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David Markson–Wittgenstein’s Mistress [part 4 pp. 181-end] (1988) : Wittgenstein’s Halloween group read

November 14, 2013 by Paul Debraski

witmisSOUNDTRACK: NEIL HALSTED-“Wittgenstein’s Arm” (2012).

neil-halstead-palindrome-hunches-450Halsted was a founder of the band Slowdive, who I knew somewhat.  I don’t know anything of his solo work, although his name rang a little familiar.

This is a very pretty, slow acoustic ballad.  Halsted’s voice is whispery and with proper folk inflections. The chorus has a very catchy melody.  And yet the lyrics are really dark and sad.

And while there is a mention of an arm in the song, there’s no mention of Wittgenstein.

You can check out the video here:

[READ: November 3, 2013] Wittgenstein’s Mistress p. 181-end

This peculiar book draws to a close in much the same way that it started. There are a few interesting revelations or, if not revelations, then perhaps ponderables as to the nature of just what our narrator (who is apparently named Helen) is doing.

As this last section opens, she is revisiting some more of the things that have been on her mind for the book—the waterlogged atlas that lies flat on the shelf and that blasted arthritic should/ankle  .

I have been wondering about her constant references to her period.  In addition to simply being something that happens to her which she is recording, I have to wonder if it is a nod to her fertility and the fact that since she is the last person alive she will never bear children.  On a slightly related note, I also have to wonder if her focus on rape means she was once raped.  It’s not necessarily the case of course, but there is a lot of it in the book, like this next mention: Continue Reading »

Posted in Books about music, Books about writers, David Foster Wallace, David Markson, Emily Bronte, End of the World, Funny (strange), Georgia O’Keeffe, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Neil Halsted, Slowdive, Travel, William Gaddis, Wittgenstein's Halloween | Leave a Comment »

Tom McCarthy–C (2010)

November 13, 2013 by Paul Debraski

mccarthySOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Undermind (2004).

undermindAs I understand it, Phish fans didn’t like Undermind that much and yet I really liked it and still do.  Indeed, “Undermind” is one of my favorite new Phish songs, it’s clever and boppy and just really catchy.  The album has very Beatles vibe to it—a kind of echoey feel on all the songs.  And I have recently read that people interpret the cover design to be a nod to Let It Be (there are other connections made but I’m not going to go too deeply into that).

“Scents and Subtle Sounds” opens the album.  This is a brief intro–the full songs, which sounds different appears later on the disc (it’s 97 second here)).  It leads into “Undermind” which has a loose, slightly funky sound—one of their more fun songs on recent albums.  The album version has some big fat organ sounds on it which make it even cooler.

“The Connection” is another great poppy song—gorgeous harmonies and wonderful melody, and indeed it was their first real hit.  “A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing” is another great song, great backing vocals, an excellent melody and great alternating verse vocals from Mike.  It also has a great middle guitar section—it’s long and wild and reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix’ solos.  “Army of One” is sung by Page.  It is a big soaring song and it’s got a very upbeat sound.  “Crowd Control” is a very Beatleseque song.

“Maggie’s Revenge” is a noisy instrumental, with Trey’s guitars making all kind of squealing noise.  It’s weird and quite refreshing from Phish’s more recent fair.  “Nothing” picks up with the open and poppy sounds of earlier records and has more great harmonies.  It seems to fade out in the middle though—a song that could have been longer!  “Two Versions of Me” is another mid tempo song with great harmonies and  great chorus.  “Access Me” is a brief poppy song that feels a bit like filler, although it has a cool and interesting coda.  “Scents and Subtle Sounds” resumes

“Tomorrow’s Song” has a very African feel to it.  It is a simple repetitive rhythm that lasts for about 3 minutes before it fades out just like it faded in.  “Secret Smile” is a very pretty piano ballad.  It’s a little heavy handed with the strings, and at nearly 7 minutes it’s too long (especially the long coda), but the melody is certainly nice.  The album ends with “Grind,” a barbershop quartet track which shows just what kind of great harmonies they cool do.

Although it’s a mature sound, there’s enough weird stuff to let them show their funky side too.  The CD comes with a DVD called “Specimens of Beauty.”

[READ: October 8, 2013] C

I received a prepub version of this book back in 2010.  The cover and title were weird and I thought I’d like to read it.  And it sat on my shelf for two years.

And then Borders closed (bummer, their chai tea was the best!) and I saw a hardcover copy of the book for $1 so I bought it (I’m enough of a geek to want to see how prepubs and final copies are different.  In this case, the books appear identical except that in the last two dozen or so pages, there’s a section with ellipses.  In the prepub, they are single spaced but in the final book they are double spaced which throws off the line spacing.  So by the end of the book, the lines are about three lines different.  Fascinating huh?).

Anyhow, what on earth is a book called C about?

Well, it is a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story.  By definition these stories focus on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood.  Our protagonist is Serge Carrefax, even though he is not the first person we meet.  That would be a doctor delivering materials to Serge’s father, Mr. Simeon Carrefax.  Mr Carrefax runs a school for the deaf in which he tells children to stop using sign language and to start speaking properly.  And he has had considerable success with the children, each of whom acting in a play every year.  (The book, by the way, is set in the late 1800s).  His mother is a silkworm farmer, and much of their money comes from this job.

But the main person in Serge’s life is his sister Sophie.  Sophie is a deviously clever girl who is alternately mean to Serge (as only older sisters can be) and then encouraging him to play with her.  She is mad for science and is constantly experimenting with her chemistry set (leading to more than one explosion in the house).  The early sections of the book show Sophie and Serge’s education.  And when Sophie goes off to school, Serge is lost, especially when she returns from school but keeps telling him to leave her alone.  And then one day, Serge discovers her dead in her “lab” and experiment in progress. Continue Reading »

Posted in 19th Century, Acting, Adventure, Culture Shock, Deafness, Death, Historical Fiction, Jimi Hendrix, Phish, Sex, The Beatles, War | Leave a Comment »

Lucy Worsley–If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home (2011)

November 12, 2013 by Paul Debraski

wallsSOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Round Room (2002).

round After Farmhouse, Phish went on a hiatus.  No one knew it would be quite so brief, but there was really a feeling that they were done.

And then they quietly released Round Room in 2002.  And it bursts forth with an 11 minute song.

“Pebbles and Marbles” has an interesting riff—complex and pretty.  And when I listened to it again recently I didn’t really quite recognize it.  But that’s because it’s nearly 12 minutes long and the really catchy part comes later in the song.  At around 5 minutes, the catchy chorus of “pebbles and marbles and things on my mind” announces itself.  And it is a good one.

“Anything but Me” is a pretty, mature song that is slow and piano heavy.  “Round Room” is a boppy little ditty (clearly a song written by Mike).  It is sweet and a little weird.  “Mexican Cousin” sounds a lot like a cover (maybe an old song by The Band) except for the solo which is very Trey.  It’s a funny, silly ode to Tequila.  “Friday” is a slow six minute song with two sections.  The verses are spaced out a bit, delicate riffs that are mostly piano once again.  The middle section is sung by Mike (which makes it more mellow somehow).

“Seven Below” is an 8 minute song.  It has another great riff (and the intro music is cool and bouncey).  When the vocals come in, it’s got gentle harmonies as they croon the sweet song).  Most of the 8 minutes are taking up with a guitar solo.  “Mock Song” is another of Mike’s songs.  This one seems to be a random selection of items sung to a nice melody.  Then when the chorus comes it’s quite nice, how this is a “just a mock song.”  The first verse is sung by Mike, then Trey does a kind of fugue vocal with different words in verse two.

“46 Days” opens with funky cowbells and turns into what seems like a classic rocking folk song—few words but a great classic rock melody (complete with 70s era keyboards).  “All of These Dreams” is a mellow piano piece, another mature song.  “Walls of the Cave” has an interesting piano melody that opens the song. The song is nearly ten minutes long and the middle part has a nice flowing feel to it.  There’s also a few sections that are separated be drum breaks—something that doesn’t often happen in Phish songs.  When the third part opens (to almost exclusively percussion, their vocals all work in a very nice harmony.  It’s a long song but with so many parts it always stays interesting.  “Thunderhead” is another piano-based song with some guitar riffs thrown on top. But it is largely a slow, mellow piece.

“Waves” is an 11 minute song with long instrumental passages.  It also begins with a kind of Santana feel to it, but it is a largely meandering song, with a simple melody that they stretch out for much of the song.  So this album proves to be an interesting mix of long jams and mellow ballady type songs.  It seems like Phish had a big mix of things to let loose.

[READ: November 1, 2013] If Walls Could Talk

This book reminds me of the work of Mary Roach—exploring a topic in great detail and including lots of amusing insights.  The two big differences here are that Worsley is British and that she goes back very far in British history to give us this fascinating information about the development of certain rooms of the house.

Worsley begins with the bedroom.  She looks at the furniture—the history of the bed from lumps with straw to fantastically ornate full poster beds that were made for kings who might never actually use them.

Then she moves on to more personal matters—sex (including deviant sex and venereal disease); breast feeding (for centuries mothers felt they were not equipped to take care of and nurse their own children, hence wet-nurses) and knickers (royalty had an entourage designed specifically to assist with underthings).  Indeed, privacy was an unknown thing in olden times.  Even royalty was expected to receive people in all of the rooms in the house.  Initially the bed chamber was for their most intimate friends, not just for sleeping.

The section on old medicine was also fascinating, they believed that it was vaporous miasma that did you more harm than say, excrement-filled water.

The section on Sleep discusses what was also in a recent article by Gideon Lewis-Kraus—that there were two sleep times at night.  With no electricity there was no artificial light to keep people up late so they would go to sleep early, wake up in the middle of the night (the best time for conception of children) and then sleep again. Continue Reading »

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Architecture, Babies, Death, Disease, Drinking, Environmentalism, Essays, Fears, Food, Funny (ha ha), Gideon Lewis-Kraus, History, If Walls Could Talk, Lucy Worsley, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Masturbation, Morality, Phish, Plague, Poo, Pregnancy, Privacy, Religion, Research, Santana, Sex, Technology, Toilets, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

Ben Greenman–The Slippage (2013)

November 11, 2013 by Paul Debraski

slippageSOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Farmhouse (2000).

farmhouseThis album has a very acoustic feel to it and I really enjoy this disc.  It is one of their most “mature” records and I feel a lot of fans don’t enjoy it as much, but I think the songs are really pretty.

“Farmhouse” is another one of my favorite Phish songs.  I love the harmonies and the melody is beautiful.  The end of the song with the two singers doing different lines of vocals is just beautiful.  “Twist” is a live favorite although here it opens with percussion only before Trey starts singing.  But then the song proper starts and it is just a riot of fun. Woo!

“Bug” is a mellow contemplative song about God.  It a little long and I must admit, a little dull.  “Back on the Train” is usually much faster live—it sounds like a slow train here.  “Heavy Things” returns the album to excellence, it’s a wonderful uptempo song that is fun to sing along to.  “Gotta Jibboo” is a silly dancey song with horns.  It’s a long jam about 5 minutes most of which is instrumental.  “Dirt” is a piano ballad.

“Piper” is a wonderful round with a melody that circles around the song, I really enjoy this song live and it’s fun to hear how fast they do it here.  I love the way the “words and words I say” gets cycled through.  “Sleep” is a 2 minute gentle ballad.  And “The Inlaw Josie Wales” is a pretty acoustic guitar/piano instrumental.  “Sand” is a funkier number that brings up the tempo.  Of all the songs on the album, I don’t know this one all that well, but it is very Phish like.  “First Tube” ends the disc with a staccato guitar riff that sounds very much like Santana to me.  It’s got a great beat and is very cool.

Perhaps I’m showing my age but I so is Phish, and I think this is a really solid album.

[READ: November 4, 2013] The Slippage

I knew Ben Gereenman from Superbad, a McSweeney’s book.  I liked it a little—but it was more trickery than story telling.  I had gotten it in my head that The Slippage was a good novel (I’m not sure why), and when I saw it at work on Friday, I grabbed it in hopes of reading it before I got back to work on Monday.  And I am pleased to say that I polished off this 288 book in a weekend (and suffered for my lack of sleep).  But I didn’t only finish it because of a self-imposed challenge, I really got into the story.

For this book Greenman’s style is simple and straightforward (a far cry from his earlier, more deliberately challenging work) and the story itself is also rather simple.  But it is engaging, funny and emotionally exhausting.  So the simple story is one of suburban discontent.  The blurb that stayed with me was “If Emma Bovary had lived in the ‘burbs, she would have left a novel like this in her wake.”

The main characters in the story are William Day, his wife Louisa and her brother Tom.  Indeed, the book is really about William and how he handles suburban discontent.  We meet all of the Day’s friends.  In addition to these people there is Emma, the woman who William has an affair with. Continue Reading »

Posted in Art, Ben Greenman, Fire, Marriage Trouble, Phish, Pregnancy, Sex, Short Books | Leave a Comment »

Tom Bissell and Webster Younce–“All is Vanity” (Harper’s, December 2000)

November 10, 2013 by Paul Debraski

dec2000SOUNDTRACK: FLY ASHTRAY-“Also Muffins” (2013).

flyRecently I was thinking to myself that I don’t hear much music that is just weird anymore.  It could be that I am exposed to it a lot less than I used to be (when I was music director at my college station I received all kinds of crazy stuff) or maybe people just don’t do unconventional music as much.  This latter option seems very unlikely give the preponderance of cheap home recording equipment.  But bands that are not exactly novelty acts, but who are just totally out there (and amazingly used to get album releases).

And then my friend Paula forwarded me this absolutely weird song from Fly Ashtray.  Not only was I delighted to hear a weird song, I loved how good it was.

“Also Muffins” starts with big sloppy guitars and a piercing guitar riff which is simple but slightly off.  This goes for about 20 seconds before a staccato decrescendo brings the riff to a halt.  This fun chaos is repeated three times. It’s a crazy wonderful punk intro.

Then at a minute an a half the song turns almost folkie, with strummed acoustic guitars.  The band starts singing together (in no-part harmony) about how good their delicatessen is (they also sell muffins).  They all seem somewhat flat in their delivery, as a deliberate let down from the frenetic earlier section.  Then for part 3, an electric guitar comes back in with a kind of great alt 90s solo and a series of fast chords.  I love this section a lot.

The final section comes in and opens with another simple riff that is at once catchy even if the last note is flat.  It is fast and vaguely sinister (with a kind of siren sound in the background) and with some skittery guitars and an occasional bass element thrown in.  This last part lasts for over a minute and then the whole song fades out.

The video is low budget and fun and gives a kind of explanation to the music, although I have found that i enjoy it without the video as well.

And visit the band’s website.

[READ: November 1, 2013] “All is Vanity”

This is not an actual article by Bissell, it is one of those “annotation” items in Harper’s in which an advertisement or press release is critiqued.  in this one they analyze an Xlibris ad.

Bissell was an editor at Henry Holt (and may still be) when he wrote this.  And he is snarky from the start (as the Annotation always is), emphasizing the “Publishing Services Provider” and noting with numbers why Xlibris is a foolish vanity project.

“70 percent of the books the company has sold have been bought by their own authors.”

And how in general

“90 percent of the half-million [books] written each year remain unpublished.” Continue Reading »

Posted in Book Reviews, Books about writers, Fly Ashtray, Harper's, Herman Melville, Sergio De La Pava, Tom Bissell, Toni Morrison, Webster Younce | Leave a Comment »

Neal Pollock–“I loved Lou Reed more than you” (Salon, October 29, 2013)

November 9, 2013 by Paul Debraski

lou_reed-620x412 SOUNDTRACK: LOU REED-Metal Machine Music (1975).

mmmfrom Wikipedia:

Metal Machine Music is generally considered to be either a joke, a grudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation, or an early example of noise music. The album features no songs or even recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for an hour of over-modulated feedback and guitar effects, intricately mixed at varying speeds by Reed himself. In the album’s liner notes he claimed to have invented heavy metal and asserted that Metal Machine Music was the ultimate conclusion of that genre.

I don’t know how many people have actually listened to this album all the way through.  There are four 16-minute tracks.  Each one is, on the surface, exactly the same: feedback and more feedback.  In truth, the album is a bit more complicated than that.

There is a guitar in the left speaker and a guitar in the right speaker and each one is feedbacking in very different ways.  Indeed, if you listen to only one speaker at a time, you get a very different experience (I haven’t done that with the whole album, although that’s only because I really only found out about that recently, I did for a few minutes and it was pretty fascinating).

And fascinating is what this release is.  It was unlistenable in 1975, there is no question.  Just as something like Slayer would have been unlistenable in 1975.  But twenty years later, when Sonic Youth was riding high, Metal Machine Music seemed a lot less outrageous (indeed, their 1998 release Silver Sessions was essentially the same structure of feedback).

And now MMM seems very forward thinking.  Whether or not it was a joke or some kind of payback to the label or whatever (liner notes suggest he just really enjoyed enveloping himself in feedback), it’s a remarkable record.  If you can actually sit through it, there are some really interesting moments in it.  There are times when the squall and noise turns eerily beautiful, when the ringing notes take on chime-like status.

And unlike the aforementioned SY album in which they just turned up their amps and left, it sounds like Reed was actually hanging around and manipulating the sound.  You can hear times when new notes/strumming comes in and changes the mood.  And of course, Reed had to edit it for the album.

One of the more interesting moments comes right at the end of the disc.  On the vinyl release, he made a locked groove so the final rotation would keep repeating over and over until you had to get up and manually lift the needle (as if the album wasn’t difficult enough).  On the CD, they repeat that section for about a minute.  And that little repeated section is noteworthy for the rough distorted guitar and chiming feedback that all sounds very cool.

All of this is not to say that this album is enjoyable.  It’s really not.  It’s brutal and harsh and best handled in small doses (even Reed admits that in the notes).  But it is noteworthy and fascinating.  And it may have inspired as many feedback based bands as the Velvet Underground inspired droning bands.

[READ: November 2, 2013] “I loved Lou Reed more than you”

I was sad at the passing of Lou Reed, although I’ve never been a huge fan.  But of all of the eulogies, I knew that Neal Pollack would write the best one.

Neal Pollock is a wonderfully pompous “character” (who is the main character in most of the writing of his that I have read).  This article—while much briefer than most of Pollack’s short pieces—is an honest eulogy of Reed, but is also a hilariously over the top profession of fandom.

When Pollock heard the news of Reed’s death, he was polishing the acetate of his producer’s cut of Metal Machine Music.  He wept, mostly for himself but also “on behalf of all cultured people everywhere.” Continue Reading »

Posted in David Foster Wallace, Death, Jean-Luc Godard, Lou Reed, Neal Pollack, Salon.com, Slayer, Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground | Leave a Comment »

Tom Bissell–“Eternal Winter: Lessons of the Aral Sea Disaster” (Harper’s, April 2002)

November 8, 2013 by Paul Debraski

april 2002SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-The Siket Disc (1999).

siketThis is an (almost) entirely instrumental disc.  It’s exactly the kind of thing that people think of when they imagine Phish—long jams with no structure.  But unlike some of their more frenetic jams, this is a kind of enjoyable chilling out disc.  The compositions are actually select excerpts from the long-form improvisations of the “Ghost Sessions.”

There are 9 songs and most of them are short.  Except for “Whats the Use” which is an 11 minute track with a very cool guitar riff (that reminds me again of Frank Zappa) and some cool accompanying keyboard sounds.

“Me Left Toe” is about 5 minutes and has a nice build up within  it.  And “The Name is Slick” is a bit more staccato and less smooth than the other songs and it holds up for 4 minutes.

Most of the other songs are short jams (with 4 tracks being about 2 minutes or less).  Although there are a couple of weird, nonsensey tracks like “Fish Bass” which is just a weird series of noises.  Or “Quadrophonic Toppling” which has some spoken words (just the title repeated) as does “Title Track” which has the repeated word “Siket”and laughing.  “Insects” is a little unsettling as well.

“The Happy Whip and Dung Song” is 5 minutes long and, despite some weird effect on the keyboards, feels like a full song.  “Albert” is a short, pretty, gentle ballad.  It’s a nice ending to this disc.  While this is by no means an essential Phish disc, it is an interesting insight into their recording process and is as I said, a good chill out album.

[READ: October 28, 2013] “Eternal Winter”

I had never heard of the Aral Sea before reading this article and I am surprised that I haven’t and I’m shocked by what has happened there.  Near the city of Karalpakistan (no connection to Pakistan), near Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, lies the Aral Sea. It was once the fourth largest body of water on Earth, larger than lake Michigan.  It is now shrunk by approximately 74%.

It was through the Soviet Union’s thirst for development and “progress” that canals were built which diverted water away from the Sea.  This effectively slowly dried out the lake (which the Soviet Union knew would happen).  The Soviet Union also dumped insecticides and toxic waste into it, rendering what is left of the sea bed largely poisonous. Anything that is not poisonous is heavily salinated making it worse than useless.  And to make it worse (if that is possible), the windstorms that frequently occur simply pick up the toxic dirt and dust and blow it all around the land.  Without the water, the temperature soars in the region–often reaching 120 degrees.

One of the reasons for the diversion of the water was cotton.  Cotton is a thirsty crop and it was discovered that Uzbekistan was well suited to the climate for the crop.  They just needed more water.  And so in the 1950s, the Amu Darya river was diverted away from the Aral Sea and into the Uzbekistan deserts.  And cotton flourished there.  Then in 1960, the Aral Sea began to shrink. Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture Shock, Death, Environmentalism, Frank Zappa, Genocide, Harper's, History, Phish, Tom Bissell | Leave a Comment »

David Markson–Wittgenstein’s Mistress [part 3 pp. 120-180] (1988) : Wittgenstein’s Halloween group read

November 7, 2013 by Paul Debraski

witmis4SOUNDTRACK: PANIC-Requiem for Martin Heidegger (1978).

13+LP+Hoes++VoorkantPanic was a Dutch punk band.  Their album 13 came out in 1978 and “Requiem for Martin Heidegger” was the final track.  I love the album cover (and no I had never heard of this band either).

The lyrics are wonderfully simple (and no you won’t learn a thing about the man) with the completely singable chorus of “Hi-Degger, Hi-Degger, Hi-Degger, Hi-Degger, Hi!”

There are some other lyrics (including ein, zwei, drei, vier) and “Is he in heaven, is he in hell, where has he gone?  no one can tell.”

There’s some introductory chatter which I think is in German, but may be in Dutch.  But that’s all irrelevant, because this is three minutes of classic 70s punk.  And the video is a hoot too.

[READ: October 30, 2013] Wittgenstein’s Mistress p. 120-180

Although I read the first half of this book rather quickly, I took some time off before reading this section.  The good news is that this book does not require constant attention.  The bad news is that because there are so many details in the book (whether “relevant” or not) it’s easy to forget if she has talked about the different pieces before.  And that is kind of the point from her a well, since she constantly questions whether she has talked about something or not.

I’m breaking from my normal summary for a minute because I wanted to bring up something that struck me as I was reading this.  Several times throughout the book I found myself searching the web for ideas and facts that she mentions.  And it struck me that, while yes, in her world, the internet wouldn’t be working anyhow—there’s no electricity even—but she would not even have the concept of being able answer her questions with a few clicks.  This book wasn’t written that long ago, but when it was, the internet as we know it didn’t exist.  So our narrator does not know that she could have answered all of her questions in just seconds.  If this book was written now, it might even be seen as a “point” that the world no longer has such easy access to information.  But that is not an issue in this book.  Rather, our narrator simply knows that unless she is willing to dig through boxes or really wrack her brain to be able to remember where she found the information (and we know that’s not going to be successful), she simply won’t “know” what she knows.  And it’s interesting to imagine what it was like to read this book back in the 1980s without being able to quickly confirm  that indeed Wittgenstein said this or Heidegger said that or even that any of the artists she mentions really did what she says.   And I find that really fascinating.

Vaguely connected to this idea is her wondering about some details of the Savona soccer jerseys and then saying “One is scarcely about to return to Savona to check on this, however.” (122). Continue Reading »

Posted in Books about music, Books about writers, David Markson, El Greco, Emily Bronte, End of the World, Funny (strange), Johannes Vermeer, Lawrence of Arabia, Leonardo Da Vinci, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marlon Brando, Martin Heidegger, Panic, Peter O' Toole, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Robert Rauschenberg, Travel, Willem de Kooning, William Gaddis, Wittgenstein's Halloween | Leave a Comment »

Brendan Connell–Lives of Notorious Cooks (2012)

November 6, 2013 by Paul Debraski

cooksSOUNDTRACK: PHISH-The Story of the Ghost (1998).

storyghostThe Story of the Ghost is one of the first Phish albums that I was aware of when it came out.  I remember buying it and liking it, especially the first few songs.  This is not surprising as the first few songs are much more electric and funky.  By the end of the album there’s a lot of mid tempo songs that feel like they’re somewhat incomplete—good ideas but the songs feel…unfinished?

“Ghost” has a funky guitar and drum section, it’s a song I’ve liked from the day I bought the disc.  But the real hit was “Birds of a Feather,” which has an amazingly catchy chorus.  This version (as opposed to the live one) is weird in that Trey is kind of whispering the vocals, but the guitar is ferocious.

“Meat” is a weird skittery song that sounds cavernous here.  The weird processed vocals are certainly something that keeps this song like more of an oddity.  “Guyute” sounds an awful lot like early Phish—like it has come from Gamehendge, it’s a nice return to old form.  It’s a great song with a really lengthy instrumental section.  This features one of Trey’s great extended pretty solos.

“Fikus” is a strange little song (2 minutes), with lots of percussion and a quiet bass line.  “Shafty” has got  some cool wah wah guitars, and is also only 2 minutes long, but it shows that there is a bunch of funk on the disc.  “Limb by Limb” is a fun if simple song that seems sparse until the chorus kicks in.  “Frankie Says” is a kind of circular song that is interesting but doesn’t really go anywhere.  “Water in the Sky” is a short piece but it is full of ideas—percussion, slide guitar, and nice harmonies.  “Roggae” is a fun little song with some fugue like vocals.

“Wading in the Velvet Sea’ is a very pretty song with very nice harmonies.  “The Moma Dance” is a funky wah wah guitared track which really comes to life live, although I like the way they reprise “Ghost” at the end.  The final track is called “End of Session,” it’s a very mellow little number (also less than 2 minutes) with organ and gentle guitars.  There’s a small verse of harmonies as the albums drifts off.

This album is one of the band’s less popular recordings, but i think it’s quite good.

[READ: October 30, 2013] Lives of Notorious Cooks

Brendan Connell is back with a book which demonstrates that whatever subject he writes about, he delves in deeply and with great relish.

Connell’s new book is, as the title says, a series of brief lives of fictional cooks.  There are 51 biographies in this book.  From Connell’s previous works and from the title, I expected that these cooks might be somewhat less than savory characters.  But Connell makes these chefs genuinely impressive—making delicious meals from both the finest ingredients or the lowest of items.

As with previous stories by Connell, the depth of his knowledge is impressive—he includes not only recipes but complete menus of feasts.  And as usual, his word choices are wonderful—exuberant when necessary, obscure if useful and always spot on.

Although I am normally inclined to make a comment about each “story “ in a  collection, this one really resists that.  There are not enough distinguishing characteristics between cooks for me to write enough about each one (without rewriting the book).  This is not in any way to say that each is not unique, but that they are all cooks, each specializing in a different food or style.  But rather than from saying “Agis cooks fish” it’s better to take this book as a whole rather than in pieces. Continue Reading »

Posted in Advice, Brendan Connell, Chômu Press, Cook Book, Decadence, Food, Phish, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books | 5 Comments »

César Aira—The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira (2002) [translated 2012]

November 5, 2013 by Paul Debraski

curesSOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Billy Breathes (1996).

billyBilly Breathes is a much more mellow, acoustic feeling album from Phish.

Although the opener “Free” is a great song, with wonderful riffs.  It’s another of my favorites live, although the production sounds a little flat here, but the harmonies are great.  “Character Zero” again has a real ZZ Top feel (something many don’t really associate with Phish I’m sure).  But once the song proper kicks in, it rocks in a very Phish way.  “Waste” is a delicate song about insecurities that turns into a nice love song.  “Taste” is a rollicking piano-heavy song that gets played live pretty often and it sounds good here.

“Cars Trucks Buses” is a 2 minute instrumental that has a lot of organ in it, it’s very groovy.  “Talk” is an acoustic guitar/folky song.  You don’t hear it much live.  “Theme from the Bottom” gets us back into often-played territory, with its weird opening riff.  I really enjoy the way the bridge goes into a brief minor key, despite the overall happy vibe.  I like the harmonies towards the end, although the actual end of the song is a bit dull (the live endings are a bit more fun).

From here the album mellows out a lot.  “Train Song” is a pretty acoustic number with nice harmonies.  “Bliss” is an acoustic guitar solo.  “Billy Breathes” has more delicate harmonies and an acoustic feel.  “Sept Away” is another delicate short (90 second) song, with some more great harmonies. “Steep” is a slow, simple song (also 90 seconds) that has a pretty melody but serves more as an introduction to “Prince Caspian.”   “Prince Caspian” is a great epic-seeming song (even though it’s only 5 minutes long).  The build up is long , with the pretty chords repeating and growing fuller.  It’s a great live song and a great ending to this disc.

Although this disc has some great songs on it, it’s definitely not my favorite overall.

[READ: October 4, 2013] The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira

This was another weird and fun book by César Aira (one of about six books he wrote that year). This one was translated by Kathleen Silver.  Ever since reading that Aira doesn’t edit his books—that he simply begins writing and lets the story keep coming out–I’ve grown suspicious of the beginnings of his stories. And so I am with this one. In the beginning there’s a whole thing about Dr Aira sleepwalking through a town.  He wakes up in various places, unsure where he is, but he’s never lost because he knows the streets so well.  This goes on for a few pages and then the plot kicks in.

Dr Aira is picked up by an ambulance—a man is dying right there in the ambulance and only Dr. Aira can save him.  Won’t Dr Aira help him? The Dr. refuses point blank.  He is convinced that this whole thing is a set up—why else would the ambulance (which he had heard for many blocks going up and down the street) be driving around with a sick man looking just for him instead of going to the hospital?  He will not help this man.  Disgusted, the ambulance driver pulls over and the Dr gets out.

So what is all this about? Continue Reading »

Posted in Alternate Reality, César Aira, Death, Disease, Fraud, Hospitals, Humiliation, Katherine Silver, Phish, Short Books, ZZ Top | Leave a Comment »

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