Comic Book Tattoo (2008)

SOUNDTRACK: TORI AMOS-Abnormally Attracted to Sin (2009).
It’s been almost a decade since I was blown away by a Tori Amos album.  I feel like she has really been so engaged in the concept of her albums, that she has lost track of the tunes.  And while I don’t hate anything she’s done in the last [...]

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Douglas Coupland–City of Glass (2000 & Revised Edition 2009)

SOUNDTRACK: DANKO JONES-Never Too Loud (2008).
Danko Jones is a hard and fast rock band, with a one track mind and a straightforward sound.  They deal in excessive cliches (album titles include: Sleep is the Enemy, We Sweat Blood, Never Too Loud, etc) and play mostly short songs.  And despite all that apparent negativity, I enjoy [...]

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Periodical: American Libraries

You get American Libraries magazine if you’re a member of the American Library Association.  So you can see that the audience is rather specific.
A lot of the magazine is advocating for librarians (and for librarians to attend the annual ALA conference).  (The word advocacy appears about 200 times in each issue).
The magazine opens with letters [...]

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Lee Henderson–”Long Live Annie B.” (The Walrus, October, 2009)

SOUNDTRACK: THE TREWS-House of Ill Fame (2003).

After listening to the new Trews disc, I popped in their first disc.  Mostly because I thought their first one sounded rawer.  And it does.
House of Ill Fame has the same rock feel as the new one does, but it also feels a lot more garagey.  It rocks harder, [...]

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Zsuzsi Gartner-”Summer of the Flesh Eater” (The Walrus, September 2009)

SOUNDTRACK: NEKO CASE-Middle Cyclone (2009).
I first learned of Neko Case through The New Pornographers.  Their song “Letter from an Occupant” blew me away.  But when I’d investigated her solo work, I learned she was more of a country singer than anything else.  Reviewers said that Middle Cyclone broke from that mold a little into more [...]

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Periodical: The Walrus

I found out about The Walrus while watching an interview with Noah Richler on Book Television (back when I had Canadian satellite).  During the interview, they mentioned that the first issue of this cool new magazine, The Walrus, had just come out.  I was very intrigued; amazingly, the local Barnes & Noble had a copy! [...]

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Douglas Coupland–Generation X (1991)

SOUNDTRACK: THE DEAD SCIENCE-Villainaire (2008).
This is probably the most fascinating album that Constellation has released recently.  I’d never heard of The Dead Science, but evidently they have a few disc out already.
The main thing one notices about this disc is the lead singer.  His voice is fascinating: a sort of slow, whispered falsetto laced with [...]

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David Foster Wallace–[Final thoughts] Infinite Jest (1996)

Okay, now that I’ve had time to digest the book (and to cope with the ending) I wanted to give some final thoughts on the book.  I also wanted to tie up some loose ends by posting my original response to the Salon.com questions as well as my letter to the posted article (keeping all [...]

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David Foster Wallace–[Week 14/End] Infinite Jest (1996)

SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-”Rather Ripped” (2006).
When Rather Ripped came out, I was really excited by it.  It rocked heavy, it was catchy and it featured a lot of Kim.  I listened to it all the time, and would have said it was my favorite SY disc of this era.  However, listening to Sonic Nurse reminded me [...]

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Douglas Coupland–Generation A–Where is it?

I am very excited about Douglas Coupland’s new book Generation A.  It’s a sequel to his first book, Generation X, which I loved, and reviews have been quite positive.
I’ve been a fan of Coupland’s basically since Gen X, having read all of his books, including his weird Canada-only nonfiction pieces.
So, imagine how excited I was [...]

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