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David Szalay-“Something True” (Harper’s, July 2019)

July 24, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: CAJUN RAMBLERS-“Venez à Louisiane” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Cajun Ramblers’ music sounds like it should–a cajun flare in a bouncy two-step (as the lyrics even say).  There’s even a verse in French.  This song seems so un-Canadian but that’s because Peter Jellard, an English musician, was busking in Paris and heard a recording of the Balfa Brothers, leading to a life long infatuation with Cajun music.  After a six-week trip to Louisiana he founded the Cajun Ramblers who performed a mix of Cajun and Zydeco around Toronto.  He was also in Swamperella

[READ: July 12, 2019] “Something True”

This is the story of a woman returning home.  She has been in Seattle visiting her daughter Wendy.  It had been fun but exhausting, sightseeing everywhere.  She was not looking froward to what she had to return to.

She had had a health scare.  The doctor assured her that she was fine–nothing to worry about–but she was shaken.  The doctor could sense that she was very upset so he invited her for a drink.  And the he called her again the following week to go to an exhibition on Buddhist sculptures.

But she was a sixty year-old married woman, she couldn’t imagine going on a date.  Officially, it wasn’t a date but how could it not be?

After a few more outings she told her husband that she was in love with someone else. Continue Reading »

Posted in Balfa Brothers, Cajun Rambler, David Szalay, Excerpt, Harper's, Marriage Trouble, Rheostatics, Seattle, WA, Sex, Swamperella | Leave a Comment »

Nell Zink–“Marmalade Sky” (Harper’s, July 2019)

July 23, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: TRAGIC MULATTO-“Freddy” (1987)

I knew of Tragic Mulatto because they were on Alternative Tentacles records (home to Dead Kennedys).  But I’d actually never heard them before, I don’t think. I knew they were a noise rock band, but I had no idea they were quite so explicit.

The main band members were singer Flatula Lee Roth (Gail Coulson), guitarist Richard Skidmark (Tim Carroll) and bassist Reverend Elvister Shanksley aka Lance Boyle (Alistair Shanks).

This five minute song starts like a deranged circus with a swirling saxophone and  a muddled guitar and drum stomp.  Once the music establishes itself, the vocals come in, a deep growly evil spokenish rhyme that I can’t exactly make out.

Around 1:45 Flatuta takes over, singing a refrain of

“Don’t let him cum in your … butt … ear … rear … head … bed … feet … all over your sheets.” etc. that runs for the rest of the song. It’s surprisingly catchy, but you’d not want to sing it at the dinner table.

Fascinatingly, this album is described as featuring more tightly structured music that emphasized melody was less satirical and more serious.

It sounds like Tragic Mulatto, and especially Gail Coulson, (who is said to have possessed a simply astonishing vocals range) were really ahead of their time.

[READ: July 10, 2019] “Marmalade Sky”

I love Nell Zink’s writing and was pretty excited to see that she had a new story.  This is an excerpt from her new book Doxology.

It is 1990, Pam went over to Joe’s place to listen to records.

Joe let Pam in and introduced her to a man holding a piece of black plastic.  His name was Daniel Scoboda and he was holding the Sassy Sonic youth flexi.

Joe said he subscribed to the magazine as soon as he heard about it. But Pam, who introduced herself as Pam Diaphragm, said the magazine wasn’t long for the world.  Whats the demographic? Thirteen year-old girls who fuck?  Advertisers really go for that.

Joe said he’s a Sonic Youth completist. The only thing he doesn’t have is the single “I Killed Christgau with My Big Fuckin’ Dick.”  Daniel said its not a real record, the editor of the magazine made it up.  [I love this Sonic Youth indie rock banter]. Continue Reading »

Posted in Excerpt, Harper's, My Bloody Valentine, Nell Zink, Pregnancy, Sassy, Sonic Youth, Tragic Mulatto | Leave a Comment »

Hanif Kureishi–“She Said He Said” (New Yorker, July 22, 2019)

July 22, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ALLEN BAEKELAND-“Drinkin’ Ex and Askin’ Why” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation used recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  The compilation was not well documented, so i didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.

This is a country song.  You can tell by the fantastic title “Drinkin’ Ex and Askin’ Why”  But it also contains everything else about a country song–slow, kinda mopey, pedal steel guitar and bad grammar with lyric about beer.

There is one saving grace that elevates this above a typical country song. Allen Baekeland is from Toronto and not the south of the U.S.  So his voice doesn’t twang.

This actually sounds kind of like a Negativland song–like a parody of a country song, even though it’s not.

And because it’s from Canada, it’s amusing to hear the line “yea I’m a grown man so I won’t cry / instead I reach into my two-four / for one more / and sit here and get pissed.”

In the 1990s Allen Baekeland started The Rembetika Hipsters who are still active today.

[READ: July 21, 2019] “She Said He Said”

In this story Sushilia was walking in the park.  She saw Mateo and his male assistant sitting on a bench.  Mateo worked for her husband Len for over ten years.

Mateo was very drunk though, and he greeted her by kissing her checks and then asking if she would sleep with him–right now, at his place.  He said he’d always found her sexy but was too nervous to say anything to her.

Obviously, she was shocked by this.  She was friendly with Mateo’s wife Marcie and considered her a confidante.  She chalked this behavior up to drunkenness.

But the next morning Mateo saw her again in the supermarket.  He was sober and yet he reiterated his desire.  He said she must be bored with Len after all these years. She kept her temper but pointedly refused his advances.

Then she called Len and told him what happened. Continue Reading »

Posted in Allen Baekeland, Canadian Music, Hanif Kureishi, Jealousy, Marriage Trouble, Negativland, Rheostatics, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, The Rembetika Hipsters | Leave a Comment »

Jonathan Dyck & Christine Kampen Robinson–“Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 21, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: RADCO-“Didn’t You Know” (2017).

Since this essay is about Mennonites, I decided to see if I could find any Mennonite rock bands.  Well, Radco was a “punk” rock band from Vancouver, BC.

Drummer Amber Banman described their music as

A heart crushing, unstoppable, rock and roll machine. Ha-ha .We like to say we’re too polite for punk rock as we all generally mind our P’s and Q’s. But oh boy, can we rock!

They have a few songs on bandcamp.

This song does rock (although there is a xylophone melody at the end).  It’s catchy with solid guitars.

The lyrics are indeed a polite diss track:

Pay attention
Before you miss
All of these things
That you could have kissed
Didn’t you know I wanted to go
But you left me standing by my front door

As of 2018 Radco were no more, although three of them went on to form The Poubelles (Amber sings lead in this band).

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows.  I haven’t read her book A Complicated Kindness, but I gather that it (like Sorrows) shines a light on Mennonite culture.

The introduction to this piece says that Kindness introduced the world to the Mennonites of Manitoba’s Bible belt.  Her 2018 novel Women Talking is a fictionalized account of women living in the aftermath of sexual assault in an ultraconservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia (that book sounds painful to read).

This piece is a collection of cartoon panels each one a person expressing a real sentiment about Toews (although the panels are fictionalized). Continue Reading »

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Bolivia, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Chris Ware, Christine Kampen Robinson, Jonathan Dyck, Mennonites, Miriam Toews, Radco, Religion, Sexism, Sexual Assault, The Poubelles, The Walrus | Leave a Comment »

R.P. Larose–“Poem #8–Beetle” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 20, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: LAZY GRACE-“You Don’t Know How Much” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Here’s another traditional song performed very slowly.  This feels like a blues song only played with a more country style with violin as the lead instrument.  The two women singing have good harmonies, but it feels so downcast that I don’t want to listen to it again.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Poem #8–Beetle”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I assume this poem is part of a series, although I don’t know for certain

This is a poem about nature.

It is set at a lake in the woods of the eastern slope of the Rockies. Continue Reading »

Posted in Bears, Beavers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, La vie d'Adèle, Lazy Grace, Nature, Poetry, Poets, R.P. Larose, The Walrus, Wolves | Leave a Comment »

Teva Harrison–“Falling, without You” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 19, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: POLKA DOGS-“Slag Heap Love” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Polka Dogs sounded promising–I imagined a rocking polkafied band.  “Slag Heap Love” sounded like it would be a gritty rocking song.

So imagine my disappointment when the song is propelled by a tinny banjo and the accordions are only used as accompaniment, not for wild soloing.  Even the tuba is slow and ponderous and not used as a fun bass instrument.  Top this off with the vocals which are almost comically crooned and this song proved to not be anything I wanted at all.

About half way through (the song is five minutes long) the song goes to double time, which makes it more interesting. But the vocal style remains the same and nobody does anything more interesting than playing the same stuff in double time.

It doesn’t even really sound like a polka until the last forty seconds when the song picks up into triple time, but by then the song is pretty much over (especially since the lyrics don’t really change for the whole five minuets.  “Slag Heap Love” is pretty unexciting.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Falling, without You”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

This is simple poem of loss–of a person falling apart.

I rather liked how visceral this poem was, with each stanza being more explicit as she fears she might fly apart. Continue Reading »

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Poetry, Poets, Polka Dogs, Rheostatics, Romance, Teva Harrison, The Walrus | Leave a Comment »

Benjamin Hertwig–“The Space Between Trees” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 18, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: PRETTY GREEN-“I’ll Follow the Rain” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

This song was written and performed almost entirely by Ed Blocki, who I guess is Pretty Green (he has other people play violin and cello).

Blocki is (and maybe was) a producer.  This song sounds so much like a ton like a 1970s folk recording, which must be intentional.

It’s really slow and mellow.  I have to assume it was written as a reaction song to The Beatles’ “I’ll Follow the Sun,” there’s just too much similarity.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “The Space Between Trees”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed this short story–the way it juxtaposed two very different jobs.  But the ending was really abrupt and unsatisfying.  There was so much going on that I hope it is an excerpt from a novel because as short story it falls flat.

Benjamin Hertwig is a poet.  This might explain why the language of the story is so good, and maybe also while it feel so elliptical.

This is also yet another story about people (specifically a young woman) planting trees in Canada for a summer job.  I have read at least four stories about this profession and it makes it seem like this is a very common thing that most young Canadian try (and quickly give up because it sucks) at least once in their life. Continue Reading »

Posted in Benjamin Hertwig, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Death, Mennonites, Military, Poets, Pretty Green, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Tree planting, Trees, Violence, War, Work | Leave a Comment »

Ken Babstock–“Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 17, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: CELTIC GALES-“Sittin’ on Top of the World” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Celtic Gales was, apparently, a trio of Audrey, Linda and Wanda Vanderstoop.  I can’t find anything else about them.

This is a traditional song with some nice guitar work from Scott Rogers.  I rather enjoyed the introductory guitar playing and rather hoped it would be an instrumental.  Their vocals (even if the three part harmonies are lovely) are a little too country for my liking.  There’s the addition of a kona as an instrument on this song but I can’t tell what it is doing

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

This poem addresses several images. The first is Max Liebermann’s “The Flax Barn at Laren.”

He described it very powerfully.

He then mentions a photo of Walter Benjamin: Continue Reading »

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Celtic Gales, Franz Kafka, Ken Babstock, Max Liebermann, Photography, Poetry, Poetry, Poets, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Walter Benjamin | Leave a Comment »

Marni Jackson–“Fishing with a Straight Hook” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 16, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: BOB SNIDER-“Old Nova Scotian” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

This song by Bob Snider is another story song.  This one is about a Old Nova Scotian far from the ocean.  He’s a derelict dead on his feet.

This song is a slow ballad–it feels like an old Irish ballad especially with this accordion.  Although a whipping violin solo would perk the song up.

Snider has been playing music since the 1980s.  Moxy Fruvous covered his amusing song “Ash Hash,” which makes sense as it didn’t sound like one of their songs.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Fishing with a Straight Hook”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

Jackson talks about one summer when she went fishing on Lac Catherine, a small lake in Quebec.  She and her husband rent a chalet fora  a month each summer.

Their son’s friend Roberto, an experienced fisherman, came to visit and she hoped to learn a thing or two from him.  Roberto had many sage things to say about fishing (as fishermen are wont).  Roberto’s secret: “put the worm where the fish wants to eat and if you’re lucky you will catch a fish.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Bob Snider, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Fishing, Memoirs, Moxy Fruvous, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Worms | Leave a Comment »

Randy Boyagoda–“Super Dads” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

July 15, 2019 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: GRIEVOUS ANGELS-“Saturday Night in a Laundromat” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something you didn’t know, but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation, used, recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  It’s a goofy song and this is the only place you can get the studio version.  The actual compilation was not well documented, so I didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.  It turns out to be a compilation for Ontario based Moose Records which specialized in Rock, Folk, World & Country.  They put out another compilation in 1992 and that’s all I can find out about them.

Grevious Angles sound an awful lot like Cowboy Junkies–slow, downbeat folk/country that tells a story.  The story of being in a laundromat on a Saturday night is kind of interesting.

The band is still playing (after taking a brief hiatus in 2004 for singer songwriter Charlie Angus to enter politics for four years.

In this song, Michelle Rumball has a deep, sultry voice.  She left the band after this album, so I’m not sure what they sound like now.

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Super Dads”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue.  This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

Another except from this novel was published in The 2019 Short Story Advent Calendar.

In this excerpt, three men, Frank, Nick and Prin are heading to Dizzy’s World, a theme park that has seen much, much better days.

Nick and Frank are from Terre Haute and used to go to Dizzy’s World all the time as kids.  They both have fond memories.  Prin is not from the area and has never heard of the place.

All three had been hired by an evangelical millionaire to help build a theme park inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Prin was a University professor. He understood footnotes and he knew that most people hated even the idea of them.  He was hired to talk footnotes to footnote haters. Continue Reading »

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dante Alighieri, Disneyland, Drugs, Excerpt, Grievous Angels, Randy Boyagoda, Rheostatics, The Walrus, Virgil, Walt Disney World | Leave a Comment »

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