of cartoon panels each one a person expressing a real sentiment about Toews (although the panels are fictionalized). (more…)

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Benjamin Hertwig–“The Space Between Trees” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Benjamin Hertwig, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Mennonites, Military, Poets, Pretty Green, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Tree planting, Trees, Violence, War, Work on July 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PRETTY GREEN-“I’ll Follow the Rain” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

This song was written and performed almost entirely by Ed Blocki, who I guess is Pretty Green (he has other people play violin and cello).

Blocki is (and maybe was) a producer.  This song sounds so much like a ton like a 1970s folk recording, which must be intentional.

It’s really slow and mellow.  I have to assume it was written as a reaction song to The Beatles’ “I’ll Follow the Sun,” there’s just too much similarity.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “The Space Between Trees”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed this short story–the way it juxtaposed two very different jobs.  But the ending was really abrupt and unsatisfying.  There was so much going on that I hope it is an excerpt from a novel because as short story it falls flat.

Benjamin Hertwig is a poet.  This might explain why the language of the story is so good, and maybe also while it feel so elliptical.

This is also yet another story about people (specifically a young woman) planting trees in Canada for a summer job.  I have read at least four stories about this profession and it makes it seem like this is a very common thing that most young Canadian try (and quickly give up because it sucks) at least once in their life. (more…)

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David Means–“The Botch” (Harper’s, November 2008)

Posted in American Museum of Natural History, Ben Allison, Daniel Hope, David Means, Depression, Guns, Johann Paul von Westhoff, Johann Sebastian Bach, Max Richter, Mennonites, Revenge, Robbery, Sexism, Short Story, Violence on November 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DANIEL HOPE-three pieces (Field Recordings, August 21, 2013).

The only thing I like more than a Field Recording set outside, is one set in an unlikely building, like the way this Field Recording [Daniel Hope’s Earth And Sky Expedition] is set in the American Museum of Natural History.

When Daniel Hope was a boy, the only thing he loved as much as his violin was his telescope. Gazing into the night sky, he pondered the vastness of space. Now a grown man, Hope still has a penchant for wonder and discovery — especially when it comes to music.

In his latest album, Spheres, Hope returns to the spirit of those early astronomical adventures. His idea, he says, is “to bring together music and time, including works by composers from different centuries who might perhaps not always be found in the same galaxy.” The unifying factor is the big question: Is there anything out there?

What better place to play with that ancient query than the Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. We invited Hope and jazz bassist-composer Ben Allison into the “performance crater” in the Hall of Planet Earth.

As if the Hall isn’t interactive enough — with its glowing orbs and 4.3 billion-year-old zircon crystal — we wrangled afternoon museum-goers to participate in our own Earth and sky expedition. Equipped with small flashlights, they became the twinkling stars surrounding Hope and Allison in the darkened room.

The music seems to live and breathe in the space, as each of the three pieces (spanning four centuries) reverberates a unique voice. “Imitation of the Bells,” with its rippling arpeggios and tolling bass line, comes from the long forgotten Johann Paul von Westhoff, a German violin master who crisscrossed Europe a generation before J.S. Bach. In “Berlin by Overnight,” from contemporary Max Richter, Hope’s violin asteroids whiz past while Allison’s bass propels through outer space. And finally, the otherworldly beauty that is Bach’s “Air on a G String” floats in a safe, gentle stasis.

It’s neat watching the little kids swing their flashlights around while the older kids watch on, bored, from the balcony during “Imitation of the Bells.”  Hope’s violin is flying in a flurry of activity while the bass keeps things grounded.

I’m not sure that I have heard many violin pieces performed with a bass accompaniment.  The bass doesn’t add a lit of melody to the violin work, but it adds a very cool feeling of grounding and rhythm especially in “Berlin by Overnight.”  The piece feels very contemporary with a cool, fast, Glassian kind of repetitiveness.  And the bass adds occasional notes (that feel like rock bass notes, he plucks so hard) to keep the pace going.

The bass is much more pronounced on the familiar J.S. Bach: Air on a G String.  I feel an imperceptible sitting up straight once the first notes ring out of the violin.  But I keep coming back to the bass.  The violin melody is so pretty and so familiar that it’s interesting to listen to the way the bass plays off those notes.

[READ: February 9, 2018] “The Botch”

I have not enjoyed Means’ stories in the past.  They’re usually pretty violent and just not my thing.

This one was a bit more enjoyable until the end.  The only problem with it per se was that it was about a bank robbery and I feel like there’s not much you can say about a bank robbery that hasn’t been said in films and stories already.

But there’s some interesting tweaks.  It is set around the Great Depression–tommy guns and wise guys.  And the mastermind behind the scheme has thought out everything ahead of time.  There is a repeated refrain of “the idea is” which I kind of liked.  Although for some reason it bugged me when it was switched to just “idea being,” which I know is how it would be said, but it bristled. (more…)

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Tom Angleberger [Sam Riddleburger]–The Rat with the Human Face: The Qwikpick Papers #2 (2015)

Posted in All Songs Considered, ÌFÉ, Children's Books, Easter, Funny (ha ha), Hotels, Humiliation, Jen Wang, Mennonites, Ms. Pac-Man, Oddities, Rats, Religion, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Tom Angleberger, Yuck! on May 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: ÌFÉ-Tiny Desk Concert #736 (April 29, 2018).

ÌFÉ is from Puerto Rico.  Creator Otura Mun has a fascinating history as to how he wound up creating this band:

Otura Mun started out in the world as Mark Underwood, a Goshen, Ind., native whose parents were Mennonites and who managed to snag a coveted spot on the University of North Texas’ drumline. But that was before a flight mixup landed the percussionist, composer, DJ and producer with a free trip to Puerto Rico. Two years later, he moved permanently to the island, became a Yoruban high priest and began creating electronic music that channeled the African diaspora.

Woah.

So ÌFÉ (pronounced ee-faye) combines traditional Afro-Cuban drumming and chanting with a kind of Jamaican dancehall sound.  Midway through the set, Mun explains that he drilled holes into the traditional acoustic drums and has attached electronics to them, essentially making them triggers, but with the traditional acoustic sound as an overtone.  It’s pretty amazing.

The group’s debut album, IIII+IIII, (pronounced “Edgy-Og-Beh”) is a fresh electronic take on tradition that’s winning over even the most devout practitioners of the western African-based spiritual ceremonies that form the base of their music. That’s hard to do with ritual music.

Although interestingly, for the first song “House of Love (Ogbe Yekun),” they play acoustically.

For their turn behind the Tiny Desk, Otura Mun and his ensemble unplug their drums for their first tune, an acoustic version of their “House of Love (Ogbe Yekun)”.

This acoustic sound is quite compelling in itself.  Yaimir Cabám plays a beautiful acoustic guitar (pretty, simple chords) and sings, I believe wordlessly.  Meanwhile, the rest of the band plays various percussion: simple electronic percussion and shaker and various hand drums.  Anthony Sierra on congas keeps the rhythm.

After a verse, Otura Mun joins in on vocals (with deep backing vocals from Beho Torrens).  It’s a quiet, soothing song with occasional punctuation from the drums.  When the melody finally changes after 4 minutes, it sounds like a massive shift even if it’s just a few notes.

“Prayer for Oduduwa (Para Meceditas)” opens with bells and shakers and some interesting electronic splashes before the massive amounts of electronics take over the song.  I believe Rafael Maya joins them and was not their for song one.

The sound of the second song here is what startled me when I heard the band’s debut CD last year: the parts normally performed on Afro-Cuban bata drums and chekeres are electronically treated for a traditional prayer for the deity Oduduwa.

They sing in a traditional chanting style including an awesome low chant (from Torrens) that sounds otherworldly.

By the last tune, “Bangah (Pico Y Palo),” the electronics have created a sonic playground that plays perfectly against the battery of Afro-Cuban rhythms.   “Bangah,” focuses on a reflection of the Orisha Ogún, the owner of war in the religion, whose main tool is the machete.

Mun says he wanted to play urban music you could improvise and to use percussion as the basis–Cuban rumba combined with Jamaican dancehall.  He demonstrates some sounds and then a deep rumbling bass: “we got your nasty subs that you know from that the stuff that’s nasty.”

The song is a shout out to those struggling against the vestiges of colonialism still prevalent in Puerto Rico.

They begin the song with a “breathe in” [inhale] let it out Ahhh!

I love the way the various voices are processed.  Torrens sound deeper and Cabám’s voice sounds alien and like it is three voices at once.  The various lines are interspersed with interesting vocals sounds: grunts and screams that punctuate the verses.

It’s a very cool set.

[READ: March 19, 2018] The Rat with the Human Face

In 2014, Angelberger’s first book The Qwikpick Adventure Society was reissued as Poop Fountain.  He then wrote two more books in this trilogy.

This is the second book (written in 2015) and it opens with this

This is the second of three stacks of papers this guy found in a storage room at the old Qwikpick gas station in Crickenburg.  The guy, who asked me not to use his name, called me because one of my old newspaper articles was in the first stack.  (You know I was a reporter before I wrote the Origami Yoda books, right?)

Then he reminds the readers that this book is set in 2000–kids didn’t have iPhones or smartphones.  They didn’t have phones at all and cameras took forever to charge the flash and they drained the batteries fast.

So the entire Qwikpick Adventure Society: Lyle, Marilla and Dave is back, but this story begins with bad tidings–the Qwikpick Adventure Society was disbanded after this adventure.  (more…)

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Arthur Yorinks, Braden Lamb & Shelli Paroline–Making Scents (2017)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Adoption, Arthur Yorinks, Babies, Braden Lamb, Canadian Music, Children's Books, Constantines, Death, Dogs, First Second :01, Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Huh?, Mennonites, NoMeansNo, Rheostatics, Shelli Paroline, The Tragically Hip, tagged on December 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Fall Nationals, Night 8 of 10, The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (December 15, 2005).

This was the 8th night of their 10 night Fall Nationals run at the Horseshoe.  Guest Vocalist Night.  Ford Pier on keyboards.

This guest vocalist night is a bit smaller than previous ones.  There aren’t twenty-six singers.  There’s only fourteen in total and a bunch of them sing two songs.  The show also runs just over 2 hours with the band singing some of their own songs at the end.   It’s like a tight, efficient guest night rather than a sprawling one.

Ford calls it “karaoke night.”  Dave nixes that, “Lets not call it that.  You have to be far more hammered to do that.”  Ford: “This is more like Star Search.  Mike sets forth the terms: “henceforth, we will be effectively mute except in support roles.”

As usual, they open with an instrumental “Four Little Songs.”  It’s always really interesting to hear this multi-part song with just the music.

“Produce the first victim!”

Here’s Selina Martin singing “Soul Glue” which segues into a very pretty “California Dreamline” (also by Selina).

Next up are Nick and Graham from Belleville.  Dave asks, “How’s Belleville?”  “No snow there.”  “It’s the Winter Nationals Pro-Am” as they sing “Fat” and do a terrific job.

Jennifer Foster comes out to sing “The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos.”  Tim says, “Jen’s trying to play ‘stump the band.'”  Ford jokes, “Maybe you’ll wind up playing keyboard next year.”  Dave: “Coz we’re firing Ford’s ass.”  It is such a shame the mic gets staticky and cuts out because she does a good job with this hard song.  She notes, “its cutting in and out.”  Tim:”So were our brains.”

Then there’s a double shot of Don Kerr.  He says he’s going to do a double shot from his favorite album.  A terrific “Introducing Happiness” is followed by a change of selection.  He says he changed it just today.  They do “Fan Letter To Michael Philip.”  Don says it’s a real fan letter.  Dave: Don Kerr will personalize  a song to you for a small fee.”

Some of the lyrics:

I have all your records/
I have even helped you make a few
Among my favorite producers would be
Tchad Blake and you
…
I  would like a fan club letter/
but one of your Juno awards would suit me better
…
When i joined the Rheostastics / I was met by a lot of Dave Clark fanatics
I know they did the same thing to you / but just like me you made it through

During the end there are backing vocal chants of “Wojewoda.”  He must have been pretty overwhelmed.

Patrick Finch comes on to sing “Junction Foil Ball.”  Dave asks him, “And how’s that go exactly?”  Patrick: “It’s nice.”  And they do a great version.

I am amused to hear that someone is shouting requests.

Sarah Harmer comes out two songs.  A sweet “Loving Arms” (I love that Tim adds the spoken “Jeez, I don’t know” line, which is part of the song but it sounds amusing and sweet.  Mike: “That somehow just sounded right.”  It’s followed by a wonderful “Claire.”

Paul McLeod comes out and Ford says, “This guys isn’t as good-looking at the last one.”  Dave, “I don’t know, have you ever seen him in bicycle shorts?”  He does an excellent version of “Jesus Was Once A Teenager Too.”

Sean Cullen comes out for two songs.  “Power Ballad For Ozzy Osbourne” has a terrific voice for this rather silly song.  At the end, he scream/sings “he’s going off the rails.”   Then Cullen does a lengthy improvised Christmas Song.  It’s very funny and a twisted retelling of the Jesus story.  Some amusing lines:

Joseph was good with his hands and good with the ladies.
There was going to be a huge new tax. What an asshole Caesar was.
100s of men with their young pregnant wives clogging the roads.
They put him in a manger, which was weird, because cows were trying to eat.
The horse said to the turkey, you look ridiculous, look at you.  Sit down and shut up (the horse was a real asshole).
The turkey said I’m going to fight for Jesus.
The temple guard laughed because it was a turkey.  The guards fought and killed him, filled him with seasoned bread and threw him on the fire.
The angel came down and said you bastards.
The guards said, lets eat it and take a bit of him home with us.
We dream of that first Christmas where a turkey gave his life.  And the horse was an asshole.
It’s the Christmas turkey on Christmas day.  Thank you turkey for fighting for Jesus.
Dave: “I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
Mike: “What album was that off of?”

Robin Lowe comes out to sing “Sweet Rich Beautiful and Mine.”  Robin has been selling stuff for us this week.  Public congratulations, Robin got married to Steve Clarkson, our sound man, this week.  Robin sings a duet with Martin.  Dave: “Well, isn’t that sort of cheating, Robin?”  Robin hits some amazing high notes.  They sound great together.  This version gives me chills.

“Take Me In Your Hand” is sung by Howard Druckman and Beverly Kreller.  Howard is one of our oldest and dearest friends.  Dave: “I’ve been demoted to bass.”  They’re giving the rest of the band a break.”  The song ends with penny whistle and bongos.

Yawd Sylvester comes out to sing Tim’s song “Row.”  Tim Vesely, Yawd’s rhythm guitarist.  Yawd went on tour with Violet Archers and Tim promised it would  be Rheos-free.  But after the encore, Yawd would go out for a smoke and Tim would do “Row” as an encore.  It’s a bit too slow and the world is incredibly rude throughout the quietness.

Ida Nilsen comes out to sing Marginalized.  It’s a little too un-intense.   Tim Sings the Vic Chesnutt song “Little Caesar” at the end.”

Paul Linklater from Justice, Manitoba, the Scribbled Out Man, comes out to sing “Horses.”  He’s great for the song. At some point Paul starts chanting “Put away wet” for some reason.  Dave says guys, throw it into G for a second.  Dave starts playing a simple riff which Ford turns into “Hang on Sloopy.”  Which he sings: “I don’t know the words to hang on sloopy / that’s okay it’s not a Rheostatics song / so we shouldn’t do it / It’s all wrong.
“Back to B minor.  Now its a Tragically Hip song.”   Paul is really intense at the end.

Someone shouts, “Soul Glue.”  Dave replied, “we did it the first song!”

Justin Rutledge utterly rips through “Feed Yourself.”  It is just rocking and intense.

Ron Koop comes up and Dave says, “Mennonites are the most ticklish people.  Ron, you’re so ticklish.  I don’t mean to generalize, but generally…”

Oddly, someone keeps shouting “Hey, it’s Christmas, play The River, please.  C’mon Gordy, save us.  The River!”  Mike mutters: “shut up.”

Ron sings a lovely “Making Progress.”  And at the end she says, “How about the best band in Canada.”  Dave: “Are the Constantines here?”

They come back for an encore and say “we’ll do a couple where we sing just to mix things up and get ready for tomorrow.”

Dave also asks, “Shauna, can we get some new flowers.  Are replacement flowers in the budget?  They’re starting to bum me out.”  Martin: “Strangely just yours are dying, Dave.”

“PIN it up, Marty.”   In the middle Dave sings “I want some flowers.”  Tim notes: Thanks to Great Aunt Ida for opening tonight.  They were awesome.”

In the audience, that ass is still screaming for The River.  So Ford sings.

When I speak the words I repeat
Are lost within this roaring

I know the one by No Means No, it takes about 9 minutes to play, but it can be done.

They end the nearly two and a half hour show with “Stolen Car.”  Tim starts by playing “Jingle Bells” on the bass really quietly.  But then the song rocks out to the end.

A final note from Darrin, who posts all of these shows:

10 Years later I randomly met Robin Lowe on Sept 4th, sold Jennifer Foster my spare ticket for the Saturday night AGO show on Sept 5 2015, and Selina sang with the band on Sept 6 at the Monarch Tavern after AGO Party.

[READ: July 27, 2017] “Making Scents”

My nine-year-old daughter Tabby liked this book.  And I know that because as I was complaining about the massive problems I had with it, she said she liked it.  So, I guess its good for nine-year-olds.

But I like a lot of books that are good for nine-year-olds.  And I did not like this one.

The premise is a weird one to start: Mickey’s parents raise bloodhounds.  As such, they teach him to be a great sniffer as well.  Cute, right?

The story begins with Mickey writing his life story: “First I was born.”  Next half of the sentence… “then I was put in a tree.”

What?  So he is an abandoned baby and someone thought it would be smart to put him in a tree in the woods?

The next scene puzzled me even more. (more…)

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Miriam Toews–All My Puny Sorrows (2014)

Posted in Canadian Content, Depression, Funny (ha ha), Hospitals, Matthew Zapruder, McSweeney's, Mennonites, Miriam Toews, Missy Mazzoli, Music, Parenting, Roomful of Teeth, Sex, Suicide, Victoire, Wilco on April 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

ampsSOUNDTRACK: MISSY MAZZOLI-Vespers For A New Dark Age (2015).

missymazzoli_sq-80d1109aad30ab9a4bfe1a45d5c82d99354bc079-s400-c85Missy Mazzoli’s Vespers for a New Dark Age, is a 30-minute suite for singers, chamber ensemble and electronics. The piece was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the 2014 Ecstatic Music Festival.

It’s a fascinating mix of traditional and contemporary instruments.  And there’s a surprise musician as well: Martha Cluver and Virginia Warnken Kelsey from Roomful of Teeth, provide operatic soprano voices.  Mazzoli’s own ensemble Victoire, provides the music while Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche adds percussion and thunderous pounding.

As the suite opens, electronic chimes sound before the beautifully soaring voices come in (I don’t know who is who).  The instrumentation is complex and the vocals are often in English (but operatic and not always obvious to hear). There’s some great rising and falling notes from various instruments.

The first piece is called “Wayward Free Radical Dreams” and I like the surprise of the simple English phrase “Come on, come on come on” A bell ringing is the segue into part 2, “Hello Lord.”  Over a lonely flute and some synths, the vocalist sings a poem by Matthew Zapruder for lines like: “hello lord / sorry I woke you / because my plans / are important to me / and I need things / no one can buy / and don’t even know / what they are / I know I belong / in this new dark age.”

I love the rising and falling notes of “Interlude 1″ over the fast violin moments.  “Come On All You” opens with some ticking hi-hats and squeaky violins.  There’s a lot of drums in this song—some punctuate the melody until the soprano voice takes over and then around 4 minutes into the section, the drums burst to life.  “New Dark Age” has some moody synths under the soaring voices and “Interlude 2” opens with the sound of big deep bells.

“Machine” has a mechanical staccato feel in both strings and voices.  When it returns to “Come on Come on” refrain (this time with two voices), it’s very cool.  The “Postlude” ends the piece with moody strings and distorted mechanical sounds that overwhelm the voices at times.   The piece ends on an up note but not in an overwhelmingly happy feeling.

The final piece on the disc is not part of the suite, although it fits in sonically.  It is called “A Thousand Tongues (Lorna Dune Remix)” and it has echoing pianos and overlapping synths.  While this piece is pretty it is probably the least interesting of the disc.  Perhaps because there are fewer voices and more synth melodies.  Perhaps because it is a remix.  The song feels fine, but not as compelling as the suite.

I was happy to discover his disc, which really explores different classical motifs.

[READ: March 15, 2015] All My Puny Sorrows

As with many books, but especially those published by McSweeney’s, which I always read, I didn’t really know what this was about.  I can pretty much guarantee it would not have been high on my list had anyone told me it was about dealing with a suicidal sibling.

But what’s great about the McSweeney’s imprint is that they gather such a wide variety of books and most of them are of such good quality that I know I won’t be disappointed.  And this book not only didn’t disappoint, I found it really fantastic.

The story is fairly simple, although from my perspective it was also fairly exotic.  The main action of the book takes place in present day Winnipeg.  But there are flashbacks to the main characters’ childhood in 1979.  And the way it opens–with the family watching as the house that their father built is put on the back of a truck and driven away is one of the more memorable opening passages of a book that I’ve read.

The family consists of the narrator  Yolandi, her older sister Elfrieda and their parents.  And, perhaps most exotic to me they are Mennonites.  Their family is not entirely pious in the tradition in their town–they are seen as somewhat less than observant.  Things were made even worse by the deliberately provocative nature of Elf.  She was creative, she loved to read and she had a real sense of outrage.  The church pastor once accused her of “luxuriating in the afflictions of he own wanton emotions.”  She embraced poetry, particularly the line “all my puny sorrows” and decided it would be her slogan.  So she began spray paining AMPS all over the town. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Train” (Harper’s, April 2012)

Posted in Alice Munro, Canadian Content, Cancer as plot device, Destroyer, Harper's, Lavender Diamond, Mennonites, Religion, Short Story, The Decemberists, Trains on April 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LAVENDER DIAMOND-“New Ways of Living” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

This song plays around with the Destroyer original a little bit more than some of the other covers have.  Lavender Diamond’s lead vocalist is a woman, Becky Stark, so her voice is different from Dan Bejar’s.  Of course, Bejar’s voice is kind of high-pitched so it’s not that different.  The original also has a female backing vocal on all of the Lie-Dee-Dies, which Lavender Diamond supplies by herself.

The Destroyer version is softer, a bit more delicate (especially the ending section which is washes of strings and gentle keyboards).  Lavender Diamond’s version is primarily piano, and that starkness somehow makes the song more intense.  So yes,  I find myself enjoying the Lavender Diamond version a wee bit more.  I hadn’t heard much by Lavender Diamond before (I knew that Becky Stark was on the Decemeberists’ Hazards of Love album).  But I think it’s time to investigate her stuff a little bit more.

[READ: April 5, 2012] “Train”

I had put off reading this story for a little while because it was pretty long (12 pages in Harper’s which is quite long for a Harper’s story).  Not only was it justifiably long, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

The story was set up in an unexpected way (especially for Munro whose stories tend to be pretty straightforward).  It opens with a man jumping off a train (I also tend to think of Munro as writing about women, so a male protagonist is also something of a surprise).

So Jackson hops off of a train.  It was going slow, but it hurt more than he expected.  After he gets his bearings, he realizes that he is closer to civilization than he realized–indeed, there’s a woman out milking a cow.  The woman turns out to be Belle (the cow is Margaret Rose).

After years of reading different kinds of stories, there were so many different ways this meeting could have gone (most of them badly).  But Munro tends to not write about physical violence, so this meeting goes pretty well–it’s not even all that awkward because Belle is a sweet, almost naive, woman.

Belle lives by herself, although that is a recently development.  Her mother passed away a few months ago after decades of needing a lot of physical help.  Her father has been dead for many years–he was hit by a train.  He used to take care of Belle’s mother, but once he died, the responsibility was all hers.

She was also more or less supported by the Mennonites who live up the road.  The introduction of them is wonderful, as it is how Jackson sees them: “Over the hill came a box on wheels, being pulled by two quiet small horses….  And in the box sat half a dozen or so little men.   All dressed in black with proper black hats on their heads.”

Of course, these little men are the Mennonite children who look after her.  Jackson pities Belle, although she neither seeks it nor really deserves it.  She seems quite content with her situation.  He decides to stick around and fix up her house for her (which is in bad need of repair).  He imagines that he can work for her for a few months and then maybe help the Mennonites a bit and then continue on his way. (more…)

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