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Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Jennifer Egan–“Safari” (New Yorker January 11, 2010)

Posted in Adventure, Death, Dinosaur Jr., Drinking, Folk Implosion, Jennifer Egan, Marriage Trouble, Nature, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, Threats, Travel, Violence, Yuck! on January 29, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DINOSAUR JR.-Farm (2009).

I’ve been a fan of Dino Jr since my friend Al introduced me to Green Mind (I had missed the “classic” line up but caught this newer incarnation).  And I loved it.  I have enjoyed just about everything that J. Mascis has put out (although yes, there have been a few duds).

I missed the first reunion album (and will likely get it one of these days) but I had heard a few tracks from this disc on a pitchfork TV segment on IFC (if you can track down the show, it’s great).  This one featured two Dino Jr tracks recorded live (?) in what looks like an attic.  It sounds great and sounds very close to the record, but I hadn’t had the record yet so I don’t know if it was just a video or a new recording).

On the disc, the band sounds fantastic.  The thing I loved about Dino in the post-Barlow/Murph stage was J Mascis’ amazing guitar work that morphed with his almost-beyond-slacker singing.  He sings like such an under-achiever that it was amazing his guitar solos were so blistering.

What has changed on the new disc is that his vocals are a little less lazy/whiny sounding, he seems to be actually singing!  And his guitar work sounds even better.  The strangest thing is that even when he pulls off a hugely long guitar solo like on the nearly 9 minute “I Don’t Wanna Go There” he never sounds like a show off.  The songs aren’t there to highlight the solos, rather, the solo sounds like an integral part of the song.

And this disc offers all of the things that the band is good at: lengthy guitar solo tracks like I mentioned and rocking fuzzed out guitar jams.  And despite all of Dino’s noisy guitars and squalling solos they also wrote some amazingly catchy pop songs.  And that’s true here, too (“Over It” and “I Want You to Know”).

I have been a little confused as to what inspired the band to reunite.  I mean, Lou Barlow had a very successful thing with Sebadoh and Folk Implosion (scoring a huge hit with “Natural One”).  And on this record, he only contributes two songs.  So, it can’t be any kind of ego thing.  I assume they just enjoyed playing together again.

But Barlow’s contributions add a lot to the record.  A sense of depth in the verses and, of course, the utterly different sound than what Masics brings on his vocal tracks.

The disc came with a bonus disc of 4 songs: 2 covers and 2 Mascis solo pieces.  They’re not essential, but they do show a lighthearted side of the band.

[READ: January 25, 2010] “Safari”

I wasn’t initially that interested in this piece.  I’m not big on the whole safari thing, but I thought I’d give it a try.  And I’m really glad I did.  This story went in so many different directions, and covered so much ground, that it was practically a novel condensed into seven pages.

The story starts with Lou’s children.  Lou and his children (and his nanny/student protegé/lover) are on a safari in Africa.  Over the course of the story we learn that there are several other people on the safari with them (a rock star and his band, some older ladies who are birdwatching, Albert, the driver and, my favorite, Dean–a young actor who states the obvious).  But we begin just with this family. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 1] The Part About the Critics (1 of 3) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Foreign Books, Infinite Summer, Infinite Zombies, Natasha Wimmer, Pixies, Research, Roberto Bolaño, Scholarship, Sex, Starlight Mints, Translation, Travel on January 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: STARLIGHT MINTS-Change Remains (2009).

This is the fourth disc from the Starlight Mints.  Their music is hard to describe at any time, but this disc complicates things even further.

The number of genres they cram into this disc is impossible to count.  However, there seems to be a very heavy concentration of a sort of punk/disco feel.  The disco beats (and telltale bass lines) are very strong yet the noisy guitar and instrumentation removes the disco sheen.

And that overall sense sums up the disc fairly well.  It’s got this poppy aspect to it, but there’s a sinister undercurrent.  In my review of their earlier discs, I described them a having a Pixies influence.  And while that’s still true (the sinister part (and the vocals definitely sound like Black Francis)) their sound has evolved away from a grungy rock into a more keyboardy feel.

The opener is a short instrumental that sounds like a cartoony James Bond theme.  The next few tracks have a good 90s alt rock feel (although “Zoomba” mixes it up with some jazzy horns).   But it’s the second half of the disc where the disco sounds really come to the fore.

And, lyrically, the band is all over the place.  It’s always fun to see what’s coming around the corner (as when the rocking “gallop along” comes out of an otherwise mellow dancey track).   Starlight Mints are definitely not trying to sell billions of records, but they are no doubt building a delightful niche fan base. And I’m one of them.

[READ: Week of January 18, 2010] 2666 [pg 1-51]

And so begins the Infinite Summer-like reading of 2666.  I don’t know if this reading group has a catchy title yet (I can’t even think of a jokey one right now), so for now, 2666 it is.

I don’t really know what I’m in for with this book.  And as such, I’m not entirely sure what thee posts are going to turn into.  Unlike with Infinite Jest, which was confusing from the get-go, this novel starts out in a rather straightforward manner.  So, I think for the foreseeable future I’ll do some plot summary and comments.

2666 is divided into 5 books (which were originally supposed to be published independently).  The first book is 161 pages and is called The Part About the Critics.

I had no idea what this book was about.  I’d heard it was a great, difficult read, and that was enough for me.  I like to go into books fairly blindly, so that’s nothing unusual.  The back cover blurb says that it centers around Santa Teresea, which I suspect has something to do with Juarez, Mexico.  So, okay, I get the idea that we’re in for a harrowing tale about murdered women in Mexico.

So, imagine my surprise when the book opens with fifty-plus pages about 4 scholars of a little-known German writer.  And imagine my further surprise when the language of the book is fairly easy to read. (more…)

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Jan Van Meter, Christine Norrie & Ross Campbell–Too Much Hopeless Savages Part Three

Posted in Adventure, Books about music, Christine Norris, Corporate skewering, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Graphic Novel, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Jan Van Meter, LGBTQ, Mystery, No Forcefield, Oni Press, Primus, Punks, Religion, Ross Campbell, Threats, Travel, Violence, YA Books on January 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NO FORCEFIELD-God is an Excuse (2001).

I was looking up what Larry LaLonde, guitarist for Primus, had been up to while Primus seems to be on hiatus.  I hadn’t heard a word from him, so I was surprised to see that he had released two albums with a band called No Forcefield.

I looked for the discs, and found both of them used for $1.00 each.  So I ordered them without really knowing what they were about, except that they were described as “experimental.”

This is the second disc by the band which consists of Brain and Ler from Primus as well as assorted other fellows (Bob Cock) and guests.  And experimental is an okay word to describe the record.  But a better one is disappointing.

With the lineage that these guys bring to the band, it’s surprising how mundane the disc is. It opens with a phone message about Bin Laden and God which morphs into the hilarious Denis Leary bit about CDs and the silver dog bone thing.  It then becomes a fairly straightforward electronic track.  And this electronic stuff is kind of the purpose of the group, I think.  There are at least 3 long, simple instrumentals that are little more than a few notes repeated over a drum beat.

The other tracks are complete nonsense: a faux TV show with “products” for sale which is a teensey bit funny, but not really.  There’s also Billy Roz, whoever that may be, crooning “You Are My Sunshine” as well as some polkas over a drum machine (he sings like an old doddering man).  And finally a short drum solo.

It’s not even clear to me why Ler is in the band as it seems to be mostly drums and a simple keyboard chord.  The only interesting track on the disc is “How to Purify Street Heroin” which is an awesome scratchy workout which I assume is by DJ Disk from the Invisbl Skratch Piklz.  And that’s pretty much it.

I was really disappointed my first go around, as I was expecting something, anything, more than this.  On subsequent listens, I can appreciate the disc as background/comedy although really neither one is a reason to hunt this down.

[READ: January 21, 2010] Too Much Hopeless Savages

This third collection of the Hopeless Savages saga sees many new revelations.  Turns out that Nikki Savage’s mom has come under the influence of a preacher who is intent on praying at the Hopeless-Savage house trying to get them to react in some way.  (I’m a little unclear exactly what his goal is here).

At the same time, Arsenal and her boyfriend and Twitch and his boyfriend (the  boyfriends are brothers) are off to the boyfriends’ homeland of Hong Kong.  Arsenal is there for a martial arts competition and Twitch heads along so that the H-S siblings can meet their boyfriends’ great grandmother.

Hijinx naturally ensue.  In this case, Arsenal is slipped a very valuable package and she soon has numerous groups of men after her (it’s unclear if any of them are up to any good).  The rest of the family decamps for Hong Kong to escape from all the praying (and they bring grandma along to de-brainwash her).

What is surprising about the story is the emotional depth that comes out of an incident from Arsenal’s past.  (more…)

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McSweeney’s #33: The San Francisco Panorama (2009)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Airlines, Alia Malek, Andrew Sean Greer, Art, Art Spiegelman, Big Star, Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Brent Hoff, Caddyshack, Canadian Music, Cars, Carson Ellis, Children's Books, China Miéville, Chip Kidd, Chris Adrian, Chris Ware, Comic Strips, Constellation Records, Daniel Handler, Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, Dicky Murphy, Dip-in Books, Do Make Say Think, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edna O'Brien, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Flash Fiction, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Geoff Nicholson, George Saunders, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Greed, Harper's, J. Malcolm Garcia, J.G. Ballard, James Franco, Jessica Abel, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kara Walker, KPOO 89.5--San Francisco, CA, LGBTQ, Mary Williams, Matthew Klam, McSweeney's, Meatballs, Michael Chabon, Miranda July, Mogwai, New Yorker, Newspapers, Nicholson Baker, Prospect, Rachel Maddow, Roddy Doyle, Salman Rushdie, Seth, Seth Fried, Short Story, Sports, Stephen King, The Blues Brothers, The New York Times, The Onion, The Walrus, Tom Bissell, Travel, Universities, Violence, Wajahat Ali, War, Wholphin, William T. Vollmann on January 16, 2010| 8 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DO MAKE SAY THINK-Other Truths [CST062] (2009).

I’ve always enjoyed Do Make Say Think’s CDs.  They play instrumentals that are always intriguing and which never get dull.

But this CD far exceeds anything they have done so far (and  they’ve done some great work).   There are only four tracks, and they range from 8 to 12 minutes long.  Each track is named for a word in the band’s name: Do, Make, Say, Think.  And each one is a fully realized mini epic.

“Do” sounds like a gorgeous Mogwai track.  While “Make” has wonderfully diverse elements: a cool percussion midsection and a horn-fueled end section that works perfectly with the maniacal drumming.  “Say” is another Mogwai-like exploration, although it is nicely complemented by horns.  It also ends with a slow jazzy section that works in context but is somewhat unexpected. Finally, “Think” closes the disc with a delightful denouement.  It’s the slowest (and shortest) track, and it shows that even slowing down their instrumentals doesn’t make them dull.

It’s a fantastic record from start to finish.  This is hands down my favorite Constellation release in quite some time.

[READ: December 2009 – January 13, 2010] McSweeney’s #33.

The ever-evolving McSweeney’s has set out to do the unlikely: they printed Issue #33 as a Sunday Newspaper.  It is called The San Francisco Panorama and, indeed, it is just like a huge Sunday newspaper. It has real news in (it is meant to be current as of December 7, 2009).  As well as a Sports section, a magazine section and even comics!

[DIGRESSION] I stopped reading newspapers quite some time ago.  I worked for one in college and have long been aware that the news is just something to fill the space between ads.  I do like newspapers in theory, and certainly hope they don’t all go away but print issues are a dying breed.  When I think about the waste that accompanies a newspaper, I’m horrified.  Sarah and I even did a Sunday New York Times subscription for a while, but there were half a dozen sections that we would simply discard unopened.  And, realistically that’s understandable.  Given how long it took me  to read all of the Panorama, if you actually tried to read the whole Sunday paper, you’d be finished the following Sunday (or even two Sundays later).

Their lofty goal here was to show what print journalism can still do. And with that I concur heartily.  Even if I don’t read the newspaper, the newspapers as entities are worth saving.  Because it is pretty much only print journalism that finds real, honest to God, worthy news stories.  TV news is a joke.  There is virtually nothing of value on network TV.  Fox News is beyond a joke.  CNBC is sad (although Rachel Maddow is awesome!) and even CNN, the originator of all of this 24 hour news nonsense still can’t fill their airtime with non-sensationalized news.

Obviously, there are some decent internet sites, but for the most part they don’t have the budget to support real news investigation.  You either get sensationalized crap like Drudge or rebroadcasts of real news.

So, print is the last bastion of news.  And you can see that in journalistic pieces in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Walrus, Prospect and, yes, in newspapers.

But enough.  What about THIS newspaper?  Oh and unlike other McSweeney’s reviews I’ve done, there is NO WAY that I am writing a thorough comment on everything in here.  There’s just way too much.  Plus, there are many sections that are just news blurbs.  Larger articles and familiar authors will be addressed, however.  [UPDATE: January 18]: If, however, like Alia Malek below, you bring it to my attention that I’ve left you out (or gotten something wrong!) drop me a line, and I’ll correct things.

There is in fact a Panorama Information Pamphlet which answers a lot of basic questions, like why, how and how often (just this once, they promise!). There’s also a Numbers section which details the size, scope and cost of making this (it shows that with an initial start up, anyone could make a newspaper if they talked enough about what the readers were interested in). (more…)

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Ben Schott–Schott’s Miscellany 2009: An Almanac (2008)

Posted in Aesop Rock, Airlines, Art, Authors, Barack Obama, Ben Schott, Bible, Bill Fox, Bob Dylan, Books about music, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Collecting, Comedians, Consumerism, Contests, Death, Dip-in Books, Drinking, Drugs, Explosions in the Sky, Film & TV, Food, Foreign Books, Games (Non Video), Grizzly Bear, History, Holidays, I'm from Barcelona, Language, LGBTQ, Lightning Bolt, Magik Markers, Military, Morality, Nature, Nico, Of Montreal, Oxford Collapse, Poetry, Prison, Racism, Religion, Reykjavik!, Roger Federer, Sex, Smarty Pants, Sports, Sufjan Stevens, Technology, The Future, Travel, TSA, Violence, War, Word usage on December 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer June/July 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD: Cue the Bugle Turbulent (2007).

The 2007 Believer disc smashes the mold of folkie songs that they have established with the previous discs in the series.  The theme for this disc is that there’s no theme, although the liner notes give this amusing story:

one decaffeinated copy editor (“the new guy”) made a suggestion: “The Believer CD should be composed of eight a.m. music/breakfast-substitute jams, like that commercial from a while back with the guy who gets out of bed over and over again while ELO plays over his morning routine. You should tell all of the bands to write/contribute songs worth listening to within three minutes of waking up.”

So, without a theme, they just asked artists for some great songs.  There’s one or two tracks written especially for the disc (Sufjan Stevens, Lightning Bolt).  There’s a couple B-sides.  There are some wildly noisy raucous songs: and three of them come from duos!  No Age offers a very noisy blast of feedback.  Magik Markers play a super-fast distortion-fueled rocker, and Lightning Bolt play 5 minutes of noise noise noise.  Oh, and there’s even a rap (Aesop Rock)!

Tracks 3-7 are just about the 5 best songs in a row on any compilation.  Oxford Collapse plays a catchy and wonderfully angular song with “Please Visit Your National Parks.”  It’s followed by a song from Sufjan Stevens that sounds NOTHING like Sufjan Stevens, it’s a noisy distorted guitar blast of indie punk.  I’m from Barcelona follows with a supremely catchy horn driven song that would be huge on any college campus.  Aesop Rock comes next with a fantastic song.  I’d heard a lot about Aesop Rock but had never heard him before, and he raps the kind of rap that I like: cerebral and bouncy.  This is followed by Reykjavik! with a crazy, noisy surf-guitar type of song.  It reminds me of some great college rock from the early 90s.

Of Montreal, a band I’ve been hearing about a lot but who I’ve never heard (and didn’t think sounded like this) plays a wonderfully catchy two minute love song that sounds ironic, but which likely isn’t.  The melody is straight out of the Moody Blues’ “Wildest Dreams,” and yet it is still fun and quirky.

There’s a couple instrumentals as well: The Clogs do a cool, mellow instrumental and Explosions in the Sky do one of their typically fantastic emotional tracks.  Also on the disc, The Blow contribute a delightfully witty song and Bill Fox, a singer I’d never heard of (but who has a great article about him in the magazine), really impressed me with his Bob Dylan meets Nico delivery.  The disc ends with an alternate version of a song by Grizzly Bear.

This is definitely my favorite Believer disc thus far.  See the full track listing here.

[READ: Throughout 2009] Schott’s Miscellany 2008

This year’s edition of Schott’s Miscellany is very much like last year’s edition (see that review here).  I mean, it is an almanac after all.  However, it is a wondrous testament to Schott that even though I read every word of the 2008 edition, I was able to read every word of the 2009 edition and not feel like I was duplicating myself very much.

Obviously the news, facts and events of 2008-09 are different from last year.  And since Schott’s writing style is breezy and fun with a hint of sarcasm and amusement thrown in, you don’t get just a list of facts, you get sentences with subtle commentary on the facts.  And it’s a fun way to re-live the past year.  Plus, the Sci, Tech, Net section discusses science stories that sounded really impressive and important which I can’t believe I didn’t hear about at the time. (more…)

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David Sedaris–“Loggerheads” (New Yorker, December 7, 2009)

Posted in Black Sabbath, Collecting, David Sedaris, Death, John Darnielle, New Yorker, Ozzy Osbourne, Short Story, The Mountain Goats, Tony Iommi, Travel, Unlikable main character on December 5, 2009| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK SABBATH-Master of Reality (1971).

This album seems to have directly inspired more bands than any other Sabbath record.  There’s the band Masters of Reality (who I’ve never heard) and there’s the 1,000 Homo DJ’s EP and blistering cover for “Supernaut.”

This is one of my favorite Sabbath discs, even though, or maybe because there aren’t as many hits on it.  The story goes that since Tony Iommi had his fingertips cut off (!) he had to downtune his guitar so the strings would be looser and therefore less painful to play.  As such, this disc introduces a sort of “classic” Sabbath sludgy sound.  But even though this album doesn’t get a the airplay of Paranoid any metal fan knows a few of these songs.  “Sweet Leaf,” for instance, is quite well known.  It also makes me laugh because it is so clearly pro-drug (after all those anti-drug songs on the first two discs).  And of course, it opens with that great echoing cough (which I now assume is from someone toking up).

“After Forever” is one of those great Sabbath songs where Geezer Butler’s bass fills stand out throughout the bridges.  It also features one of Tony Iommi’s strangely “happy” sounding opening chords  The song itself is pretty dark but the chords are so upbeat!  The song has a lyric that I found shocking as a kid: “would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope, do you think he’s a fool?”  And of course, the guitar solo flies wildly around your head from one speaker to the other.

“Embryo” is a strange middle eastern sounding 30 second instrumental that segues into the awesome “Children of the Grave.”  It’s one of those Sabbath songs that sounds menacing all the way through.  There’s a weird clicking sound in the verses that I assume is Geezer Butler’s de-tuned, incredibly loose bass strings slapping the fretboard.  And, of course, it ends with a wonderfully warped ghostly guitar feedback sounds and the whispered “Ch ch ch ch children.”

The second half of the disc is quite different from the first.  “Orchid” is a delightful 90 second acoustic guitar workout.  And it segues into “Lord of This World” a real rock and roll sounding song (featuring some great Ozzy screaming).  “Solitude” is like “Planet Caravan” from Paranoid, in that it’s a slow, trippy psychedelic sense (is it possible that Sabbath didn’t know that they were a metal band?).

Finally comes “Into the Void.”  This was one of the first songs I’d ever learned on guitar.  My guitar teacher liked the down-tuned low E string aspect of it, and I still enjoy playing it today.

As my friend Andrew pointed out the other day, John Darnielle from the Mountain Goats has written a 33 1/3 book about Master of Reality.  While I haven’t read it yet, Darnielle is pretty cool, so I assume it’s a great read if you like this disc.

[READ: November 30, 2009] “Loggerheads”

Not every David Sedaris piece is funny.  We know he’s not a comedian, per se, although he is certainly a humorous writer.  We also know that some Sedaris pieces are kind of disgusting.  He tends to delight in the grotesque.  However, in this piece he combines the disgusting with the non-humorous to create a very unsatisfying piece. (more…)

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Captain Adam Seaborn [pseudonym of John Cleves Symmes]–Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery (1820)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Chef, Consumerism, Hollow Earth, Humiliation, John Cleves Symmes, John Uri Lloyd, Kate Bush, Lenny Henry, McSweeney's, Short Books, Supernatural, Technology, Travel, Unlikable main character, Utopia on November 27, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-The Red Shoes (1993).

The Red Shoes is something of a disappointment. While I enjoyed The Sensual World, it was definitely moving in a more adult contemporary vein.  The Red Shoes proceeds even further in this direction.  Since Kate is getting older, it makes sense that her music would change as well.

But there are some really fun tracks on here as well.  And Kate’s initial experiments with world music (the Bulgarian Choir) has really expanded into a more global palette (the island feel of “Eat the Music,” for instance).

The first four songs of the disc are really great.  They show an amazing diversity.  The first single “Rubberband Girl” is quite fun and bouncey.  It has a rather silly middle section where she makes rubberband-like sounds.   “And So is Love” sounds like classic Kate, with some wonderful vocals.  “Eat the Music” is a crazy, up beat horn fueled island track (with wonderfully suggestive lyrics).  And  “Moments of Pleasure” is a delightfully romantic song.

However, beginning with “Song of Salomon” with its awkward chorus of “don’t want no bullshit, just want your sexuality” the album trails off a little bit.  The rest of the songs feel kind of hurried and unspecific; there’s nothing really grabby about them.  They’re not bad, but they’re not all that memorable.  In fact, “Constellation of the Heart” is one of those rare aspects of a Kate disc: a song that sounds really dated.

The one exception to this decline is “Top of the City,” a really nice ballad that features some classic Kate vocals.

Of the remainder, “Big Stripey Lie” has some cool sound effects and lots of weirdness floating around it (and I do quite like it) although it’s really not as substantial as her previous experimental pieces.

Probably the most controversial song on the disc is “Why Should I Love You?” a duet with Prince.  While the main chorus is pretty cool (and uncannily Prince-like) the rest of the track sounds (again) very dated.  The track also features the great comedian Lenny Henry on vocals.  However, since Henry is responsible for what may be the worst sitcom theme song ever in the history of music (it may actually make you want to not watch the rather funny Chef, it is so awful) his inclusion isn’t really all that wonderful.  The disc ends with “You’re the One” a weird (in a good way) track that features The Bulgarian Chorus again.  They seem to do a great job of keeping Kate’s songs focused, so the disc ends on a high note.

This disc is pretty soundly dismissed by even diehard Kate fans.  And it is definitely her least satisfying overall. But if you look deeper into the disc, there are some unfairly overlooked gems.

[READ: November 20, 2009] Symzonia

After reading Etidorhpa, I started looking around at other Hollow Earth books.  And thankfully, someone has done most of the work already. So, for an absurdly long list of Hollow Earth books, check out this link.  I was delighted to see that so many of them are quite short!

When I saw this book, and realized that it was about the world mentioned in “Symmes Hole” (from McSweeney‘s) and that it was very likely written by Symmes himself (there is still debate, but it is convincing that he wrote it) I decided to check it out.

Sadly, this book was considerably duller than Etidorhpa.  It was 250 pages and the first 100 were details of his journey to the South Pole.  Which would be fine except that since the author is a sailor he gives excruciating details about not only sailing, but even shipbuilding (including how smart he was for making the ship as strong as he did,) and the directions of the wind and speculation about longitude and all that great seafaring stuff.  That’s not my thing, so I found it rather tedious. (more…)

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Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays

Posted in Bill Clinton, Books about music, Books about writers, Boredom, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace, Dip-in Books, Donnell Alexander, Drinking, Drugs, Eddie Vedder, Essays, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Glasgow Phillips, Gods, History, Jess Mowry, M. Doughty, Marc Herman, Martha McParlin, McSweeney's, Michael Moore, Might, Missoula, MT, Oddities, Paula Kamen, Political Humor, Politicians, Racism, Religion, Research, Sex, Smarty Pants, Soul Coughing, Supernatural, Technology, Ted Rall, The Future, Travel, Tripp Hartigan, TV on the Radio, Violence, Wikipedia, Zev Borow on October 1, 2009| 1 Comment »

adidasSOUNDTRACK: TV ON THE RADIO-Dear Science, (2008).

sciencThe problem with TV on the Radio for me is that their first EP is so damned good that anything else they do pales in comparison.  Having said that, Dear Science, comes really close to topping that EP.  I liked Cookie Mountain (their previous disc) but I felt like they put so many elements into the mix that it detracted from the best part of the band: Tunde Adepimbe & Kyp Malone’s vocals.

And so, on Dear Science, the vocals are back up front where they belong.  This disc is a lot less busy, which may seem a little like selling out, but instead, it just heightens the complexity and originality of the band’s work.  The disc rocks hard but it also heightens some really cool jazz and dance elements.    But it all comes back to the melodies and vocals for me.  And on Dear Science, they pretty much outdo themselves.

And you can dance to it!

[READ: September 30, 2009] Shiny Adidas Tracksuits and the Death of Camp and Other Essays

After reading David Foster Wallace’s essay in this book, I looked at the other articles here and decided to read the whole thing.  And I’m really glad I did.  It’s an interesting book full of, funny and often thought-provoking pop culture articles circa 1996.  As with some of the other pop culture/political books that I’ve read several years after they were relevant, it’s often weird to look back and see what things fully occupied the popular landscape at the time.  And, when a piece is completed dated, it’s pretty obvious, and sometimes unintentionally funny.  But there are many pieces here that are timeless (or at least hold up for a decade), and those are still really good reads.

This book also does a good job of summarizing the tenor of the defunct Might magazine.  A dose of irony, a splash of humor and a lot of criticism of what’s trendy.

The strange thing to me about this book, though is the targets that they chose to go after sometimes.  Rather than critiquing right-wing attitudes or corporate shenanigans (which they do touch on), they really seem to be after pop and rock celebrity.  For instance, there are two separate articles which take a potshot at Eddie Vedder (this was around the time of the Ticketmaster fiasco which didn’t put him in the best light but which could hardly be seen as only self-serving).  This seems rather unfair, unless his sincerity could really be called into question by a bunch of ironic jokesters.  Magazines like Radar and Spy used to do snarky articles like this. I’d always thought that Might was a little better than that.  But indeed, there’s one or two pieces here that have a holier- (or perhaps indier)-than-thou attitude.   Which may have been fine in the 90s but which seem petulant now.

But aside from those, the irony-free pieces are very enjoyable.  (more…)

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Periodical: AAA World

Posted in AAA World, Airlines, Contests, Food, Holidays, Set in New Jersey!, South, Travel on September 23, 2009| 3 Comments »

aaaOkay, so this magazine doesn’t really count.  AAA World comes free with a AAA membership.  And in the past we would just recycle it unopened.  Then one month, the cover article looked interesting and we enjoyed it.  Since then, I always make sure to at least flip though it.  And, yes the target audience for the magazine is older than me.  But heck, it’s a useful place to find vacation info, if nothing else.

There’s also, of course, a lot of stuff about how much you save by being a AAA member.  I’m not entirely sure what the writers for this magazine think they’re doing.  Are they “real” writers?  Are they just shills for AAA?  It’s hard to say.  And yet almost every article has a byline, so good for them.

The opening articles are usually just things that have changed in the magazine or with AAA itself.  And then there’s lots and lots of ads.  The ads are primarily for vacations, so I guess that’s nice.

Each issue also features destination trips.  In this case: Baltimore, Williamsburg & Lancaster (the magazine is regional–we’re in the MidAtlantic region–so, aside from the article on a major destination, all of the ads and such are within reach). (more…)

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