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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Stephen King–“The Death of Jack Hamilton” (New Yorker, December 24 & 31, 2001)

Posted in Carly Rae Jepsen, Coronavirus, Death, Gangsters, Guns, mxmtoon, Quarantine, Short Story, Stephen King, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, tUnE-yArDs, Violence on March 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: mxmtoon-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #137 (January 15, 2021).

mxmtoon is another young musician who has gained success through the internet.  Two years ago when All Songs Considered played her, they noted that the then 18-year old has “amassed a sizable following on Twitter and YouTube on the strength of her endearingly intimate presence.”

mxmtoon sings songs filled with dreams and anxieties. Much of the music comes from her recent 2020 EPs, Dawn and Dusk.  Those EPs included collaborations with Carly Rae Jepsen and Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus. For this Tiny Desk (home) concert, her sweet voice and ukulele are accompanied by Nicole Wakabayashi on piano and Cale Hawkins on guitar.  Her melodies are simple, with the words up front mighty and personal.

They play five songs and the blurb is absolutely right.  These are simple, pretty songs.  Maia’s voice is wonderful and she happily allows th eband to play behind her.

On “Fever Dream” Nicole and Cale play the delicate melody (which gets slightly large after the first verse) as she sings her intelligent and thoughtful lyrics.  Nicole throws in the occasional backing vocal harmony which adds a nice touch.  A

After the sing she jokes,

“Hi, I’m mxmtoon, and I’m doing my Tiny Desk at the world’s biggest desk!” And so it begins, from an eerily empty New York City office building,

It’s been almost two years now since we first played the Oakland-based mxmtoon on All Songs Considered. She was just 18 then, singing about crying in her “prom dress” (which I’m thrilled she is performing here).

On “Prom Dress” she adds her ukulele to this amusing and sad song about going to prom.

I can’t help the fact I like to be alone
It might sound kinda sad, but that’s just what I seem to know
I tend to handle things usually by myself
And I can’t ever seem to try and ask for help
I’m sitting here, crying in my prom dress
I’d be the prom queen if crying was a contest

One of the first songs she released is called “Feelings Are Fatal,” which she also performs. It’s a candid song about emotions and why we’re often afraid to share them. It’s a model for what mxmtoon does so well: humble, honest songs, sung here behind a massive desk.

She says she credits her writing style to “Feelings Are Fatal” because this was the first song that she was completely honest in wanting to share her feelings with the world. (According to bandcamp she had about a half dozen songs before this one).  It’s just her on the ukulele (it’s a large ukulele) singing these clear words.

i’m always sad
and i’m always lonely
but i can’t tell you
that i’m breaking slowly

closed doors
locked in, no keys
keeping my feelings hidden
there is no ease

“Wallflower” opens with the piano and her singing very clearly.  Her voice sounds like someone else’s here, although I can’t quite place it.

“Bon Iver” is a cute song started on the ukulele before the band joins in with lovely backing oohs.  The title comes in in this verse:

Playing Bon Iver on late night drives
My window, moon, and fireflies
Holding onto moments that we found
Even when the sun goes down.

It’s a lovely little concert and I look forward to hearing more from her.

[READ: February 21, 2021] “The Death of Jack Hamilton”

This is a long story about John Dillinger.

It’s told by Homer, a Dillinger flunkie.  He’s a colorful character who speaks colloquially.  He wants to set the record straight about Dillinger’s death.  He does this by talking about the death of John’s closest partner Jack Hamilton.

The three of them were escaping from a job and the police were after them.  After some bullets were fired, they realized that Jack was hit.  He said he was fine, but over the course of a few hours he started to look pretty bad–with a lot of blood leaking out.

The realized they needed a new car so they pulled over and waited for a car to come help them.  A family of three pulled over to help.  Dillinger and his men showed off their guns, but the family recognized him and seemed pretty thrilled to be meeting Dillinger himself.  He promised no one would get hurt–Dillinger robbed banks, he didn’t kill people  Dillinger was charming and could always make people smile. (more…)

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Martin Roper–“Our House” (New Yorker, November 26, 2001)

Posted in Book Club, Boris, Cormac McCarthy, Irish Writer, Marriage Trouble, Martin Roper, Merzbow, New Yorker, Short Story, Violence on February 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BORIS with MERZBOW-Gensho (Disc Two: Merzbow) (2016).

In 2016, Boris teamed with Merzbow to create Gensho, a 2 CD package that was designed to have both CDs played at the same time.  Not the easiest thing for many people, but with the advent of digital recordings it’s now pretty easy to play both discs at the same time (this release is on Spotify).

Disc 1 was all Boris.  Disc 2 was all Merzbow.

Merzbow is a real challenge for me.  I’m not really sure how anyone can listen to his music for pleasure.  It’s harsh, electronic sounds, with high pitched squeals and low staticy distortions.  As an exercise in noise, it’s fairly interesting, but never enjoyable.

This disc includes four songs.

“Planet of the Cows” is over 18 minutes long.  It’s high pitched squealing and a low distortion.  There’s a thumping that works almost like a rhythm.  After ten minutes it sounds like a space alarm is sounding.

“Goloka Pt. 1” is 20 minutes long.  It feels bigger and more metallic.  The noises seem to coalesce into a distant screaming sound.

“Goloka Pt. 2” is 19:30.  It’s got a slightly lower tone, with slower movement among the noises.  Although sirens and pulsing sounds are present.  Then at 12 minutes all the sirens drop out to just a quiet robotic pulsing with thumping that sound like a heartbeat.  The track ends in what sounds like mechanical breathing.

“Prelude to a Broken Arm” is the shortest song at only 16 minutes.  It is quieter with a low crunching and bug-like sounds.  At 6 and half minutes the distortion comes in really loud with a mechanical drum/broken engine sound and then a looping siren with the kind of static noise that sounds like more screaming.

It is an unsettling and challenging listen and not for the squeamish.

[READ: February 10, 2021] “Our House”

Irish writers are often known for their humorous storytelling.  But wow, can Irish writers really hit hard with the tragedy, too.

This is one of the darkest stories I’ve read in a long time.

The story begins with the narrator saying that his father always told him to never buy a house on a  corner.  But the narrator and his wife did anyway.  It was in bad shape and needed a lot of work, but they fell in love with the place and felt they were up to the task.

The story sets up the spouses as opposites in love.  She is a non-practicing Protestant with a Catholic name (Ursula) and he is a non-practicing Catholic with a Protestant name.  She thinks he is funny and he never dares to admit that she rarely gets the jokes.

The previous owner died three years ago and they are the first people to check out the place.  The more they clean the more work they see needs to get done.  Although there are some nice surprises (like the five hundred pounds in cash they find under the carpet).

But it’s the neighborhood that proves to be more hostile to them than they could ever have imagined.  Children began gathering at the corner every day.  They get up to mischief right away–ringing the doorbell and running, bouncing a ball off the house.  But there is an underlying air of menace behind all of this. (more…)

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Louise Erdrich–“The Butcher’s Wife” (New Yorker, October 15, 2001)

Posted in Alcoholism, Cancer as plot device, Gorilla Biscuits, Louise Erdrich, Rachel Kushner, Short Story, The Buzzcocks on February 12, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GORILLA BISCUITS-Start Today (1989).

In a post from a couple of days ago, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk bands that she either knew or hung out with.  I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know.  So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.

Of all of the bands that Kushner mentions, Gorilla Biscuits were the only one that I knew pretty well.  I seem to recall a gimmick of this CD was that here were 99 tracks on it–possibly the first CD to have maxed out the track numbers?

Gorilla Biscuits released an EP and this album and then they broke up–although they do still tour and play a lot of punk festivals.  Start Today is considered one of the great albums from the New York hardcore punk scene.

It’s a pretty classic hardcore record, with almost all of the songs two minutes or less.  That’s fourteen songs in 24 minutes.  And there’s some great lyrics in these songs too.

“Degradation” was a pretty straightforward attack on the Nazi skinheads infiltrating the punk scene.

True, they’re always at our shows
It doesn’t mean we fit in with their hatred and racism shit
They ruin our name, you know what I mean
Racial supremacists, they degrade our scene
You know you can kiss my ass before I read you ‘zine
There’s no good side to this white power scene
Kids beat down for standing up
Your turn will come because we’ve all had enough

But the album also plays around with expectations a bit.  The album opens with a 20 second horn fanfare.  Despite the brevity of the songs, many of them stick in some (short, simple, melodic) guitar solos.

Plus, the title song “Start Today” has a cool heavy breakdown in the middle that tacks on a harmonica solo (!).  “Competition” includes a bit of whistling, too.

The album has two bonus tracks “Sitting around At Home” which is a Buzzcocks cover.  The vocals are very different on this one.  So much that I’d have guessed it was a different singer.

[READ: February 10, 2021] “The Butcher’s Wife”

This story is about the daughter of drunken Polish man who lived on a farm in Minnesota.

Roy Watzka loved his wife with all of his heart.  She died when their daughter Delpine was very young, and Roy fell apart.  He devoted more of his love to photoshop his deceased wife than his daughter.  Despite Prohibition, Roy found ways to drink and he drank a lot.

Delphine tried to get away–she went to secretarial school. But as her father’s health began to fail, she returned home to care for him.

When she went into town to get some food, she entered the meat market and met Eva Waldvogel.

Eva sensed a kindred spirit in Delphine and invited her behind the counter to taste the lard that she had prepared. Eva’s husband had been trained as master butcher in Germany and he had a special process to render his fat.  As they spoke Delphine mentioned her father and Eva knew of him (everyone did).

Soon enough Delphine was working in the shop.

Eva treated her like a sister.  Eva’s husband Fidelis was a tougher person.  He could haul hundred pound slabs of beef.  He was abrupt and barely spoke to Delphine.  She decided she would avoid him as much as she could while working in his shop. (more…)

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John Berger–“Passeur” (New Yorker, December 24 & 31, 2001)

Posted in Chess, Cro-Mags, Death, John Berger, New Yorker, New Zealand, Nostalgia, Old Age, Pigeons, Poland, Rachel Kushner, Short Story on February 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CRO-MAGS-The Age of Quarrel (1986).

In a post from a couple of days ago, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk bands that she either knew or hung out with.  I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know.  So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.

Cro-Mags are another of those classic punk bands that I never really listened to.  I mean, sure I’ve heard of them.  And that album cover is well known to me.  I just never gave them a listen.

This is their debut album.  They are still together but have only released 6 records.  And their later stuff is much more heavy metal oriented.  But this first one is classic punk.

There a whole bunch of really short songs–eight under two minutes.  But there  were hints at the metal direction because there are also some longer songs too.  Opener “We Gotta Know” is over three minutes and even has a wild guitar solo from Parris Mitchell Mayhew.  “Seekers of the Truth” runs to over four minutes and is comparatively rather slow paced.

But the punk elements are there too.  Chanted call and response and a song like “World Peace” has a good moshing break down.

Overall, it sounds a bit like a few of the metal albums form the 80s that I really liked.  There’s no reason I shouldn’t have listened to this back then.  They’ve even got pointed lyrics that as a teen I would have really gotten into

Interestingly, their follow up album, Best Wishes, had a big lineup change.  Their bassist (and the only guy who has been with the band for all of these years) Harley Flanagan took over on vocals.  His singing style was very different.  The short songs are gone and the metal feel really dominates.

In Kushner’s essay she talks about Harley the hare krishna and you can see that spirituality in his lyrics

Days of Confusion which is only 2 minutes long has this lyric

In these days of confusion much illusions try to get you
Try to trick you Every single day
Much aggravation and frustration
Devastation always heading my way
And I know why I’m suffering
Looking for satisfaction my mind keeps leading me astray
And I know and I see spiritually there’s gotta be a better way
It’s nice when bands do the right thing.

[READ: February 2, 2021] “Passeur” 

A man is in Krakow, the only major Polish city to have survived World War II without its buildings being severely demolished.

He is staying in “a pension” (which I’m picturing as a hostel) and asks where the nearest ATM is.  I enjoyed this line:

It’s not far, she said, sighing regretfully, as if she wished she were sending me to the other side of the world.

He says he has never been in this square before, but he knows it by heart.   Or at least he knows the merchants–grandmothers selling vegetables and home-made goods.

Then he looks in a barbershop and he sees a man who looks comfortable there, Ken.

Ken was born in New Zealand and died there. (more…)

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Lauren Groff–“The Wind” (New Yorker, February 1, 2021)

Posted in Agnostic Front, Domestic Violence, Lauren Groff, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, Pearl Harbour, Short Story, Talking Heads, The Cars, Violence on February 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PEARL HARBOR AND THE EXPLOSIONS-Pearl Harbor and the Explosions (1979).

In a post from a couple of days ago, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk band members that she either knew or hung out with.  I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know.  So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.

Until about a decade ago, I had never heard of Pearl Harbor & The Explosions.  Then a friend of mine was moving and she gave me her vinyl collection.  It was a lot of punk and new wave and, inexplicably she had two copies of this album.  I never listened to it until just now.

Kushner mentions Pearl Harbor in this essay.  I read the essay that Pearl Harbor was opening for Agnostic Front, but that seems like a recipe for disaster.  Maybe Pearl Harbor was just in the audience when Agnostic Front played.  Because this album is not hardcore.  Not even punk.  It’s punky new wave but it is certainly more on the new wave scale.

The first song was the single “Drivin’.”  The guitars are angular, the bass is very busy, it feels rather like the Talking Heads.  The backing vocals are short and direct while Pearl Harbor sings in a perfect new wave style.  The weird thing is how the song seems like it’s funky, but it’s very unfunky.  I don’t know if it’s because the record has no low end–everything is at the high end–the guitar chords, the backing vocals, the bassm even the drums feel like all snare.  But the guitar chords and change-ups are really quite interesting and the solo is really quite erratic and interesting.

“You Got It (Release It)” is really catchy pop with a nice noisy guitar solo.  “Don’t Come Back” pays off a few different styles.  There’s a kind of loping almost country bass and some wildly reckless guitar chords thrown all over them.

“Keep Going” has a wonky sounding bass that pushes this song forward with jagged guitars and dreamy vocals.  “Shut Up and Dance” is one of the harder rocking songs on the disc with a quick descending main riff and loud distorted guitar chords.  But the chorus and middle part are pure new wave.

“The Big One” has a halting guitar and bass line that makes the song catchy and slightly off at the same time.  “So Much for Love” has a disco bass line and some curlicue guitar riffs in between the angular chords.  Then after two minutes the song turns pretty conventional with a catchy reprise of the chorus.

“Get a Grip On Yourself” throws in a wildly funky bass and guitar chords straight out of Bowie’s “Fashion.”  It’s a bouncy song and even has a very disco high-pitched “ooh ooh” and a rather fun “6,5,4,3,2,1, here it comes” refrain.  It also has two false endings, just to mess with the DJ.

“Up and Over” is the longest song on the album by far.  It’s got a catchy chugging riff very reminiscent of The Cars.   The reason for the length is a middle instrumental jam high bass notes and a bunch of guitar mischief.

I’m not sure why the band never did anything else.  Or why Kushner saw Pearl Harbor hanging around in what I’m guessing was the mid 1980s.  Pearl Harbor married Clash bassist Paul Simonon and also hate a solo career as Pearl Harbour.  She also sang with The Tubes (before The Explosions album).  And, best of all, her real name is Pearl E. Gates.  Here’s a fascinating interview I found with her from the Patterns and Tones blog.

Seems like Pearl Harbor was (and still is) pretty cool.

[READ: February 8, 2021] “The Wind”

This was a very sad story, told in a nail-biting way.

The narrator is relating a story that her mother would tell to her whenever “her limbs were too heavy to move and she stood staring into the refrigerator for long spells, unable to decide what to make for dinner.”

In the story, the narrator’s mother was a young child, living with her parents (the narrator’s grandparents) and her two younger brothers.  The grandmother told her daughter that the next day she should pretend it was a normal day.

What that meant was getting out and onto the school bus just like usual.  However, once she was on the bus, she asked the bus driver to let them off at a stop a few stops away.  The bus driver was taken aback but when she looked at the girl and saw her black eye, she knew what was going on and agreed to the deceit.

Their mother was waiting for them and they all got in the car. (more…)

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Ben Okri–“A Wrinkle in the Realm” (New Yorker, February 8, 2021)

Posted in Agnostic Front, Ben Okri, Masks, New Yorker, Rachel Kushner, Racism, Short Story on February 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: AGNOSTIC FRONT-Victim in Pain (1984).

In yesterday’s post, Rebecca Kushner mentions a bunch of punk band members that she either knew or hung out with.  I was amazed at how many of them I’d heard of but didn’t really know.  So this seemed like a good opportunity to go punk surfing.

Agnostic Front is a band I’ve known about forever–they are pretty well acknowledged as the godfathers of punk.  And yet somehow I never really listened to them.

Victim in Pain is their debut album.  It’s got 11 songs in just over 15 minutes.

The longest song on the record is just over two minutes long =.  It’s called “Fascist Attitude” and in addition to being sadly appropriate still, it fits a lot of content into just two minutes

Why should you go around bashing one another
If they look or think different, why let it bother
Everyone’s got their own style, their own thoughts
Don’t let it bother you, don’t let it get caught
Your fascist attitudes – we need the least
With a scene that’s fighting for unity peace
Don’t need more anger; no more danger
Stop now before it’s too late
Learning how to respect each other is a must
So why start a war of anger danger among us
It’s time to grow out of your nazi hypocrism
When you really don’t want part of a fucked up system

Agnostic Front are still going, with a bit more of a thrash sound (and a wicked rumbling bass).  And their albums (and songs) are still really short.

[READ: February 8, 2021] “A Wrinkle in the Realm”

This is an interesting story about masks, but not about the masks that we have been wearing all this time (or maybe it is).

The narrator notices that a woman crossed the street as he walked by.  Then he noticed on the subway that a woman moved her purse to the other side of her when he sat down.

He looked at himself in the mirror and thought he looked normal.  But he wondered what other people swa in him.

I assumed that this story was about racism (although no one’s race is given), but it goes in a different direction.  Although it’s also clearly about racism, make no mistake.

He was unable to stop worrying about what people saw in him to make them afraid.  He tried changing the way he walked, but this new style seemed to make people cross the street even sooner.

One day he was walking behind someone tall and bowlegged.  The man walked past a woman who didn’t do anything.  But when she saw the narrator, she looked startled and immediately crossed the street.  He was so surprised that he followed her.  She crossed back.  When he crossed back, she crossed one more time, but he met her in the middle.  As they walked past each other he said, “There’s nothing wrong with me.  I’m not going to eat you.”  She turned and fled. (more…)

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Allegra Goodman–“A Challenge You Have Overcome” (New Yorker, January 25, 2021)

Posted in Allegra Goodman, Belle and Sebastian, College, New Yorker, Parenting, Publishers, Short Story, Stuart David, Stuart Murdoch, Tindersticks on February 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-“City Sickness” (1993).

In Stuart David’s book, In The All-Night Café, he lists the songs on a mixtape that Stuart Murdoch gave to him when they first met.

Although I’ve been a fan of Belle & Sebastian for a long time, I knew almost none of the songs on this mixtape.  So, much like Stuart David, I’m listening to them for the first time trying to see how they inspire Stuart Murdoch.

In the book, David writes how much he does not like “rock,” especially music based around bluesy rock.  Most of these songs, accordingly, do not do that.  In fact, most of these songs are (unsurprisingly) soft and delicate.

I don’t recall when I first heard the Tindersticks, but I was immediately a fan.  The camber pop was lovely, the strings gorgeous and Stuart Staples’ voice was deep and robust.  Yes, his lyrics are dark or at least sad (or they always seem like they are even when they aren’t), but his voice makes you want to listen to everything he has to say.

This song has a simple melody and a gentle sweeping chorus complete with strings and glockenspiel all underpinned with an almost pop melody.  The big surprise comes during the instrumental break which features a… guitar, violin(?) mixed really low in the background, playing a kind of noise/screeching sound that you almost don’t notice until it stops.

Tindersticks would go on to write many more great albums over the years and are still going.

[READ: February 3, 2021] “A Challenge You Have Overcome”

This is about a couple, Steve and Andrea, who were from a long line of long marriages (on Steve’s side).  They had been married 25 years, which Steve’s mother Jeanne must have been pleased by given Andrea’s family’s history.

Things weren’t perfect:

You might sleep in separate bedrooms and wash dishes in a fury.  You might find a moldy peach in the refrigerator and leave it on the counter for three days as evidence of some private trial–but you would never leave.

Steve and Andrea had endured all kinds of struggles and difficulties, including Andrea losing her job and Steev hating his own job.  Steve works in academic publishing and his small press is slowly going digital–something eh was definitely not interested in.  Andrea had recently begun counselling high school students about getting into college.

Surely Jeanne would approve.   Jeanne had lost patience with everyone toward the end of her life and was not afraid of direct honesty.  Jeanne had brought Andrea to tears many times–she had no filter. (more…)

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Leonard Michaels–“Nachman from Los Angeles” (New Yorker, November 12, 2001)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Cheating, David Westlake, Henri Bergson, Leonard Michaels, New Yorker, Philosophy, Short Story, Stuart David, Stuart Murdoch, The Servants, Universities on February 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SERVANTS-“Afterglow” (1990).

In Stuart David’s book, In The All-Night Café, he lists the songs on a mixtape that Stuart Murdoch gave to him when they first met.

Although I’ve been a fan of Belle & Sebastian for a long time, I knew almost none of the songs on this mixtape.  So, much like Stuart David, I’m listening to them for the first time trying to see how they inspire Stuart Murdoch.

In the book, David writes how much he does not like “rock,” especially music based around bluesy rock.  Most of these songs, accordingly, do not do that.  In fact, most of these songs are (unsurprisingly) soft and delicate.

The Servants are a band I’ve never heard of.  They released one album in 1990, Disinterest.  Band member Luke Haines said, “It is art rock … ten years too late and fifteen years too early.”  They recorded a second album, Small Time, but it wasn’t released until twenty-one years later–following the inclusion of Disinterest in Mojo magazine’s 2011 list of the greatest British indie records of all time.

Evidently, Stuart Murdoch liked singer-songwriter David Westlake’s music so much, he wanted to start  band with him (before Belle & Sebastian).

I listened to this song on Spotify and was really surprised by the recording:

Of all the songs on here, I think this one surprised me the most.  The recording is incredibly muffled.  It all sounds like it was recorded on a cassette player.

It opens with a thumping guitar note and a buzzy bass line meandering around a subsequent guitar line.  There are drums but they are only hitting on the beat with an occasional cymbal that sounds like it’s down the hall.  Westlake’s vocals are so muffled I can’t actually tell what he’s saying, but there does appear to be an occasional harmony vocal.

Interestingly, the music is pretty catchy once it gets going, you just can’t hear any detail as to what’s going on.

Then I realized that this recording is actually an early demo that came with a reissued album.  That’s why it sounds so terrible.

Hearing the version on YouTube (which I assume is the real thing–there’s virtually no information about this song online!), Murdoch’s appreciation makes a lot more sense.

The song moves along nicely with a pretty guitar and steady bass.  Westlake’s voice is low and understated.  I like the way the chorus reveals itself, almost as the end of the first verse instead of a separate part of the song

Stay with me
please don’t go, afterglow.

The song is jangly with a few nice guitar flourishes and a rather unexpected guitar solo.

It’s also two minutes shorter than the demo (and honestly sounds like a totally different song–I feel like something is wrong somewhere).

[READ: January 30, 2021] “Nachman from Los Angeles”

Nachman is, indeed, from Los Angeles.  His friend Norbert has just introduced him to Prince Ali from Persia.  Ali has a proposition for him.  At Norbert’s suggestion, Ali would like Nachman to write Ali’s metaphysics paper for him.

Ali took the class thinking that metaphysics had something to do with mysticism.  By the time he realized it didn’t, it was too late to drop it.  He needs this class to graduate and he has no head for this sort of thing.  Norbert said that Nachman was a great writer. Norbert did not say that Nachman was a mathematician who has never read Henri Bergson.

When Ali said that he would pay him $1,000, he took Nachman’s stunned silence as an agreement.

Nachman is mad at Norbert–who doesn’t even go to school with them.  Norbert got a tattoo which upset his father so much that he cut Norbert off, so Norbert can’t afford school.  But Norbert sees this transaction as a business opportunity–$1,000 a paper, imagine that.

Nachman settled in to read Bergson.  Ali seemed concerned that Nachman was reading instead of writing.  The paper was not due for three weeks, and Nachman obviously needs to learn about what Bergson had to say. (more…)

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Haruki Murakami–“A Poor-Aunt Story” (New Yorker, December 3, 2001)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Haruki Murakami, Huh?, Humiliation, Jay Rubin, New Yorker, Short Story, Stuart David, Stuart Murdoch, The Church, The Railway Children, Translation on January 31, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE RAILWAY CHILDREN-“Brighter” (1987).

In Stuart David’s book, In The All-Night Café, he lists the songs on a mixtape that Stuart Murdoch gave to him when they first met.

Although I’ve been a fan of Belle & Sebastian for a long time, I knew almost none of the songs on this mixtape.  So, much like Stuart David, I’m listening to them for the first time trying to see how they inspire Stuart Murdoch.

In the book, David writes how much he does not like “rock,” especially music based around bluesy rock.  Most of these songs, accordingly, do not do that.  In fact, most of these songs are (unsurprisingly) soft and delicate.

A looping almost marimba-like sound opens before a jangly guitar and steady bass.  Here’s another song where the main instrument is the bass with guitar flourishes added on top.  This band reminds me of The Church (who had put outa couple of albums by now).

Singer Gary Newby has a nice crooning voice and the chorus is quite catchy.  The instrumental break allows the guitar to shine a bit with a meandering solo.  But the biggest surprise comes about 4 minutes in when there’s a drum solo of sorts–played on something like a metallic bongo.  After all of the short songs, this one pushes five minutes and is something of a surprise.

There’s some other good stuff on Reunion Wilderness, like “Gentle Sound” which I thought was a bit catchier.

[READ: January 30, 2021] “A Poor-Aunt Story”

In this story Murakami discusses a poor-aunt. I don’t know of this is a universal idea as I’ve never heard it before, although I do get where he’s coming from.

He says it was a beautiful day and he was out enjoying it when he suddenly had the idea of a poor aunt.  There wasn’t even a poor aunt around, the idea just came to him and it stuck.  He needed to write a story about a poor aunt.

He told his friend he wanted to write a poor aunt story.  She asked if he had a poor aunt.  He said no.  She said she did have a poor aunt bit didn’t want to write about her.

He admits that chances are “you don’t have a poor aunt relative, but you have seen one.”

Every wedding reception has a poor aunt.

No one bothers to introduce her.  No one talks to her.  No one asks her to give a speech.  She just sits at the table like an empty milk bottle.

When people look at the photo album they ask about her and the groom says she’s no one, just a poor aunt of mine.

He woke up the next day and a found that a poor aunt–a little one–was stuck to his back.

Nothing alerted him to her presence, he just felt it. She wasn’t heavy and didnt breathe across his shoulder. People had to look hard to see she was there.  But people did see her–she gives me the creeps, a friend said.  He said it felt like his mother was watching them.

The narrator was unable to see the poor aunt but other people cuid and they all saw her as something else–usually something unfortunate–a friend’s dog who had died.  Soon enough friends stopped calling him–they found it depressing.  But the media swooped in on him. He even made it on the show “Look What Else Is Out There.”  He tried to explain what had happened but the show tried to sensationalize him–looking for a horror story or a joke.

One of his friends said she wished it had been an umbrella stand on his back–that would be more pleasant to look at and more practical.  He could even have painted it different colors.

The poor aunt left him in autumn. He was on a train ride and watched as a mother tried to deal with her squabbling children.  The boy was teasing his sister–stealing her hat.  She was getting very upset and complaining to her mother.  The mother was trying to read and was getting angry at the daughter for bothering her. Finally the girl reached across the seat and slapped the boy’s face and took her hat, feeling very pleased with herself.

The mother was furious and made the girl sit in a different aisle–next to the narrator.  The child protested but the mother said “You’re not part of this family anymore.”  He wanted to say something to the girl, to cheer her up.  Like that she had done a good job, but he knew it would only confuse and frighten her so he said nothing.

Sometime during that interaction, the poor aunt left him.  He wasn’t aware of it, she was just gone.

This was one of Murakami’s first experiments with the short story form.  It was translated by Jay Rubin.

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V.S. Naipaul–“Bohemia” (New Yorker, October 22, 2001)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Franz Kafka, Josef K, Joy Division, London England, New Yorker, Newspapers, Sex, Short Story, Stuart David, Stuart Murdoch, Universities, V.S. Naipaul on January 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: JOSEF K-“Sorry for Laughing” (1985).

In Stuart David’s book, In The All-Night Café, he lists the songs on a mixtape that Stuart Murdoch gave to him when they first met.

Although I’ve been a fan of Belle & Sebastian for a long time, I knew almost none of the songs on this mixtape.  So, much like Stuart David, I’m listening to them for the first time trying to see how they inspire Stuart Murdoch.

In the book, David writes how much he does not like “rock,” especially music based around bluesy rock.  Most of these songs, accordingly, do not do that.  In fact, most of these songs are (unsurprisingly) soft and delicate.

Josef K were a Scottish band named after the main character in Franz Kafka’s The Trial.  I had never heard of them, but they are apparently hugely influential (despite releasing only one record).

Josef K are quite unlike anyone else on the mix tape thus far.  They are far darker (in a Joy Division sort of way).  I mean look what they based their name on.  And there are drums. But they are also very un-rock–playing sharp angular guitars and lead bass lines.

“Sorry for Laughing” opens with a  snapping drum and a rumbling, almost out of control bass line.  The guitars are quieter, playing sharp chords. It’s catchy in a dark sort of way.  The weirdest part comes at the end of the bridge when the bass seems to play a tiny riff that doesn’t quite work–it’s almost an anti-hook and it happens twice.

The middle of the song has a kind of bass solo while the vocals make a chk chk sound. This must have been an incredibly unique song at the time.  And you can definitely hear how a lot of bands were influenced by them.

[READ: January 20, 2021] “Bohemia”

This story, set in the 1950s, is about Willie, a young Indian man traveling to London for the first time.

He is going to London for school–an un-famous school it turns out–modeled after Oxford and Cambridge.

Willie didn’t know much about London–Buckingham Palace and Speaker’s Corner were the extent of it.  He was disappointed by both when he saw them.  He felt the Maharaja’s palace was far superior, and the people in Speakers Corner were mostly irritating.

His father had given him the names of people to get in touch with.  Willie didn’t want to do that–he wanted to succeed on his own.  But he found things very tough going.  So he looked up one of the men–a newspaper reporter.  The man was very proud of his work and very proud of his paper  But Willie knew nothing of the paper or even enough of London to know what the paper wrote about.  It was not an auspicious meeting. (more…)

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