SOUNDTRACK: LIAM KAZAR-“Sunloathe” (from WILCOvered, UNCUT Magazine November 2019).
The November 2019 issue of UNCUT magazine had a cover story about Wilco. It included a 17 track CD of bands covering Wilco (called WILcovered or WILCOvered). I really enjoyed this collection and knew most of the artists on it already, so I’m going through the songs one at a time.
I don’t know Liam Kazar (he was in Kids These Days and Marrow). This song is a simple folkie version of the song with some nice slide guitar and some cool keyboard sounds in the middle.
Kazar’s mellow singing with these instruments makes this cover sound not too different from the original.
[READ: August 23, 2019] The Adventurist
I was intrigued by the title of this book. I didn’t know a thing about it or the author, but the title and the blurbs were promising a funny and thought provoking novel. And they were right.
Henry Hurt is a surprisingly likable narrator given his general disposition. He thinks we need a war in this country–not exactly, but when he looks in the rearview mirror and sees “a glare from my fellow citizen…a look of such opprobrium, such astonished offense (I change lanes too abruptly) that I would have the nerve, the gall to interrupt even for a moment her progress in the world…. Yes: tank treads and the tromp of boots, here on our courteous soil. It is the only remedy.”
He also loves work. Not just his own work but work in general. Unlike his sister:
in her mythology a corporate job is a necessary evil, to be tolerated only until a person finds what he was Meant To Do.
He felt that way once as well, when he first got his job at Cyber Systems but
what changed my mind was love. Of money. I am only partly joking. It’s no good avowing one’s regard for money. You set yourself up as a satirical creature. [but] it didn’t take long to see that acquiring a skill, linking arms with others to fix problems, fulfilling one’s duties with aplomb, all toward a commercial end, is its own kind of nobility.
His sister works for a non profit. He admires the mission but finds all her coworkers too self-satisfied.
So how could one enjoy this person as a main character? Because hes funny and insightful and because he presents a perspective that you don’t often see in literature–a non-caricatured business man. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 