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Archive for the ‘Unreliable narrator’ Category

Victor Lodato–“Herman Melville, Volume 1” (New Yorker, March 27, 2017)

Posted in Drinking, Drugs, Herman Melville, Neurotics, New Yorker, Ought, Roy Orbison, Runaways, Short Story, Tim Darcy, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel, Unreliable narrator, Violence, Yuck! on June 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TIM DARCY-Tiny Desk Concert #620 (May 15, 2017).

I really like Darcy’s band Ought, but I don’t really like this solo concert.  In Ought, I find his voice contrasts nicely with the punky music (and his arch delivery of the kind-of-spoken-words if entertaining to me).  But here he’s singing some pretty straightforward songs and I find his affected delivery to be kind of annoying.  The blurb name checks Roy Orbison and I’ve never liked Orbison’s voice either.  So I guess that makes sense

Darcy plays four songs–he’s on guitar for three of them.

“Still Waking Up” is first. He says that “Joan Pt. 1, 2” is more of a rocker on the record but he’s taking it down–wonder if I’d like it more as a rocker?  Musically I like the way it switches gears for Part 2 and I like his voice a lot more for this second part.  “Sledgehammer And The Rose” is a new one.  I like the slinky guitar lines at the end of each verse. For the final song, “What’d You Release?” Toronto songwriter Charlotte Cornfield plays piano (with no guitar).  His voice is a bit deeper on this one and it works pretty well with the slowness of the piano.

But I gather I’d prefer him with his band.

[READ: March 22 2017] “Herman Melville, Volume 1”

The previous Lodato story that I read concerned a young meth addict.  This one concerns a twenty year old homeless girl.

She remains unnamed throughout the story and we learn snippets of her past.  Her father apparently committed suicide recently and she has nobody else.  Her only thought about him is that she hopes someone is watering the grapefruit tree in his backyard.

She had been experimenting with running away–she gathered a lot of her stuff and some money and would head to the Greyhound station.  She would hang out there for a while and then ultimately go home. Then one day Evan was there.  He smiled at her and commented on her skateboard and banjo.  She began to cry and he held her and they have been togetehr for the past seven months.  He has even proposed to her (although nether one has mentioned in since, so who knows if it meant anything).

(more…)

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Brandon Stanton–Humans of New York: Stories (2015)

Posted in Advice, Brandon Stanton, Cats, Cute, Dementia, Dentists, Depression, Dogs, Drinking, Drugs, Fraud, Freaks, Free Speech, Funky Web Sites, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Greed, Huh?, Humiliation, Interviews, Jealousy, Kindness, Kissing, Luck, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Neurotics, Nicotine, Rae Cassidy, Regrets, Romance, San Fermin, Slackers, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), Waiting, Work, Yuck! on May 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SAN FERMIN-Tiny Desk Concert #315 (October 28, 2013).

When I first heard San Fermin I was immediately grabbed by the female lead voice (the song was “Sonsick”).  It was so powerful and gripping. I didn’t realize then that the female leads were the lead singers of Lucius (who I also didn’t know at the time).  San Fermin is the creation of Ellis Ludwig-Leone.

Since then I have enjoyed other songs by them as well, although I find that the songs sung by Allen Tate to be somewhat less exciting to me– I feel like his voice could one day hit me as amazing but it’s almost a little to understated for me.  And yet musically I love the orchestration and chamber poppiness.  As Bob writes:

San Fermin’s music bursts with ambition, talent and extreme joy. Its self-titled debut is charged with great storytelling and amazing vocals by both Allen Tate and Lucius singers Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe. Then there are the arrangements: little gems that turn these songs into cinematic vignettes using trumpet, sax, keyboard, violin, guitar and drums.

San Fermin is the musical vision of Ellis Ludwig-Leone, who wrote these songs with Tate’s dark, rich voice in mind. Here at the Tiny Desk, Rae Cassidy makes the album’s female vocal parts her own.

So it’s interesting that the songs were meant for Tate.  I want just some more oomph from him.  especially here in this set.  And that’s because Rae Cassidy absolutely rules this set.

“Oh Darling” begins with a gentle piano and Cassidy’s pretty, delicate voice.  After a verse from her, Tate’s voice comes in and it’s almost comically low and formal (and actually perhaps a bit too quiet).  But when they all come in and sing it is just beautiful–the women in particular.

For “Sonsick” Cassidy sings lead with just drums.  As the song builds there’s a great chorus where the backing vocals (including Tate) sing in falsetto.  This version is quite stripped down compared to the recorded version and it really allows Cassidy’s voice to shine.  When she hits those incredibly high notes with such power, it gives me chills.

In the final song, “Renaissance!” Tate sings lead over a slow piano and violin.  The women sing backing vocals.  I like the way that the song builds in intensity with more instruments, but his voice is a little too flat for me–although he does kick in extra at the end.

There’s a really stunning version of the first two songs with the band singing live in a street and cafe and France.

Incidentally, Cassidy has since left the band and gone solo, and I wish her much success.

[READ: December 28, 2016] Humans of New York Stories

Sarah got me this book for Christmas.  I knew of Humans of New York, of course, but I wasn’t a follower of it.  So while I knew of it I didn’t really know that much about it.

There’s a brief introduction to this book (which is his second HONY book) in which he explains that HONY grew from five years of experimenting.  It evolved from a photography blog to a storytelling blog.  His original inspiration was to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers.  But then he decided to start including quotes from some of them.

He started interviewing people and found their stories became the real heart of the blog.  Of course, he thanks the community of readers and participants, because without them, he has nothing.

The rest of the book–425 pages–collects the photos and the stories. (more…)

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Caroline Adderson–“Obscure Objects” [The Short Story Advent Calendar #13] (2016)

Posted in Books about writers, Canadian Content, Caroline Adderson, Exitmusic, Huh?, Marriage Trouble, Sex, Short Story, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on December 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2016-12-05-21-06-09SOUNDTRACK: EXITMUSIC-Tiny Desk Concert #228 (July 2, 2012).

I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars.  But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.

exitmusicI didn’t know Exitmusic before this show.  The band is a 4 piece and they make a really big sound .  In fact, when I was only listening to the show I forgot that they were at a Tiny Desk.  Their sound is not loud, but it’s enveloping.  They have two keyboards a guitar and an electronic drum.  The guitar is gauzy, playing high chords.  But it’s the keyboards, and washes of sound that really create the whole show.  Lead vocals are provided by Aleksa Palladino and her voice is stark and wavery, slightly scary and scared at the same time.

The blurb says that they tend to play big spaces, but

Palladino and Devon Church, the married couple behind Exitmusic, began playing music together several years ago in their New York home, layering textures and shimmering voices, each awash in echoes and cinematic anguish. To work within the challenges of our space, the two — along with new band members Dru Prentiss and Nicholas Shelestak — returned to their living room to practice a set in a pared-down configuration which still captured its essence.

I love at the end of “White Noise” as the keyboards aren’t changing what they are playing but the guitar changes chords—a repetitive downward progression that works perfectly with what everyone else is playing.

The second song, “The Modern Age” sounds like it could be a track from The xx, but her voice is so different that it totally changes the feel of the song.  Aleksa also switches guitar on this track, layering in fast chords.  And the chorus is wonderfully raw sounding.  The melody she sings is just great and the song builds accordingly.

It’s funny to see her smile so broadly after each song where she sings so dramatically and sounds heartbroken.

“The Cold” is a slow song (she’s on guitar again), short and moody while the final song “Storms” is much bigger.  On this track she is playing fast chords on a very quitter guitar while the other guitar plats slow, building chords over the top.   She make a funny comment at the end of the song: “I know I was all over the place timewise.” But it still sounded great.  They really won me over with this set.

[READ: December 13, 2016] “Obscure Objects”

Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar.  Which is what exactly?  Well…

The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas.  This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.

I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.

This story was really cool, although I had to read it twice to make sure I knew exactly what was going on.

Told in first person, this is the story of a woman who has just come back to Canada after some time abroad.  She is a writer (published in literary magazines) and has a teacher’s certificate, but she needed a job quickly so she took one a:

a private ESL college that recruited students from all over Asia.

Or, it was a private tutoring agency that catered to children of wealthy immigrants and ADD-afflicted offspring on the Canadian born-rich.

I haven’t decided yet.

That’s the first clue that something is unusual about this story.  (more…)

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Lewis Trondheim–A.L.I.E.E.E.N. (2006)

Posted in A.L.I.E.E.N., Aliens, AroarA, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, First Second :01, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Lewis Trondheim, Poo, Silver Mt. Zion, Surreal, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Violence, YA Books, Yuck! on May 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

alieeenSOUNDTRACK: THEE SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA-Hang On to Each Other EP [CST105] (2014).

Hang_on_to_each_otherI try to go in sequence with a band’s records.  But this release is, inexplicably, a dance remix Ep of a song from the album Horses in the Sky.  The original is basically an a capella song with a harmonium.  Efrim sings the main melody and the chorus sings the repeated refrains.

It’s pretty cool and the spareness of it really resonates.  About four minutes (of 6 and a half), the refrain switches to “any fucking thing you love.”  Then about 5 minutes in he switches to “birds toss precious flowers from the murky skies above” while the chorus starts singing, “Any fucking thing you love.”

This EP features vocals by Ariel Engle of AroarA, and virtually nothing of the original song except the words.

The first side “Any Fucking Thing You Love” is 11 minutes long and is as promised, a dance remix.  And it is a serious, get your butt on the dance floor remix.  No irony, no winking, just butt shaking.

It opens with roars and a boat (ocean liner) whistle and then some dance drums.   Then there’s what sounds like lions roars, a middle-eastern-sounding instrument and screams.  Then the female vocals come in singing “Hang On To Each Other.”   The majority of the song is an instrumental dance section with washes of keyboards and drums.  There’s roaring noises as the beat keeps up the pace.  About 9 minutes in she starts chanting “Any fucking thing you love” and the song continues to dance on until the feedback sounds at the end.

Side two is “Birds Toss Precious Flowers” which opens with that same boat whistle.   Some skittery keyboards come in and out and then a big bass drum starts keeping the beat.  It doesn’t start getting dancey until after about 90 seconds.  That’s when the vocals come in—echoey and very cool.  About four minutes in the music cuts away and it’s just the thudding bass drum and vocals, then the song picks up again  At around 7 minutes the “birds fly” part kicks in.  The song turns really dancey with a vocal solo   The last two minutes are more or less the keyboard winding going through a very slow reverb pedal.

Of the two, I like the second one better as there’s more interesting things going on, but I have to assume that the first is a better club song.

[READ: February 15, 2016] A.L.I.E.E.E.N.

Lewis Trondheim found this book while on vacation.  It is the first collection of extraterrestrial comic strips every discovered.  And Trondheim convinced First Second to publish it [#10yearsof01].

A.L.I.E.E.E.N. stands for Archives of Lost Issues and Earthly Editions of Extraterrestrial Novelties.  (The book was originally published in France with the title A.L.I.E.E.N.)

The book is adorable, with cute and cuddly aliens creatures on a fascinating world.  There’s a blue four-legged guy and a yellow two-legged guy with a long tail and they are frolicking amidst butterfly-looking creatures.  The aliens only speak in alien tongue (I wonder if the characters can be translated or if it is just gibberish).  Then on page two, the blue guy runs into a tree and has both his eyes poked out in pools of blood.

WHAT?! (more…)

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Thomas Bernhard–“In the Tower” (Harper’s, May 2016)

Posted in Excerpt, Fountains of Wayne, Harper's, Michel de Montaigne, Oscar Wilde, Short Story, Thomas Bernhard, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on April 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »

may2016SOUNDTRACK: FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE-Tiny Desk Concert #164 (October 6, 2011).

fowI have never really gotten into Fountains of Wayne even though a) they write incredibly Cathy indie pop, the kind of music I rather like and b) their name comes from a store that I have driven by many times in my life.  I think I didn’t like their first single when it came out or something, so I just dismissed them and never looked back.

Which is a shame because this set is full of delightful, slightly dark pop gems.

Fountains of Wayne put out a couple records in the 1990s and then went away and put out a couple more in the 2000s.  There are two excellent songwriters in the band singer guitarist Chris Collingwood and bassist Adam Schlesinger.  Schlesinger has been writing pop hits for (a lot of) movies and other lucrative gigs.   Clearly he has a knack for pop goodness.  And Fountains of Wayne is on the good side of pop.

“The Summer Place” opens with bouncy chords (the two guitarists play acoustic guitars).  But despite the poppyness, the lyrics are a little dark: “She’s been afraid of the Cuisinart since 1977 / now when she opens up her house she won’t set foot in the kitchen.”  I love the harmony vocals and how the second acoustic guitar sounds vaguely like a violin on the single notes.  “Valley Winter Song” is an older song.  It still has that sound–catchy guitars, nice harmonies and a notable bass line.

“A Dip in the Ocean” (like the first song, it comes from their then new album) features a prominent bass line and wonderful oohs and ahhs.  The lyrics are clever and funny.  Based on these two songs, I’d say that the 2011 album is pretty excellent.

When they ask if they can do one more, Stephen Thompson says that “that clock is one song fast,” and they launch into one of their older songs, the lovely ballad, “Troubled Times.”  The video of the song gets cut off just before the end, but if you listen to the audio you can hear the last few chords.

My friend Steve yelled at me for not liking this band, and I can see that he was right.

[READ: April 21, 2016] “In the Tower”

I had been trying to get caught up on all of the Harper’s stories that I’ve read.  These next two get me caught up to the present, with a couple really old ones left. And man, these two stories are pretty dark.

This is an excerpt from a short story (it must be a long short story).  The narrator, now forty-two years old, explains that he has found a refuge from his family–his tormentors–in the tower of their house.  The tower is a long-unused library which he was familiar enough with to know that the left side was philosophical books and the right side was belletristic books.  He was told over and over to not go into the library.  But it was his refuge.

He grabbed a book, it was by Montaigne.  He didn’t know what he was grabbing as he didn’t light a lamp for fear of mosquitos.

Much of this excerpt is filled with a kind of perverse Oscar Wilde litany:

“In every one of my statements there was nothing but this mockery and scorn in which they will one day perish, but I think that one day I will perish in their mockery and scorn.”

“Our unhappiness isn’t something we are talked into, unlike our happiness, which we talk ourselves into daily”

After several paragraphs denouncing his parents as conflating everything he has ever said he says he has always been in good hands with Montaigne.

“My family was too late in seeing that they had bred their destroyer an annihilator….How often they said that they would have preferred a dog to me, because a dog would have guarded them and cost less than me.”

As the excerpt ends and he is hiding with his Montaigne, he hears his family looking for him saying they hope nothing has happened to him.

It’s hard to know what is really going on, as this narrator sounds totally paranoid, but I didn’t love the excerpt enough to want to find out more.

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Dorthe Nors—“Hygge” (Harper’s, April 2016)

Posted in Belle and Sebastian, Buddy Holly, Dorthe Nors, Harper's, Huh?, Jeremy Messersmith, Misha Hoekstra, Short Story, Star Wars, Steve Earle, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, Unreliable narrator on April 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

april16  SOUNDTRACK: JEREMY MESSERSMITH-Tiny Desk Concert #158 (September 19, 2011).

jeremyI had never heard of Jeremy Messersmith before this show (the blurb even comments how it’s a shame more people haven’t heard of him since he is so sweetly poppy).

He looks a bit like Buddy Holly although my first though when he started playing was that he sounded not unlike Belle & Sebastian.  But there is more to his music than a simple reduction like that.

Messermith plays five songs (FIVE!).  For the first three he has a four piece behind him–big jangly electric guitar, a cello and a drummer accompanying his really nice picking style.

In “Toussaint Grey, First in Life and Death,” the electric guitar is mostly picking as well.  It’s a gentle song and you can really hear his voice well.

In “Knots” the tempo picks up with bigger drums and louder electric guitar.  I also love the picked cello as a bass guitar (this is the song that reminded me so much of B&S).  But by the end it is wholly his own (the falsetto note at the end is great).  This song is super catchy.  I love the break in the song when the drums kick in again.

For “Violet” the cellist switches to keyboards and the guitar plays some big jangly chords.  The chorus is great once again–super catchy and poppy.  Even better, there’s some great background Bah bahs and then other oohs of harmony.  But it’s the switch to an even higher note at the end of the bah bahs that totally had me hooked.

For the final two songs it’s just him and the cello.  His picking style on “A Girl, A Boy, and a Graveyard” is wonderful.  His voice sounds like someone although I can’t quite place it, but I love it.   The song is sweet and delicate.

Before the final song “Tatooine,” (which is about Star Wars obviously) he says that Steve Earle was in not too long saying that now songwriters write songs for nerds, and so this one is for the nerds.  The first line is “twin suns of Tatooine taught me everything I know.”  Pretty nerdy alright.  It’s just him and the keyboard on this, and the song is perfect this way.

I’m really looking forward to hearing some studio version of these songs.  This Tiny Desk was quite a find.

[READ: March 12, 2016] “Hygge”

I have read several stories by Dorthe Nors and I’ve found most of them a bit odd.  And so was this one, which was translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra.  I’m not even sure what the title means.

I’m unclear about a lot of things in this story.  How old is the narrator?  He is at an old folks’ home with a woman named Lilly. She has made the place nice for him (cleaned the dead leaves off the windowsill and put the budgie under its cover so it can go to sleep).

They’d had a fight earlier–she’d said that thing about his face–but she was trying  be nice now.  And she wanted everything to be cuddly.  Her hand was “inside the waist of my trousers.” (more…)

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Clarice Lispector—“One Day Less” (Harper’s, July 2015)

Posted in David Wax Museum, Harper's, Katrina Dodson, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Waiting on March 31, 2016| Leave a Comment »

july2015 SOUNDTRACK: DAVID WAX MUSEUM-Tiny Desk Concert #103 (January 9, 2011).

waxI know of David Wax Museum from NPR’s coverage of The Newport Folk Festival back in 2010 (audio from their show is no longer online, sadly).  They played a wonderful set of interesting, somewhat Mexican sounding music.

David Wax plays a tiny Mexican jarocha guitar and Sue Slezak plays percussion on a donkey jawbone–which sounds great and is quite unusual to see.  The band is rounded out with Sam D’Agostino on saxophone and percussion and Mike Roberts on guitar and upright bass.

“Yes, Maria, Yes” opens the set with a lot of fun (how does that little guitar sound so buoyant?)  Wax and Slezak sing wonderfully together, and that jawbone introduces such an unusual sound.  About 1:20 into the song, the bass comes in and adds a whole new low end.  But then there’s a crash as the bridge from the bass collapsed!  Thus ends the bass in the song, although it’s not really missed.

For “Let Me Rest,” a far more mellow song, Wax switches to a full-sized guitar, Roberts switches to electric guitar (and they bemoan the loss of his bass) and Slezak plays fiddle.

Wax says that they have been in Washington DC playing house concerts every night, perhaps they have graduated to office concerts.

“Unfruitful” is one of my favorite of theirs.  The opening is interesting with the band kind of warming up (and Wax bouncing all out of frame).  It’s a raucous fun song with the fun chorus of “Tunnels in the sand.”  With Slezak wailing on the fiddle and Wax singing his heart out, it’s a great conclusion

I really enjoy David Wax Museum and I’ll get to see them at a Festival this summer.

[READ: January 6, 2015] “One Day Less”

I have been aware of Clarice Lispector for years, although I have never read her work (I recently got a free copy of her gigantic collected stories, so I hope to read that some day).

This story was the last one she wrote (it was found on her desk after her death–creepy)

It is an unusual story in which a woman, Margarida Flores, wonders how to fill the time in her day.

As the story opens, she wonders if death will come, if her endless days will ever end.  Perhaps death is a bluff?

She had a long day ahead with no plans.  She doesn’t even have the will to read or watch TV.  Then the story is filled with a section where the text reads: (more…)

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P.G. Wodehouse/The Goodale Brothers–Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense (2013)

Posted in David Goodale, Funny (ha ha), Hugh Laurie, Julieta Venegas, Marriage Trouble, P.G. Wodehouse, Play (Drama), Robert Goodale, Stephen Fry, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on March 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

woosterSOUNDTRACK: JULIETA VENEGAS-Tiny Desk Concert #126 (May 9, 2011).

julietaJulieta Venegas has a sweet voice.  She plays accordion and guitar and, for this show, is accompanied by a clarinet and flute.  The whole concert is delicate and lovely.

She sings threes songs in Spanish but describes them in English.

“Si Tú No Estas” features her on the accordion.  She plays a delightfully simple riff that sounds jaunty on the little accordion.  The clarinet is a fitting accompaniment to her on this quiet song.  I love that it feels vaguely French, even though it is sung in Spanish.  This is about the people you leave at home when you travel.

“Debajo De Mi Lengual” (Under My Tongue) is a bit more folk sounding because she plays the song on guitar and is accompanied by a flute.  The song is about being insecure to talk to others.  The melody is simple, but the flute adds some lovely notes.

For “Bien O Mal” she stays on guitar but this time is accompanied by the accordion.  This song is the most rollicking (not very rollicking at all, of course, but the tempo is much faster.  The accordion mostly plays chords to flesh out the song.  The song sounds lovely, which is why it’s especially funny that at the end she seems unsure of just how good it was.

[READ: December 14, 2015] Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense

I have never read any of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, although I have seen most of the series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (incomparably played).

This play is a “new” story written by the Goodale Brothers.  It is based on a bunch of Wodehouse’s pieces, particularly The Code of the Woosters (1938).  Robert and David Goodale were asked to put the above story on the stage.  So they worked on it and modified it and came up with this version.

They came up with the idea of Wooster telling one of his tales and Jeeves “helping” as only Jeeves can.  So in this production, there are only three actors.  But they play multiple parts each trying to flesh out Bertie’s story.  Wooster is Wooster, Jeeves is Jeeves and several others, and their friend Seppings plays many many roles, including some women and a nine foot tall man.

The story itself is intentionally convoluted and hilarious.  It involves an expensive creamer, a police officer, Bertie’s aunt and the ghastly woman Bertie might jut have to marry. (more…)

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Adam Johnson–“Interesting Facts” (Harper’s, June 2015)

Posted in Adam Johnson, Cancer as plot device, Death, Flor de Toloache, Marriage (Happy), Short Story, The Arcs, The Black Keys, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on January 28, 2016| 1 Comment »

june2015SOUNDTRACK: THE ARCS-Tiny Desk Concert #504 (January 25, 2016).

arcsOkay so the Tiny Desk folks make a pretty big deal out of this being their 500th show and I am stating that it is their 503rd show.  I have to guess that they post some shows out of order because I have counted twice and gotten the same number.  So we will choose to disagree with our numbering system, but I will also agree that this was their 500th episode because, why would they lie?

The Arcs are a band that I wished I liked more.  Everyone seems to enjoy them, but I really don’t.  Of course, I don’t like The Black Keys either, so this is no surprise, really.  Nevertheless, Dan Auerbach, who is in both bands, has a great voice and writes some interestign songs, I just don’t care for his arrangements–the very soulfulness that attracts fans, I guess.

They are accompanied by three members of  the Mariachi band Flor de Toloache, who did a Tiny Desk Concert a few weeks earlier (although I’m guessing it was the same day, hint hint).  They play a great accompaniment–sometimes all of them play, sometimes just one, and they add interesting elements to the songs.  They also sing backing vocals.

The band plays three songs from their album.  “Pistol made of Bones” which I like in this version (I don’t know the original, I don’t think).  I especially like the way the horn and violin play along with the melody and give it a very Mexican feel.  It removes some of the soul that I don’t really like about the songs.

The other two songs are the two singles from the album and I find that I like them less (I guess I’m a deep cuts kinda guy).

“Stay in My Corner” is a fine song.  I like the guitar lines and the way he sings it.  It’s just not my thing.  I really enjoy the backing vocals by drummer Homer Steinweiss, who has this hilarious style of tapping out these beats while leaning (practically asleep) on the drum machine–totally low key.

I really enjoy Auerbach’s singing delivery in “Outta My Mind.”  I just wish the song would do more.  I want it to be…something else.

So the 500th (ish) episode was probably a lot more fun in the Offices than it was for me.  Although I enjoyed the confetti cannons.

But congratulations anyway!  Here’s to 500 more–but take a break for a few weeks so i can play catch up, okay?

[READ: January 4, 2016] “Interesting Facts”

I hadn’t been reading all that many short stories at the time that I read this because I had been focusing on graphic novels and books.  So jumping back into the short stories at Harper’s has been a real treat.  And I really enjoyed this one.

Although I’m always leery of stories that center around a main character with cancer, I thought the way this was done was clever and interesting and it absolutely drew me in to the story.  Plus it was funny (at least at the beginning).

I loved the way it started: “Interesting fact: Toucan cereal bedspread to my plunge and deliver.”  It doesn’t even fully make sense by the end of the story but an essential part does and I enjoyed the way it was presented like this.

The story is told from the point of view of * a woman who developed breast cancer a few years back.  She says that “I’m going to discuss the breasts of every woman who crosses my path.”  And indeed she does. (more…)

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Wolfgang Hilbig–“Lip Service” (Harper’s, June 2015)

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, Isabel Fargo Cole, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Wolfgang Hilbig on January 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

june2015 SOUNDTRACK: WOLF ALICE-Tiny Desk Concert #503 (January 22, 2016).

wolfaliceI have been really enjoying Wolf Alice’s album My Love is Cool. It has many familiar elements of shoegaze and grunge but it’s played in different and unexpected combinations.  The album is moody and at times abrasive. But there are some lovely melodies underneath these songs.  (They were originally a folkie band before going electric).

So this Tiny Desk Concert plays to their origins (all of five years ago).  And they really change their songs for this set.

“Fluffy” on the original has noisy guitars and some great stop starts and big screams.  They really, really slow it down for the set.  They remove the abrasiveness, sing delicately (with the drummer providing backing vocals), and for the chorus of “sixteen, so sweet” they actually whisper it.

On record, “Turn to Dust” is pretty and soaring and very moody.  This version is quite folky.  I prefer the original but I really like this version especially the way you can really hear the interesting lyrics. Also, Ellie’s voice is quite lovely with no effects on it.  They even hit Bob’s gong at the end.

The recorded version of “Bros” is upbeat and somewhat poppy.  This acoustic version takes on a similarly upbeat feel but in a very different style.  It feels like a real folk song and works surprisingly well in this context.  I love the ending that they take onto it which make it even prettier.

I enjoyed this set a lot, even if it took me two listens to recognize two of the songs.  But I didn’t really enjoy the band members all that much.  I’m going to assume they were nervous rather than disaffected.

After the first song the bassist casually asks, “How’s everyone doin?  Good?” and when everyone chuckles, he says, “That’s the end of that banter,” which is pretty funny (and makes Bob laugh out loud), but it proves to be true.  And it takes Bob to break the silence (while the guitarist tunes).  Bob tried to barter with the drummer for his shirt, which gets them to admire the strange things around the office.  Also singer Ellie Roswell seems really strangely uncomfortable looking at he ceiling quite often, which seems very unlike the cocky persona she puts on in her videos.  But the music is great, so that’s okay.

[READ: January 10, 2016] “Lip Service”

“Lip Service” is an excerpt from Hilbig’s book I which was translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole.

This was a strange story which is all about perception.

It starts “Most of W’s perceptions were acquired by looking from outside into the interior of lighted dwellings.”

He would watch people talking but he could barely hear them.  And so he learned how to perceive what was going on and how unimportant the actual words that people said could be.

And he really enjoyed the non-gratification this afforded–the idea of being a voyeur who never completes his quest. (more…)

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