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Archive for the ‘Virginity (Loss of)’ Category

Lee Hall–Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour: adapted from the novel The Sopranos by Alan Warner (2015)

Posted in Alan Warner, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Lee Hall, Maria Volonte, Pitch Perfect, Play (Drama), Religion, Sex, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Virginity (Loss of), Yuck! on May 12, 2016| Leave a Comment »

succourSOUNDTRACK: MARIA VOLONTE-Tiny Desk Concert #183 (December 27, 2011).

volonteOne of my plans for this calendar year was to write about all of the Tiny Desk concerts from 2016 and from 2011 (to play some catch up).  This is the final tiny Desk from 2011!  Huzzah.

Maria Volonte is an Argentine singer who interprets tango music in her own way.  She also plays folk, Latin blues as well as more traditional music.  She plays three songs here and is accompanied by the fantastic harmonica player, Kevin Carrel Footer.

“El Beso Azul” (The Blue Kiss) is a pop-folk ballad expressing menacing sadness.  Volonte’s voice is beautiful–full of longing and desire, heartache and sorrow.  She plays a very rich and full sounding acoustic guitar and is accompanied by a wonderful bluesy harmonica which plays some amazing lines and riffs.

“Oh Viejo Tren” (Oh, Old Train) is based on a long train ride from the outskirts into the city proper of Buenos Aires.  She says, “This is about people chasing their dreams in the city and then falling into reality.”  This song is slower and sadder and her voice changes appropriately, even if there is still an air of sultriness about it.  The harmonica in addition to playing great “train” sounds, keeps a perfect bluesy accompaniment.

“SF Tango” is an ode to San Francisco and to tango.  The song is in English.  I like the way she picks her guitar at the beginning and the cool strumming rhythm that the rest of the song has.

Typically, when there’s an interesting quote from the blurb, I post it here, but Jasmine Garsd’s write up is quite lengthy, and it tells an interesting history of the tango as well as some details about Volonte.  It also says she can barely listen to “SF Tango” as she finds it so moving. I didn’t find it so, but I did enjoy what she wrote.  Read it here.

[READ: January 2, 2016] Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour

I also wanted to make sure I finished all of the posts I started in 2015.  This is the last one (although maybe I finished the book in 2016?).  So it’s nice to have that burden lifted as well!

I read Warner’s The Sopranos in 1998.  I loved it.  It was very funny, very raunchy and a delightful way to see girls having wild fun.

Of course, it’s nearly 20 years later and I have a daughter of my own and I can’t help but think that the girls’ behavior is so unsafe, so unwise, so irresponsible!

This play also seems (if memory is any guide) to take the wildness of the girls and condense it.  Since there is no narrator to slow things down they are just wild from the get go.

So this play is about six girls.  The girls are the only ones in the play–they wind up doing different characters (including men) which sounds like it would be very funny to see).  All of the girls are in the choir of Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour Catholic school.  And they are all heading to a competition in Edinburgh

The six girls are:

Fionnula (lives in a council house bought with the money from her grandad)
Manda (Mum fucked off, lives with her da, never shuts up about her sister)
Chell (lives up the complex, has had a lot of tragedy in her family)
Orla (diagnosed with cancer but recently returned from Lourdes)
Kylah (parents own their house and she sings in a band)
Kay (stuck-up goody-two shoes, off to university)

The girls are hardened and cynical–they say there have been several pregnancies this year already in their class and they call their headmistress Sister Condom.  They are excited to go  to the city for this competition not to sing but to get shitfaced and hook up with guys.

Their language is fairly shocking from the starts.  It’s one of the girls who says  Manda’s mum “fucked off.”  And this being Scotland, the word “cunt” is thrown around all over the place.

The girls plan to separate when the get to the city.  But first they get started by going to the bar (the girls are afraid to bend over to pick up their cigarettes for fear of flashing the entire bar).  They drink.  A lot.  Even though they are underage.  And they get hit on by all sorts of men.  One even has the pick up line “Do you know you have 206 bones in your body?  Would you like another one in ya?”

And then the girls separate.

Two go home with a guy who is divorced and very sad about it (which leads to a very wild scene–including a moment in which one of the girls portrays a man with an erection–wonder how they did that).

By the end of the night at least one girls has thrown up, at least one girl has hooked up and it sure looks like they have no chance of winning their competition.

Unlike a Hollywood production though, this story is not destined to end with them winning everything (this is no Pitch Perfect).  The girls are going back to their hum drum lives after this and they will also have to deal with the realities that a night of debauchery can reveal.

So despite the fact that this play is laugh out loud funny, by the end, it’s not really a comedy.  Thanks, Scotland.

For a preview of the play, check out the video

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Jean-Philippe Stassen–Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda (2006)

Posted in Alexis Siegel, Death, Drinking, First Second :01, Foreign Books, Genocide, Graphic Novel, Historical Fiction, Jean-Philippe Stassen, John Ritter, Racism, Revenge, Sex, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, Urwagwa, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), War, Yuck! on February 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

deogrataisSOUNDTRACK: JOSH RITTER-Tiny Desk Concert #119 (April 11, 2011).

ritterNot too many performers mention the actual day that they are performing their Tiny Desk Concert.  But Ritter mentions Valentine’s Day twice during his set so I thought I’d post it on Valentine’s Day even if the actual date of the posting is much later.

I don’t really know Ritter, I’ve heard of him, but I’m not too familiar with him.  Nevertheless, I was quickly won over by him.  He is charming and polite and is certainly having a good time (he even laughs at some lines in his songs).

His first song “The Temptation Of Adam”sounds vaguely familiar.  The melody is very catchy and his voice is strong and excellent.  Lyrically the song is quite interesting.  I especially loved this section: “We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside/ ‘What five letters spell apocalypse?’ she asked me/ I won her over saying, W.W.I.I.I.’/ She smiled and we both knew that she misjudged me.”

“Lark” is a faster song, but still very folksy and clever.  I love that although the melody is fairly simple, the way he plays it (with very fast fingerpicking) makes the song sound more complicated.  “Rattling Locks” is a dark minor chord song, louder and heavier than the other two.

The site says there is an audio only track called “Pale Blue Eyes,” but I can’t find it.  For the last track, his 2003 song “Kathleen,” he introduces the song by saying, “I think Valentine’s Day is the most awkward self-imposed holiday — even worse than New Year’s — so this is an awkward song.”  It’s a louder song, with Ritter’s voice reaching great intensity.  It’s a great way to end the set.

[READ: February 14, 2016] Deogratias

Here’s another story that I would never have read if it were not for First Second’s #10yearsof01 challenge.  The thought of reading a story about the genocide in Rwanda just seems to depressing to undertake.  And yet in the spirit of reading things outside of your comfort area, I decided to read this this weekend.

And I am incredibly glad that I did.

I feared that this story would be one of rampant genocide–struggle and death and mutilation and everything else that I could imagine.  But rather, what Stassen has done is created a story about how the toll of genocide can impact one person.  Yes, it affects him directly and the story is incredibly sad, but it was a very different story than I expected, and it was so personal that it made it more tragic without having the oppressive unreality of millions of dead people in the plot.

The introduction alone is worth reading, as translator Alexis Siegel gives a brief summary of the Rwandan tragedy.  I’ve always found the conflict to be really hard to grasp.  Hutus and Tutsi, a privileged minority, a brutal majority.  The back and forth was so hard to grasp, and the names of the tribes were similar as well.  It is hard for a lazy person to keep straight.

But I found Siegel’s explanation to be succinct and very effective. (more…)

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Drawn and Quarterly: Twenty Five Years of Contemporary Cartooning, Comics, and Graphic Novels (2015)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Anouk Ricard, Archer Prewitt, Archer Prewitt, Big Books, Brecht Evens, Brecht Vandenbroucke, Canadian Content, Chester Brown, Chris Oliveros, Chris Ware, Consumerism, Daniel Clowes, Diane Obomsawin, Doug Wright, Drawn & Quarterly, Frank King, Funny (ha ha), Guy Delisle, Helge Dascher, Humiliation, Interviews, Jillian Tamaki, Joe Matt, Joe Sacco, John Stanley, Julie Doucet, Kate Beaton, LGBTQ, Library Related, Marc Bell, Marriage Trouble, Menstruation, Moomin, oshihiro Ratsumi, Pascal Girard, Peter Bagge, Seiichi Hayashi, Seth, Sex, Shigeru Mizuki, Supernatural, Surreal, The Coctails, The Sea and Cake, Tom Gauld, Translation, Unfinished series, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), War, Yuck! on January 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

dq25SOUNDTRACK: ARCHER PREWITT-“O, KY” (2005).

wikldernessArcher Prewitt formed The Coctails (a kitschy lounge act) in the early 90s, several years before the lounge revival.  Then he joined The Sea and Cake and has been making amazing music with them.  And he has also released several solo albums.

He has also published some comics (Sof’ Boy) with Drawn & Quarterly.

This song comes from his album Wilderness.  The title of the song is clever, too.

It’s upbeat and folky with a little psychedlia and rock thrown in.  I like Prewitt’s voice quite a bit–it’s simple but really strong.  But the selling point on this song (and others from this album that I have listened to) is the composition and arrangement of these songs.

I like the way this one goes from simple guitar to orchestration (although presumably not a real orchestra) for the chorus.  And how post chorus there are flutes and other instruments to pick up the momentum which adds a vaguely psychedelic feel to it.

At four minutes (the song is five) it changes direction entirely and turns into a nearly new song with big guitars and drums. And it rather rocks.

And just to make Archer the all around dude that he is.  He also drew the cover art.  Jeez.  He’s probably super nice and friendly, too.

[READ: January 3, 2016] Drawn and Quarterly: Twenty Five Years 

I have liked a lot of D+Q books for a long time, although I never really considered a comprehensive look at their publishing house.  This book–about 775 pages long–is about as comprehensive as it gets.

This book contains a few previously published cartoons and excerpts as well as a whole slew of previously unpublished pieces.  There are essays and histories and reminiscences and love love love for the little Montreal graphic novel publisher.

I didn’t know much about the history of D+Q–that Chris Oliveros started the publisher in 1989 out of his house.  That he was the only employee for years.  And that he was essential in getting the term “graphic novel” used by everyone–including the library of congress!

He weathered distribution problems, he weathered the rise and fall of indie comics in the late 90s and he has come through with some of the most beautiful books published.  D+Q has also brought attention to foreign artists as well as out of print artists.

Really, if you have any respect for graphic novels (that aren’t superhero-based) you owe thanks to D+Q. (more…)

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Brendan Connell–Jottings from a Far Away Place (2015) [prepub]

Posted in マキシマム ザ ホルモン, Brendan Connell, Death Note, Food, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), John Zorn, Maximum the Hormone, Religion, Sex, Short Story, Smarty Pants, Supernatural, Surreal, Violence, Virginity (Loss of), Yamantaka Eye on November 16, 2015| 1 Comment »

jottingsSOUNDTRACK: マキシマム ザ ホルモン–“え・い・り・あ・ん” (2013) [MAXIMUM THE HORMONE-“A.L.I.E.N” (2013).

maxi2This Japanese band has gained some ground in the United States (having two of their songs used in the anime Death Note).  They are a heavy, heavy metal band which explores many different genres.

This song begins with a heavy metal guitar riff.  When the song proper starts, it is clearly a heavy song sing in Japanese.  The second vocalist (who screams like Yamantaka Eye with John Zorn) screams in an unmistakably Japanese way.  And at 1:15, the song slows down into a very heavy almost mosh.

So far so good.  The first big surprise comes at 1:44 when the song is hijacked by a funk metal bass line and the follow up section is a less scary sounding but still heavy metal.

And then it’s back to the speed and noise once more, complete with a pause and a “Go!” and then a series of “He!y Hey! Hey!” metal chants.

maxiBut the real surprise comes at 3 minutes when the whole song slows to a sweet section with whispered vocals by the (female) drummer?  And then the entire song switches to a sweet song–delicate guitar and super sweet vocals with the new lyrics “Stop Stop Winny Upload.”  The boys come back in, but now they are playing along to this poppy (but guitar heavy) “Stop Stop Winny” section.

This runs on until the end of the song which has the band members conversing in Japanese (about what, I have no idea).

It is one of the most jarring songs I’ve heard, combing at least five genres in its 5 and a half minutes (and several of their other songs do this too (check out “Yoshu Fukushu”).

maxi3This is to say nothing of the video, which opens with the band playing in a live setting.  The  guitarist has long hair and a beard and sings the first verses.  The short-haired singer sings the really fast growly stuff and the bassist has a nifty side shave.

As the funk metal stuff starts, the band switches to a studio scene in which, why not, they all grow extra heads and limbs.

The Stop Stop Winny section switches from a segment with the drummer in a wedding dress singing gently.  And then the final section shows the band in a psychedelic set with little kids and balloons.

It’s fantastic.

[READ: November 13, 2015] Jottings from a Far Away Place

Brendan Connell has this new book coming out (on December 1st) from the wonderfully named Snuggly Press.  (I love that it says This is a Snuggly Book) on the title page verso.

Connell has written all kinds of books in his career but this one is something of a new style in his vast oeuvre.  The title word “Jottings” is a giveaway because so many of the parts of the book are very short–notations, indeed, jottings, that may or may not relate directly to the rest of the pieces.  I found the book a little challenging to read at first because of this.  However, when I wrapped my head around what was going on, it really gelled.  And when I read it a second time, with this in mind, it worked beautifully.

Connell has created a kind of labyrinth of a book in which some fragments lead to dead ends, but other fragments lead to longer stories.  And when you hit on the right path you are rewarded with a longer story that is as well written (Connell’s eye for detail is, as always, exceptional) as it is interesting.  But unlike the mythological labyrinth, there is no Minotaur if you take a wrong path–rather there is just a fragment that forces you to think about where it might belong. (more…)

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Jaime Hernandez–The Love Bunglers (2014)

Posted in Ben Folds Five, Charlie Parker, Graphic Novel, Humiliation, Jaime Hernandez, Marriage Trouble, Sex, Violence, Virginity (Loss of) on October 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

bungSOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS FIVE-Live (2013).

bfflThis is the first official live record from Ben Folds Five.  They reunited after a decade or so away and put out a great album and this documented their tour of that album.

It’s a fun collection of songs that spans their career and also includes a solo Ben Folds song.

To me, one of the best things about BFF was Robert Sledge’s bass (yes, I know BF is the man and his piano and songwriting are stellar, but the sound that Sledge gets on his bass just brings those songs to new heights of coolness).  And that bass does not disappoint here.

The setlist is taken from a number of different venues over the course of 2012 and 2013, with a lot of shows in San Francisco, but also some from across Europe.  And the songs really span their career, opening with a song from their debut (“Jackson Cannery”) and then following up with one of their most recent songs “Erase Me”).  They even play “Tom and Mary” from their Naked Baby Photos collection.

About midway through the disc, Ben plays an improvised One Chord Blues (which turns into “Rock This Bitch”) in which he makes up “some bullshit” and this segues into part of “Billie’s Bounce” by Charlie Parker.  This is followed by “Do It Anyway” into which he throws a verse from Jesus Christ Superstar.  On the liner notes of the disc he talks about how throwing these verses onto a live album will cost you “a lot.”

For the song “Draw A Crowd” they play a synth opening, but when Ben switches to piano, he messes up and sings “the piano player can’t play…but keep the party going.”  He is amusingly self-deprecating both in his banter and in his song lyrics.

The disc ends with the awesome “Song for the Dumped” which includes great audience participation.  Amusingly as the crowd cheers, he asks them “Would you like us to play one more?” And as they cheer for one more, the disc ends.

[READ: October 28 2014] The Love Bunglers

Jaime Hernandez is one half (with his brother) of the duo who create the cool graphic novel series Love and Rockets.  I have read (and own) some issues of the book, but I haven’t really kept up with it all that much.

But I really like his stuff, so I was delighted to see this book, which was originally printed in Love and Rockets: New Stories 3 and 4.

This is a complex story, written in a back and forth style which only makes the narrative that much more compelling.  As the story opens we see some men playing chess on a street corner.  A woman, Maggie, walks by.  She is older but still curvy and the men size her up.  One of the men, the “new guy” gets up and follows her then hides in the bushes watching her.  Next we see Maggie, naked, lying on a leaf.  But she is actually talking to Reno and relating this recurring dream.

Then we see that she is a landlady and is also friends with a man named Ray.  Ray is an artist who is showing at a local gallery.  Maggie agrees to go with him. By the end of the first section it’s not entirely clear what Maggie’s feelings are about either of these men, but they both seem to like her. (more…)

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Diane Obomsawin–On Loving Women (2014)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Canadian Content, Cat Stevens, Diane Obomsawin, Graphic Novel, Helge Dascher, LGBTQ, Nostalgia, Religion, Romance, Sex, Short Books, Virginity (Loss of) on August 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

oloveSOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“Jackson Park Express” (2014).

jpaThe final song on Mandatory Fun is a nearly 9 minute epic which is a parody of Cat Stevens’ style of music.  I would never have guessed that without having read this information online.  However, on listening to it more and more I can hear a lot of Cat Stevens-isms (piano lines and style of chord progressions, although definitely not in the singing style).  I also don’t know if the content is meant to be in reference to the Cat (well, a twisted version of the Cat, of course).

I typically love Al’s longer epic songs, but this one didn’t grab me at first.  Yet after a few listens, I’ve really come to appreciate the twisted humor going on here.   The song starts with some simple pretty acoustic guitars but quickly turns epic with swelling strings and backing vocalists.

The story is about two people on the Jackson Park Express bus in Chicago.  The entire relationship that unfolds is entirely in the narrator’s head.  He bases everything that happens upon the looks she gives him and implies everything through his own looks to her.  As with many Al songs, it starts not just mundanely, but actually sweetly.

I was riding to work on the
Jackson Park Express
Seemed like any other day
Then my whole world changed
In a way I never could have guessed
Cause she walked in
Took the seat right across the aisle
I knew we had a special connection
The second I saw her smile

Pretty nice, right?  And so we see the two communicate (in his mind) nonverbally

She smiled as if to say
“Hello, Haven’t seen you on this bus before”
I gave her a look that said
“Huh, Life is funny, you never know what’s in store
By the way, your hair is beautiful

Again, pretty sweet, until we get to the first wonderfully odd Al line (about her hair)

“I bet it smells like raisins”

And it just gets funnier as it goes on:

Then, she let out a long sigh
Which, I took to mean, “Uh”
“Mama, What is that deodorant you’re wearing?
It’s intoxicating
Why don’t we drive out to the country sometime?
And collect deer ticks in a zip-lock baggie”
I also really enjoyed this punchline:
I gave her a penetrating stare
Which could only mean
“You are my answer, my answer to everything
Which is why, I’ll probably do very poorly
On the written part of my driver’s test”

The song gets really dark and creepy, with (hilarious) lines like:

I gave her a look, that said
“I would make any sacrifice for your love–
Goat, chicken, whatever

And the far more creepy:

Whoa-o-Oh, “I’d like to rip you wide open
And french-kiss every single one of your internal organs
Oh, I’d like to remove all your skin, and wear your skin, over my own skin–
But not in a creepy way”

This is also Al’s most “sexual” song ever, with a line about french kissing (true, it is her organs, but whatever), and this hilarious dramatic pause:

Then, I glanced down, at her shirt, for a second
In a way that clearly implied–
“I like your boobs”

and this other hilarious dramatic pause:

I want you inside me…
oh, like a tapeworm”

But the romance was not to be.  She leaves the bus, despite his nonverbal pleading

Think of the beautiful children we could have someday
We could school them at home, Raise them up the right way
And protect them from the evils of the world
Like Trigonometry and Prime Numbers, oh no
Baby, please don’t go”

There is to be no romance on this bus line.

This is truly a love it or hate it song, but as with most of Al’s epic songs, the more I hear it, the more I love it.  And I can’t wait to see if he plays it live.

[READ: August 3, 2014] On Loving Women

This book is a collection of brief stories about women’s first crushes on other women.  I don’t know how the collection was compiled exactly, but it appears that various women told Obomsawin their stories and she made these fun little comic strip panels out of them.  (Helge Dascher translated them into English–she also did Pascal Girard’s book, that I posted about yesterday).

Each story is named (presumably) after the woman who related it to her.  And each one becomes a simple (but not overly simple) version of the attraction.

Mathilde is obsessed with horses and falls for girls with horse faces (the drawing that accompany this are funny because Mathilda is drawn like a kangaroo or something and the girls she likes are horses.  The ending of this one, about how she learns sign language was very touching.

Indeed, in all of the stories, the women have animal heads and human bodies (but not weird hybrid creatures, just cute cartoony creatures). (more…)

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Donald Antrim–“The Emerald Light in the Air” (New Yorker, February 3, 2014)

Posted in Courtney Barnett, Donald Antrim, Liz Phair, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Virginity (Loss of) on June 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_02_03_14Blitt.inddSOUNDTRACK: COURTNEY BARNETT-Tiny Desk Concert #348 (April 14, 2014).

cbThe first time I hear Courtney Barnett’s “Avant Gardener,” I fell in love with it.  A nearly spoken word almost slacker style vocal delivery of some really funny and very clever lyrics.  Plus a catchy chorus.  Swoon.

Then WXPN started playing it to death and I got a little tired of it. Thankfully, they found another track on the album (two eps together with the delightfully odd name The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas).  And that proved to be just as good.  Then I saw her live on a late night show and her live delivery was different and even more compelling.

In this Tiny Desk Concert, she plays the guitar differently on “Avant Gardener”, bringing in some new textures behind her accented Australian voice.  The second song “History Eraser” is another song from the EPs.  She has mentioned loving Nirvana, and I can see a similar style of guitar playing in this one.   The chorus reminds me of Liz Phair’s “Flower” which is no bad thing.

The final song is a new one about a suburb near Melbourne called Preston.  The song is called “Depreston,” and its about house hunting.  It’s another interesting story telling song with a great melody.

Barnett doesn’t do staggeringly original music, but it’s all really enjoyable.  And it’s fun to see just her and her guitar in this setting.

[READ: June 11, 2014] “The Emerald Light in the Air”

This story begins as one thing (which I liked) and slowly turns into something else (which I also liked but not as much).

As it opens, we see a man driving his father’s (and his father’s before that) Mercedes in Charlottesville.  There had been thunderstorms that afternoon and one of the roads is blocked by a large tree.

What I liked about the story was the way his present (driving, planning his dinner for his date tonight) was interspersed almost on a paragraph by paragraph basis with moments from his past.  The past is brought up by the present events–he is having a date with Mary Doan, the woman he lost his virginity to.  They happened to run into each other after all of these years.  Humorously, she didn’t remember him, even though she was a huge part of his life.

He is also thinking about his ex-wife.  He has some of her drawings and paintings in the trunk of his car.  He’s planning on taken them to the dump so they’re out of his house.   So he thinks back to their days as young artists together.  He also thinks back to the days when he was suicidal, and how now he carries a gun but only for his art, not for suicide. (more…)

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Chinelo Okparanta—“Benji” (New Yorker, November 11, 2013)

Posted in Chinelo Okparanta, Dark Meat, Humiliation, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, The Swell Season, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel, Virginity (Loss of) on January 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

CV1_TNY_11_11_13Blitt.inddSOUNDTRACK: DARK MEAT-Tiny Desk Concert #25 (August 31, 2009).

darkmeatFor those keeping track, I wrote about Tiny Desk Concert #24 (The Swell Season) quite some time ago.

Dark Meat is a ramshackle band which I had not heard of before this Tiny Desk Concert.  The blurb says that they have had as many as 20 people in their band and often play loud rambunctious music.    In this Tiny Desk Concert, there are only 8 of them (they have reduced for this tour), but they’re still a huge band for a Tiny Desk.

This concert is an acoustic jam –mandolin, guitars, trombone and piccolo—and is apparently quite different from their usual show.  As such, I can’t really imagine what they typically sound like, because they sound like a pretty solid folk band.

Initially I wasn’t all that impressed, but after a couple listens I found myself getting into their sloppy fun folk rock.  I enjoyed their first song, “The Faint Smell of Moss” a little more than the others because of the great backing vocals, and the possibly slightly off sounding trombone.  The second song, “Dead Man” is long, but it has a fun middle second in which the singer invites the office to sing along (and howl like dogs).  “When the Shelter Came’ is a rambling track which I think actually suffers from the trombone at the end.

I don’t know anything else about the band, but I imagine them playing folk festivals.  I’ll be they’re fun to see live, although I can admit that i didn’t find their songs all that memorable.

 [READ: January 22, 2014] “Benji”

“Benji” is the story of wealth and idleness.  As the story opens, we learn that Benji, now 40 years old, is the last remaining male in the family.  His mother, Mrs Anyaogu  is telling her guest that Benji must choose someone to marry because anyone who remains unmarried, even a man, is suspect at that age.

Then we meet the guest who Benji’s mother is speaking to—a woman named Alare.  Alare also got married pretty late—in her thirties–to a man who was about 40.  Her husband was not wealthy—he was a gardener.  And this was something of a sore subject in their marriage,  Of course, he must have also felt the embarrassment of his employment, but that was his lot in life.

Alare and Mrs Anyaogu became friends when Alare’s congregation had disintegrated because of a scandal with the pastor and she joined Mrs Anyaogu’s Deep Life church.

Alare was aware of the wealth that the Anyaogus possessed, but she hadn’t witnessed it until today.  While the house was beautiful, she felt that the furnishing were tacky—not entirely, but enough.  Nevertheless, the lunch was nice and the food was delicious.  The groundskeeper, Godwin, kept the garden beautiful and Benji complimented the man on his loyalty and hard work. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Eleanor Rigby (2004)

Posted in Babies, Bill Callahan, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Douglas Coupland, Drinking, Drugs, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Parenting, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Religion, Short Books, Smog, The Beatles, Tiny Desk Concert, Virginity (Loss of), Wax Fang on January 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

eleanorSOUNDTRACK: BILL CALLAHAN-Tiny Desk Concert #21 (July 13, 2009).

billcBill Callahan (formerly known as Smog) plays beautiful slow ballads.  He has a deep, calming, gorgeous voice.  And his songs have a very traditional acoustic feel (even when he plays electric guitar).  He is excellent at what he does.

But I’m afraid I just don’t really like his style all that much.  I can absolutely appreciate why he is so well-regarded, because even as I’m listening to this Tiny Desk set I keep thinking how good everything he is doing is.  Man, his voice is so interesting, and his music is so pretty (the strings add a very nice touch).

But I just can’t imagine myself ever choosing to listen to his album.

In fairness, a song on a mix tape would probably be awesome, and I did enjoy the three songs here: “Jim Cain,” “Rococo Zephyr” (great title, and my favorite of the three) and “Too Many Birds.”  And I can imagine if I was ever on a mellow music kick that this would be where I’d start.  So if you enjoy pretty, mellow music done incredibly well, Bill Callahan is definitely your guy.  I feel like he is not as well-known as he ought to be, so check him out.

[READ: January 23, 2014] Eleanor Rigby

Completing three Douglas Coupland novels in two weeks may seem daunting, and it is especially so when the books are as dark as these have been.  (With Coupland’s follow up book, JPod, he would go in a different direction and kind of break the darkness somewhat.  And the new book which just came out seems like it is more humorous than dark).  This book is perhaps the most insular of his career and perhaps the most insular book I’ve read.  The title is puzzling (and is ultimately revealed), although Coupland says that he was inspired by wondering what happened to Eleanor Rigby after the (Beatles, duh) song was over.

So in this story, the main character is named Liz Dunn.  Liz is a blank.  She claims that she is so dull that if she were an extra in movies, she would be asked to leave the scene because she is too devoid of character to even be an extra.  (Actually, Liz lays the self-pity on a little too thickly throughout the book–we got the point).  Liz has a brother, who is an accomplished world traveller, and a sister who lives nearby and pops in to check on her once in a while.  Both are married and have their lives together, unlike Liz who lives by herself in a room with no personality at all.

Liz’ sister is beautiful and got up to all kinds of trouble in school and William has always been successful, but Liz was…nothing.  She didn’t like to do much.  And she pretty much holds herself up as the antithesis of her sister.  She watches movies all the time in her living room. And then she goes to sleep.  She works at a well paying but dull job and she has saved a ton of money because she never spends it on anything.

As the story starts, she is getting wisdom teeth out. She takes a week off from work, but he boss (the Dwarf Whom I Report To) calls to say that someone will bring some work over to keep her busy.  She has bought a bunch of tear jerker movies in hopes of riding out the painkillers with them.  And then she gets a phone call.  A man named Jeremy has her name on his medic alert bracelet and he is in the hospital.

Liz doesn’t know who he is, but then takes a guess and goes to see him in the hospital.  And it turns out to be…her son. (more…)

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Lauren Groff–“Amaranth” (Lucky Peach, No. 8: The Gender Issue: Summer 2013)

Posted in Chastity Belt, Food, Guster, Humiliation, Jefferson Airplane, Lauren Groff, Lucky Peach, Marriage Trouble, McSweeney's, Revenge, Sex, Short Story, Violence, Virginity (Loss of) on September 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

lp8SOUNDTRACK: CHASTITY BELT-“Black Sail” (2013).

noregerstChastity Belt are notorious for their band photo.  And the fact that their album is called No Regerts (sic).  By rights they should play ugly abrasive punk or something weird and edgy and probably a little scary.

So imagine the surprise when “Black Sail” opens and sounds like a Guster song–simple chords with a very catchy melody (it reminds me of a rawer version of “Architects and Engineers”).

Then the vocals come in and the singer sounds a bit like Jefferson Airplane-era Grace Slick–powerful but kind of slow.  It’s a very compelling mix.

Especially when things change in the chorus–a simple, pretty guitar riff leads us into the simple chorus “black sail, strong wind.”

The difference between the image and the music is so striking that i wonder if I’d have been as taken with the music with out the picture.  Was this a brilliant strategy or just a really bad idea (it has already made a list of unfortunate band photos).  You can decide for yourself, I’m including the picture at the end of the post.

And you can listen to the song on NPR or at their bandcamp site.

[READ: September 12, 2013] “Amaranth”

Amaranth is a 12-year-old girl who goes by the name Merry.  She is out driving with her father one night when he gets a call from his business partner.  Amaranth pretends to be asleep while her father goes to talk to the man.  But rather than a conversation, the partner, Otto, kills her dad.  And Amaranth saw the whole thing happen.

Amaranth is devastated.  But she is even more devastated when Otto starts coming around.  Like a remake of Hamlet, soon Otto and Amaranth’s mother are getting married.

Amaranth wants nothing to do with this; the rest of the story details the ways she rebels against the unpardonable acts.

First she begins starving herself.  She eats just enough to survive but her mother hates how thin she is getting. Eventually they send her to a place for girls with eating disorders.  She returns plumper, but with a new scheme.  This time her rebelliousness gets her put into a special hospital. (more…)

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