Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Yuck!’ Category

Amy Hempel–“The Orphan Lamb” (Harper’s, September 2010)

Posted in Amy Hempel, Arcade Fire, Flash Fiction, Harper's, The Daily Show, Yuck! on August 17, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ARCADE FIRE on THE DAILY SHOW: “Ready to Start” & “Month of May” (2010).

My friend Lar recent wrote a scathing review of Arcade Fire’s new album.  I haven’t heard it at all, so I can’t talk about it.  However, these two songs are from the new disc.

I have to say on first listen neither one wowed me the way their earlier tracks did.  However, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, their live show is really incredibly energetic and fun (even confined to the small set of The Daily Show).

This was especially evident with the second song, which opens with a megaphone and features lots of screaming.  The live set up includes two drummers and two violins. They are truly a band to behold onstage.

We’ll just have to see about The Suburbs though.

[READ: August 15, 2010] “The Orphan Lamb”

I was pretty turned off by the opening paragraph of this story (a rather over-the-top gruesome account of bloodletting).  But since the whole story is only three paragraphs, I decided to proceed.

And I’m glad I did.  The second paragraph gives a nice twist to the bloodletting of the first, adding a huge dose of humanity. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Fredy Perlman–[Week 10] Letters of Insurgents (1976)

Posted in Against Me!, Anarchy, Big Books, Communists, Consumerism, Fredy Perlman, Huh?, Insurgent Summer, Marriage Trouble, Religion, Sex, Unlikable main character, Yuck! on August 13, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: AGAINST ME!-“I Was a Teenage Anarchist” (2010).

I heard this song on the radio today and thought it rather ideal for this book.  (Except for the part about the music industry, of course).

I was a teenage anarchist, looking for a revolution.
I had the style, I had the ambition.
I read all the authors, I knew the right slogans.
There was no war but the class war.
I was ready to set the world on fire.
I was a teenage anarchist, looking for a revolution.

I was a teenage anarchist, but the politics were too convenient.
In the depths of their humanity all I saw was bloodless ideology.
And with freedom as the doctrine, guess who was the new authority?
I was a teenage anarchist, but the politics were too convenient.

I was a teenage anarchist, but then the scene got too rigid.
It was a mob mentality, they set their rifle sights on me.
Narrow visions of autonomy, you want me to surrender my identity.
I was a teenage anarchist, the revolution was a lie.

Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?

Sums up the book (at least from Sophie’s side, pretty well.  And in 3 minutes, no less.

I rather like Against Me!  Although this song is far poppier than punk.

[READ: Week of August 13, 2010] Letters of Insurgents [Ninth Letters]

The penultimate week of Insurgent Summer has everything you always wanted in a book: a teenaged girl trying to seduce her father while her mother looks on and encourages her.  And the sad thing is that that scene, and not any of the political discussions or anything else is what I will remember this book for.  This scene, as corrupt and creepy and hurtful as it was is what I will think of if anyone ever asks me if I read Letters of Insurgents.  And that, I think, is a crying shame, because there are so valid and interesting discussions about individualism in the book, but I’ll just keep seeing Yara forcing herself on Yarostan (and probably Mirna having sex with the devil). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Téa Obreht–”The Laugh” (The Atlantic, August 2009)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Adventure, Atlantic, Death, Rush, Téa Obreht, Violence, Yuck! on August 7, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-The Fifth Order of Angels (bootleg from the Agora Ballroom,Cleveland, 26 August 1974) (1974).

When I was browsing the internet I found this cool blog called Up the Down Stair.  And this blog features some bootleg concert Mp3s.

When I was in college, there was an awesome used record store called The Electric Mine Shaft.  We would go there once a week or so and browse the collection.  He caried all kinds of bootleg shows.  So I have a  lot of Rush live vinyl bootlegs from over the years.  Really they were pretty much a waste of money as I didn’t (and really don’t) enjoy listening to poor quality recordings, so, yes, wasteful.

Anyhow, with the advent of the web and free MP3s, I don’t mind listening to a bootleg.  So, this one, from 1974 is pretty interesting.

Here’s what the notes from the site say:

Neil Peart had only joined the band about a month earlier and played his first gig less than two weeks prior to this concert on the 14th. It’s a great document of the early phase of the band’s career and is notable for featuring unreleased songs as well as versions of a couple tunes that had not yet seen the light of day on vinyl. “Best I Can” and “In the End” were most likely not recorded at this point and wouldn’t emerge for another six months when Fly By Night was released. “Fancy Dancer”, a take on Larry Williams’ “Bad Boy”, and “Garden Road” were never recorded to the best of my knowledge. I believe that the snippet of “Garden Road” that you hear in the Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage comes from this recording.

The most fascinating thing to me about it is that the guitar solos are in stereo (although this is a mono recording, so the solos disappear sometimes).  That’s fine; the weird thing is that it was actually recorded with the solos in stereo! In a live setting?  The guitars went around the room?  Cool!

So, obviously Rush around thier debut were nowhere near the prog mavens that they eventually became, but there’s something fun about these early shows when they just rocked and rocked.  (There’s even a drum solo!).  And I really like that the “Working Man” solo incorporates part of the as yet unreleased solo from “By-Tor and the Snow Dog.”

It’s available here.

[READ: July 30, 2010] “The Laugh”

Téa Obreht is one of the New Yorker‘s 20 Under 40.  They included her short story in a recent issue and I didn’t love it.  It was okay, but it wasn’t really moving.

Nevertheless, they mentioned that she had another story in The Atlantic, and I was led to believe it was her only other published story, so I decided to read it too.

And I am so glad I did!  It wasn’t a terribly exciting story (until the end!) and it wasn’t a very poweful story (until the end!) and I thought something very different would happen (and am so glad it didn’t!).  But there was a sense of danger, forboding, concern, something terrifying that worked as a low level hum through the whole story which made it very compelling.  Maybe it had something to do with the accompanying picture.  I mean, Jesus H. Christ, look at the this thing: (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tosh.0 (2009-)

Posted in Daniel Tosh, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Short Films, TiVo, Tosh.0, TV 2010, Violence, Yuck! on July 31, 2010| 4 Comments »

Our friend Paula (no not that Paula, another Paula) told Sarah about this show.  And they were able to watch an episode together at a conference.  When Sarah came home, we TiVo’d a bunch of episode and we have probably not stopped laughing since.

The premise of Tosh.0 is very simple: Tosh, the host, shows clips that were posted on YouTube and then he makes fun of them.  The clips are certainly lowest common denominator (dumb people doing dumb things), and frankly, it’s not really much of a step above America’s Funniest Home Videos. However, Tosh (real name Daniel Tosh) is a snappy, witty and brutal humorist.  He says things that you only think of about the clips, and then goes one step further to say things that you can’t believe he would say out loud.

In fact, Sarah and I have often wondered if the show isn’t racist. Of course, it is.  And it’s also completely sexist.  Tosh makes many jokes about women’s inability to do things, but they are such patently ridiculous stereotypes that Sarah for one has never been offended by them.  So, we assume that people of the mocked races (which includes whites, lest we forget) are not offended either (or at least they have a good enough sense of humor to be in the audience). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Tom Bissell–“Cinema Crudité: The mysterious appeal of the post-camp cult film” (Harper’s, August 2010)

Posted in David Cross, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Eurovision, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, MST3K, Paul Rudd, Safura, Sex, The Room, Tom Bissell, Yuck! on July 22, 2010| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: SAFURA-“Drip Drop” (2010)

Azerbaijan came in 5th in this year’s Eurovision contest.  And they did it with this monstrosity of a song by Safura.  She sounds like so many pop chanteuses, pulling out all the stops on high notes, vibrato and even a fascinatingly accented English.

But just as I’m about to dismiss this song out of hand, she throws in this weird chorus of pizzicato “drip drops.”  Even they are not very compelling, but the juxtaposition of these two parts of the song are surprising enough to make the song interesting.

But I think that’s enough Eurovision for me.  And I didn’t even make it to the song by Latvia with the lines: “I’ve asked my Uncle Joe/But he can’t speak/Why does the wind still blow?/And blood still leaks?/So many questions now/With no reply/What for do people live until they die?/  Only Mr God knows why/But his phone today is out of range”

[READ: July 19, 2010] “Cinema Crudité”

This article is about cult films, although it focuses a lot on a film that I’ll never watch called The Room.  I had heard about the film in Entertainment Weekly a month or so ago.  They joked about its status as a midnight film that all manner of celebrities swear by: David Cross, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill etc.

This article goes into much greater depth than the EW piece did about what the film is actually like.  The author really points out all of its flaws and incongruities and everything else about the film that is awful.  And then he says that he’s watched it at least 20 times and couldn’t wait to interview the auteur behind it.

The article is great, by the way, Bissell did an excellent job. But I still don’t want to watch the film. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 4] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Barenaked Ladies, Big Books, Canadian Music, Death, Demons, Fishing, Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, Moby, Neil Peart, Paul Quarrington, Rheostatics, The Beatles, The Replacements, Violence, Whale Music, Whales, Yuck! on June 14, 2010| 7 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Whale Music (1992).

The Rheostatics are from Etobicoke Canada.  Their second album was called Melville (named after a town in Saskatchewan, but it has a whale on the cover so…).  Their third album (this one) is called Whale Music (inspired by the novel by Paul Quarrington).  When they made a film of Whale Music, the Rheostatics were asked to make the soundtrack for it, which they released as Whale Music.  So, the band have 2 albums called Whale Music and one called Melville.  Perfect soundtrack to Moby-Dick.

The album is chock full of all kinds of music: country tracks, folky tracks, metal tracks, and hooks galore.  And it’s all wrapped up in the oddity that is the Rheostatics.  This album features guest spots by the Barenaked Ladies and Neil Peart as well as horns, strings, spoken word parts, and “power tools”.

“Self Serve Gas Station” is a great opening.  It begins with swirling guitars and a beautiful solo (Rheostatics guitar lines sound so elemental as to seem like they’ve always been around).  But just as the vocals begin, the song becomes a sort of country track: a folkie song about adolescnece.  But it returns to a good rocking (and falsetto fueled) rock track.

“California Dreamline” is a wonderfully weird track, with more gorgeous guitar melodies.  It also has a disjointed section with squealing guitars.   While “Rain, Rain, Rain” opens with a lengthy percussion section (played by Neil Peart of Rush) with a weird time signature.  It’s a fun singalong.  “Queer” meanwhile has some great chugga guitars that turn into a rocking tale of an ostracized brother (and features the great line: “But I wish you were there to see it/When I scored a hat-trick on the team/That called you a fucking queer.”

“King of the Past” is another great track, with a wondrous string sound near the end.  It’s a gorgeous song with (again) different sections conveying shanties and jigs (and you can dance to it).  Like Moby from last week, Rheostatics, also bust out a fast metal track, but this one works well: “RDA (Rock Death America)” has a major hook and name checks everyone from The Beatles to The Replacements.

“Legal Age Life at Variety Store” is a great folky singalong (and features the piercing harmonies of Martin Tielli).  “What’s Going On Around Here?” is the most traditional song of the bunch, a poppy little ditty which avoids complacency with a rocking coda.

“Shaved Head” is a moody piece, wonderful for its roller coaster sensibilities, which is followed by the beautiful Tim Vesely sung ballad “Palomar.”  This track is followed by the humorous (but serious) shouted-word piece “Guns” which also features Neil Peart.

“Sickening Song” is an accordion based shanty song.  Followed by another pretty, poppy-sounding track, “Soul Glue.”  Drummer Dave Clark sings “Beerbash,” an upbeat song.  And tye final track is the epic, “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds.”  It opens with a beautiful acoustic intro and a wonderfully catchy wheedling guitar solo.  It ends delightfully: “Where the dope fiends laugh And say it’s too soon, They all go home and listen to
The Dark Side of the Moon.”

I had been listening to the band live a lot recently, and they play these songs a lot.  So it was quite a treat to go back and hear the original with all its full instrumentation.

[READ: Week of June 14, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 62-86]

I never thought I’d ever say this, but I really enjoyed Moby-Dick this week.  So far, these twentysome chapters have been my favorite (even the gruesome whale sections), there weren’t any chapters that I thought really dragged.  So, good for me!

This week’s read begins with Ishmael stating that harpooners should not have to paddle and then be expected to harpoon as well.  They should save their strength for that last, all important act.  And that seems logical to me, although one also expects that the harpooners would feel kind of bad while everyone else is paddling. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 3] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Boredom, David Foster Wallace, Death, Demons, Digression, Eurhythmics, Fishing, Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, LCD Soundsystem, Moby, Roberto Bolaño, Twin Peaks, Yuck! on June 7, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MOBY-Everything is Wrong (1995).

I suppose that everyone knows that Moby (the musician) is Herman Melville’s great- great- great- grandnephew.  And that’s why he has the middle name Melville and had the nickname Moby.

Moby started out as a techno guy. He even made the Guinness Book for the fastest bpm ever recorded (since then, many have surpassed that) with the song “Thousand.”  It’s an interesting song, although more for its novelty than anything else.  He also had a cool hit called “Go” that sampled music from Twin Peaks.  And in 1999 he took over the world with his album Play, which featured some 18 songs that were all licensed for commercial use (many of which were ubiquitous that summer).

But this disc, Everything is Wrong, came out before Play, and it was considered a high water mark for dance music (before the next high water marks of Fatboy Slim and LCD Soundsystem came out, of course).

So this disc was hailed as the big breakthrough for Moby.  And it has something for everyone.  It opens with a pretty piano piece ala Philip Glass which is, as its name implies, a “Hymn.”  From there we get a heavy techno beat and “Feeling So Real” kicks off.  Gospel-like vocals soar above the dancing (this foreshadows Play quite a bit).  It sounds very 1994 to me, although I don’t think it sounds dated, necessarily.  And then comes his stab at punk.  “All That I Need is to be Loved” is a fast blast of aggro music.   The problem is that Moby doesn’t do punk very well.  His guitars are too trebly, his vocals aren’t very strong and despite the beautiful melodies he creates, he doesn’t write very catchy hooks.

“Every Time You Touch Me” returns to the style of “Feeling So Real” and is another stellar dance track.  While “Bring Back My Happiness” runs even faster.

“What Love” is another screaming punk track.  This one is closer to Ministry.  It’s quite a slap in the face after the rest of the disc.

“First Cool Hive” slows things down with a groovy almost ambient track.  And “Into the Blue” is a moody song that sounds like it could also have been taken from Twin Peaks.

“Anthem” returns to the fast beats with ecstatic moans sprinkled over the faster and faster beat.

The album ends with two tracks, “God Moving Over the Face of the World” which is a beautiful instrumental (again ala Philip Glass or more likely Michael Nyman) that weaves in and around itself for 7 minutes.   (It, too, hints of Twin Peaks).  And, “When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die,” while not exactly uplifting is coldly beautiful (kind of like a long lost Eurhythmics track)..

The disc is such a mishmash of styles, that it’s hard to really know what to classify it as.  Some of it works wonders.  Other tracks (notably the punk experiments) are less successful (even though I did enjoy them then, I think they just didn’t age well…or maybe I didn’t age well).  Of course, over the course of his career, Moby has attempted all of these genres in more detail, so this was almost like a sampler of what he would be doing later.

Sixteen years later it holds up quite well (although I still think Play is better).

[READ: Week of June 7, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 42-61]

The reading this week opens with a chapter about whiteness.  And how somehow Moby-Dick is even more fearsome for being white.  As the chapter opens whiteness (even in skin color) is lauded.  But by the end, he cites it as being particularly creepy: white whales, polar bears, albinos.  (I think that this was my very least favorite chapter so far–I was uncomfortable reading it and I didn’t get a lot of humor from it either).

Some more down time passes, with Ishmael describing how Ahab is able to plot a course to find Moby-Dick.  It’s not just looking for a needle in an ocean–there are pathways that whales follow, for instance.  This is followed by a chapter that allows Ishmael to swear, absolutely swear! that whalers can recognize the same whale even years later if you tried to kill it but failed (and that he himself remembers one whale that got away from a mole under its eye). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Ross Campbell–Wet Moon 5: Where All Stars Fail to Burn (2009)

Posted in Canadian Music, Death, Drinking, Fears, Friday the 13th, Fucked Up, Ongoing, Oni Press, Pregnancy, Punks, Racism, Ross Campbell, Sex, Threats, Universities, Violence, Wikipedia, Yuck! on June 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUCKED UP-Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 (2010).

I knew of Fucked Up from a cover shoot on Chart Magazine. Clearly, they are aiming for major pop success and massive radio airplay.

Their live shows sounded amazing.  And, of course, everything about them seemed unpredictably wonderful.

This is a collection of singles (although not singles in the “pop chart” sense).  Fucked Up released more singles than anything else.  In fact their discography is borderline impossible to keep straight, they have so many small releases on so many small labels.

There is definite growth over these two discs (maybe not maturity, but growth).  The first track, “No Pasaran” is an ugly shouty noisy mess (pretty much straight hardcore). Over the course of these singles, Pink Eyes, the singer, refines his voice and he sounds a bit like Dicky Barrett of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones (still rough, but more melodic).  The music on the other hand pretty well stays in the hardcore mold.  But by the end (and it is most notable on disc two) the band’s energies branch out into guitar riffs and notable melodies.

The rest of the band includes Concentration Camp and 10,000 Marbles on Guitars, Mr Jo on Drums and Mustard Gas on Bass.

This collection of singles includes most of their shorter tracks (since they were on 7″ vinyl).  But on their 2006 release Hidden World (which I have not heard), most of the songs are over 5 minutes, with one reaching 9.  So they’re even fucked up by hardcore standards.  Cool.

This collection is definitely not for everyone, but it’s worth checking out if you like your core hard and weird.

[READ: May 27, 2010] Wet Moon 5

Holy cow!  This book ends on an amazing cliffhanger!  Beloved Trilby is put in mortal danger, and from what we see, I can’t imagine how she’ll survive.  Gasp!

By this time, Campbell is well on his way to a long, twisted epic series.  One only wonders how long he has this story arc planned out.  It seemed so simple at first: a buncha goth girls hanging around a college, with the worst thing that happens is someone puts up a flier about you or your cat goes missing.

Now the stakes are higher.  I’m not entirely sure that I like the path that this story is following.  I mean, don’t get me wrong it is super exciting.  I just don’t want Wet Moon to turn into Friday the 13th or some other kind of “crime & superhero” story.  What happens to Trilby is pretty intense.  I just hope it won’t destroy all of the characters. (more…)

Read Full Post »

2666 final (?) thoughts

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Communists, David Foster Wallace, Death, Dreams, Drinking, Dystopia, Foreign Books, History, Infinite Zombies, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Roberto Bolaño, Sex, Translation, Violence, War, Yuck! on May 6, 2010| 6 Comments »

I’ve waited to post this, my wrap up of ideas abut 2666, until I saw what others had to say about it.  Which is kind of a cop out but also kind of understandable.  This book is a giant mess of information, and I’m not entirely sure how to process it all.  So I’ve been looking for help.  And I’ve gotten some, but it’s all kinds of contradictory.  Most people seemed to hate the book.  A few people enjoyed it somewhat, and one or two people really felt moved by it.

I think I fall squarely in that middle camp.  As anyone who has been reading here knows, I became obsessed with Bolaño’s books, and read all of his short fiction (saving Savage Detectives for a read in a few weeks).  And yet I’m not exactly sure WHY I felt compelled to read these stories.  (I’m very glad I did…there will be more on Bolaño himself in a day or two).

I’ve decided to look back over what I wrote to get a sense of what I thought of the book (I knew these posts would come in handy). (more…)

Read Full Post »

Roberto Bolaño–Distant Star (1996) [translated 2004]

Posted in Artists, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Chris Andrews, Communists, Infinite Zombies, Nazis, Poetry, Poets, Political Humor, Pornography, Prison, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books, The Dead Milkmen, Translation, Violence, Yuck! on April 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD MILKMEN-Chaos Rules: Live at the Trocadero (1994).

It wouldn’t be a complete look at the Dead Milkmen without mentioning their one live release.

Chaos Rules is a surprisingly good live set (taken from two separate concerts).  They had to leave all of the songs from their Hollywood Records discs off this collection, so this comes across more as a classic concert rather than a comprehensive one.

The band sounds great and the songs sound pretty close to the originals.  Not that the originals were hard but it wasn’t always obvious whether the Milkmen were doing what they were doing on purpose.  This set suggests that they were.

As any good live band, they play around with their songs, being surprisingly angry about local politics and changing the (by then twenty year old) “Bitchin Camaro” intro to reflect that.

The only reason it would have been nice if they had been allowed to include some of the Hollywood Records songs (they do sneak one in under a different name) would be to see if they played them any differently.  Since the early tracks are pretty chaotic, I wonder what would happen to the latter, more mellow songs.  Did they stand up under the weight of the nonsense or did they become more ramshackle as well?

I guess I’ll never know.  This is not essential by any means, but it is an interesting artifact for the curious and is totally enjoyable for DM fans.

[READ: April 23, 2010] Distant Star

Because Bolaño never does anything typical, this novella is a spin-off of sorts to Nazi Literature in America.  The introduction states that “in the final chapter of my novel Nazi Literature in America I recounted, in less than twenty pages and perhaps too schematically, the story of Lieutenant Ramirez Hoffman…which I heard from Arturo B.  He was not satisfied with my version…So we took that final chapter and shut ourselves up for a month a half in my house in Blanes, … where we composed the present novel.  My role was limited to preparing refreshments, consulting a few books and discussing the rest of numerous paragraphs with Artuto…”

Okay, there is so much wonderful deception in just this introduction to this book it totally cracks me up.  (Arturo B has long been a stand in for Bolaño himself). In the original, the narrator is named Bolaño (he is the narrator in jail who eventually helps the detective locate the poet).

For yes, the story is the life of a poet who is also a murderer.  And, the story is pretty much the same as the 20 or so pages of Nazi Literature.  It is now an extended meditation on this particular poet.  All of the events that were present in the short version are here, they are all just fleshed out with Bolaño’s wonderful details and full biographies of other characters.

The big, weird thing though is that almost all of the names have been changed (to protect the guilty?).  So even though the poet of this book has the same exact  life story as Lieutenant Ramirez Hoffman, he never has that name in Distant Star (and he goes through several pseudonyms).  There are twins in the short version who now get new names.  Even the poetry teachers have different names.  However, the detective who hunts him down at the end has the same name.  Weird.

The book works as a critical assessment of the Allende administration (which is why the real Bolaño was imprisoned).  But on to the story. (more…)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »