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Archive for the ‘Threats’ Category

Jude Watson–Beyond the Grave [The 39 Clues, Book Four] (2009)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Children's Books, Egyptology, Fears, Jude Watson, Kids Corner, Mystery, Technology, The Amoeba People, Threats, Travel, Trout Fishing in America, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on April 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Kids Corner on WXPN (2011).

Kids Corner is a great radio show on WXPN (88.5 Philadelphia).  It airs Sunday through Thursday night at 7PM.  It’s also available online (you can listen live at 7PM!).  In addition to some smart radio for kids (Science Thursday!), there’s quizzes and call in stuff and lots of music.

Most of the music is funny/novelty stuff.  From standard bearers like “Weird Al” Yankovic, to great bands like Trout Fishing in America, to the ancient novelty song “Star Trekkin” and my new favorite kids’ band The Amoeba People.

Every night they have a contest for song of the day, which anyone can vote in (democracy in action!).

Check out the last six years of Ton Ten songs (Steve Martin’s “King Tut!”).  And be sure to tune in, you just might just learn something.

[READ: March 2, 2011] Beyond the Grave

This fourth book in the series excited me because it broke with the format of the kids traveling to two cities with no help.  When they land in Egypt, they are greeted by an old friend (whom they never met before).   This old friend,  Hilary Vale, is actually a friend of their grandmother, Grace.  Grace went to Egypt every year and spent her time with Hilary, traveling, seeing the sights and, of course, looking for clues (although Hilary didn’t know any details of what Grace was up to).  Hilary (and her grandson, Theo) play a helping role in the book, and I have to say that it was nice to let the kids have a little breather with some people that they can trust.

They also get to go to a super fancy hotel room (using Alasdair Oh’s frequent number card).  Of course, as is the way with cool spy stories, the super fancy hotel turns out to be the stronghold for the branch of the Cahill family that Alasitar Oh is part of (I still can’t keep those branch names straight).  They pretty easily access the super spy area of super cool hotel suite.  (Because they have Alastair’s card, they are given the fancy suite).  Of course, once they are in the secret room, Alastair’s uncle, the sinister Bae Oh, knows that they’re there (he owns the hotel).  And they are suitably trapped.

While in the stronghold, the kids learn a little bit about the items they are seeking in Egypt (there is a fake statue in the room).  But mostly they’re concerned about trying to escape.  Thanks goodness thier au pair (who getts cooler with each book) has been paying attention. (more…)

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Robert Coover–A Child Again (2005)

Posted in Art, Darkthrone, Death, Dreams, Fables, Fantasy, Fears, Ghosts, McSweeney's, Plague, Political Humor, Robert Coover, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator, Until the Light Takes Us, Violence on April 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DARKTHRONE-“Kathaarian Life Code,” (1992), “Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” (2004), “Canadian Metal” (2007).

After watching Until the Light Takes Us, I wanted to check out some of Darkthrone’s music.  According to their Wikipedia page, over the years the band who pioneered black metal has morphed away from the sound.  They’ve added elements of punk and speed metal to their bludgeoning sound.  In the movie Fenriz says that he listens to all kinds of music and is very open-minded.

“Kathaarian Life Code” is a ten minute dirge of black metal.  It opens the band’s second album (considered to be a black metal classic) with chanting and guttural spoken words.  Then it blasts forth with the jackhammer style of drums that is now standard in black metal.

It slows down from time to time, allowing for the really heavy parts to blast through the chaos of the fast parts.  It’s pretty intense and not for the faint of heart.  You can hear occasional guitars screaming through the din, but the production is intentionally murky, dark and noisy.  As they say in the movie, the bands intentionally recorded on the shittiest equipment they could find.

“Sacrificing to the God of Doubt” is a later song, taken from what is considered their final album in the black metal style.  The band was turning away from the traditional black metal sound, and there are elements of punk (guitar riffs that are audible, and a sound that is less bass heavy) present.  And the production, while still mired by noise is relatively cleaner.

“Canadian Metal” is from their third most recent album, after the shift from black metal was more or less official.  It sounds more like an early death metal song.  There’s low tuned notes, audible vocals (growled, but you can actually hear words) and a kind of headbanging aspect to it.  The album is called F.O.A.D. which was a song by Venom (and others, obviously), and this track reminds me of Venom somewhat.  I wouldn’t say that the band has sold out because there’s no way anyone is playing this on the radio, but it’s interesting to see how a band has managed to change things up and add new elements to its sound even though they were the forerunner and grandfather of a scene.

[READ: February and March 2011] A Child Again

This is a collection of short stories from Robert Coover.  There is a kind of theme throughout (most of) the stories about returning to childhood.  But the overall sense is one of despair, sadness, pointlessness and sex.  Lots and lots of sex.  And the sex is usually as vulgar and nasty as the tone of the book suggests it would be.  It’s a little off-putting, actually.

I was planning to say that I didn’t like this collection at all because I really didn’t enjoy the first half-dozen or so stories.  I continued because Coover has a great reputation that I didn’t want to give up after a few misfires.

The real disappointment came because the stories seem so promising: many of them are a kind of retelling of classic fairy tales that looks at “what happened afterward.”  However, and this was true for almost all of them, Coover tries to do two contradictory things with the stories.  He is playing with fairy tales but he is also writing stories that are completely unlike fairy tales.  By that I mean, Coover’s stories are long and very detailed, they bring far too much information to the story.  And a fairy tale is almost by definition short.  I mean, “Puff the Magic Dragon” is a song that’s about five paragraphs long.  But Coover’s “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” is 26 pages long.  So instead of playing with the original, it feels like an original story that uses someone else’s characters.  It’s unsettling and unsatisfying.

It’s also not very funny.   And I’m not sure fit’s supposed to be.  But with a title like “Sir John Paper Returns to Honah-Lee” you expect the funny.  And there are funny moments.  I mean the whole premise is that little Jackie Paper has grown up into Sir John Paper.  He’s now an old Knight and he is sent to slay the dragon (Puff) who is plaguing the city.  Even though that is a tragic story, it is also inherently humorous.  And there are laughs when they reunite.  But it gets so bogged down in details, that the essence of the story seems to get lost.  Perhaps I’m just disappointed because it (they) turned out so unlike I wanted them to be. (more…)

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Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott–Donald (2011)

Posted in Batman, Donald Rumsfeld, Eric Martin, Fears, History, McSweeney's, Military, Mogwai, Morality, Prison, Religion, Short Books, Stephen Elliott, Threats, Torture Porn, WMDs on March 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-Ten Rapid (1997).

The release of this disc hot on the heels of Young Team rather confused me, especially when trying to keep track of which discs were “real” and which ones were compilations.  This one is a compilation.  It’s subtitled: (Collected Recordings 1996–1997).  And the fact that it has ten songs on it tells you just how much they released in those two years.  (It appears that they released 4 or 5 singles, although all the songs don’t seem to appear on Ten Rapid, and there seems to be a song or two unaccounted for.  Wikipedia also suggests that some of the songs were re-recorded for Ten Rapid.  Gosh, what’s a completist to do?).  And given all that they released back then, it’s also a surprise at how short this collection is  (just over 30 minutes).

The amazing thing is how much the disc sounds like a complete recording and not a collection of singles.  It is mostly Mogwai’s slower, quieter pieces, and the overall tone is one of “mood” rather than “songs.”  And, for those of us who thin of Mogwai as a really loud band, the prominent use of glockenspiel comes as something of a surprise (as does the quiet singing on two of the tracks).

The opener “Summer” is not the same as “Summer [Priority Version]” on Young Team.  This one is a beautiful track with glockenspiel while the YT version is much heavier and darker. “Helicon 2” (also known as “New Paths to Helicon, Pt. 2”), is a wonderful track with an interesting riff and texture.  On a recent live disc, it was expanded greatly. “Angels vs Aliens” and “Tuner” are the two tracks with vocals.  They’re both rather quiet and kind of soothing.

“I am Not Batman” is mostly washes rather than a riff based song.  “Ithica 27ϕ9” is one of their best early songs. It’s also the one track here that really experiments with sound dynamics.   It opens with a beautiful melody that swirls around for a bit.  Then the loud guitars come screaming out until it returns to that melody (and all in under 3 minutes).

The final track “End” is an entirely backwards recordings.  Wikipedia says that it is “Helicon 2” backwards, and I’ll take their word for it.

Ten Rapid is a really solid collection of songs showing just how good Mogwai was from the start.

[READ: March 8, 2011] Donald

This book is a speculative piece of fiction that answers the question: what would happen if Donald Rumsfeld was sent to Guantanamo Prison.  Note also that the cover is a parody of the cover of Rumsfeld’s own memoir (released around the same time).

The main character is clearly Rumsfeld, although he is never mentioned by his full name, always “Donald.”  But his description and his biography make it obvious that it is him.  There is a Note at the end of the book which states that the information about Donald is as accurate as possible.

First we see Donald in a library, presumably working on his memoirs.  He is accosted by a young kid who asks him questions.  Donald is annoyed by the kid and more or less blows him off.  Donald then has a fancy dinner with his wife and “Ed and Peggy” (two people who I can’t place historically).

That evening, masked people break into Donald’s home and haul him off to a prison (he is bound and his head is covered so he doesn’t know where).  The rest of the book sees him taken from one prison to the next, tortured in various ways (nothing too graphic, most of the torture consists of thinks like disrupting sleep, keeping the temperature really hot or really cold, and asking him lots and lots of questions, sometimes for 20 hours at a time.  There is no physical torture (again, it’s not graphic). (more…)

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Mary Gaitskill–“The Other Place” (New Yorker, February 14 & 21, 2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Butthole Surfers, Death, Drinking, Fears, Mary Gaitskill, Mayyors, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Short Story, The Jesus Lizard, Threats, Unlikable main character, Violence on March 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MAYYORS: 3 EPs (online only) (2008-2009).

I learned about Mayyors from the NPR’s Best Metal and Outer Sounds releases of 2009 on All Songs Considered.  I enjoyed Viking’s picks for 2010 quite a bit so I thought I’d investigate his previous years’ selections.  I’d never heard of Mayyors before, but he makes the band sound so intriguing (and dirty).

The write up is so wonderfully enigmatic that I had to find the tracks online.  I mean, how can you pass up this:

This is a plea to Mayyors: If you’re going to release one of the ugliest pieces of noise rock this side of The Jesus Lizard, please start issuing your music in editions bigger than David Yow’s beer gut. After a couple of ripped 7″ singles made the rounds on blogs last year, those seeking the puss-popping skronk of Mayyors scavenged message boards and listservs to get their hands on the next limited affair. (After all, these Sacramento-based dudes don’t have a Web site or any known email addresses. Punk rock, I guess.) The Deads 12″ EP significantly dirties the rock gene pool with nauseating feedback and power chords dumber than the actual mud driven over the orange covers. Once again, Google is your friend.

That link to Google is the only way I was able to find these songs.

So Mayyors have released three EPs since 2008.  Each had a pressing of about ten copies, apparently.  You really can’t find any information about them online.  I don’t even understand how the band plays shows since their total recorded output is about 2o minutes long.  But I was able to get all 9 songs.

Having said all, that I don’t always like the music.  It hurts your head. The general sound is really downtuned sludge rock.  It’s not squealy feedbacky noise, it’s just distorted guitars played very loud and fast with vocals that are pretty incomprehensible (with lots of echo!). I have no idea what he’s singing about.  I’m sure it’s not very nice.  But I feel like their music would be even more subversive if they sang about love and kindness (or like the cover of Megan’s LOLZ: unicorns and rainbows).

The first EP: Marines Dot Com has two tracks “Metro” (3:08) and “Fatigure” (3:35).  “Metro” reminds me a lot of early Butthole Surfers.  “Fatigure” has a discernible riff (which is of course very downtuned.  It’s entirely possible they have only a guitar and a bass.  About half way through, the song changes into a noise-fest.  Of course, nearly 4 minutes of noise is pretty tough to handle.  Especially since the noise is sludgy and loud loud loud.

The middle EP, Megan’s LOLZ, is my favorite.  Three songs: “Intro” (0:59), “Airplanes” (3:23), “White Jeep” (2:18).  The noise and sludge is still there, but you can actually hear nascent riffs under all the noise. It also seems a little crisper (or something), which makes the tracks stand out a little more.

“Intro” actually plays around with different kinds of noise, suggesting they’re in for something new on this EP (of course, it’s still buried under noise and sludge).  “Airplanes” has another discernible riff, although it does sound like it’s recorded in an airplane hangar.  “White Jeep” has a similar (if not the same) riff, but it plays a bit more with feedback and genuinely piecing noises.  (There’s even a  kind of guitar solo).

The latest EP, the one that Viking likes, is called Deads.  It has four songs: “The Crawl” (1:41), “Ghost Punch” (1:41) “Clicks (2:42) and “Deads” (2:53).  And as he describes above, the cover does appear to have been driven over by a muddy truck.

This album is a bit more “polished” (how dare anyone use that word).  In fact the sludge doesn’t really get put onto “The Crawl” until about 50 seconds in.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a sludgy mess, but you can sort of tell what instruments there are and that there’s a guy singing.   “Ghost Punch” sounds a bit more death metal-like than their other songs, although it’s so tinny, it sort of transcends the genre somewhat.  “Clicks” seems to be the song of choice for examples of what Mayyors can do.  It’s got intense delay, squealing noises and a vocal melody! (Do I hear screams of sellout?).  Hear it and “The Crawl” here.  “Deads” actually has staccato notes in the opening, but it’s all sludge from there.

And then there’s silence.  Blissful silence.  Mayyors: Not for the sensitive.

[READ: March 5, 2011] “The Other Place”

Mary Gaitskill is generally acknowledged as a master short story writer.  I haven’t read all that much by her.

I’m not sure if her stories are all as dark as this one, but man this is quite dark, indeed.  It’s about a man and his son.  Well, actually it begins with the son.  He is into guns. Like really into guns. He draws them, he makes stories about them, he plays guns outside even if they don’t have guns.  He also loves violence on TV, especially if it’s funny.  The boy is thirteen.

When I read the story, I initially thought that the father was upset or worried about this gun fascination, because he opens the story with “How did this happen?”  But he seems to know how this happened: “The way everything does, of course.  One thing follows another, naturally.”

And so, with the wrong impression, I couldn’t quite understand why the father was so surprised by the son’s behavior because as the father relates his own past, it’s pretty full of violence itself.  Indeed, as it progresses, it seems like the son inherited all of his father’s traits. (more…)

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Geoffrey Pyke–To Ruhleben and Back (1916) [THE COLLINS LIBRARY No. 2 (2003)]

Posted in Adventure, Geoffrey Pyke, History, McSweeney's, Military, Mogwai, Paul Collins, Prison, Short Books, The Collins Library, Threats, War on March 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOGWAI-Young Team (1997).

When Mogwai released Young Team there was quite a bit of buzz around them.  I remember when I bought the album, that I had no idea where they were from.

With the Asian-looking characters on the cover and a picture of Fuji Bank (and no band members names listed) I assumed they were Japanese.  Of course, a closer listen reveals a lot of Scottish voices quietly chatting away during some of the songs (which doesn’t necessarily mean they are Scottish…but indeed, they are).

Young Team is a great debut and Mogwai shows a lot of versatility.  It opens with a spoken word bit about Mogwai (If the stars had a sound it would sound like this).  It’s a slow instrumental, actually quite pretty, with picked guitar and continual bass and even harmonics.   It gets loud by the end, yet even that is restrained.  But just when you think that Mogwai is going to be another post rock instrumental chill out band, they hit you with “Like Herod.”

“Like Herod” is one of the more amazing songs in instrumental rock.  It plays with loud and soft dynamics like nobody’s business.  Opening with a slow rumbling bass, the guitars pick out intricate melodies.  Then at 3 minutes, all hell breaks loose in the form of big guitar chords and screaming guitar notes.  Things slow to a crawl about 6 minutes into the song. But we’re only half way done.  And those quiet notes are once again blown away by those same chords and screaming notes.

You could pretty much end the disc right there and call it a success.  But “Katrien” shows off another side of the band: a spoken word side.  Behind some gorgeous melodies there’s something of a rant.  It’s followed by “Radar Maker,” a 90 second piano-based instrumental.  It’s quite delicate and it leads right into “Tracy” a beautiful 7 minute song with a pretty melody and lovely washes of sound.

The middle of the album has two shot songs: “Summer [Priority Version]” is a condensed version of that quiet/loud dynamic that Mogwai does so well.  And “With Portfolio” plays havoc with a pretty piano song by throwing in washes of noise and sound effects which completely take over by the end.

The unfortunately titled “R U Still In 2 It” belies its bad name with some beautiful quiet guitar work played behind a vocal turn by Aidan Moffat.  There’s even a sung chorus!

“A Cheery Wave from Stranded Youngsters” is a two-minute sort of intro to the final track on the disc, the amazing “Mogwai Fear Satan.”  A 16 minute instrumental that is quite beautiful as it opens: distorted chords that don’t overpower the melody.  They bolster it as it builds and builds until it reaches a moment of silence which is filled by…a flute (!).  The song continues to build with a gorgeous repeating motif.  Then it slows down again to let the flute really sync with the song until it reaches its beautiful end.

It’s a great debut, deserving all of the praise that was heaped on it.

[READ: March 3, 2011] To Ruhleben and Back

This is a true account of one man’s escape from Ruhleben prison in Germany during WWI.  I admit that I had never heard of Ruhleben before (and frankly I’m really surprised I never have, as roughly 4,000 British citizens were interned there from 1914-1918).

This story was published in 1916 as one man’s account of his escape from the prison.  And then it quietly went out of print. McSweeneys’ Collins Library has now (well, in 2002), seen fit to get it reissued once again.

The introduction explains the historical veracity of the book, and also promises a rather ripping yarn.  And indeed, Pyke does not disappoint.

Well, maybe a little in the beginning.  The early parts of the book are a little slow.  It explains who he was and how he wound up in Germany during the war.  The short version is that he was a journalist who was frustrated that he wasn’t hearing proper news from the war, so he volunteered to go to Germany (even though at this point all English men and women were being incarcerated).  He moved there and since he spoke fluent German, he was able to blend in.  Until he was caught. (more…)

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Saïd Sayrafiezadeh–“Paranoia” (New Yorker, February 28, 2011)

Posted in New Yorker, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Short Story, The Charlatans, The Proclaimers, The Trash Can Sinatras, Threats on March 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRASH CAN SINATRAS-Cake (1990).

Back in college I had all kinds of disposable income.  And so rather than buying beer or smokes, I bought CDs.  And I bought a few CD’s based on the band’s name or cover (not a great idea).  Some paid of handsomely while other, eh, not so much.

Anyhow, this is one of those bands that I bought based on their name.  I stumbled upon the disc the other day and decided to give it a listen (it gets very high marks on allmusic).

This disc is very much of its time, a jangly UK band that could have been the Charlatans or any other band that was huge in the early 90s.  The album has a more acoustic feel to it than the big college bands of the time.   In fact, they seem to be trafficking in the same style of music as that other huge Scottish band (at the time) The Proclaimers: harmonies, jangly guitars and upbeat choruses (although nowhere near as upbeat as The Proclaimers).

[READ: March 3, 2011] “Paranoia”

This was a really engaging story. And what I especially liked about it was that there were two threads that intermingled, but it wasn’t obvious which was the “main” story.  So the story lulls you into thinking one thing and then slams you with something else.  It was very effective.

The story is about a young white man, Dean, who befriends a young Chilean boy, Roberto.  Roberto is an illegal alien.  His father (and family) was invited here to complete an advanced degree; however as soon as he finished it, the family were sent home.  But Roberto did not want to go back home, he wanted to finish high school, so they let him stay by himself (he was about 17).  He made some money, learned English and made friends with Dean, who was willing to help him out financially.

The second thread concerns the war.  I assume it’s the current Iraq war, (it is described as being a quick, in-and-out operation) but that is never specified.  So it could be the 90’s Iraq war.  There are news flashes about it, flags are everywhere, and there’s even a fourth of July parade timed to coincide with the troops’ departure. (more…)

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Millard Kaufman–Misadventure (2010)

Posted in Death, Drugs, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Millard Kaufman, Sex, Short Books, Threats, Violence, Virginity (Loss of) on March 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Dry (1992).

This first PJ Harvey album was a revelation in 1992.  It was angry and loud and awfully disconcerting. And, perhaps most importantly, it showed a strong woman, unafraid to point fingers at foolishness around her. (Yes, I miss the 90s).

It was also raw and abrasive and, at times, scary.  The opening track featured discordant music and vocals that were more than a little uncomfortable.  “O Stella” has more uncomfortable vocals with super cool and slightly off harmonies.  The guitar is a great distorted mass and the bass is low and heavy.  A great track.

“Dress” is one of the least abrasive tracks musically, which really lets the lyrics come to the fore. And her lyrics are wonderful throughout the disc–she attacks conventions of femininity and flips expectations.  And although “Dress” has a very simple chorus–just the line “If you put it on”–it is catchy as anything.

But it’s not all loud songs, either.  The wonderfully titled “Happy and Bleeding” features some intriguing quiet guitar work and whispered verses.  It grows in strength but never wails like the other songs.  For real wailing, “Sheela-na-Gig” is your song. Terrifically rocking and obscene, it’s a funny, clever awesome alt rock song.

Harvey experiments with falsetto (although nothing like she will on Let England Shake) on “Hair,” a cool twist on the Samson and Delilah story.  “Plants and Rags” makes exquisite use of a creepy violin to bring some extra sounds to an already cool song.

It’s a stunning debut and showed that Harvey was a fearless singer.

[READ: February 27, 2011] Misadventure

This is Millard Kaufman’s final novel (after the very cool Bowl of Cherries).  The Afterword (written by Kaufman’s son) seems to suggest that Millard actually wrote this back in the 60s.  There are elements of this book that make me thing that he did write it in the sixties (and then obviously updated particulars to make it contemporary).  It just feels circa the 60s and it feels like the book of a younger man (Kaufman was 92 when he died).

The story opens with a dead body and a real estate agent.  And it quickly develops into a tidy noir fiction with double-crossing and undermining and all kinds of interesting twists.  I don’t read noir or “mysteries” as a rule, so this is kind of a novel novel to me.  Accordingly, I can’t compare it to the genre. (more…)

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Peter Lerangis–The Sword Thief [The 39 Clues, Book Three] (2009)

Posted in Adventure, Airlines, All Songs Considered, Children's Books, Culture Shock, Eoin Colfer, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Peter Lerangis, Short Books, Technology, The Head and the Heart, Threats, Travel, TSA, Violence on March 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE HEAD AND THE HEART-“Winter Song” (2010).

Sarah intended to get this disc for me for Christmas.  But evidently Sub Pop bought out the disc and put it out of print.  It’s now available as a download.  But a personal email from Sub Pop headquarters said they’d be releasing the disc in physical format sometime in April.  (Yay!)

This is a beautiful folk song which features wonderful harmonies.  It’s a simple guitar-picked song.  It opens with a male vocalist who sounds very familiar (I can’t quite place who he sounds like), but the end of the verse has a beautiful, brief blast of multi-part harmony.  The second verse is by a different vocalist (he sounds close to the first, I only noticed he was different after a few listens). The final verse is by a female vocalist which comes as a wonderful surprise as her voice brings a whole new shape to the sound.

The harmonies continue throughout the song and really flesh it out.  There’s not a lot to the song itself: a simple verse/chorus structure, but the execution and vocals are really lovely.

[READ: February 21, 2011] The Sword Thief

I can’t believe it has been five months since I read Book Two of this series.  It wasn’t for lack of enjoyment, sometimes other books get in the way!  But now that I’ve jumped back in, I’m in for a while (I’ve already started book 4).

One thing that I wanted to point out before talking about the book itself, was the way the various destinations are described in the book.  While I haven’t been to all (or really any) of the locations described, I have seen enough (in books and online) to know that the authors aren’t simply placing the kids in a generic location that pretends to be a city.  They really try to give each environment a full-bodied realism.  And I hope that young readers can really appreciate the sights and smells of the different countries.  It’s especially effective in Egypt (in book 4), but Tokyo really comes to life and Korea, although not fully explored, really shows the rural regions well.  Maybe this will encourage people to travel, but if not at least it’s instructive that not every place looks the same.

What I especially liked about this book is that the kids form a (brief) alliance (or two).  The first two books emphasized how all of the different family lines were in such competition with each other for the clues.  And, obviously that is the point of the books.  But it would be very tedious to simply have them run from place to place being chased by the different families.  So in this one, the kids form an alliance with Alistair Oh.  Better than that though is that Lerangis gives a detailed background of Alistair which makes him a more sympathetic, human character (even if we don’t fully trust him). (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Polaroids from the Dead (1996)

Posted in Big Dirty Band, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dead Kennedys, Die Mannequin, Douglas Coupland, Essays, Fables, Flash Fiction, Grateful Dead, Greed, James Rosenquist, Nostalgia, Photo Essays, Rheostatics, Rush, Short Story, The Clash, The Future, The Inbreds, The Tea Party, Threats, Travel, Video Games on February 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BIG DIRTY BAND-“I Fought the Law” (2006).

I just found out about this “supergroup” which was created for the Trailer Park Boys Movie.    The group consists of Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson from Rush, drummer Jeff Burrows from The Tea Party and three people I don’t know: the singer from Three Days Grace, the singer/guitarist from Thornley and on lead vocals Care Failure from Die Mannequin.

I have to say that I’m not that excited by this cover.  The song has been covered so many times (some very good: The Clash, some very clever: The Dead Kennedys, and some terrible: many others).  And frankly there’s not much that you can do with this song.  It’s simple in structure with potential for shouting (which everyone likes), but little else.

For Rush fans, you can’t tell that Geddy or Alex are even on it.  So really it’s just a kind of metal-ish version of this old song.

Oh well, they can’t all be zingers.  You can hear it here.

[READ: February 1, 2011] Polaroids from the Dead

After reading Shampoo Planet, I wanted to see if I remembered any of Coupland’s books.  So I read this one.  It’s entirely possible that when I bought this book I was disappointed that it was not a new novel and never read it.  Because I don’t remember a thing about this book.  (This is seriously calling into question my 90’s Coupland-love!).

But I’m glad I read it now.  It’s an interesting time-capsule of the mid-90s.  It’s funny to see how the mid 90s were a time of questioning authority, of trying to unmask fame and corporate mega-ness.  At the time it seemed so rebellious, like everything was changing, that facades were crumbling.  Now, after the 2000s, that attitude seems so quaint.   Reading these essays really makes me long for that time when people were willing to stand up for what they believed in and write books or music about it (sire nothing changed, but the soundtrack was good).

So, this collection is actually not all non-fiction.  Part One is the titular “Postcards from the Dead.”  It comprises ten vignettes about people at a Grateful Dead concert in California in 1991.  As Coupland points out in the intro to the book, this was right around their Shades of Grey album album In the Dark, and huge hit “Touch of Grey”, when they had inexplicable MTV success and it brought in a new generation of future Deadheads.  He also points out that this is before Jerry Garcia died (which is actually helpful at this removed distance).

These stories are what Coupland does best: character studies and brief exposes about people’s lives.  The stories introduce ten very different people, and he is able to create a very complex web of people in the parking lot of the show (we don’t see the concert at all).  As with most Coupland of this era, the characters fret about reality.  But what’s new is that he focuses on older characters more (in the first two novels adults were sort of peripheral, although as we saw in Shampoo, the mother did have millennial crises as well).  But in some of these stories the focus is on older people (Coupland was 30 in 1991, gasp!).  And the older folks fret about aging and status, just like the young kids do. (more…)

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Cory Doctorow–A Place So Foreign and 8 More (2003)

Posted in Anachronisms, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Cory Doctorow, Death, Drugs, End of the World, Free Speech, Funny (strange), Guster, Huh?, Moneen, Sci-fi, Set at School, Short Story, Technology, The Future, Threats, Time Travel, Violence, Walt Disney World on February 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MONEEN-The World That I Want to Leave Behind (2010).

I’ve liked Moneen’s discs; they played an interesting mix of grungey noisey rock and incredibly poppy emo.  And their song titles were really long and often funny (“The Frightening Reality Of The Fact That We Will All Have To Grow Up And Settle Down One Day,” “There Are A Million Reasons For Why This May Not Work… And Just One Good One For Why It Will”).

The first sign that The World I Want to Leave Behind is different is that their song titles are all really short.  The longest one is the title of the album–which is the shortest song: a 2 minute quiet intro that features some noisy guitars at the end.   The rest are 1-3 words long.  Now, perhaps you can’t judge a band by that; however, their music, like thier song titles, has eschewed complexity and embraced pop.  (“Believe,” “Waterfalls,” “Lighters”).

Okay Moneen always had this component to it.  So it’s not like suddenly the band is all pop.  Take “Are We Really Happy with Who We are Right Now?” from the album of the same name .  The song is all emo vocals (including harmonies) but the music is punky and noisy.  It’s also got a lot of dissonance.  Similarly, “The Start to this May be the End to Another” (from their debut), opens with really blasting noise and then turns into a heavy emo track with loud and quiet sections.  They are certainly poppy, but there’s at least nods to noise.

This album removes all of that noise and chaos and settles into to some tried and true emo.  If you hate emo, you will hate this album.  There’s virtually no dissonance on the disc at all.

Okay, that’s not entirely true.  The second song, “Hold That Sound” opens with some noiy aggressive guitars (and interesting noisy effects) and “The Long Count” has some noisy heavy opening chords which propel through the track.  But unlike earlier records, the noise gets pushed to the background pretty quickly.  “The Monument” also shows some remnants of heaviness–there’s even screaming vocals at one point.

And yet, the aforementioned “Wateralls” and “Lighters” sound like Guster-lite (and I like Guster quit a bit).

The final song, “The Glasshouse” does rock pretty hard (although the harmonies are all still there and the emo certainly seeps in by the end with a piano break and the final 2 minutes being all gang vocals).

Okay so in fairnes to the band, they haven’t smoothed off all the rough edged, but the polished bits are really polished now.  The thing is, I kind of like emo, so despite my tone, I don’t really dislike this record.  I’m always diasppointed when a band moves more commerical, especially if they cut off their more interesting bits, but Moneen make good emo (if you allow that such a thing exists).  I don’t like all emo bands, but there’s still enough interesting stuff here to keep me coming back to it.  In fact, for all of its poppiness, “Believe” is a really fantastically catchy alt rock song which should be in heavy rotation somewhere, if it’s not already.

[READ: February 13, 2011] A Place So Foreign and 8 More

When I saw that Cory Doctorow had a book of short stories out, I was intrigued. I’ve enjoyed two of his books quite a bit, so what could he do with short fiction?

This is some of his earliest work and I found it a mixed bag.

The first story “Craphound” was great (and the origin of his website name).  It concerns going to flea markets and buying all kinds of crap.  When you do it a lot, you become a craphound.  But when you take a fellow craphound’s crap of choice for yourself, you break the unwritten rule.  That’s all well and good.  But in this story one of the craphounds is an alien, like from another planet.  And what he trades for his crap is pretty wild.  But why would he break the unwritten rule?  The story is a fun look at what happens when extra-terrestrials are a part of your life.

“A Place So Foreign” was my absolute favorite story in the book, and one of my favorite short stories in quite some time.  I’m happy to say that I read it last, so it totally ended the book on a high note. Despite the cover picture with an “alien” hand holding a suitcase, the story has nothing to do with that at all. (more…)

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