Anya Ulinich–Petropolis (2008)

SOUNDTRACK: COHEED & CAMBRIA-In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003).
I had recently reviewed Co&Ca’s Good Apollo… CD which is the part that comes right after this one. I have yet to hear the one that comes before this one (I’m being vague about the numbering since the first album is called …2, the second [...]

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Adam Gopnik–”The Real Work” (New Yorker, March 17, 2008)

SOUNDTRACK-WRXP, 101.9, New York City (45 days later)
The past two weeks I have been listening to this station more because I have been doing work in the garage (building a chicken coop).  Without going into my neurotic music listening, I’ll just say that I listen to the radio rather than CDs when I do noisy [...]

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William H. Gass–The Tunnel (1995)

SOUNDTRACK: STARLIGHT MINTS-Built on Squares (2003).
The Pixies were a weird band….  They wrote fantastically catchy alterna-rock, and yet, deep down, they were pretty weird, with shouty parts and quiet parts and bizarro lyrics about slicing up eyeballs and monkeys going to heaven.  Well, imagine if their music was REALLY weird, going beyond guitar/bass/drums to incorporate [...]

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Julie Hecht–Do the Windows Open? (1998)

SOUNDTRACK: MARS VOLTA-The Bedlam in Goliath (2008).
I’ve liked Mars Volta more in theory than in actuality for their first few albums. I enjoyed them, but they didn’t make me want to listen all the time. I had heard good things about this new one, so I gave it a shot and WOW. [...]

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Lawrence Watt-Evans–The Turtle Moves! Discworld’s Story Unauthorized (2008)

SOUNDTRACK: OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ-Calibration (is Pushing Luck and Key Too Far) (2008).
Typically a solo album means indulgence. But how can you be more indulgent than Mars Volta? They have fifteen minute songs with twenty-seven sections and operatic vocals and lyrics that are bizarre at best (they’re fantastic, don’t get me wrong, they’re just…out there!). [...]

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Paul Theroux–Twenty-Two Stories (Harper’s April 2008)

SOUNDTRACK: MASTODON-Blood Mountain (2006)
As I was in a metal/Black Sabbath kick, and Mastodon is always mentioned as a fantastic metal band, I figured I’d give them a try. As with The Sword, I saw no resemblance to Black Sabbath, and at first I was afraid it was just another sludgy death metal record.
DIGRESSION: [...]

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Steven Millhauser–”The Next Thing” (Harper’s, May 2008)

SOUNDTRACK: THE SWORD-Gods of the Earth (2008).
So I used to be really into heavy metal. I’m not so much anymore, although I do enjoy the occasional bout of heaviness. However, I had been listening to some Black Sabbath recently, and I guess I was in the mood, because when I read some descriptions [...]

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Joshua Bearman–”The Perfect Game: Five years with the master of Pac-Man” (Harpers, July 2008)

SOUNDTRACK: GNARLS BARKLEY-The Odd Couple (2008).
So “Crazy” was Gnarls Barkley’s ubiquitous and fantastic single from 2006. The rest of St. Elsewhere was nowhere near as catchy, although it was all quite good. It was funny to see the backlash for this record because there was no “Crazy” on it. And yet, the [...]

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Marisha Pessl–Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: AGAINST ME!-New Wave (2007).
I’m not sure why I never listened to these guys before. I’m not crazy about the band’s name: it makes sense, but it’s awkward to work with. And I think I lumped them in with the whole emo scene, which I was pretty well done with. Anyhow, I read [...]

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Robert Coover–”The Case of the Severed Hand” (Harper’s, July 2008)

SOUNDTRACK: AGENT ORANGE on 21 Jump Street (1987).
Sarah and I are watching 21 Jump Street on DVD.  We were both fans of the show when it came out, but our only thought about it was to sing JUMP every once in a while.  So, we got Season One and have been very pleasantly surprised [...]

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