Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Louise Erdrich–“The Years of My Birth” (New Yorker, January 10, 2011)

Posted in 30 Rock, Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, Louise Erdrich, Native Americans, New Yorker, Rafter, Richard Thompson, Short Story, Sufjan Stevens, The Onion on January 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RAFTER: “No Fucking Around” (2010).

This song made one of The Onion’s AV Club voter’s Top Ten lists this year. The  description was interesting enough that I had to go check it out.

Rafter is on Asthmatic Kitty, home of Sufjan Stevens, so I assumed the disc would be intriguing, if nothing else.  The song starts out with an overly autotuned (practically mechanical) voice repeating the title.  From there the song slows down with some interesting lyrics.   As the reviewer said, it strips dance music to its barest essentials.  This trend seems to be kind of popular lately, and I’ve noticed that when it works, the rests are very catchy, (when it doesn’t it’s boring as all get out).

Now, I first listened to the song with the video (see below) which I love.  So I’m not entirely sure how much of my enjoyment of the song is predicated on the video.

However, I’ve now listened to it several times and my enjoyment grows with each listen.

Although I am always more interested in indie rock than dance and pop, occasional a pop song or a dance song will grab me and make me listen. LCD Soundsystem has had that effect, as has Daft Punk.  I’m not sure if this whole album is as interesting, but I certainly enjoy this song.

Shame that I’ll probably never hear it without going to YouTube.

[READ: January 11, 2011] “The Years of My Birth”

This story impressed me both for its unexpected emotional pull and its twist (in a sense) ending.

When the story opens, we learn of the narrator’s birth: she was an undetected twin who was, for lack of a better term, squished by her brother.  When she came out, the doctor said she would likely have birth defects; her mother, when asked if they should try to save the baby, shouted “No!”

But the nurse had already ensured the baby’s survival.  The baby was disfigured, with a misshapen head and twisted legs, but she appeared mentally normal.  And yet, since her mother had already rejected her, (and times were different then), the nurse, a Native American woman, took the baby home and raised her as part  of their family.  She even nursed the baby since she was already nursing a young girl at home.

The Native American family tended to her, working on re-shaping her head (with massages) and mending her legs (with stretching), and she found herself thriving (reasonably).  Her adoptive family was very supportive and although her closest-in-age sister once said she’s never get in trouble because she was white, she formed a very tight bond with all of her adoptive siblings. Her brother even nicknamed her Tuffy because he knew she’d get a nickname eventually and he wanted to give it to her.

Tuffy lives a quiet, modest life, never making to many attachments, for fear of getting hurt.  Nevertheless, she always felt a kind of ghostly presence in her life.  She knew it was her twin, although she didn’t know where her brother was physically, what he looked like, or even what his name was.   But their bond, or whatever it was, was always there.

And then one day out of the blue, she get as a call from her “mother.”  She wants to connect.  So Tuffy meets her for dinner and the truth comes out (just like a recent plot of 30 Rock): her twin needs a kidney.  And your heart goes out to her.  For so many reasons.

The last section of the story, though, reveals the depth of the character that Erdrich has created in Tuffy.  Because even though she knows that this family has done nothing for her, she has this connection to her twin.  Her family discourages her from contact with her “mother,” but Tuffy feels drawn to help.  Even though she knows she owes them literally nothing, she starts to think that maybe she got the better deal in life.

And then we find out why he needs the kidney, and our feelings gets even more complicated.  And when she finally meets her twin, things go in another direction altogether.

I was really surprised at how complex this short (4 page) story was.  I was riveted, and as I mentioned, emotionally torn.  It’s a great piece.

Read Full Post »

Steven Millhauser–“Getting Closer” (New Yorker, January 3, 2011)

Posted in Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, My Bloody Valentine, New Yorker, Short Story, Steven Millhauser, Summer on January 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JEFRE CANTU-LEDESMA-“Stained Glass Body” (2010).

This album, Love is a Stream, came in at #8 on Viking’s Top Ten albums.  Viking references My Bloody Valentine in his description of this song, and it is an excellent frame of reference.

This song sounds like My Bloody Valentine if you removed the songs.  Take away the drums and the vocals and just leave the swirling, mesmerizing washes of sound, and you get this really cool and captivating song.

As you might expect, this is background music, and yet it is background music that draws you into it.  It has texture and depth and you can feel yourself getting enveloped in the music.

Often it seems like music like this is simple, almost inconsequential, yet there’s something about the way Cantu-Ledesma manipulates these simple washes of sound that make them something more than just notes on a keyboard. Cranking this up very loud in a snug room on a cold sunny day would be pretty awesome.

[READ: January 2, 2011] “Getting Closer”

This is a simple story about a boy trying to make a grand statement.  In fact, there’s very little to the story plotwise except for a boy psyching himself up to begin the summer.

Jimmy is nine, going on ten.  It’s summer time and his family has gone to Indian Cove for a summer vacation.  He has made a deal with himself that summer, or perhaps something more nebulous like “fun” would not begin until a certain point was reached.  He is excited at knowing that “this is it” and willfully wants to put that off as long as possible.

He inches closer and closer, metaphorically and literally, willing himself not to reach that moment when the day, the excitement, the summer, begins. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Henry Bromell–“Honor Bound” (New Yorker, October 11, 2010)

Posted in Agalloch, All Songs Considered, Henry Bromell, Library Related, New Yorker, Set at School, Short Story on January 17, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: AGALLOCH-“Into the Painted Grey” (2010).

For this week’s music I ‘m going to look at the Top Ten albums picked by  Lars Gotrich (Viking) on NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Viking loves black metal and drone music, so most of these albums aren’t on a lot of Top Ten Lists.

Agalloch’s Marrow of the Spirit was his number one album of the year.  This is a fascinating song full of ambient guitars and rather beautiful melodies (in the intro).  It is a song of longing and distance.  The guitars intertwine and are quite nice.  Then at almost 2 minutes in (of a 12 minute song), the drums kick in and work as an introduction to the dark metal chords that are forthcoming.

At almost 3 minutes, the vocals come in and this is where they’ll lose most listeners.  The vocals are barely audible demon growls.  And yet they are low in the mix and don’t overpower the song (I have no idea what he’s singing about).

Indeed, the vocals are almost spoken (sounding not unlike Gollum) setting more of a mood than an actual story.  It’s a shame that the vocals are going to turn people off because the rest of the song is rather majestic in scope and tone.  Back when black metal first started, vocals like these were matched to equally sludgy music, but when they’re matched to this kind of progressive, epic music, they feel like another instrument, another addition to the melody.

And the rest of the song is so much more than just standard black metal.  Especially at the five and a half minute mark when all of the noise pulls back and a beautiful guitar riff comes to the fore.  Another great melody break comes again at the 10:30 mark.  They really transcend the genre.

I’ve never heard Agalloch before, but their sense of melody and composition is really top-notch, and even with the vocals, this is a pretty stunning piece of music.  Not for everyone, obviously, but a good choice for Viking’s song of the year.

[READ: December 29, 2010] “Honor Bound”

This is the first of five one-page anecdotes/stories/histories in this issue of The New Yorker that come under the heading of “Something Borrowed.”  I read all five because two of them are by Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen.  I haven’t read Henry Bromell before, so I don’t know how representative this story is of his other works.

This anecdote concerns Bromell’s time at a boarding school in Wales.  The school was an old castle (it sounds awesome).  Their library was structured around an honor system; the boys were supposed to write their name down on the list, keep the book for two weeks and then return the book to its place on the shelf.  Since his life had very little structure (he was an army brat and didn’t have a “home”), Bromell began keeping the books from the school’s library (carefully hidden on…the shelves in hid bedroom(!)).  He even put his name on the title page of some of them.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Roberto Bolaño–The Return (1997/2001) [translated 2010]

Posted in All Songs Considered, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Chris Andrews, Culture Shock, Death, Drinking, Dungen, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), My Bloody Valentine, Neurotics, Poets, Pornography, Pregnancy, Prison, Prostitution, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Short Story, Tame Impala, The Beatles, The Who, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Violence, War on January 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TAME IMPALA-“Lucidity” (2010).

I heard this song on the NPR’s 5 Artists You Should Have Known in 2010.  The album, Innerspace, is only available in Australia (imported on Amazon for big bucks) but I guess that’s why people download music.

This song is really cool. It feels very My Bloody Valentine to me.  However, inevitable comparisons to The Beatles abound, but that’s mostly in the vocals (which is kind of funny since they are Australian).  But it’s really a very sixties British vocal sound–not unlike early Who).

The big difference comes in the music which is psychedelic and wild in ways that The Beatles never quite managed.  There are great big washes of noise, and the sound quality sounds retro, even though it obviously isn’t.  Comparisons to the great Swedish band Dungen are not misplaced either.

I’ve listened to a few more tracks by them on YouTube, and I think this album could easily be one of the best of 2010 if only more people could hear it!

[READ: January 3, 2010] The Return

With the completion of this collection of short stories, I have now caught up with all of the published works of Roberto Bolaño (in English of course).  [The next book, Between Parentheses, a collection of nonfiction, is slated for June].

So The Return contains the 13 short stories that were not published in Last Evenings on Earth.  That collection inexplicably took shorts stories from his two Spanish collections Llamadas telefónicas (1997) and Putas asesinas (2001) and combined them into one collection in English.  It wasn’t quite as evident in Last Evenings, but it seems more obvious here that the stories in Putas asesinas are grouped together for a stylistic reason.  So, to have them split up is a bit of a bummer.  And yet, having them all translated is really the important thing.  And, again, Chris Andrews does an amazing job in the translation

This collection of stories was very strong.  I had read a few pieces in Harper’s and the New Yorker, but the majority were new to me.  Bolaño is an excellent short story writer.  Even if his stories don’t go anywhere (like his novels that never quite reach their destination), it’s his writing that is compelling and absorbing.

This collection also had some different subject matter for Bolaño (it wasn’t all poets on searches). (more…)

Read Full Post »

E.L. Doctorow–“Assimilation” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Arranged Marriage, E.L. Doctorow, Gangsters, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Radiohead, Short Story on January 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RADIOHEAD-Kid A (2000).

After the rocking brilliance of OK Computer, Radiohead released Kid A.  And the world hushed.  The opening song “Everything in Its Right Place” begins with keyboard notes and what-the-hell vocals by Thom Yorke.  Once the song proper starts, though, it turns into a cool, electronically detached Radiohead song.  And even though it never lifts beyond that state, the melody is captivating.  Next, the title track is downright bizarre, a quiet electronic ticking and bleeping song with distorted vocals and, eventually, electronic drums.  It’s a statement of purpose if nothing else and shows that you’ll not be hearing any guitar anthems here.

And then comes “The National Anthem,” one of my favorite Radiohead songs ever.  It reasserts them as songwriters (even if its a really weird song).  It features a great bass line and then–about 3 minutes in–it devolves into a noisy skronky horn filled mess.

After the moody near-instrumental “How to Disappear Completely” and the mellow actual- instrumental “Trefingers”, “Optimistic” comes back with some wonderfully clear moments amidst the beautiful murk of the song.  It is followed by “Idioteque,” which is probably the perfect encapsulation of the new Radiohead: full of disorienting electronic distorted noises and yet utterly catchy and captivating.  “Morning Bell” the next track is equally stunning.

It’s odd of course that the disc ends with two minutes of silence, but that’s surely not the oddest thing on this disc.  And yet for all my seeming criticism, the disc is genre-breaking and mind-bending.  It’s an extraordinary piece of music.   And it virtually smashed all communication with their earlier selves.

Oh, and I even managed to score the limited edition disc with the booklet behind the tray!

[READ: December 31, 2010] “Assimilation”

Although I have met E.L. Doctorow (and he signed his then latest book–which I have yet to read), I have not read a lot by him.  I’m not sure why exactly, as I regard him highly, he’s just another writer who has slipped through my fingers.

As such, I have no idea if this story is in any way representative of his work.

It is a fairly straightforward story.  A hispanic man, Ramon, who is an American citizen and has gone to college, finds himself busing tables in a restaurant owned by a Russian immigrant.

One day the boss asks him, basically, if he would marry a Russian woman so as to get her legally into America.  He agrees.  They do.  And she treats him like dirt, because really, she has no reason to be nice to him.

She is such an unlikable (almost unbelievably so) character that I considered not finishing the story.  I also felt that Ramon may have been to gullible.  And yet, Doctorow writes so wonderfully, that I kept reading even though I didn’t really care about them. (more…)

Read Full Post »

David Means–“The Tree Line, Kansas, 1934” (New Yorker, October 25, 2010)

Posted in Boredom, David Means, New Yorker, Radiohead, Short Story on January 10, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RADIOHEAD-Pablo Honey (1993).

I haven’t listened to Pablo Honey in years.  I think of it as an almost proto-Radiohead release with one huge single.  But as I was listening to it again recently I remembered that I used to listen to this disc a LOT, and I know all the songs very well.  I’m also really impressed with how well the album stands up to the mayhem that they unleashed later on.  It’s also pretty crazy that the album is named after a Jerky Boys skit (and not a particularly inspired one at that).

True, the album is very simple: a guitar band in the grunge era.  And yet, despite the grunge inflections of “Creep,” it’s quite apparent that there’s a lot more going on here than slacker anthems.

On first listen (17 years ago (!)), a song like “Thinking About You” sounded like a conventional ballad that goes along with this type of album, revealing a softer side to a grungy band.  But really, it’s a complicated mellow song placed right in the middle of the album and the break in styles is very nice.  Conversely, a quick rocker like “How Do You?” is certainly a simple song, and yet it shows another dimension that the band would later investigate (it also samples the Jerky Boys deep in the mix, which I never noticed before).  Even the opener “You,” is intricate and complex, with wonderful guitar riffs and solos, easily foreshadowing some of the great stuff that Jonny Greenwood would produce later on.

The more memorable songs also reveal things all these years later.  “Stop Whispering” has a real Pavement feel to it (and who knows if Radiohead had even heard Pavement (who only had one album out) at that time, but it’s some cool foreshadowing of their indie rock style).  And “Anyone Can Play Guitar,” a truly great song, is like a stripped down version of “Paranoid Android,” but with a really really catchy chorus.

By the end of the disc, it seems like Radiohead has run through its tricks although the oddly titled “Lurgee” points to future greatness as well.  It’s easy and lazy to say that this album is a blueprint for the future Radiohead, and yet it’s surprisingly true.  Not the techno stuff, obviously, but the song structures and intricacies easily foreshadow what was to come.  Yet who would have ever guessed that the “you’re so fucking special” band would turn into what they did.

It’s also foolish to dismiss this record as an early version of the band, because although the album has some slow moments, it holds up very well, and actually revealed somethings that I’m sure I missed a decade and a half ago.  Oh, and “Creep” is still awesome.

[READ: December 21, 2010] “The Tree Line, Kansas, 1934”

This is the story of two FBI agents on a stake out.  The story gets into the head of the older agent (Lee) as he listens to the endless droning of the younger agent (Barnes).

The two have been on the stake out for several days waiting for the criminal Carson to come back to his uncle’s farm, where a boot full of loot is waiting him.  They have been keeping utterly still, noting the uncle plow the barren field, taking occasional smoke breaks and really just watching the grass grow,

Barnes says t the whole stake out is futile, there’s no way that Carson is coming back here, he’ll know there are agents there, etc.  Lee, on the other hand, believes the Bureau is correct, believes that Carson will return.  I enjoyed the digression into Lee’s head about how a feeling in your gut turns into a hunch. (more…)

Read Full Post »

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 »

Samantha Hunt–“The Yellow” (New Yorker, November 29, 2010)

Posted in AC/DC, Death, Funny (strange), Led Zeppelin, New Yorker, Phish, Prince, Samantha Hunt, Sex, Short Story, Supernatural, Yuck!, Zombies on January 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-LivePhish 10.21.95 Lincoln, Nebraska (2007).

This Phish show is pretty unusual, even for a band whose live sets are by definition unusual.  It opens with a reprise (“Tweezer Reprise”) which is basically the end of a song.  There’s also a song that is not itself unusual but it’s one that I’ve never heard before:  an all acoustic guitar song called “Acoustic Army.”

But aside from those minor oddities, it also features the craziness of “Kung” which is more or less just nonsensical screaming.  Then Set One ends with a great cover of “Good Times Bad Times.”

Set Two is where the madness comes full bore.  After some great versions of “David Bowie” and Lifeboy” we get a 24 minute version of “You Enjoy Myself.”  After about twenty minutes the song devolves into a vocal extravaganza, with each of the four guys trying to outdo themselves with weird noises and vocals sound effects for 5 minutes.  And just when you think the nonsense is over, the band covers Prince’s “Purple Rain.”  Fish, the drummer, sings the song (rather poorly, it must be said), but the “highlight” is his vacuum cleaner solo.  Yes, vacuum cleaner solo.

I have included a video from this portion of the show to see just how odd this concert must have been (although I believe that other concerts featured similar nonsense too).  If you get bored by the noise in the beginning of the video, remember that it’s out of context and not really representative of the rest of the  show, but do fast forward to when the guy in the dress pulls out the vacuum cleaner and tell me that that’s not the best damn vacuum cleaner solo you’ve ever heard.

The set ends with Trey noodling the riff from “Beat It,” although they never play the full song.   Then there’s an encore cover of “Highway to Hell” (which rocks).  The disc comes with a bonus track, a twenty some minute soundcheck where you can hear the band experimenting with sounds and ideas for the show.  Not essential but interesting.

Lest you think this whole show is weird, there’s some great renditions of “Chalk Dust Torture” and “Guelah Papyrus.”

[READ: December 15, 2010] “The Yellow”

This story opens with a forty-something year old guy who has moved home with his parents.  To the consternation of his father (“have you turned faggot?”), he paints his attic bedroom yellow.  Who would have guessed that this (four-page) story about a sad middle-aged man would end with casual sex and zombies?

Roy is frustrated with his life (obviously).  He gets out of his parent’s house and goes for a drive.  While scanning the classic rock stations looking for the next great thing, he feels a thump and realizes that he has hit an animal.  He’s fairly certain it’s a dog. (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 »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »