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Archive for the ‘The Future’ Category

Kurt Vonnegut–Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage (1991)

Posted in Blivit, Books about writers, Boredom, Communists, Essays, Funny (ha ha), History, Hitler, Holocaust, Humiliation, Interviews, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Vonnegut, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Morality, Nazis, Pornography, Pulp Fiction, Religion, Suicide, Technology, The Future, The Statler Brothers, Violence, War on June 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

200px-FatesWorseThanDeathSOUNDTRACK: THE STATLER BROTHERS-“Flowers on the Wall” (1965).

flowersonthe Vonnegut mentions this Statler Brothers song in Palm Sunday as well.  I know this from Pulp Fiction–a song that I found very amusing and never would have guessed was a classic country song.  Country music was very different in 1965 than it is now.  I don’t even know if there was a folk or bluegrass category back then, and this song, with its banjo and bouncey acoustic guitar is a great example of the kind of country music I like.  And those harmonies!

This song certainly seems to be about insanity–about a man counting flowers on the wall, playing solitaire with a deck of 51 cards, smoking cigarettes and watching Captain KAN Kangaroo.  Don’t tell him he’s nothing to do.  What a weird little song.  And man is it catchy.  No wonder it was a #1 hit.

[READ: May 31, 2013] Fates Worse Than Death

After reading Palm Sunday I learned that Fates Worse Than Death was a kind of autobiographical sequel to that non fiction book.  I also learned that the two essays that make up Nothing is Lost Save Honor which is impossible to find (and for which I can’t even find a cover) are available in FwtD.  However, since there is no real contents or index, you do have to read the whole thing to find out which chapters contain the essays.  Or you can just look here and see that “The Worst Addiction of Them All” (which was published in The Nation) is in Chapter XIV and “Fates Worse Than Death” appears in Chapter XV.

The last time I read a bunch of Vonnegut together I got a bit burnt out on him and the same thing happened here.  The problem with Vonnegut’s nonfiction is that he tends to repeat himself.  A lot.  And while this book is ostensibly about the 1980s, he talks an awful lot about his family and his friends from the war and his other literary acquaintances., like he did in Palm Sunday.  In a number of places, he says that he doesn’t like to read himself in English, and it would seem that he doesn’t proofread to see if he said something already either.

This is not to say that the book is not worth reading.  Indeed, if you read Palm Sunday in the 80s and then this one in the 90s, you might not remember all of the details that pop up again, but when you read them days apart…well. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (1981)

Posted in Arthur C. Clarke, Blivit, Bob Elliot, Books about writers, Boredom, Communists, Daily Sun, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Gore Vidal, History, Hitler, Holocaust, Humiliation, Interviews, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Mark Twain, Mark Vonnegut, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, NASA, Nazis, Pornography, Pulp Fiction, Ray Goulding, Religion, Short Story, Technology, The Future, The New York Times, The Statler Brothers, Violence, War, William F. Buckley on June 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

PalmSundayFrontandBackSOUNDTRACK: THE STATLER BROTHERS-“Class of ’57” (1972).

stalerI don’t know much about The Statler Brothers.  They are considered country, although this song is hardly country–it’s more folk with some bluegrass and, the real selling point–great harmonies (especially the bass singer with the big mustache).

The song is a wonderful coming of age song, sad and funny with a list of what happened to everyone in the class of ’57.  Like:

Betty runs a trailer park, Jan sells Tupperware,
Randy’s on an insane ward, Mary’s on welfare.
Charlie took a job with Ford, Joe took Freddie’s wife,
Charlotte took a millionaire, and Freddie took his life.

John is big in cattle, Ray is deep in debt,
Where Mavis finally wound up is anybody’s bet.

But the kicker comes at the chorus:

And the class of ’57 had its dreams,
Oh, we all thought we’d change the world with our great words and deeds.
Or maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs,
The class of ’57 had its dreams.

And then at the end:

And the class of ’57 had its dreams,
But living life from day to day is never like it seems.
Things get complicated when you get past eighteen,
But the class of ’57 had its dreams.

Vonnegut quotes the entirety of this song in the book and I’m glad he did, it’s a very moving song and really captures American life.

[READ: May 26, 2013] Palm Sunday

After writing several successful novels, Vonnegut paused to collect his thoughts.  And Palm Sunday begins: “This is a very great book by an American genius.”  It is also a “marvelous new literary form which combines the tidal power of a major novel with the bone-rattling immediacy of front-line journalism.”  After all the self praise, he decides that this collage–a collection of essays and speeches as well as a short story and a play which is all tied together with new pieces (in TV they would call this a clip show)–this new idea of a book should have a new name and he chooses: blivit (during his adolescence, this word was defined as “two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag.”  He proposes that all books combining facts and fiction be called blivits (which would even lead to a new category on the best seller list).  Until then, this great book should go on both lists.

This book is a collection of all manner of speeches and essays, but they are not arranged chronologically.  rather they are given a kind of narrative context.  What’s nice is that the table of contents lists what each of the items in the book is (or more specifically, what each small piece is when gathered under a certain topic).

Chapter 1 is The First Amendment in which he talks about Slaughterhouse Five being burned and how outraged he was by that–especially since the people so anxious to burn it hadn’t even read it (and the only “bad” thing is the word motherfucker).  The first speeches included are “Dear Mr. McCarthy” to the head of the school board where his books were burned and “Un-American Nonsense” an essay for the New York Times about his book being banned in New York State.  The next two are “God’s Law” for an A.C.L.U. fund raiser–it includes his confusion as to why people don’t support the A.C.L.U. which is working for all of our own civil liberties. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Player One: What Is to Become of Us: A Novel in Five Hours (2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cars, CBC Radio 1, Death, Douglas Coupland, End of the World, Environmentalism, Technology, The Future, The Tragically Hip, Violence on May 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

PlayerOne_Coupland

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-Now for Plan A (2012).

hip man

This is the latest Tragically Hip record and it bounces back from the more country feel of We Are the Same and provides eleven solid rocking songs (two of which are actually ballads and not rocking at all but are still good).  “At Transformation” starts with a big bass notes and some feedback, like an alternative indie rocker, but as soon as Gord Downie’s voice comes in it is unmistakably Hip.  This is one of their rockier songs and shows that they are back in fine form.

I recently wrote about “Man Machine” and “Now for Plan A” but I think they both work better in the context of the record.  “Man Machine” contrasts nicely with “At Transformation” and “Plan A” gives the album a chance to relax before the more rocking second half.  “The Lookahead” is the other duet with Sarah Harmer, although I fear she may be a little underutilized here.  It’s a great big chorused song that The Hip do so well.

“We Want To Be It” has a recurring “drip drip” section that I find mesmerizing.  I like the way drip drip turns into click click and then cricket and how it is alternately whispered and screamed.  I’ve never really heard a song where words were used in this way before.

I love the way “About This Map” starts slow but adds a great bridge/chorus that adds a lot of tension.  Take Forever” is a straightforward rocker which along with “The Modern Spirit” and “Streets Ahead” really exemplify the modern sound of the Tragically Hip–simple rockers with big choruses and thoughtful lyrics.  On the other end of the spectrum, “Done and Done” is a simple ballad that works nicely as the song before the closer.  “Goodnight Attawapiskat” (an aboriginal settlement in Northern Ontario) is the kind of amazing minor key, could-be-an epic that Hip fans always love.  It’s scaled down to 4 minutes, but it lets us know that they still have this kind of song in them.

The Hip will never release another record like Fully Completely or Day for Night and while there is something sad about that, it’s nice to see a band evolving and modifying their sound.  This album isn’t going to blow anyone away, but it is a solid collection of great songs.

[READ: May 15, 2013] Player One

I didn’t really understand what a CBC Massey Lecture was.  It was kind of explained, but I was confused how his lecture would have been a full length novel.  And while it is described as a novel in five hours, I doubt his lecture lasted five hours (the story takes place in real time over five hours, but surely no one would have listened to him read for five hours).  Well, thanks to Wikipedia: Each of the book’s five chapters was delivered as a one hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Vancouver on October 12, Regina on October 14, Charlottetown on October 19, Ottawa on October 25 and ending in Toronto on October 29. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One’s Ideas, November 8–12.   Coupland felt that “a narrative seemed like the most efficient and accessible way of putting forth a large number of propositions about life in the year 2010.”

So this turns out to be a story that takes place over five hours, although like many stories with this conceit there are flashbacks (how could there not be).  There are five main characters: Karen, Luke, Rick, Rachel, and Player One.  Although Player One is a confusing character who may or may not really exist.

Karen is a divorced mom and has decided to travel across the country (from Winnipeg to Toronto) to meet a man in an airport bar for a possible fling.  She’s not proud of it but she thinks, why the hell not–she still feels good about herself.  In fact, on the airplane a boy takes some pictures of her with his phone, because she looks pretty hot.  And in the last one she gives him the finger.  (The whole reality of that–that someone may take a picture of you anywhere for any reason is pretty bizarre).  She arrives in the airport bar where she meets Rick, the bartender. (more…)

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Lucky Peach, No. 6: Before and After the Apocalypse (Winter 2013)

Posted in Advice, Cook Book, Culture Shock, Dystopia, End of the World, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Futility, Lucky Peach, McSweeney's, The Dickies, The Future, Zombies on April 20, 2013| 1 Comment »

peach6SOUNDTRACK: THE DICKIES-“Eve of Destruction” (1979).

dickiesI didn’t know the original of this song until I listened to it just now (man it is depressing).  I have known this Dickies cover since the 90s, which speeds up the original almost twice as fast and makes the lyrics pretty much inaudible (which makes it less depressing).

The Dickies have done a lot of great covers, and while this one was never one of my favorites (I’m a “Town without Pity” and “Hair” man, myself), I always enjoyed the “over and over and over again my friend” part (and the squeaky guitars).   And now after listening to the original, I really prefer the cover.

[READ: April 2013] Lucky Peach Issue 6

I haven’t been reviewing Lucky Peach issues in their entirety because they are mostly about food and cooking and recipes and I don’t really have anything to say about that (I enjoy the articles a lot, but I don’t need to comment on them).

But I wanted to bring special attention to this issue, which is all about the Apocalypse.  And there’s a couple reasons for that.  Zombies are huge, that Mayan end of the world business was all fun, and of course everyone seems to think that Obama will cause the end of the world.  But on a more serous level, global warming is unchecked and no one seems to care about the environment at all, and with the weather being as crazy as it is, all bets are off as to what our world will look like even ten years from now.  So why not read a magazine that has recipes for all kinds of things that might still be around in a decade.

The first half of the magazine is all about preparing for the apocalypse.  There’s a degree of tongue in cheekedness in it but it is entirely sincere: there’s plenty of recipes for canning, there’s information about seed savers and a fascinating article about Seafarming, which I seriously hope takes off, as it sounds like it could be a real solution.  There’s some fascinating information about Shelf Life and even a recipe entitled “pollution” which looks like a polluted sea but seems very expensive to make.  I also really enjoyed the brief story about the couple who won a honeymoon in a bomb shelter for two weeks (compete with all of the canned food they could eat–oh, the Fifties). (more…)

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Tony Abbott–The Weird Zone series Books 1-8 (1996-1997)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Children's Books, Funny (ha ha), Get Smart, Metallica, Nirvana, R.E.M., Short Books, Supernatural, Suzanne Vega, The B-52's, The Beach Boys, The Future, Threats, Tony Abbott, Wayne's World, Yuck!, Zombies on March 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

wz1 SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-Off the Deep End (1992).

Weird_Al_Yankovic_-_Off_the_Deep_EndIt was this “Weird Al” album that brought me back into the fold.  His parody of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (“Smells Like Nirvana”) was hilarious.  And the video was even better.  It was enough for me to get this album (the cover of which even parodied Nevermind) and was a huge seller for Al.  This great cover makes the rest of the parodies seem so strangely one-hit wonderish (which is, of course Al’s bread and butter), but when you read the other parodied songs, it’s so amusingly “who?”

We have  “I Can’t Watch This” (“Can’t Touch This,” MC Hammer).  This parody is pretty funny as his TV stuff is usually very good.  “The White Stuff” (“The Right Stuff” New Kids on the Block–really??) is very very funny.  It works on a parody level and it works so well internally including the way the O-O-O-OREO fits in in both respects.  It’s probably his best overall parody for a song whose original I dislike.  “Taco Grande” is a parody of Rico Suave” (does anyone remember that song?).  This song also happens to be a favorite of mine–the way he says “Taco” in an oddly sexy way makes me laugh every time.  And, internally it works really well, too.  “The Plumbing Song” is a parody of Milli Vanilla.  While the plumbing  jokes are good, the actual chorus, the “punchline,” really doesn’t work.  Just like Milli Vanilli.

The originals are quite strong on this disc, too.  “Trigger Happy” is a Beach Boys style parody which actually is quite relevant in the big gun debate of 2013.  “I Was Only Kidding” is one of his anti-romantic songs, in which he says all of these romantic things and then takes it back.  It’s pretty funny, even with the Wayne’s World joke.  Wikipedia suggests that it’s a style parody of Tonio K, but I don’t know who that is or what he sounds like.  “When I Was Your Age” sounds a lot like a song from the UHF soundtrack–that same musical style, I wonder if the band works on the music together. It’s a funny song that’s all about old people yelling about how easy young people have it.  It’s a good one.

“Airline Amy” is an original song about a stewardess which doesn’t really do much for me.  But the final song on the disc “You Don’t Love me Anymore” is just outstanding.  It’s a funny acoustic ballad, an anti-romantic song with some very funny lines.  The video parodies Extreme’s “More Than Words,” even though the original song wasn’t a parody of that song (but since people thought it was he made the video reflect it). The video is awesome.

And of course, the polka medley is wonderful.  There’s such a weird mix of songs, and this one really dates the record (not in a bad way).  The previous medleys mixed a lot of different eras, but the songs in this one are of a very specific time: “Cradle of Love,” “Tom’s Diner,” “Love Shack,” “Pump Up the Jam,” “Losing My Religion” (the second R.E.M. nod from Al), “Do Me” (I don’t know the original but I love that he throws in a yodel at the end of it), “Cherry Pie,” “I Touch Myself,” “Dr Feelgood” and the unforgettable “Ice Ice Baby.”  It May be the only place where Metallica and “The Humpty Dance” play next to each other, too.

In a final nod to Nirvana, Al tossed in a 5 second piece of noise after ten minutes of silence which he called “Bite Me” (because Nevermind had a very noisy song called “Endless, Nameless” after some 30 minutes of silence).  My friend Matt has a very funny story about not knowing that “Bite Me” would come on and getting the crap scared out of him by it.  Al makes us laugh in many different ways.

[READ: February and March 2013] The Weird Zone series

wz2Readers will know that Clark and I love Tony Abbott.  We keep looking for his older, somewhat harder to find series, and this past month the library came through with The Weird Zone, eight books set in the small town of Grover’s Mill.  There’s a Secret Government UFO testing base at the north of the city, a dinosaur graveyard to the west of the city and Humongous Horror Movie Studio to the east.  Living in this weird triangle between these oddities can mean only one thing–Grover’s Mill, is known to the kids as the Weird Zone (their school is even call W.Reid Elementary).  The adults in town don’t seem to realize what’s going on (although, clearly they must) are called Zoners.

The Humongous Horror Movie studio is run by Mr Vickers.  His kids, Sean and Holly, are two of the five protagonist.  Although it’s a little funny that in book one, Sean is away at camp.  Mr Vickers makes a horror movie every week–they are terrible  but he shows them at the drive in and people come (perhaps because of the huge searchlights he waves around through the sky).  But having this crazy creature shop in town means that things are very rarely normal anyway.

In Book One, Zombie Surf Commandos from Mars!, Liz Duffey, Holly Vickers and Jeff Ryan are enjoying a day at the beach of Lake Lake (named after someone named Lake) when a tidal wave surges forth from the water.  Riding that wave are a bunch of Martian zombies.  They march after the kids looking for brains! (more…)

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James Stokoe–Wonton Soup (2007)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Canadian Content, Food, James Stokoe, Oni Press, Pg. 99, Pranks, The Future on December 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

wonton

SOUNDTRACK: PG. 99-Live at The Black Cat, Washington DC, August 31, 2011 (2011).

Ipg99 don’t know anything about pg. 99 but this was a reunion show that they headlined (even though their set is only 25 minutes long).  This concert is the entirety of their album Document #8 (from 2005),   pg. 99 plays noise noise noise so much noise.  It all sounds a bit like a blur with screamed vocals ad thundering drums.  In fact, the drums are really the only thing that lets you know there are tempos and time changes in the songs.  As befits a loud band whose songs you can’t understand, Pg 99 have wonderful song titles like “More Complicated Than a Sci-Fi Flick” (2 minutes long).

There are some distinctly more complicated sections than just hardcore like in “In Love with an Apparition” which has a quiet opening (for about 2 seconds).  And in the middle of the song, there is a much quieter part with just gentle guitar and vocals (although I still cannot make out any lyrics).  “Your Face is a Rape Scene” (no idea if that’s an offensive title or not as I can’t hear the lyrics), starts with a cool rumbling bass solo before being overtaken by the chaos of the band.

The show proves to be kind of funny because the singer is constantly telling the crowd that the show is over (“last number guys” after three songs), they play three songs that last just over a minute each “Life in a Box,” “Ruiner of Life,”  and “We Left as Skeletons.”  Those are followed by the two-minute “Punk Rock in the Wrong Hands,” a kind of call and response of noise.  “Ballad of Circling Vultures” starts off kind of like a ballad, with slow bass notes and feedback that continue for over a minute before the final minute is breakneck hardcore (with apparently everyone screaming something different).

It’s also funny to me how polite the band is–thanking everyone so much for coming and telling everyone to be careful on the way home (the weather was quite bad).  Obviously the band doesn’t want their fans to get hurt, but it’s nice to hear them say so.

The set ends with the surprisingly long “The Hollowed Out Chest of a Dead Horse,” which clock s in at over 6 minutes.  Amid the noise and chaos there are some melodic sections too.  You can hear the whole 26 minute set here.

The whole of Document #8 is streamable here.  It’s not that different from the live set although you can hear lot more of the dynamics there (but really not any lyrics).

[READ: December 12, 2012] Wonton Soup

This graphic novel is billed as a “Space Trucker Opera,” and indeed it kind of is, but it’s more like Iron Chef in Space.

The novel is set in the surprisingly not too distant future when space is colonized, aliens are everywhere and different species intermingle with regularity.  The main characters are James Boyo, a punky/gothy looking guy with really darkly lined eyes (this effect is used quite a lot in more underground comics and although I don’t fully understand it, I do like it) and Deacon Vans, a dreadlocked space truck driver who only has sex on his mind (the age for this book is 13+, which might even be a little young for some of the language in the beginning of the book).

As the story opens, the pair are on a delivery, but Boyo is more interested in finding the perfect Wonton Soup, which is rumored to be at a particular joint out in space.  They prepare the Wontons in the precisely perfect way (stuffing the space chicken’s head tendrils into its body before cooking it).  But Boyo can’t enjoy his Soup because the first bite that he eats contains a metal probe which sends an urgent message from the captain of a ship under attack.  The receiver of the message is the chosen one!

He pushes the beacon to the guy next to him and walks out.  (That cracked me up). (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work! (2010)

Posted in Annie Hall, Biography, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, Consumerism, Death, Depression, Douglas Coupland, Extraordinary Canadians, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Marshall McLuhan, Short Books, Silversun Pickups, Smashing Pumpkins, Technology, The Future on October 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SILVERSUN PICKUPS-Live on KEXP, May 11, 2012 (2012).

Following the other day’s review of Silversun Pickups, I have this more recent show.  In this one, only two members of the band are here–singer/guitarist Brian Aubert and bassist Nikki Monninger for a stripped down acoustic show.

This set is much more enjoyable than the older set.  The songs are certainly stronger, especially “Bloody Mary” and “The Pit.”  But there’s also something refreshing about hearing this band who is usually so fuzzed out sounding clean and simple.  I wouldn’t want an entire acoustic album from these guys, but it’s so dynamic in this version.  You can really hear the construction of the songs in this simple setting.

And the rapport between Brian and DJ Cheryl Waters is relaxed (they are very funny) and engaging–I really want to like these guys.

It’s interesting that in the five years from the previous set the Billy Corganisms have not gone away at all, but I guess one can’t help what one’s voice sounds like.  It’s kind of hard to get past that, but it’s not impossible, and the songs are so good, you can overlook it.  This makes me want to check out their latest album.  You can hear it here.

And for  those who watch TV, Silversun Pickups were on Up All Night this week (in a very weird mash up of pop culture).  Is that how lesser known bands get publicity, or was that meant to be a draw for the show (I don’t know how popular they are–Sarah had never heard of them).

[READ: October 18, 2012] Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work!

I had not heard of this book until I saw it in my local library.  I wasn’t prepared to read another biography of Marshall McLuhan, and indeed, this isn’t one.  This is the American edition of Extraordinary Canadians: Marshall McLuhan with a spiffy new title.  And it is virtually identical.

There are several things that were in the Canadian edition that were left out of the American edition (although they did leave in all of the “u”s in words like “colour”).

The things that were left out are: (more…)

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Douglas Coupland: Close Personal Friend (1996)

Posted in Canadian Content, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Douglas Coupland, Kurt Vonnegut, Meta, Reality Bites, Technology, The Future, Twin Peaks on October 12, 2012| 1 Comment »

[WATCHED: October 10, 2012] Close Personal Friend

While I was browsing Coupland’s bibliography on Wikipedia I saw this movie: Douglas Coupland: Close Personal Friend.  There is no information on Coupland’s site about it and there is precious little information about it anywhere else, frankly.  However, it has been uploaded to YouTube!

It’s a 24 minute film made for commercial TV.  It was made in 1996 and is very much of that time.  I’m not sure if Coupland was working on Girlfriend in a Coma at the time, but ideas in the film inform that book as well.

Basically it has Coupland, looking very clean-cut and smart–suit, skinny tie, hair parted hard–sitting in a white chair (a rounded chair that swivels–very “futuristic” looking).  He is sitting in front of  a white  background so his chair disappears from time to time (I’m willing to accept that that could just be the effect of a poor video transfer though).

There is an interviewer who asks him puffball questions, because it’s basically a chance for Coupland to talk about the his views of the late nineties and the future.  For instance: Do you consider yourself a citizen of the late 20th century?  (That’s just a weird question).  She asks him what the two dominant activities will be 20 years from now (which would be 2016).  His answer? Going shopping and going to jail.   Not too far off.

Coupland has always been concerned with the future (or more specifically, the millennium–I’m not sure how he has wrapped his head around the 21st century).  As I mentioned about his short story yesterday, he is very like-minded with Vonnegut about the state of humanity as we reach the millennium.   So he talks about lot of different topics including: individuality (and how we have lost it–he talks about a flock of birds seeing a group of people and finding them indistinguishable); the idea of not having a life–this was interesting, because as he points out even 20 years ago (1976), that expression would have been meaningless; consumerism; the uselessness of pop culture (how reading about Burt and Loni uses brain cells that could have been used to cure cancer).  And how technology can dehumanize us. (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.–Between Time and Timbuktu or Prometheus-5 a Space Fantasy (1972)

Posted in David O'Dell, Death, Funny (ha ha), Hitler, Kurt Vonnegut, Marriage Trouble, NPR/PRI/PBS, Religion, Sci-fi, Sexism, Technology, The Flaming Lips, The Future, Time Travel, Violence on September 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Dark Side of the Moon live at Hangout Music Festival, May 2012 (2012).

Recently, the Flaming Lips and friends released a version of Dark Side of the Moon that was noisy and chaotic and resembled the original in some  ways but departed from it radically in others.  When Palladia aired this concert of the band performing the album in its entirety I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised that their rendition of the album is quite faithful to the original.  There’s plenty of Flaming Lips-isms in it, but it sounds a lot closer to the Pink Floyd version than The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and Peaches version.  And that’s a good thing.

I have to admit the audio wasn’t as clear as I would have expected (which is surprising for the Lips)–it was very hard to hear Wayne when he was talking.  That may have worked well for the singing though as he sounded almost exactly like David Gilmour on most of the songs.  The stage was also filled with people.  In addition to the four band members, there was a cast of dancers dressed like Swiss maids, there were some extra musicians  and two women.  One, dressed in a gold lame body suit (with wings) sang all of the wailing vocals on the album (and did a very good job) and the other I’m not sure what she did–neither woman was introduced during the aired set so I don’t know who they were.

Many bands throw things out into the crowd during a set, well, during “Money,” Wayne Coyne tossed out giant confetti balloons that were filled with actual money, allegedly $10,000 donated by none other than Dave Matthews.  That’s pretty intense and hopefully didn’t cause any damage.

Check Palladia for when they’re going to air it again.  I just learned that there is a You Tube video of the whole concert (more than just Dark Side of the Moon) and you can watch it here:

It’s a good fun set and shows just how much Stephen Drodz does on stage (I mean, seriously, check out the guitar he plays in “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”) and that Wayne’s hands must be either very cold or have no sensation.

[READ: September 24, 2012] Between Time and Timbuktu

I have been reading a lot of Vonnegut lately. I had it in my head that I would just blow through all of his books.  But I admit I’m getting a little burnt out.  Deadeye Dick and Galàpagos were kind of numbing and Bluebeard which I’m working through now is fun, but a little exhausting.  There’s no reason I should be ordering new Vonnegut books to read now, but I saw that the library had a copy of Between Time and Timbuktu (which is hard to find) and since I won’t be using that library for much longer, I decided to order it.

And I’m glad I did.  Between Time and Timbuktu was a TV movie made by compiling a bunch of scenes from Vonnegut’s first few books.  The basic script was by David O’Dell and Vonnegut himself had a hand in working on it (like “grafting the head of a box turtle onto the neck of a giraffe”).  And as the story progresses you can see some of the best set pieces from his novels.

But the framing device is new.  A man, Stony Stephenson has won a jingle contest for Blast-Off Space Food.  The TV crew appear at his house (and meet his mother in a dressing gown (she’s a funny character)) to break the news.  He gets dragged away and a few months later we see the blast off of the rocket.  When he gets into space, Stony will launch into the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum (the Infundibulum comes from Sirens of Titan). (more…)

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Kurt Vonnegut–Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)

Posted in Adventure, Books about writers, Cancer as plot device, Chess, Communists, Consumerism, Culture Shock, David Foster Wallace, Death, Decadence, Dictionary, Drinking, Drugs, Dystopia, End of the World, Fears, Funny (ha ha), History, Hitler, Humiliation, Kurt Vonnegut, Ladies Home Journal, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Military, Pink Floyd, Sci-fi, Scrabble, Sex, Short Story, Suicide, Supernatural, The Future, War on August 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PINK FLOYD-Alan’s Psychedelic Christmas (1970).

I’ve always loved Pink Floyd’s Atom Heart Mother.  I have no recollection of how I stumbled upon this live bootleg, but when I saw that it contained one of the few live recordings of “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” I had to give it a listen.

So this show is from 1970 and was recorded in Sheffield just before Christmas (Nick Mason evidently introduced the show while wearing a Santa Claus suit).  The sound quality is pretty good given that it is 40 some years old.  There’s a bunch of hiss, and the quieter talking bits are hard to understand, but the music sounds fine.

So the show opens with “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” and what is so silly (and I assume funny to watch (a little less funny on bootleg) is that the band made and ate breakfast on stage.  As Collectors Music reviews writes: “This is the only known live recording of ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ but also hosts an amazing performance by the band which included them making morning tea on stage which is audible. Just like most of their earlier performances, the performance of “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” slightly differs from the album version due to some nice jamming done by the band, especially Gilmour with his delay pedal.” As I said, some of the audio is static and hard to make out in this song–the band is conversing during their tea, but who knows what they are saying.  And who know what is o the radio.

Then the band gets down to business.  One of things I love about this period Floyd which is so different from their later work is that the played really long spacey jams often with very few lyrics.  So we get a 12-minute version of “The Embryo” (the only available studio version is a very short one on Works which is quite a shame as the song is really good).  A 14-minute workout of “Fat Old Sun” which is usually only about 5 minutes.

There’s a great version of “Careful with that Axe Eugene” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” (15 and 12 minutes respectively).

Then in a killer version of “Saucerful of Secrets,” just as they get to the end, there’s a power failure (at least according to the song title).  The band is rocking out just hitting the climax when suddenly all you can hear are un-miked drums.  Ha. After a couple of minutes, power comes back and they pick up from just before where they left off.

Then the band launches into a full 31-minute version of “Atom Heart Mother” complete with horns and choir  of voices.  It sounds quite good (the horns seem a little sketchy but that might be expected with such staccato music).

The set ends and the band needs an encore.  Apparently they couldn’t remember anything else because they just re-do the last few minutes of “Atom Heart Mother” again.

One of the things that cracks me up about these shows in the 70s in England, is that the audience is so polite. Their applause sounds like a classical theater rather than a rock show.  And with a bootleg you know they didn’t try to make the audience sound bigger than they are.

The whole package is a fun trip.

[READ: August 17, 2012] Welcome to the Monkey House

So this book is Vonnegut’s second collection of short stories.  But there’s a twist.  This collection contains all of the short stories from Canary in a Cat House except one. It also contains many of the stories he had written since then as well as stories not collected in Canary.  So you get basically 18 years worth of stories here.  And it’s interesting to see how much he has changed over those years (during which he wrote 5 novels, but not yet Slaughterhouse Five).

Since I read Canary a little while ago (see comments about the stories here), I knew that his 50’s era stories were influenced by WWII.  So it’s interesting to see how his stories from the 690s are not.  They deal more with day to day things and, of course, abstract concepts about humanity, although politics do enter the picture again once Kennedy is elected .

  • Where I Live (1964)

This was a good story to open with because it shows the then-later-period Vonnegut’s mindset and location.  This story is about Barnstable Village on Cape Cod (where I assume Vonnegut lived since there are a number of stories set on the Cape).  This is a very casually written story about an encyclopedia salesman who goes to the local library and sees that their two encyclopedias are from 1910 and 1938.  I enjoyed this line: “He said that many important things had happened since 1938, naming among others, penicillin and Hitler’s invasion of Poland.”  He is told to talk to the library directors who are at the yacht club.  I love the attitude that Vonnegut creates around the village which “has a policy of never accepting anything.  As a happy consequence, it changes about as fast as the rules of chess.” For really, this story is about the Village more than the encyclopedia salesman, and it’s an interesting look at people who move into a new place and want it to never change. (more…)

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