Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Sex’ Category

Tobias Wolff–“Awake” (New Yorker, August 25, 2008)

Posted in Big Thief, Fears, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Homer, New Yorker, Russia, Sex, Short Story, Sleep, Tiny Desk Concert, Tobias Wolff on January 10, 2017| Leave a Comment »

TNY 8.25.08 cvr.inddSOUNDTRACK: BIG THIEF-Tiny Desk Concert #562 (August 29, 2016).

bigthiefBob Boilen absolutely loves Big Thief’s debut album (it made his top ten this year).  I think it’s really good, but I don’t quite love it the way he does.

But I think their first song, “Masterpiece” is really a great song.  And in this Tiny Desk Concert, they play it with a slightly different feel.  It seems to allow the sounds of the guitars to come through a little more.  Like the album, though, the harmonies are wonderful.

When the video started, the camera focused on just Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek, and since the first song starts with just the two of them I wasn’t even sure of the whole band was there.  They are, although it’s odd how isolated the rhythms section looks in this video.

“Paul” is a mellow song with a strangely subdued and yet catchy chorus.  It’s kind of funny to watch Buck Meek really getting down to what is a fairly mellow track–although his guitar parts are pretty cool blasts of music.

“Lorraine” also get a mellow treatment here.  For this version it’s just her singing and playing the guitar.  It works very well in this Tiny setting and her voice really shines.

[READ: March 1, 2016] “Awake”

This story is about a college Economics major who just can’t get enough sex.

Well, that’s how it starts anyhow.  Richard is lying in bed next to Ana.  He moves in close behind her, hinting.  But she moves away quickly (she is actually asleep, so that’s a reflex).  He is annoyed although he shouldn’t be–I mean they did it twice already that night.

So instead of thinking about sex he decides to think about something else.  But what? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Jason Rekulak–The Impossible Fortress (2017) [prepub]

Posted in Computer Programming, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Kramer vs. Kramer, Marriage Trouble, Of Montreal, Playboy, Quirk Books, Rebecca Cash, Romance, Set in New Jersey!, Sex, The Impossible Fortress, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert, Video Games, Wheel of Fortune, YA Books on January 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

rek2SOUNDTRACK: OF MONTREAL-Tiny Desk Concert #263 (January 28, 2013).

of-montrealWhen I saw that Of Montreal was doing a Tiny Desk Concert I really had no idea what to expect.  I mean, it could have been anything.  The blurb even jokes that Of Montreal concerts have been described as “wildly theatrical,” “flamboyant,” “synchronized dancing” and having “strange, wandering creatures that look like amoebas.”

So I was absolutely not expecting to see two guys with acoustic guitars and a woman singing a gentle folk song.  I actually double checked to make sure I was watching the right show.

Evidently around this time, Kevin Barnes (the man behind Of Montreal) had been working on quieter, more personal work. And so we get these three songs which are, more or less, Barnes solo.

The first song, “Feminine Effects” has the assistance of singer Rebecca Cash and guitarist Bryan Poole.  Cash sings the entire song, and it’s quite lovely, if not a little dark.

The next two songs “Imbecile Rages” and “Amphibian Days” are Barnes by himself, strumming guitar and singing.  The music is fairly straightforward, although he does throw in some unexpected chords which makes the songs stand out. And, of course, his lyrics and delivery are quirky. His enunciation is peculiar and even more pronounced in this setting.

This is a real surprise for Of Montreal fans, and frankly almost a red herring for anyone new to the band.

[READ: December 31, 2016] The Impossible Fortress

Sarah received an advanced reader’s copy of this book from her friend Mary Lynn and thought I would like it.  And boy did I ever.  I read this book in half a day.  It’s a quick read and while not profound of life-changing, it was really fun and funny–with a fairly dark twist.

There are two major plots in this book and they intertwine very nicely.

The first–the “action” plot–involves the Vanna White Playboy issue.  The second–the main character plot–involves coding a video game on a Commodore 64.  For this book is set in 1987 in the suburban New Jersey town of Wetbridge.  Our protagonists are 14-year-old boys who never really fit into other cliques.

The story is about Billy Marvin.  He never knew his father and his mother has started working the overnight shift at the Food Mart to make an extra dollar an hour.  Billy’s mom has really high hopes for Billy.  But his school life is pretty dismal.  His mom believes that Billy is really smart and she tries to get Billy into honors classes.  But his grades indicate remedial classes.  If he can succeed in these classes he can get moved up.  But he does not succeed. At all. (more…)

Read Full Post »

McSweeney’s Mammoth Treaury of Thrilling Tales (2002) [McSweeney’s #10]

Posted in Adia Victoria, Aimee Bender, Big Books, Carol Emschwiller, Cats, Chris Offutt, Circus, Dan Chaon, Daredevils, Dave Eggers, Death, Demons, Dinosaurs, Drinking, Drugs, Dystopia, Elephants, Elmore Leonard, End of the World, Explorers, Fears, Ghosts, Glen David Gold, Greed, Guns, Harlan Ellison, Hitler, Horror, Jim Sheppard, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, Laurie King, Law, Lies, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Meta, Michael Chabon, Michael Crichton, Michael Moorcock, Military, Monsters, Murder, Native Americans, Nazis, Neil Gaiman, Nick Cave, Nick Hornby, Noir, Old West, Revenge, Rick Moody, Sci-fi, Sex, Sherlock Holmes, Sherman Alexie, Short Story, Stephen King, Threats, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfinished series, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), Yuck! on December 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

thrilignSOUNDTRACK: ADIA VICTORIA-Tiny Desk Concert #545 (June 30, 2016).

adiaAdia Victoria has a rough, raw voice that goes well with her simple, exposed guitar sound.  The blurb says her music “carries the singular perspective of a Southern black woman with a Seventh Day Adventist upbringing, who never felt like she’d fit in.”

She sings three song, mostly in a great, raspy voice.  For “Stuck in the South” she actually seems to be gritting her teeth as she sings: “I don’t know nothing ’bout Southern belles / but I can tell you something ’bout Southern hell.”  When the first verse ends, and her band kicks in, it adds such interesting textures.  A distorted bass and a lead guitar playing quietly distorted sounds.  This song is really captivating.

“And Then You Die” with its swirling sounds and keyboards has a very distinctly Nick Cave feel–gothic in the Southern sense of the word.  Indeed, the first verse is spoken in a delivery that would make Nick proud. This is no to say she cribbed from Cave but it would work very well as a companion song  I really like the way it builds, but the ending is so abrupt–I could have used some more verses.

After the second song the band heads away and Bob says “They’re all leaving you.”  She looks at them and growls, “Get off the stage!” to much laughter.

She sings the final song “Heathen” with just her on acoustic guitar.  It is a simple two chord song.  It’s less interesting than the others, but again, it’s the lyrics that stand out: “I guess that makes me a heathen, something lower than dirt / I hear them calling me heathen, ooh like they think it hurts.”

I’m curious to hear just what Adia would do with these songs when she’s not in this Tiny format.  I imagine she can be really powerful.

[READ: November 23, 2016] McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales

For some reason or another I have put off reading this McSweeney’s volume for many years.  This is technically McSweeney’s #10, although it was also released in this printing from a  major publisher. Sadly for me, my McSweeney’s subscription had expired sometime around here so I’ve never actually seen the “official” Volume 10 which I understand has the exact same content but a slightly different cover.

One of the reasons I’ve put off reading this was the small print and pulpy paper–I don’t like pulpy paper.  And it was pretty long, too.

But I think the big reason is that I don’t really like genre fiction.  But I think that’s the point of this issue.  To give people who read non-genre fiction some exposure to genre stuff.

Interestingly I think I’ve learned that I do enjoy some genre fiction after all.  And yet, a lot of the stories here really weren’t very genre-y.  Or very thrilling.  They seemed to have trappings of genre ideas–mystery, horror–but all the while remaining internal stories rather than action-packed.

Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy anything here. I enjoyed a bunch of the stories quite a bit, especially if I didn’t think of them as genre stories.  Although there were a couple of less than exiting stories here, too. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Missy Marston–“Baby’s On Fire” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #19] (2016)

Posted in Canadian Content, Concert, Humiliation, Kate McGarrigle, Loudon Wainwright III, Marriage (Happy), Martha Wainwright, Menopause, Missy Marston, Music, Patti Smith, Rod Stewart, Rufus Wainwright, Sex, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert, Venues on December 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: MARTHA WAINWRIGHT-Tiny Desk Concert #252 (November 26, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

marthaI have been a fan of Loudon Wainwright III for many years.  He has a very musical family and Martha Wainwright is his daughter.  Kate McGarrigle is also her mom, so that’s some lineage.

I’ve enjoyed some of Martha’s earlier songs.  I especially enjoyed her song “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” which “was inspired by her father. She wrote the track as a response to her father’s way of writing songs about his family, rather than tending to them.”  Ouch.

But that was almost ten years earlier than this show.  Nevertheless, as the blurb says: “Martha Wainwright’s songs examine uncomfortable moments and life experiences gone wrong, but as she acknowledges in between songs at this Tiny Desk Concert, she often has to fudge her own life story to make the details more unsettling.”

I’ve always wanted to like Martha more, but I find her music to be simply … okay.

She begins with “Some People.”  From what I recall of her earlier songs, she seems more singer-ish and tuneful on this song, as if her voice has gotten more powerful.  She holds some really long notes, too.  As I listened to this song I kept imagining Patti Smith—in voice and attitude.

About the second song, “Can You Believe It?” she says “we are referring to it as the single which is always very funny.”  As an introduction, she says her husband is the punching bag for this album.  Anybody else would have left me by now.  But he has an “understanding of the power and importance of freedom of expression in art and also exaggeration.”  This song has her frank lyrics: “I really like the make up sex it’s the only kind I ever get.”  I can see why this would be marketed as a single–even if there’s a line about “a storm of shit,” it is one of the catchier things she’s written.

She explains that right as her mother, the great Kate McGarrigle, died her son was born.  This is her first song about motherhood–she assumes her son will want it to be her last as well.  What’s strange about “Everything Wrong” is that between the chord structure and her “ay ay ays”at the end of the lines, this song sounds  lot like Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks.”

So I find that I feel the same about Martha as I did before.

[READ: December 19, 2016] “Baby’s On Fire”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

This may have been my favorite story of the book so far.

Marston’s protagonist is a forty-nine year old woman, Margaret.  When we first see her, she is climbing to her seat with two glasses of wine in her hands.  She’s trying to take off her coat–but she can’t put down her wine.  Her husband, Amos, is next to her but is not really helping.  I love that he “is shifting from buttock to buttock…as if by going through the motions of helping her in his mind he might actually help her.”

The two are at a concert.  She plans to rock out with her husband and then after the show go to a hotel and have wild sex–something they haven’t done in a long time.  I loved also that she imagined them falling right onto the bed when they got to the hotel.  “(OK maybe they would just fall asleep–it had been a long day–and do it in the morning).” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Mireille Silcoff–“The Heaviest Dress” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #16] (2016)

Posted in Babies, Canadian Content, Death, Fashion, Mireille Silcoff, Parenting, Religion, Sex, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert on December 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: JANET FEDER-Tiny Desk Concert #233 (August 6, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

federJanet Feder is an amazing guitarist.  I enjoyed the simple act of her picking out the notes in a chord and simultaneously using her pinky to play harmonics on two different strings.

But beyond that she has a great sound. In part it’s the guitar which is a nylon-string baritone electric! But it’s also because of the way she prepares her strings—she gets interesting bell sounds and other rattling noises.  These aren’t the focus of the song,  just the accents of them.

The first song is not an instrumental, it’s called “Angles And Exits.” She says that she was used to not singing since she primarily played classical music.  But she has enjoyed adding voice to her songs.  Her voice is soft and delicate.  The song works with words, but it would probably be fine without them.

It looks like she has some kind of thing on the first fret on the high strings—so an open notes gets that bell sound.  She says that these additions to the guitar have allowed her to have fun playing the guitar again.

She describes what she does on the second song “Heater.”  She puts a device on her string to make a great sound.  Although even after she describes it I don’t understand how it works.  She begins the song by pulling on what sounds like an uncoiled guitar string ratcheting it tighter ad tighter.  When she finally gets to the melody, her playing is excellent—all over the guitar but not really flashy, just interesting.  The melody in the slow part at the end is enchanting.

“I Hear Voices” opens with harmonics and a rattling on the strings—a neat combination of heavenly notes and noise from an alligator clip on the strings.  It’s a mesmerizing and very cool sound and a beautiful song too.

[READ: December 16, 2016] “The Heaviest Dress”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

This is the story of a young Jewish girl returning to her home in Montreal after some time in New York City.

The girl’s parents died when she was five and she had lived with her Aunt Rita and Uncle Mort ever since.  She felt that their house was never hers, and so it never grew mundane.  In the past year she had moved to New York City to go to fashion school. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Caroline Adderson–“Obscure Objects” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #13] (2016)

Posted in Books about writers, Canadian Content, Caroline Adderson, Exitmusic, Huh?, Marriage Trouble, Sex, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on December 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: EXITMUSIC-Tiny Desk Concert #228 (July 2, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

exitmusicI didn’t know Exitmusic before this show.  The band is a 4 piece and they make a really big sound .  In fact, when I was only listening to the show I forgot that they were at a Tiny Desk.  Their sound is not loud, but it’s enveloping.  They have two keyboards a guitar and an electronic drum.  The guitar is gauzy, playing high chords.  But it’s the keyboards, and washes of sound that really create the whole show.  Lead vocals are provided by Aleksa Palladino and her voice is stark and wavery, slightly scary and scared at the same time.

The blurb says that they tend to play big spaces, but

Palladino and Devon Church, the married couple behind Exitmusic, began playing music together several years ago in their New York home, layering textures and shimmering voices, each awash in echoes and cinematic anguish. To work within the challenges of our space, the two — along with new band members Dru Prentiss and Nicholas Shelestak — returned to their living room to practice a set in a pared-down configuration which still captured its essence.

I love at the end of “White Noise” as the keyboards aren’t changing what they are playing but the guitar changes chords—a repetitive downward progression that works perfectly with what everyone else is playing.

The second song, “The Modern Age” sounds like it could be a track from The xx, but her voice is so different that it totally changes the feel of the song.  Aleksa also switches guitar on this track, layering in fast chords.  And the chorus is wonderfully raw sounding.  The melody she sings is just great and the song builds accordingly.

It’s funny to see her smile so broadly after each song where she sings so dramatically and sounds heartbroken.

“The Cold” is a slow song (she’s on guitar again), short and moody while the final song “Storms” is much bigger.  On this track she is playing fast chords on a very quitter guitar while the other guitar plats slow, building chords over the top.   She make a funny comment at the end of the song: “I know I was all over the place timewise.” But it still sounded great.  They really won me over with this set.

[READ: December 13, 2016] “Obscure Objects”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

This story was really cool, although I had to read it twice to make sure I knew exactly what was going on.

Told in first person, this is the story of a woman who has just come back to Canada after some time abroad.  She is a writer (published in literary magazines) and has a teacher’s certificate, but she needed a job quickly so she took one a:

a private ESL college that recruited students from all over Asia.

Or, it was a private tutoring agency that catered to children of wealthy immigrants and ADD-afflicted offspring on the Canadian born-rich.

I haven’t decided yet.

That’s the first clue that something is unusual about this story.  (more…)

Read Full Post »

Lou Mathews–“Crazy Life” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #11] (2016)

Posted in Brandi Carlile, Canadian Content, Courtroom, Death, Gangsters, Indigo Girls, Lou Mathews, Murder, Prison, Regrets, Sex, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on December 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: BRANDI CARLILE-Tiny Desk Concert #229 (July 9, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

brandiBrandi Carlile has been making a lot of noise on WXPN this last year.  She has a few song that I really like.  But I didn’t realize that her background was in country music—it’s slightly apparent on her more recent music.  But in this Tiny Desk, her whole country style really comes out.  Well, I guess she’s more alternative country—it’s strange that she has a country twang in her voice since she is from Washington.

“Raise Hell” is a romping stomping ass kicking song.  The riffing and power of the song is undeniable.  And it’s lyrically fun.  She actually sounds a bit like one of the Indigo Girls (I can never remember which one is which) on this song, with a notable but not pronounced accent.

Her backing band is great—two guitars a cello and a violin.  And they sing some great “ooohs” always right on pitch and sometimes quite high.

She asks if they should do a guitar version of “That Wasn’t Me.”  This is straightforward folk song with some more great “oooh” backing vocals.  But when the strings kick in about half way through, it really elevates the song.  Bob jokes about how often they’ve played the song in that way and she says, “That arrangement is about 5 minutes old.”

For the final song she wants to feature the strings.  “Promise to Keep” is a pretty , slow song with great strings and backing vocals.   Her voice is strong and powerful throughout all the songs and she hist some really high falsettos in this one.

I am glad she is moving more towards folk, although some of that stomping country would be fun to see live.

[READ: December 11, 2016] “Crazy Life”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

Most of the stories so far have been somewhat hopeful, but this one really removes all hope from the characters’ lives.

The story is told in first person by Dulcie.  Dulcie is dating Chuey, a gang member who has been picked up by the cops in the past.  She gives him grief but then realizes that this time it is far more serious.

She went downtown and there were all the town’s reporters there.  There was talk of capturing an important gang member.  I love that Dulcie walks through one reporter’s take because she doesn’t care about the media.

Dulcie knows she has to lie about who she is–they’d never let a girlfriend in to see a perpetrator.  So she pretends to be Chuiey’s wife.

After some hurdles, she gets to see him and he reveals that they think he was the shooter, but he swears he was just the driver.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Katie Coyle–“Dream Girl” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #9] (2016)

Posted in Arborea, Bruce Springsteen, Canadian Content, College, Dreams, Drinking, Funny (strange), Humiliation, Jealousy, Katie Coyle, Nightmares, Romance, Set in New Jersey!, Sex, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert on December 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: ARBOREA-Tiny Desk Concert #218 (May 17, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

arboreaArborea is a totally captivating band.

The band consists of Shanti and Buck Curran.  They play three songs and each one is really different, but all with in a spooky, mellow Appalachian feel.

“Song for Obol” features Buck playing an electric guitar with an e-bow and a slide—creating single-note sirens that roar and fade.  The sounds are magical.  But they’re not the most interesting part of this song.  Because Shanti is playing the Ban-Jammer–“a sweet little hybrid that’s part banjo, part mountain dulcimer.” Shanti also sings and her voice is high and delicate—sometimes almost a whisper.  The Ban-Jammer is such an interesting and compelling sound and those washes of electric guitar so enticing that I didn’t want this song to end—even if I never really paid attention to what she was singing about.

For the second song Bob Boilen himself goes behind his desk to play harmonium with them.  Shanti plays acoustic guitar and tells us that the harmonium is

Inspired by the tales in Maine about fishing boats that were lost to the ocean—this song is about a woman who loses her lover to the sea—the harmonium is the ocean and the wind.

The harmonium isn’t very loud, but it keeps constant background while Buck pays the electric guitar (with slide, but no e-bow) and Shanti picks out the acoustic guitar melody.

The final song “A Little Time” is played on an acoustic tenor guitar.  Both Shanti and Buck sing for this track.  At first I wasn’t crazy about his voice accompanying hers, but he really gets the same tone very nice;y.  And her oh-hoos are beautifully haunting.

I’d really like to hear more from these guys.  And it is pretty fun to actually see Bob behind his Tiny Desk.

[READ: December 6, 2016] “Dream Girl”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived (a few days late for advent, but that was my fault for ordering so late) I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

I wasn’t aware of Katie Coyle before reading this story.  Perhaps the only reason I might have known about her is because she is a YA author from New Jersey.

But I’d like to know more about her because this story was wonderful.  The point of view of the story was fantastic and the whole concept was weird and cool.

The narrator is never revealed, but I love this beginning:

This all started when Winston’s girlfriend Sheila dumped him at his high-school graduation party.  Or maybe it started when Sheila began to notice that Winston didn’t understand her.  Certainly it never would’ve happened had she not turned to Winston in their Modern Conflicts class nine months earlier and said, “It’s Winston, right?”

Such intrigue! (more…)

Read Full Post »

Vanessa Hua–“Just Like Us” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #3] (2016)

Posted in Canadian Content, Craig Finn, Crowded House, Marriage Trouble, Neil Finn, Parenting, Racism, Sex, Short Story, Summer, The Hold Steady, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert, Vanessa Hua on December 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: CRAIG FINN-Tiny Desk Concert #193 (February 9, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

finnCraig Finn opened for My Morning Jacket when I saw them in New York.  However, we arrived late, so I missed him.  I was fairly certain that Craig Finn was actually Neil Finn when I saw his name, so I expected Crowded House, not The Hold Steady.

For this solo venture, Finn has crafted some slow folk songs.  He sings slowly and deliberately on these three acoustic songs.  The melodies are simple and his voice sounds very California to me. He’s accompanied by Ricky Ray Jackson playing a great-sounding echoey slide guitar.  In fact, I feel like Jackson is the highlight of the show.

“Apollo Bay” and “Western Pier” are from the solo album.  They are story songs.  The final song “Jeremiah’s Blues” is not on the record, but it’s fun to challenge yourself.

[READ: December 6, 2016] “Just Like Us”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived (a few days late for advent, but that was my fault for ordering so late) I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

I really enjoyed this story about a girl and her mom and the struggles they have had.  It opens with the excellent line: “It wasn’t easy to get kicked out of Happy Trails RV Park and Camp.”  The owner put up with a lot.  Including her son, who was rather a layabout.  He was injured in a construction job and is on disability–meaning he doesn’t do anything around the camp either.

Nina was fourteen, part white, part Chinese.  Her father returned to China when she was a baby  and sent them money for the first two years.  And then suddenly he stopped.  So her mama had spent time with many different boyfriends.  Her last boyfriend, Roy, seemed promising until she caught him cheating on her (for the third time).  And after that she decided it was time to get outta California.  So they got in their camper and took off.

There’s a line that I really enjoyed: “She turned on the radio…the lead singer wailed about a small-town girl escaping into a lonely world–the coincidence of a song about our lives.” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Maria Semple–Today Will Be Different (2016)

Posted in Arcade Fire, Art, Canadian Music, Child Development, Colin Huebert, Colin Stetson, Constellation Records, Dogs, Football, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Maria Semple, Marriage Trouble, Parenting, Pink Floyd, Poetry, Regrets, Religion, Sex, Siskiyou on November 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

sempleSOUNDTRACK: SISKIYOU-Nervous [CST109] (2015).

cst109covera_258x242This album begins with “Deserter,” in which a choir of children singing over a kind of spooky tone.  And then a loud rumbling bass and scratching on a guitar.  It’s quite different from the previous Siskiyou releases and outpaces the others by several steps.

Once Colin Huebert’s voice kicks in, that familiar Siskiyou sound returns—acoustic guitar and Huebert’s voice which is a mix between a whisper and Win Butler from Arcade Fire.  But “Deserter” features backing vocals and, perhaps most surprisingly, a wild baritone sax solo by Colin Stetson.  But it stays grounded with that cool rumbling bass line.

The second song “Bank Accounts and Dollar Bills (Give Peace a Chance)” opens with an echoed guitar likes some classic 1990s shoegaze music.  The vocals are a cool, intense whisper.  The verses are great and then the chorus adds a piano and his vocals rise into an impassioned wail.  The third song “Wasted Genius” adds a kind of steel drum sound that includes a great melody to the simple and slightly ominous verses.   The middle of the song switches to pummeling drums and a buzzy guitar solo before returning to the mellow verse.

“Violent Motion Pictures” has another cool whispered vocals and quiet guitars that get accented with a low bass and percussion.  There’s a neat section of falsetto vocals that remind me of Pink Floyd over a bouncy melody–before it returns to the verses.  It’s a wonderfully catchy, if brief, segment.  “Jesus in the 70s” has slow guitar lines and atmospheric keys.  “Oval Window” is a bouncy folk song (with a slightly creepy vocal over the top), but its even got a folksy kind of guitar line on it.

“Nervous” is a slow ballad.  “Imbecile Thoughts” is a fun song with stomping drums.  It has a cool ending that leads to the slow building, strings-included nearly 7 minute “Babylonian Proclivities.”  The disc ends with the 1 minute “Falling Down the Stairs.”

This album is really fantastic–an overlooked gem from 2015.

[READ: November 8, 2016] Today Will Be Different

I’ve really enjoyed Maria Semple’s books.  And this one was no exception.

She really conveys the hectic, overstimulated, over scheduled life of middle age parenting.  It helps that her stories are typically set around Seattle and that there’s a lot of excitement, tech and pop culture to throw around, too.

This is the story of a day in the life of Eleanor Flood.  Sarah pointed out, as I didn’t quite realize it, that the story takes place in one day (hence the title) although there are flashbacks that flesh out the story too.

Eleanor is, or perhaps “was” is the better verb, an artist.  She was lead animator (or something–it’s a little confusing) on the successful show Looper Wash.  When the show ended she received an advance to write a book/memoir.  That was eight years ago.

Things have been sprialling out of control for Eleanor for a while, but she vows that today will be different.  She will make a difference. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »