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James Breig–“Department of Deportment: Stances and Dances Made the Eighteenth-Century Man–and Woman” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

April 12, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: RYAN ADAMS-“Like a Fool” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I don’t particularly like Ryan Adams’ songs, so I was surprised how much I liked this cover of a Superchunk song.  The cover has an interesting vibe, a kind of Pearl Jam (in the guitars) meets Radiohead (in the vocals) sound.  It’s not too different from the original, although, as with many of these covers, I like the recording quality better.  I know I love my lo-fi world, and I love Superchunk but these newer versions just sound better.

Adams has a good voice, and he adds just enough orchestration to make the song a wee bit more interesting than the original.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “Department of Deportment: Stances and Dances Made the Eighteenth-Century Man–and Woman”

This article was intriguing but wasn’t quite about what I wanted it to be about.  Also, what was weird about this article–not so much with the others in the magazine so far, is that the photographs look simply too modern.  Usually for period pieces there is a hint of aging done to the film.  Obviously for the magazine they want the best possible quality photo, but it just looks really…fake?  Obviously modern people in old homes and dress.

The other thing that is odd to me about this article is that it begins with the idea that the reader doesn’t know what deportment means, or  that we misunderstand its meaning.  The true meaning–upright behavior and moral uprightness–doesn’t seem that hard to grasp.

However, despite these criticisms the article has some interesting history to impart.  The idea was that Gentlemen and Ladies were educated and would act with honor.  And part of that honor was the way one stood and acted.  Thus, Gentlemen had to maintain deportment.  Etiquette books also taught how to treat people of equal–and lower–standing.  Some people tried to appear gentlemanly by quickly learning deportment–but rules were complex and fakers were easily caught.  And those who were caught were punished by being thrown out of  a party or by public ridicule. Continue Reading »

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, History, James Breig, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Ryan Adams, Superchunk | Leave a Comment »

Jonathan Lethem–“The Porn Critic” (New Yorker, April 9, 2012)

April 11, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: THE APPLES IN STEREO-King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 3 from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

The Apples in Stereo have made the first song on this covers disc in which I categorically like the original better.  I don’t know that much about the Apples in Stereo, although I know they are tangentially related to Neutral Milk Hotel.  But I don’t know if their style is in general like this version–keyboardy and simplistic, or if this is a goof project for them.

Of course, the original of this song, by Neutral Milk Hotel is an indie classic, so you’d be hard pressed to try to do a respectful version and make it sound better.  It’s nice they did something different, I just don’t like it as much.

[READ: April 6, 2012] “The Porn Critic”

This is a story that is superficially facile–it confirms the age-old belief that women just do not like porn.  And yet there’s some interesting dynamics at work that I found really enjoyable.

The story is about Kromer.  Kromer was believed to be a hedonistic satyr–that a life of partying, drugs and sex followed him wherever he went.  But that was not exactly true–he was around a lot of it, just never in the middle of it.  The debauchery in his life was all thanks to his friend Greta.

Greta has a trust fund that will not mature until she reaches 30.  She was so outraged at not having the trust fund that (and I love this phrasing) it “drove her mad with the determination to die squalorously before she became wealthy.”  Despite her lack of access to the fund, she did have at her disposal  her father’s “man.”  He would cater to her every whim at any hour of the day.

And so she lived the hedonistic lifestyle–drugs and drinking, closing out parties and hanging with wild transsexuals (and calling for deliveries from delis across town to the bar she was currently in).  And she also hung out with Kromer–who was terrified of her debauched friends, but loved the access to her father’s servant.

Kromer’s reputation was also helped because he worked in a porn shop called Sex Machines.  He worked for a local real estate maven who owned all kinds of stores–from coffee to video to adult marital aids.  I love the details of Sex Machines, and that its “interior and stock had been painstakingly derived from that of a famous San Francisco shop, founded by a sex-positive lesbian collective. In lieu of such a collective, the owner had installed Kromer,”  So instead of Toys in Babeland Manhattan got Sex Machine.

Sex Machine also published a newsletter which included reviews of the latest porn movies.  And Kromer was the sole reviewer–he watches dozens of films (the output is tremendous!) and tried to simplify their content for the clientele.

As a result, he had tons of porn movies lying around his house.  And as a result of that, very few people, women especially, had visited his apartment. Continue Reading »

Posted in Humiliation, Jonathan Lethem, Neutral Milk Hotel, New Yorker, Pornography, Sex, Short Story, The Apples in Stereo | Leave a Comment »

Alice Munro–“Train” (Harper’s, April 2012)

April 10, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: LAVENDER DIAMOND-“New Ways of Living” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

This song plays around with the Destroyer original a little bit more than some of the other covers have.  Lavender Diamond’s lead vocalist is a woman, Becky Stark, so her voice is different from Dan Bejar’s.  Of course, Bejar’s voice is kind of high-pitched so it’s not that different.  The original also has a female backing vocal on all of the Lie-Dee-Dies, which Lavender Diamond supplies by herself.

The Destroyer version is softer, a bit more delicate (especially the ending section which is washes of strings and gentle keyboards).  Lavender Diamond’s version is primarily piano, and that starkness somehow makes the song more intense.  So yes,  I find myself enjoying the Lavender Diamond version a wee bit more.  I hadn’t heard much by Lavender Diamond before (I knew that Becky Stark was on the Decemeberists’ Hazards of Love album).  But I think it’s time to investigate her stuff a little bit more.

[READ: April 5, 2012] “Train”

I had put off reading this story for a little while because it was pretty long (12 pages in Harper’s which is quite long for a Harper’s story).  Not only was it justifiably long, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

The story was set up in an unexpected way (especially for Munro whose stories tend to be pretty straightforward).  It opens with a man jumping off a train (I also tend to think of Munro as writing about women, so a male protagonist is also something of a surprise).

So Jackson hops off of a train.  It was going slow, but it hurt more than he expected.  After he gets his bearings, he realizes that he is closer to civilization than he realized–indeed, there’s a woman out milking a cow.  The woman turns out to be Belle (the cow is Margaret Rose).

After years of reading different kinds of stories, there were so many different ways this meeting could have gone (most of them badly).  But Munro tends to not write about physical violence, so this meeting goes pretty well–it’s not even all that awkward because Belle is a sweet, almost naive, woman.

Belle lives by herself, although that is a recently development.  Her mother passed away a few months ago after decades of needing a lot of physical help.  Her father has been dead for many years–he was hit by a train.  He used to take care of Belle’s mother, but once he died, the responsibility was all hers.

She was also more or less supported by the Mennonites who live up the road.  The introduction of them is wonderful, as it is how Jackson sees them: “Over the hill came a box on wheels, being pulled by two quiet small horses….  And in the box sat half a dozen or so little men.   All dressed in black with proper black hats on their heads.”

Of course, these little men are the Mennonite children who look after her.  Jackson pities Belle, although she neither seeks it nor really deserves it.  She seems quite content with her situation.  He decides to stick around and fix up her house for her (which is in bad need of repair).  He imagines that he can work for her for a few months and then maybe help the Mennonites a bit and then continue on his way. Continue Reading »

Posted in Alice Munro, Canadian Content, Cancer as plot device, Destroyer, Harper's, Lavender Diamond, Mennonites, Religion, Short Story, The Decemberists, Trains | Leave a Comment »

Thomas Pynchon–[Week 7] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.11-3.15] (1973)

April 9, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ROCKET 00000-What Women Want (2010).

This is the second band that I have discovered because of this novel.  I was looking for images to paste in last week’s post for Rocket 00000, and I came across this EP.

Rocket 00000 are a trio from Cincinnati and this is their first (and only) release.   It’s got a kind of 80s punk vibe–I can’t really make out the words, but I like the feel.

There’s something very raw and almost amateurish about the record–but that seems deliberate, because the album sounds very professional–it’s recorded well and the band is very tight.  And since I like the bandcamp site quite alot, I’m going to provide the link with extras here so you can listen to the album, too.

There’s four songs–two are 5 minutes and two are around 3 minutes.  The two longer ones have intros and outros that extend the music to those long (for punk songs) times.  And I really like these instrumental sections. In fact, when I first listened, I thought maybe the whole first track was an instrumental.  Since  I liked the tone of the album I was okay with that.

The “Summer City” part of “Summer City/Conspiracy Theory” has a simple but effective guitar solo as an instrumental.  After about a minute and a half “Conspiracy Theory” kicks in, the vocals bring a new texture and a punk element into the song.  “Lethal Weapon 2 & 4” has a great title, but it doesn’t sound all that different from the other songs (although the lyrics, “We’re not perfect…but neither are you” are pretty clear).

“Signs” has some cool drum breaks and fills, and the end of the song is musically interesting.    “Braveheart: Forever Young” probably combines the music and vocals  best–I like the  upbeat music with the dark words.  The song ends with about 2 and a half minutes of instrumental (with interesting feedback) that works really well together.

It’s not the best punk EP, but it’s got some good qualities and the band has a good name.  I wonder how they “say” it?

[READ: Week of April 2] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.11-3.15

After last week’s breezy read, I figured that this week’s would be a bit rougher.  But for the most part, it wasn’t–aside from the very end which was a little hard to stomach.  There was a lot of technical discussion in this section–which was a  bit hard to comprehend.  There was a also a return of Franz Pökler–where we learned his story and what happened to him.  We assumed that he was killed by a police truncheon, but that turns out to be untrue.  His story is pretty dark and sad.  Sorry, as Marco points out below, it was Peter Sachsa who was killed by truncheon.  My conspiracy has been called out!

Section 3.11 opens uncomfortably with Franz Pökler… copulating with Leni in an aggressive and rough manner.  He has just come back from showing of Alpdrücken and imagines that it’s Margherita underneath him.  He assumes that men all over the country are doing the same thing because of the movie.  He calculates that it was that night that Ilse was conceived–they’d barely had sex around that time.  This flashback brings us forward to the scene of Franz waiting for Ilse to return to Zwölfkinder—a kind of children’s fantasy playground which would prove to be a very significant location for them. Continue Reading »

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Military, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Rocket 00000, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War | 3 Comments »

Gizmo Guys (RVCC Arts, Branchburg, NJ, April 1, 2012)

April 8, 2012 by Paul Debraski

[ATTENDED: April 1, 2012] The Gizmo Guys

Our friends were going to see the Gizmo Guys, so we bought (surprisingly cheap) tickets and went to the same show as them.  I was under the impression that the Gizmo Guys were kind of science-tellers–doing “magic” with sciencey things.  Well, that was utterly wrong.

The Gizmo Guys are jugglers.  That’s it.  Well, they are comedians AND jugglers and they are very funny and very talented.    But there’s no science and, I have to say, very few gizmos.

The show opened with some jokes.  But these were jokes from the kids in the audience.  And our brave friend’s 7 year-old went on stage and told a joke! (while Clark cowered so he wouldn’t be chosen).  The joke section was cute and served as a nice warmup. Continue Reading »

Posted in Big Apple Circus, Branchburg, NJ, Comedians, Funny (ha ha), Peking Acrobats, RVCC Arts, Set in New Jersey!, The Gizmo Guys | Leave a Comment »

Science News Letter for Febraury 2, 1952

April 7, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: TOKYO POLICE CLUB “Cheer It On (Trey Told Em Remix)” and “Cut Cut Paste” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

Tokyo Police Club released one of the best LPs of short blasts of rock in a long time.  “Cheer It On” is a great song that name-checks the band and which I could listen to over and over.  It’s a hot punk blast.  This remix totally changes the song (which is better than just tweaking it or repeating the chorus over and over).  Trey makes it a discoey song (with the wah hoo! from “Celebration,” I believe) and big rubber disco bass lines over the music.  It really changes the sound. I like the original a lot better, but I enjoy a remix that actually remixes.

“Cut Cut Paste” is a studio release and it shows TPC in their element–a short fast song.  I love the way it starts out with a shifting guitar sound.  It has a great manic intensity.  Tokyo Police Club is definitely one of my favorite new bands.

[READ: March 20, 2012] Science News Letter

I’ve mentioned before when my company sends out links to articles that are interesting or cool.  Most of the time they are highly academic (that’s the kind of work I’m in), but they also do more general information as well.

So this particular page was sent to us because of the article “Marriages Are Seldom Higher in Leap Year” (since this is a leap year).  There was a tradition in Britain and Ireland that on a leap year, women could propose to men (see the postcard below).

But this article (really only three paragraphs) which is addressed to “Marriage Shy Bachelors” says that only twice since the Civil War has the marriage rate been higher in a leap year (1896 and 1920) in America. And that in 1952 the supply of available unmarried persons has been depleted by the spurt in marriages following World War II.  Rest easy single guys! Continue Reading »

Posted in Essays, History, Nature, Nostalgia, Rafflles Bulletin of Zoology, Research, Science News Letter, Tokyo Police Club | Leave a Comment »

Rivka Galchen–“Once an Empire” (Harper’s, February 2010)

April 6, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE-“Complications” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I liked Broken Social Scene’s first album quite a lot.  This is their cover of a song by The Clean.  I know of The Clean from the Topless Women Talk about Their Lives soundtrack although not this particular song.  (What’s with all these New Zealand bands being on Merge?)  I found the original song online.  Interestingly, the original version is only 2 minutes long.  But Broken Social Scene always does things by double, so their version is 4 minutes long.

The cover version opens with a young person saying “This song was written before ‘Born to Run,'” although as far as I can tell “Complications” was written in 2001. So who knows.

The cover is a fuzzy, ramshackle mess of a song, which is not to say that it isn’t good (the original is kind of ramshackle, too).  The prominent melody doesn’t exactly remind me of “Born to Run” but I can see the connection.  The big question is, what does BSS do with the extra two minutes?  Well, mostly they jam, with some wild soloing–but it’s all mixed just under the fuzz of the noise.

This is another strangely faithful cover (5 in a row so far) for this covers album.  And once again, I think I like the cover a little better.

[READ: April 1, 2012] “Once an Empire”

Clearly I wasn’t reading every story that came in Harper’s back in 2010, because I know I skipped this one.  But now that I’m quite fond of Rivka Galchen, I decided it was time to go back and check it out.

How can you not like a story that starts out: “I’m a pretty normal woman, maybe even an extremely normal one.”  You know that normal things will not be afoot by the end of the story, right?  And so it is, by the second paragraph: “I never thought I’d be the victim of an especially unusual crime.  Or of any crime, really.”

You’re totally hooked, right? Me too!

The narrator takes her wonderfully sweet time getting to the crime: dithering over whether or not it was Tuesday night (“Every Tuesday night I go and see whatever is playing at the movie theater nearby.  I’m not choosy.  I’m happy to see what everyone else is going to see.”) or Wednesday morning. Talking about the giant clock/thermometer on the Jehovah’s Witness Watchtower that keeps her company.  And then describing her walk home.

She notices that her windows are dark–she always leaves her lights on.  And then, she notices that some thing–not something, some thing–is emerging from one of her windows.  And as she focuses, she realizes it is her ironing board. Continue Reading »

Posted in Broken Social Scene, Canadian Content, Consumerism, Funny (strange), Harper's, King Missile, Rivka Galchen, Short Story, The Clean | 2 Comments »

Antonya Nelson–“Chapter Two” (New Yorker, March 26, 2012)

April 5, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: THE SHINS-“Plenty is Never Enough” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

The Shins have taken this song and completely turned it into a Shins song.

It is bouncy and poppy with some nice tempo changes.  It could easily fit onto any Shins album.

The original (I’d never heard of Tenement Halls) is very similar to The Shins’ version.  The big difference is that it doesn’t have The Shins’ vocals and musical sensibilities.  The original feels kind of flat, the highs just aren’t as high.  But it serves as a good stepping off point for the cover.

[READ: March 30, 2012] “Chapter Two”

This story is about A.A.  But, amusingly, Hil is tired of telling her own stories at A.A., so she starts telling the story of her fifty-something alcoholic neighbor (with the wonderful name of), Bergeron Love (the story is set in Houston).

Interestingly, no one at A.A. complains that she is talking about someone else (in fact the blind guy just seems to smile politely).  This is just as well because Bergeron’s story is pretty funny.  Bergeron arrives at Hil’s door, stark naked and invites herself in.  This is not atypical for Bergeron who crashes neighborhood parties and plays ridiculous pranks.  But not everything she does is funny: she also reports overgrown lawns and loose dogs.

Hil lives with her son and a roommate, Janine.  Janine is a very fat woman (see my diatribe about fat characters yesterday).  But Janine is not the victim or the pity-case in this story (well, maybe a little).  Hil figures Janine must eat all day to be as big as she is, but she has never seen her eat.  But then Hil’s son, Jeremy, a shy teenager enjoys playing video games with Janine more than going out with his peers (and more than being with his mom, I believe). Continue Reading »

Posted in Antonya Nelson, Death, Drinking, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Short Story, Tenement Halls, The Shins | Leave a Comment »

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

April 4, 2012 by Paul Debraski

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

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

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

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

[READ: April 3, 2012] “P.E.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mary Miley Theobald–“A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’good for What Ails Ya” (Colonial Williamsburg: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Winter 2012)

April 3, 2012 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: QUASI-“Beautiful Things” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

I’ve had this CD for a pretty long time just waiting for me to devote some time to listening to it.  The collection is a compilation of non-Merge label bands covers songs by Merge bands.

Quasi was a great band (I guess they are still together, so they are a great band).  I have their records from around the turn of the century (I love writing that!).  Sam Coombs and the wonderful Janet Weiss comprise the band (there’s a bassist, Joanna Bolme, added in 2007). And they sing wonderful, political alt-pop.

This is a cover of a song by the New Zealand band The 3Ds.  I don’t know the original (although I do know (and like) a few songs by them–mostly from the Topless Women Talk about Their Lives soundtrack.  This version has heavy keyboard prominence, but he sweet verses (sung largely by Janet with Tom doing backing vocals) are interspersed with some cool buzzy guitar solos.

  I just found the original online, and the cover is pretty accurate–although the Quasi version is a bit more dynamic.  Nevertheless, it makes me want to listen to The 3Ds a bit more.

[READ: March 15, 2012] “A Cup of Hot Chocolate, S’good for What Ails Ya”

Have you ever wanted to read about the history of hot chocolate?  No, of course not.  No one has.  And yet, when I started flipping through this article, Theobald introduced plenty of ideas that I found not only interesting but compelling.

Theobald explains how the Aztecs called this (at the time) very hearty, spicy and bitter) drink cacahuatl.  The Aztecs got the drink from the Mayans, who got it from the Olmecs.  The first Europeans to try this drink loathed it (one even called it a drink for pigs).

It was the conquistadors who mixed cacahuatl with sugar to make what we now know as chocolate.  Chocolate was a luxury back then–time consuming and difficult to make.

The Spaniards found the drink very hearty–hearty enough to be considered a meal.  This put Catholics in a tizzy about the state of the item.  They feared that if it was food it could not be consumed on fast days–it was ultimately deemed a drink.  The drink made its way through Europe and into England.  The first known English recipe called for sugar, long red pepper, cloves, aniseed, almonds, nuts, orange flower water and cacao. Continue Reading »

Posted in 18th Century, 19th Century, Colonial Williamsburg, Essays, History, Mary Miley Theobald, Quasi, The 3Ds | 4 Comments »

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