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Archive for the ‘Unreliable narrator’ Category

Ian Frazier–“A Farewell to Yarns” (Outside, November 2012)

Posted in Adventure, All Songs Considered, Birds, Black Sabbath, Earth, Essays, Fishing, H.P. Lovecraft, Ian Frazier, Judas Priest, KEXP 90.3 FM--Seattle, WA, Outside, Technology, Unreliable narrator on October 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EARTH-All Tomorrows Parties, October 5, 2011 (2011).

Anyone who likes Black Sabbath a lot knows that they were originally called Earth.  About mid way through this concert, the lead singer/guitarist of Earth says that he grew up listening to Black Sabbath and reading HP Lovecraft, so Earth is clearly something of a tribute.   Incidentally, he grew up in Manalapan, NJ which is just down the road from us.

All of these bona fides means that I should love Earth.  But I have to say that although I didn’t dislike this show at all, it’s really not my thing.  Earth creates long droney songs.  I tried to measure a couple of BPM of songs and came out with 60 for one song and 42 for another (by contrast Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” is 180 BPM).

The songs are all instrumental and range from 8 to 12 minutes.  Again, nothing objectionable about that.  Indeed most of the songs are cinematic and cool sounding.  My problem with them is that there wasn’t a lot of dynamism in the songs.  The bass wasn’t crazy heavy or loud or chest rattling (as I had been led to believe Earth’s bass was).  The melodies were pretty, but it came across as soundtrack music–for a very very slow zombie chase, perhaps.

According to some basic history, Earth used to be a heavier, noisier band, but have morphed away from that, and I suspect I would have liked their earlier stuff a bit more (although the one older that they played, “Ouroboros is Broken” wasn’t that much different from the rest.

NPR broadcast most of the All Tomorrow’s Parties concerts, and I enjoyed listening to them all.  But Earth is just not my thing.  You can check it out here.

[READ: October 20, 2012] “A Farewell to Yarns”

I mentioned the other day that I read one complete piece in the three Outside magazines since I subscribed.  It was this one.  The thing that I have enjoyed about the Outside articles that I have cherry picked is that unexpected writers pop up to write an essay.  So here’s Ian Frazier, comedian and essayist, writing for Outside.  Weird.  (Or maybe not so weird, he’s an Editor).

And, unlike many of the other things I’ve read in Outside, Frazier is not, repeat not going to do anything brave or daring or stupid, he’s just going to muse about a topic.  I like it.

Basically, this whole piece is a compliant about how with everything documented and digitalized it’s impossible to tell fibs about the one that got away or as he calls it, “an outdoorsman’s sacred right to exaggerate.”  What I like is that he takes us all the way back to ye olde mapmakers who wrote Here be Monsters which leads to this wonderful idea that I have never considered “the pictures of the monsters must have been accurate; how would the mapmakers have known what to draw unless eyewitnesses had told them?”

And he moves on through those who spied the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.  He even talks about one I had ever heard of, a hidden city in Siberia called Gorod Koka-Kola, built during the cold war as a reproduction of an American city, they speak English and live and behave like Americans–perfect for spymasters to practice   Genius–and how would anyone ever know if it existed in remotest Siberia?

But Fraizer’s greater point is that “Lies make the wild scary and alluring.”  He grew up in Rural Illinois afraid of the Argyle Monster who haunted Argyle State Park–and, boy, how many adventures he had or dreamed of having back then. (more…)

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Ben Lerner–“The Golden Vanity” (New Yorker, June 18, 2012)

Posted in Ben Lerner, Books about writers, Drinking, Drugs, Fears, New Yorker, Nirvana, Thou, Unreliable narrator on July 1, 2012| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THOU-“Something in the Way” (2011).

Sometimes you hear a  cover version and you really don’t know what to think.  Maybe you hate it from the very beginning.  And then maybe it does something and you kind of hate it a little more.  And then suddenly it turns the corner and who knows what they’re doing.

This song opens almost ponderously slowly.  I guess it’s not that much different from the original , but it feels so really slow.  And then, when they get to the “something in the way” part, the band kicks in with really heavy squalling feedback and cookie monster vocals shouting “Something in the Way.”  And I kind of didn’t like anything.  But then came the surprise.  the “oooh” part was sung very straight and melodically.  The song reverts back to the original slow vocals section and you realize that the singer sounds an awful lot like Cobain himself. And the second time when the chorus comes in, you expect it and while you may not like the cookie monster vocals, the juxtaposition to the sweet “oohs” is strangely cathartic.

Not for everyone by a long shot, but very interesting nonetheless, especially the way the feedback squalls and wheedles.

Thou has done a number of Nirvana covers evidently.  There’s a cover of “Anuerysm” in this live show (in which they acknowledge that the fans aren’t there to see them).  The music is spot on, but man, those vocals are hard to handle.

[READ: June 29, 2012] “The Golden Vanity”

As yesterday’s story was about “the husband,” today’s story is about “the author” (have short story writers run out of names?).  The author has just written a very successful book in which the main character tries very hard not to be nervous in social situations.  The author himself gets nervous in social situations.  When people know he wrote the book they scrutinize him to see if he gets awkward in social situations…which makes him more awkward…etc.  It’s a pretty funny concept.

The opening section has the author meeting the librarian.  He’s put in an awkward situation because his hands are full when she waves.  So he gets emabrassed and scowls.  Then he thinks she assumes he is scowling at her.  He gets through the encounter with advice from his shrink.

The next scene jumps quickly (I wonder what happened to the librarian) to his medical condition.  The author has to have his wisdome teeth out.  He spends a lot of the story wondering is he should have a local or a twilight anesthetic (which costs $3,000 more and calls for an I.V.). He wonders aloud a lot to his friend Liza, who tolerates his neuroses and enjoys talking about them, even though she says things like “We’re not talking about this again.”

The evening before the surgery (he of course chose the I.V.) he went on a date.  Well, not really a date (he liked to say that), but friends going out together with a single woman there to meet him.  Naturally this made him nervous too.  But he and Hannah hit it off (lots of drinks helped).

There’s a whole section devoted to waiting room art which I appreciated quite a bit.  Who decies what to buy?  It’s not like the doctors would come out and look on it and admire it, right?  This sort of melds with a discussion about the preserved letters of famous writers.  Do libraries buy emails?  Do they buy the letters of young writers as a security upon further greateness?  These ideas are pretty theoretical yet the way it is written keeps it inetersting. (more…)

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Paul La Farge–“Another Life” (New Yorker, July 2, 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Drinking, Drugs, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Paul La Farge, Sex, Short Story, Unreliable narrator on June 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EAST OF THE WALL-“False Build” (2011).

Viking picked this song back in September of 2011 as his song of the week (or however often he posted then).  I’d never heard of East of the Wall, despite their New Jersey pedigree.  (I know I don’t know every band from New jersey, but usually by the time a band has three records out I’ve at least heard of them).

This song is just over five minutes long and the vocals don’t come in until about three an a half minutes.  By the time the vocals come in, we’ve had three or four different stylistic changes.  And, by  the time the vocals have been with us for a minute it’s possible that there are four vocalists in the band.

It opens with some clean guitars playing an open (but slightly off) chord progression.  Over that comes a slightly distorted guitar and a bass playing mostly the same notes but just enough to be notably different.  Then add some drums so the song is builds very nicely.  The solo gets more and more complicated and when the drums rumble in for a climactic progression…the songs shifts into a kind of loud heavy rock/almost funk.  A new more angular solo plays over the funk riffs and it all works wonderfully.  Then the song becomes a rapid fire snare drum metal song and that’s where the vocals kick in.  I assume this is all one vocalist but who knows.  For the sake of argument I’ll pretend they are all different.

The first vocalist is a screamer–hard to understand but fitting in perfectly with the now heavy riffs.  He doesn’t say much before the second vocalist comes in.  This section of the music is mellow and kind of prog rocky and the vocalist fist perfectly–actually crooning along with the melody.  Until vocalist three comes in with a kind of cookie monster vocal which is interspersed with a different cookie monster vocalist.  By the quarter to 5 moment the first vocalist comes back, and there’s more screaming until the song ends.  It’s chaotic and cool and keeps you on the edge of your seat.  I wonder what they’re singing about.

Wow.  If I’m this exhausted writing about it, imagine how they must feel playing it.  I’m going to have to check out more from them.

[READ: June 28, 2012] “Another Life”

This story is disconcerting in that the first paragraph is a page and a half long.  And it works very well stylistically.  The whole first paragraph concerns a man (the husband) as he returns from a party for father-in-law.  He’d rather not have gone to at all, but since he is also sick and on medication, he takes the opportunity to leave early.  He arrives back at the hotel and sits down to read Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.  (Holy crap!).  He can’t focus on the book so he decides to go down to the hotel bar (with the book) just to mix things up.

There are a few people in the room, but he sits alone at the bar.  The bartender (whose name is later revealed to be April P) is very nice and chats as she serves him.  She sees his book and asks what he’s reading.  He’s a bit embarrassed, because she’s never heard of Rousseau.  But she says that she reads everything and her favorite is Emily Dickinson.  He is thrown by her choice of authors and by the fact that he can’t think of anything clever to say about Dickinson.  He fumbles a bit.  She remains nice but is clearly unimpressed. (more…)

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Joshua Ferris–“Mrs. Blue” (The Iowa Review, Vol 29, No 2, Fall 1999)

Posted in Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Efrim Manuel Menuck, Funny (strange), Godspeed You Black Emperor, Huh?, Joshua Ferris, Radiohead, Set at School, Sex, Short Story, Silver Mt. Zion, The Iowa Review, Unreliable narrator on May 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EFRIM MANUEL MENUCK-Plays “High Gospel” [CST078] (2011).

Efrim Manuel Menuck was a co-founder of Godspeed Your Black Emperor and the main force behind A Silver Mt. Zion.  In some ways it seems odd that he would release a solo album, but I guess Silver Mt Zion is enough of a collective for him to want to do his own thing.  Efrim has been singing a lot more on Silver Mt Zion records, and I find his voice to walk a fine line between interesting and annoying–well, not so much annoying as inappropriate to the music he makes.  For this solo disc, though, there’s something different about the music that works well with his voice.  There’s eight songs on the disc.  Some of them are pretty much unlistenable, but others are really enjoyable.  The opener “our lady of parc extension and her munificent sorrows” is 7 minutes long and has the kind of epic feel of his previous bands, but there’s a lot more keyboard (making cool space sounds).  Meanwhile, “a 12-pt. program for keep on keepin’ on” is described as a “hauntingly processed field recordings and ominous tape-delayed sound-sculpture.”  That’s true for the first minute or so, but after that it’s mostly just an unpleasant cacophony…that lasts nine minutes!  And while it’s great that it was all done with analogue equipment, that doesn’t make it any more listenable.

“august four, year-of-our-lord blues” is a much more enjoyable instrumental, slow vibrated notes, a real western sound.  Efrim sings again on “heavy calls & hospital blues” and his angsty, hesitant voice works very well on this piano ballad.  “heaven’s engine is a dusty ol’ bellows ” is a 2 minute instrumental/introduction that sounds a lot like the guitar opening from Radiohead’s “Electioneering.” “kaddish for chesnutt” is a slow, mournful dirge.  It’s quite moving.  It’s 7 minutes long, and the length is saved by the second half where the chanted vocals bring the song back from the edge.

“chickadees’ roar pt. 2” is mostly feedback noises and squeaks.  It’s less unpleasant than other instrumentals, but it’s not something you’d seek out.  Although it does work as an introduction to the closer: “i am no longer a motherless child.”  After about 2 minutes of dissonant introduction, the group begins singing an uplifting ending hymn.

So this boils down to a self-indulgent solo project, with a few tracks that are among his best.  You can stream it here.

[READ: May 22, 2012] “Mrs Blue”

I really enjoyed Joshua Ferris’ first novel.  So I thought I’d see what else he had written. He has a number stories published but most of them are unavailable for free reading at this time.  Thanks to my JSTOR account I was able to read this one from The Iowa Review.

This was  pretty confusing story–and since its one of his first, I don’t really know what else to compare it to in his work.  There’s all kinds of disturbing images and as you delve more deeply into the story, the images turn more disturbing but in different ways.

It opens with a youngish boy being seduced by Mrs Blue, a teacher in his school.  He warns her about the dangers of unprotected sex and she says that she’s the one who convinced the PTA to hire the guy who gave the lecture, so she knows all about it.  He’s 13 and he keeps telling her he doesn’t want to (her locations of choice include under a railroad car and in a burned out building).  Each paragraph or so is set off by a star, indicating a new section.  So section 2 has the narrator and Gus (friend? brother?) go to the track where Mrs Blue runs laps. Gus walks his dog, Mr Yackley, while the narrator (whose name is Woodrow Williams) talk about Cole Porter and how she’s looking for a new “daddy.” (more…)

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Victor Lodato–“P.E.” (New Yorker, April 2, 2012)

Posted in Drinking, Drugs, Les Savy Fav, Neurotics, New Yorker, Short Story, Superchunk, Unreliable narrator, Victor Lodato on April 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LES SAVY FAV-“Precision Auto” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

This is a cover of a Superchunk song.  The Superchunk song is fast and furious with screamed vocals.  The Les Savy Fav version is faster and more furious with screamed vocals.  It doesn’t sound very different from the original except that they use a high guitar playing a repeating motif which seems to increase the pace and intensity of the song.  They even keep it up through the moody instrumental break

Usually I don’t like a cover that sounds so much like the original, but it’s a great cover.  It basically just intensifies the song, and that’s a good thing.

I don’t know much about Les Savy Fav, so I don’t know if this is why they normally sound like, but it’s pretty darn good.

[READ: April 3, 2012] “P.E.”

Sometimes a title can impact ones desire to read a story.  This title is, well, it’s not bad, it’s just…uninspired.  I can’t see myself saying, “I really want to read, “P.E.”  What’s surprising is that the title is so blah, when the story is so interesting.

I like my short stories to be light and fluffy (even if I read heavy duty novels).  So this one was kind of fun.  In the beginning.  It starts with Freddy waiting for his dad at the airport.

Freddy is fat.  I have to admit right off the start that whenever a character is described as really fat (like really fat, as Freddy is), it irks me.  First off, I always assume that writers are not fat (not really a fair assumption but author photos are often glamorous, right?) so they aren’t writing from a location of truth.  Second, whenever a character is really fat, it always signals that something bad has or will happen to him.  And so it is with this story.

But before we get to that point, we have some more amusing scenarios.

Or, well, really not amusing so much as disturbing (but funny).  Freddy’s mother hanged herself when he was seven.  And his father took it badly (not unusual).  He even took to wearing the noose around his neck like an article of clothing (unusual!). (more…)

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César Aira–How I Became a Nun (1989) [translated 2007]

Posted in César Aira, Chris Andrews, Death, Foreign Books, Ice Cream, Muppets, My Morning Jacket, Short Books, Translation, Unreliable narrator, Violence on February 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MY MORNING JACKET-Circuital (2011).

I have really gotten into My Morning Jacket with their last couple of albums.  I know that they are quite different from their earlier releases, so I’m not quite as surprised by the diversity that’s on them.  With each release, they keep exploring new territory, although it’s all held together nicely by Jim James’ (or Yim Yames’) amazing voice.

The first half of the disc is much more wild than the second half, with longer songs, and more unusual textures.  The second half slows things down and feels almost, but not quite, acoustic.

“Victory Dance” is a slinky song and a cool intro to the disc.  It’s quickly followed by “Circuital,” a 7 minute long epic with two distinct parts.  The first is a kind of quiet echoey introduction, but when the guitars roar in at around 2:30, it turns into a big anthemy song…very ctahcy

“The Day is Coming” opens like a 70s AM radio song, with lots of da da das.  It’s a mellow song, the kind of song the MMJ flesh out with wonderful vocals so it never gets dull.

“Wonderful” is a simply beautiful song.  A gentle ballad about feeling wonderful.  I just found out that this song was originally intended for The Muppet Movie.  It would have been perfect.  Of course, the band are on the soundtrack doing a cover, so I guess that’s kinda close.

“Outta My System” is another catchy little number, also reminiscent of 70s AM radio, although it’s all about doing bad things as a youth and getting them out of your system.  Musically it would also work very well for the Muppets, but I suspect lyrically it might be a bit outré for the movie (granted I haven’t actually seen it so I can’t say for sure).

All the recent MMJ albums have one crazy track and on this one it’s “Holdin’ on to Black Metal.”  So the title is pretty unexpected but it’s nowhere near as unexpected as the content of the song.  It is complete with a children’s chorus and what sounds like horns, although I suspect they are keyboards.  It’s full of blasts of sound and woah woah ohs.  It’s crazy.  I love it.  Much like I love the crazy song, “Highly Suspicious”  from the previous album.  And I just found out that this song is more or less a cover (although with different words of “E-Saew Tam Punha Huajai” by Kwan Jai & Kwan Jit Sriprajan from the album Siamese Soul: Thai Spectacular 1960s-80s Volume 2.  More on that tomorrow.

  After that bizarre track, the album really settles down into an easy groove.  “First Light is a pretty traditional, simple song.  It also has lots of horns.  “You Wanna Freak Out” is also unexpected for the title, as it’s a pretty straightforward rocker. “Slow Slow Tune” doesn not belie its title.  It has a kind of 70s Pink Floyd feel and continues the more mellow second half od the disc.  The disc ends with “Movin’ Away” a slow, piano ballad.

  Although the album has a very comfortable, familiar feel, MMJ have little tricks (great soaring guitars and, again, James’ voice) to make it rise above the ordinary.  It’s great disc that warrants multiple listens.

[READ: January 28, 2012] How I Became a Nun

I didn’t love Aira’s Ghosts because it was too ephemeral for me (as befitting a book called Ghosts, right?).  How I Became a Nun is the exact opposite: a terrifically visceral story that is straightforward and easy to follow, except for perhaps two things.

The first thing is something that’s mentioned on the back of the book (so I’m not threatening a spoiler here).  The main character is named César.  Whenever someone talks to him, they address him as César or boy or him.  And yet, the whole book is written from the point of view of young César, and César describes himself as a girl.  In the fourth paragraph, the narrator states, “I was a devoted daughter.”  And yet, shortly thereafter, another character says about the narrator, “Is it my fault if the boy didn’t like it?”

This goes on throughout the story–not a lot–but enough to keep it in your mind.

The second thing is the ending.  Which I don’t want to spoil.

So what is this wonderfully titled story about?  Well, six-year old César begins, “My story, the story of ‘how I became a nun’ began very early in my life.”  The opening chapter tells the story of César’s first experience with ice-cream.

It is a wonderful chapter, with César’s father promising the wondrous delights of ice cream and taking them both out for a cone.  César’s father enjoys his cone very much, but César, although instantly in love with the pink strawberry color is instantly disgusted by the taste. He even retches a little bit. (more…)

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Linda McCullogh Moore–“Final Dispositions” (The Sun, February 2009)

Posted in Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Eric Chenaux, Linda McCullogh Moore, Short Story, The Sun, Unreliable narrator on January 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ERIC CHENAUX-Warm Weather with Ryan Driver [CST068] (2010).

I just checked my review of Chenaux’s previous album and it’s funny how similar it is to what I figured I’d write about this one: soporific, free-form, sweet, hard to get into at first but ultimately rewarding.  Chenaux must be the most mellow person ever.  His songs just sort of drift around without any real theme to guide them.  Sometimes the chord changes even seem arbitrary.  And Chenaux’s voice is so slow and gentle that it’s not always clear he’s even singing along with the music.  But the thing about all of this is that it sounds very pretty (so he must know what he’s doing).

It’s not even worth me doing any kind of song by song evaluation because they are all pretty much the same–slow guitar with occasional keyboards and backing vocals.  I find the disc maddening at times and yet at other times I find it achingly beautiful.  My favorite song, the one with the most compelling melody to me, is “Mynah Bird.”  I suppose it’s the most “obvious” song, very Nick Drake-like, but it’s a great way into this record.

The Ryan Driver of the title is a piano/synth/melodica player who contributes all of the accents to the record.

There are times when I adore this album.  In the right frame of mind, this is simply a gorgeous record.  But in the wrong frame of mind, this is just slow plodding dullsville.  Choose wisely–and you will be rewarded.

[READ: January 4, 2012] “Final Dispositions”

This is another story recommended to me by Karen Carlson (see all of her recommendations in the comments to this post).  Of this one she writes: “from her linked-story collection This Road Will Take Us Closer To the Moon, available online in The Sun, Feb. 2009. A little sentimental, but well done. Try it with S&G’s “Bookends” or Janis Ian’s “Hymn [as a soundtrack].”

I loved the way this story was set up.  It opens with a woman, Margaret, who seems off somehow: “I am the oldest sibling.  Always have been.  I thought the years might mute the effect of that, but nothing so far.”  Her siblings are deciding “what to do with her.”  And after they have their confab, they call her up and ask her questions based on what they decided.

Initially you feel angry on her part, that her family is so dismissive of her.  But it soon becomes clear that they feel she needs help.  Interestingly, since the story is from Margaret’s point of view and she is lucid, it’s hard to know exactly what is wrong with her.  She talks of depressive things and speaks very deadpan but then wonders why no one has a sense of humor.

There’s not a lot of plot in the story, but there’s an initial “subplot” point when Margaret’s sister (“Irene–I mean, Eileen…. I like it that I can never keep her name straight”–[I love this joke/telling remark.  It is such a smart encapsulation of a person who is forgetful but still with it]) sends her husband over to pick Margaret up.  Tom, her brother-in-law, was previously married and the beginning of the story focuses on that a bit–on Margaret’s prying into Tom’s past presumably to needle Eileen.  The narrator soon finds out Tom’s ex-wife’s name and plans a surprise for her sister. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Third Reich (1989) [translated 2011]

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boredom, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Foreign Books, Games (Non Video), History, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Once, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books, The Swell Season, Threats, Translation, Unreliable narrator on December 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SWELL SEASON-Strict Joy (2009).

I bought this disc for Sarah after it came out.  I didn’t think that I would enjoy it that much because while I loved the movie Once, I wasn’t sure if I needed more from Glen and Marketa.  But then I found a whole slew of free concerts from NPR and I became hooked on the band.

The disc opens with “Low Rising” (what I think of as the “Van Morrison” song).  It gets better with each listen.  It’s a slow ballad which is followed by “Feeling the Pull,” a more up-tempo song that really highlights Marketa’s beautiful harmonies.  “In These Arms” is a gorgeous song.  The verses are downbeat and somber “if you stay…with that asshole…it will only lead to harm” but again the harmonies are gorgeous.  “The Rain” is a more rocking tune (within reason, of course).  It has an interesting middle section that quiets down, but it’s a solid folk rocking song.

“Fantasy Man” is Marketa’s first lead vocal song on the disc.  I like her voice but sometimes I find her lead songs to be a bit too wispy, too quiet.  I like this song, but it feels long (and at 5 minutes, it is).  “Paper Cup” is one of Glen’s quiet ballads.  It’s a pretty song.  “High Horses” is one that I didn’t know from the live sets, I guess it’s not too popular with the band, but I think it’s strong.  It runs a little long but that’s because it has a cool middle section that keeps building and building with more instruments and voices.  “The Verb” is another song that I didn’t know.  It has a cool intensity to it and while it doesn’t stand out as a hit, it’s certainly an enjoyable song.

“I Have Loved You Wrong” is another pretty Marketa song, but again it’s very slow and very long.  I don’t think I could buy her solo album because although her voice is lovely and her melodies are nice, they’re just so ephemeral I can’t really get into them.  “Love That Conquers” is an interesting song.  It sounds nothing like The Swell Season (must be the banjo).  It’s a nice addition to the album and should maybe have been placed a little earlier to break up the sound style a bit more.  “Back Broke” ends the disc very strongly.  Although I think the song works better live (with audience participation), the melody and tone of the song are somberly beautiful.

There are moments of this disc when it turns out to be what I feared the whole disc would be–bland folkiness. But overall this is an enjoyable album for a rainy day.  And Hansard really has an amazing voice.  However, I really like them better live.

[READ: December 26, 2011] Third Reich

I was pretty excited when I heard about this book, although I must admit I was a little concerned by the title.  Bolaño has a kind of weird Nazi fascination.  There is Nazi Literature in America and then a whole section of 2666 is given over to Nazi Germany.  He doesn’t like Nazis or anything but he writes about them a lot and it can be a little exhausting.  So it was with some relief that I learned that Third Reich is the name of a game that the main character plays.  It is a kind of historical reimagining kind of game (I guess like Risk but more specific and with more at stake).  It is set during the time of the Third Reich and the players represent various countries (or perhaps even powers).

I am giving up on explaining the game from here on because a) there’s a lot about the game in the book and b) I’m not sure if it wasn’t explained very thoroughly or if I just missed out on exactly what was happening.  During the book he talks about Hexes 65 through 68 and so on.  So I assume the map of the world is a hex grid.  But he never gives any context (or even a picture!–and this makes sense as it’s written as the diary of a well-regarded player who is not trying to teach us the game).  So while I understand the general tenets and play of the game (there’s a die (or dice) and tokens that reside on the board), the specifics are completely nebulous.  But that’s okay.  Because the game specifics don’t impact the book, but the game overall is at the heart of the book.  I think it’s neat that Bolaño invented a game (and several others games are named, but no details are given).  He is clearly very gifted at inventing people, games, things.

But as I said, the game is only a part of the book and in fact, the game details don’t enter into the book until about half way through. (more…)

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Ricky Jay–Celebrations of Curious Characters (2011)

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Arrested Development, Biography, Boxing, Deadwood, Essays, Freaks, Funky Web Sites, Funny (strange), Gilmore Girls, Greed, Illusion, KCRW 89.9 FM--Santa Monica, CA, McSweeney's, Mystery, Newspapers, Oddities, Pranks, Queensrÿche, Unreliable narrator on October 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: QUEENSRŸCHE-The Warning (1984).

Queensrÿche fulfilled the promise of their debut EP with this album.  It takes the blueprint of the EP and expands it wonderfully.  They introduce some cool low vocal chants to compliment Tate’s soaring alto (like on “En Force”), they also introduce some wonderful effects and riffs and scales (also on “En Force”).

There’s also some really great, odd “keyboard” bits thrown in as kind of sound effects or jarring moments (“Deliverance”).  “Deliverance” also has great backing vocals, and I love the way the “Deliver Us” part of the song is quite different from the soaring of the rest of the vocals.  The back and forth of “No Sanctuary” also showcases the bands skills very well.

The band even shows signs that they’re not sticking to standard heavy metal.  On “N.M. 156” there’s some sci-fi chanting and the really cool section of the song in which Tate sings “Forgotten…Lost…Memories” and the “Lost” part is a completely unexpected note.   They were taking chances from the beginning.

“The Lady Wore Black” is updated with the stunning “Take Hold of the Flame,” a slightly more progressive version of that first song.  “Before the Storm” was the first song I heard from this album and it has always been my favorite on the record (this is one of those few albums where the better songs aren’t front loaded).  “We watch the sun rise and hope it won’t be our last” (they were always happy guys).

“Child of Fire” opens with a wonderful riff and the compelling, “the souls that are damned by the pain that you bring send you higher.”  The song settles down into a slow part and Tate growls “Damn you and the pain they must feel” and you can tell he means it (whatever else the song is about).

All this time I don’t think I ever realized that “Roads to Madness” was nine minutes long.  It is definitely foreshadowing the kind of epic work they would do later.  And it closes out the album in a cathartic blast.  It’s wonderfully pure metal from the mid-80s.

[READ: October 20, 2011] Celebrations of Curious Characters

I had never heard of Ricky Jay before getting this book, but apparently he is a reasonably well know radio personality (on KCRW), he is also an actor on Deadwood, and he’s a magician.  This book is a collection of his KCRW radio show broadcasts along with accompanying pictures from his vast collection of obscure ephemera.

There are forty-five entries in the book–each one is a page long (it’s an oversized book and they are two columns each).  Each essay is Jay’s take on a particular subject or, as the title says, curious character.  Jay is a collector of esoteric information, especially that related to magic and, for lack of a better word, freakish behavior.   One of the most enjoyable parts of the book are the pictures that accompany each entry.  The pictures come from Jay’s collection and each picture’s provenance is given in the back of the book.  So we get pictures like “The little Count Boruwlaski, engraving by A. van Assed ([London]) Borowlaski [sic], 1788). or Lithograph of Chung Ling Soo (Birmingham: J. Upton, c. 1912) or Frontispiece portrait from George Devol, Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi (Cincinnati: Devol & Haines, 1887).  Some of these photos you can see on his website.  Or you can enjoy this picture of a chicken firing a gun that is not in the book (it comes from his site). (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles and Speeches 1998-2003 (2011)

Posted in Big Books, Biography, Book Reviews, Books about writers, César Aira, Cigarettes, David Foster Wallace, Do the Right Thing, Don DeLillo, Douglas Coupland, Drugs, Enrique Vila-Matas, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Herman Melville, History, Isabel Allende, Ivan Turgenev, Jaime Bayly, Javier Cercas, Javier Marias, Jonathan Swift, Jorge Luis Borges, Mario Vargas Llosa, Mark Twain, Martin Amis, Memoirs, Natasha Wimmer, Pablo Picasso, Playboy, Poetry, Public Enemy, Roberto Bolaño, Rodrigo Lira, Rodrigo Rey Rosa, Salvador Dali, Travel, Unreliable narrator, Witold Gombrowicz on October 24, 2011| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PUBLIC ENEMY-Fear of a Black Planet (1990).

NPR recently broadcast a PE show from the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival.  I didn’t know that PE was still touring, so that was a surprise to me.  The show was largely a celebration of Fear of a Black Planet, which meant that I had to go back and listen to the original.

Man, is this a solid album.  The lyrics pack a punch even twenty years later and what is perhaps more amazing is that the sound collages that Terminator X created, which were something of an oppressive sonic assault are now fairly mainstream-sounding (forward thinking or what?).

What I like about this (and most PE) albums, is that  they have little skits between songs, but unlike most rap skits they’re not one-not jokes that you listen to once and then skip every future time.  A wonderful skit (for lack of a better word) is “Incident at 66.6 FM” in which we hear an amazing amount of racist epithets thrown at PE apparently on the radio.  Or the rather disturbing “Meet the G That Killed Me.”  “Anti-Nigger Machine” is a great collage of samples like “Think” and James Brown and a dozen more songs.

“Can’t Do Nuttin for Ya, Man!” is a (sort of) comic song from Flav that is catchy as anything. While “Reggie Jax” is a confusingly titled song that has nothing to do with baseball, but everything to do with funk.

Of course, this disc has some of PE’s best songs as well.  From the awesome “911 is a Joke” to one of the best rap songs ever, “Welcome to the Terrordome” (my favorite story of this song is when I was wearing a  Welcome to the Terrordome shirt and my philosophy professor asked me quite pointedly, “What in the hell is a terrordome.”  That was a fun conversation).  “Terrordome” is still amazing–powerful, musically intense and for all of its lyrical acuity, it still has funny moments….boing.

And of course, “Burn Hollywood Burn” is an amazing critique of the movie industry (and it’s catchy too).  I got Black Caesar back at the crib, right Lar?

I’ve always been a little confused by “Pollywannacracker.”  Not lyrically, but vocally, as Chuck’s (is it really Chuck?) voice is treated in a surprisingly tinny way.  I liked the song more on this listen than any other, I guess in the past it just kind of snuck by me.

The album is a little front loaded with greatness.   “Power to the People” is another powerful song, but it’s not quite as memorable as the other tracks.  “Fear of a Black Planet” has some really cool sounds on it (where did they get that “black man, black woman, black baby” sample?).   “Revolutionary Generation” is a great track in which Chuck and Flav stand up for black women: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, my sister’s not my enemy.”  Not your average rap subject.

And the last couple of proper songs, “B Side Wins Again” and “War at 33 1/3” are fast paced and furious, but they don’t really have much in the way of a hook.  Nevertheless, lyrically they are really great, and I love to hear Chuck D flow that quickly.

The biggest surprise for me is the censored version of “Fight the Power” (the song that got me into PE in the first place, thanks Spike).  It’s really surprising to me that PE allowed their music to be bleeped–unless it was just for a deliberate radio play (which I can accept).  Although they also list a title as “Leave This Off You Fu*Kin Charts” (did I buy a Columbia House version or something?)

This is an amazing album, one that still sounds fresh and sadly, is still relevant.

[READ: October 15, 2011] Between Parentheses

I never expected to get so addicted to Roberto Bolaño.  And despite his death, there is no shortage of works coming out in English (that is one of the advantages to reading a translated author–even death doesn’t cease the available materials).  Indeed, this year alone, New Directions is publishing Between Parentheses, and Tres and FSG is publishing The Third Reich (a collection of non fiction, a collection of poetry and a novel respectively).

When I really get into an author, I fall for his or her works, not necessarily him or her as a person (heck, some author are downright jerks).  But there are some authors that I want to know about, personally.  Bolaño is a pretty polarizing figure–he seems obnoxious, his works don’t shy away from very specific opinions, and sometimes it’s unclear what kind of views Bolaño himself has in his works (or if he’s even telling the truth about his so-called truths).  One thing in particular is the constant use of the word “faggot.”  It is used often in 2666 (and I know that is a translator’s choice, but still) and used derogatorily.  Now, clearly the context is everything for something like that.  But it seems to speak badly of Bolaño.  And yet, when reading these essays he is not homophobic in the least.  He is obviously well aware of institutionalized homophobia in Latin America, and he is obviously not supportive of it.

But that’s just one interesting thing about this book.  So let me back up. (more…)

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