[cue music]:

I saw these stats come sailing in, on Christmas Day on Christmas Day.
I hit 60,000 views on Christmas Day in the mor-ning.

I hit 30,000 views back in March, and I was quite thrilled.  When I started the blog in May of 2007 I didn’t expect to get all that many views, it was more or less a blog to keep track of my books and maybe have other people comment too.  And so, it took nearly two years to get to 30,000.  Imagine how delightful it is to reach the next 30,000 views in the span of just nine months!

So thanks everyone for checking out what I had to say.  And thanks also for all the comments.  As with the first 30,000, I’ve included the stats that have brought me to this hallowed (but random) spot.  And I must add that Infinite Summer, which is underrepresented in my top ten posts, was absolutely essential for this huge spike in views (thanks DFW fans).  But, by far the biggest surprise was the surge that came from the first book(s) on the list below.  I posted about the Ulysses Moore series in April.  And it was by far the most frequently sought and (presumably) read post on the blog.  So, Scholastic Publishing, if you read this, please note the craving that my readers have for the rest of the series!  And please update your site!!

So, anyhow, thanks all.  Listed below are the Top Ten (and a few extra) viewed posts on my blog.  Happy New Year!

1. 1663 views posted April 25, 2009 [not published as of 30,000 countdown]
Pierdomenico Baccalario–Ulysses Moore series Books 1-4
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Vitalogy
As I mentioned in the introduction, this book has soared to the top as my most viewed post, flying way past Son of the Mob in half the time.  And the majority of people who have posted are demanding to know when the next book (number 5) in the series will be translated and published here in the States.  Are you listening Scholastic?  The website for U.M. is dreadful, indicating that only two books are out so far.  And if you search for the book on Google, my sight comes fourth!  It’s quite difficult to find any real information about this quite fantastic series (even Wikipedia needs to be updated).  So, please, someone pick up the ball on this and get the rest of the series published in English!  Please!

2. 1263 views posted April 4, 2008 [was #1 at 30,000: 819 views]
Gordon Korman–Son of the Mob (2002)
SOUNDTRACK: GORDON LIGHTFOOT-The Complete Greatest Hits
This is a very popular book in schools.  Most of the views are for people seeking assistance with papers.  Of course, if they would call their librarian instead of just browsing the internet, they could probably get real help!

3. 1055 views posted November 26, 2007 [was #2 at 30,000: 521 views]
Pseudonymous Bosch–The Name of This Book is Secret (2007)
SOUNDTRACK: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS-The Distant Future EP
I’m still getting posts about the secrets in this book.  I’d love to help the desperate, but it’s been ages since I read it, so I’m not well versed with the answers anymore.  So, readers, if someone asks for help, I’m counting on you to supply it.  I’m also surprised the other P.B. books aren’t higher on the tally.  (If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late has only 203 views and This Book is Not Good For You has only 9!)

4. 798 views posted June 1, 2008 [was #4 at 30,000: 478 views]
McSweeney’s #27 (2008)
SOUNDTRACK-THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT-4 songs from MySpace
This was the only McSweeney’s that was in the Top 10 last year.  I’m still not sure why, although I expect it has something to do with The Airborne Toxic Event.

5. 766 views posted June 21, 2008 [was #3 at 30,000: 503 views]
Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2007) & Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2008)
SOUNDTRACK: DROPKICK MURPHYS-The Meanest of Times
This was totally expected, although I’m actually surprised it’s not a little higher (200+ views in 9 months seems rather low).  Everyone loves Wimpy Kid.  I only wish I had done a separate post for each book.

6. 739 views posted February 12, 2009 [not charted as of 30,000 countdown]
Jeff Kinney–Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw (2009)
SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Waitin’ for a Superman [US maxi single]
Not bad, book 3!  You almost surpassed your predecessors in a short period of time.  My only question now is, what happened to DoaWK Dog Years?  It’s only got 16 views.

7. 719 views posted March 4, 2009 [not charted as of 30,000 countdown]
The 2009 Edmonton Folk Festival
NO SOUNDTRACK
I’m led to believe that this Festival was a huge success.  I only wish I could have gone to it.  I also expect that this post has peaked (last view was in August), so the rest of you posts can look to move into 7th!

8. 667 views posted August 12, 2009. [not published as of 30,000 countdown]
Clash of the Gods (The History Channel, 2009)
NO SOUNDTRACK
Actually, this one has probably peaked as well (although I see views in December, so I guess not).  While this show was on the air, it was very poorly marketed on the History Channel Website.  So I think that sent a lot of readers my way.  Well, that and that I printed an actual schedule for the shows.

9. 658 views [was #9 at 30,000: 380 views]
About me
NO SOUNDTRACK
Narcissism Rules!

10. 652 views posted July 13, 2008 [was #5 at 30,000: 432 views]
David Goldberg, Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg–Superbad: The Drawings (2008)
SOUNDTRACK: Paul F. Tompkins-Impersonal
Everybody loves drawings of penises, even if McLovin’ isn’t present.

… … …

I was planning on doing only the Top Ten, but since these titles all managed to get over 500 views (and I did want to get DFW on this list too, after all) I’ve made it 14.

11. 599 views posted July 16, 2008 [was #6 at 30,000: 425 views]
Alex Stone–”The Magic Olympics: with tricks explained! (Harper’s July 2008)
SOUNDTRACK: JENS LEKMAN-Night Fall Over Kortedala
This post caused some serious activity when the article was written (even some heated debate!).  It still gets some views, but the heat has faded somewhat.

12. 529 views posted September 21, 2009 [not published as of 30,000 countdown]
David Foster Wallace–[Week 14/End] Infinite Jest (1996)
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-”Rather Ripped”
My final summary of Infinite Jest, after a wonderful Infinite Summer.

13. 517 views posted July 21, 2008 [was #7 at 30,000: 415 views]
Marisha Pessl–Special Topics in Calamity Physics (2007)
SOUNDTRACK: AGAINST ME!-New Wave
I was delighted at how many hits this title received.  I didn’t know that it was a widely read book.  Again, the fire has dimmed somewhat since last time, but i still see search terms for it.

14. 507 views posted April 8, 2008 [not charted as of 30,000 countdown]
Gordon Korman–Born to Rock (2006)
SOUNDTRACK: LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III-Career Moves
Finally, the second Gordon Korman book on the list.  I like to think that the kids who were fans of Son of the Mob read this book as well.  I enjoyed both of them and have been meaning to read some of his others too.

Thanks for all the support, and we’ll see you again at 90,000.

SOUNDTRACK: KISS-Kiss (1974).

I’ve always loved the first Kiss record.  Everything about it is over the top, and I can’t imagine what people thought of it when it hit shelves back in 1974.

And yet, for such a preposterous looking record, the tracks are really great.  The music is a mixture of pop, Rolling Stones rock swagger, Beatles harmonies, and a sort of proto-heavy metal.

“Strutter” proves to be a great opening track with a great riff and fun vocals.  And it’s just one of thousands of Kiss songs about hot chicks that, because of its metaphorical/obscure lyrics is less offensive than it might have been.  “Nothin’ to Lose” is another lyrically inscrutable song that I’ve always assumed was very dirty: “Before I had a baby, I tried every way.  I thought about the back door.  Didn’t know what to say.”  And yet it is so outrageously poppy that no one minds singing along.  “Firehouse” is a wonderfully over the top song with great falsetto vocals and an awesome solo from Ace. “Cold Gin”  is another rocking classic with cool basswork and guitar solo notes over a standard rocking verse.  Side one ends with”Let Me Know” a pop song hiding under the guise of a heavy rock song.  The song is such a poppy bit of fluff (check out the soulful harmonies before the ending guitar solo kicks in), but it works wonders.

Side Two starts with a silly cover of “Kissin’ Time” that of course is appropriate for this band (and if they went for a more poppy sound overall, this would have been their anthem, no doubt).  “Deuce” follows, and it blasts forth with some heavy stuttering and slighty off-sounding guitars.  It also has the best opening lyric ever: “Get up and get your grandma out of here.” Which is later followed by one of the top ten Huh? choruses off all time, “You know your man is working hard, he’s worth a deuce.”  (Rampant speculation as to what a “deuce” was in 1974 can be found online).  I’ve always loved the ”Love Theme from Kiss” which is possibly the most hated pre-disco Kiss song that I can think of.  It’s a weird pseudo-middle-eastern instrumental that I’ve always thought was trippy and funny.  And then comes “100,000 Years,” another one of my favorite songs.  Again, the lyrics are just bizarre (and I’ve always mis-heard them until I looked them up just now: “How could you have waited so long, it must have been a bitch while I was gone” (I’d always thought the “it” was actually “you” which means the song isn’t as nasty as I ‘d always thought).  So, it’s sort of like The Odyssey, then.  But musically the song is just phenomenal: a great guitar riff over simple bass notes and a staggering guitar solo.

The disc ends with the outstanding “Black Diamond.”  There’s so much to love about this song.  It’s a gritty tale about life on the streets.  It opens with a pretty acoustic guitar ballad sung by Paul.  Then, after the awesome “Hit it!” the song kicks in powerfully.  Peter takes over vocals, and his rough voice works perfectly.  It’s only five minutes long, but it feels like a great epic track.  No the least of which is because the song ends with a cool concept: a single note, punctuated with drums, that is slowed down (from the original taped master), getting slower and slower making the notes sound heavier and heavier, slower and slower.  You can even hear the drum riff played at a by-now snail pace.  It’s very cool.

This is really a great album, and it’s somewhat overshadowed by their mid 70’s more famous music.  And if you like 70s rock but don’t think you like Kiss, this is one disc you can sneak into your collection.

[READ: December 20, 2009] The New Sins

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this.  I bought it from McSweeney’s in their attic sale for a couple of bucks.  David Byrne is Talking Heads David Byrne, so everything he makes is arty, avant garde and hard to fathom on a first listen/view.  But I’m unlikely to read this again, so he gets a cursory attempt here.

The New Sins purports to be a collection of what the “new” sins are.  It’s also written as if it were an ancient text that was recently uncovered and translated into English (although obviously, the word choices are laughably not ancient (web design, for instance).  Basically, what you get is a list of behaviors that until recently were not sins but which are now.  The odd thing about the book is that the sins are not an obvious parody of virtues or anything like that.  He doesn’t just say that kindness is a sin, he adds that ambition is a sin as well.  So it’s not even simple inversion.

As such, it comes off as parts criticism, humor, and misanthropy.  I’m not sure how effective it is at any of them.  There are a few dry funny things, but the interesting thing is that the book is designed as a pocket Bible.  Its cover looks like one, and inside it has red words and lots and lots of pictures (that I believe Byrne took, and Dave Eggers had a hand with).  That led me to think it would be a direct Bible joke.  But it isn’t.  It’s a peculiar work, to be sure.

It’s also bilingual.  That’s right, flip it over and read it the other way and it is all in Spanish.  (I did a very loose translation of a few pages and it is a legitimate translation, not a funny or silly one or anything).  But the pictures that fill the book (and which “accompany” the text) are different in the English and Spanish sides.

And it’s really short too.  About 100 pages per side with a picture on every other page.

I’ve no idea who the target market for this was. I’ve resisted a lot of Byrne’s print work because it seemed like it would be just like this.  So, at least I confirmed my suspicion.

SOUNDTRACK: Future Soundtrack for America (2004).

This CD came with the McSweeney’s Future Dictionary for America.  It was released on Barsuk Records (home of Death Cab for Cutie and other great bands) and it was compiled by Spike Jonze and one of the Johns from They Might Be Giants.

This is a solid compilation of indie rock tracks.  At the time of the release most of the songs were rare or hard to find (since then I’ve seen a number of these tracks elsewhere).

TMBG obviously include a piece (a rendition of the old political song “Tippicanoe and Tyler Too”).  Other featured artists include: OK Go, David Byrne, Jimmy Eat World (covering Guided by Voices), Mike Doughty (with a song called Move On, that I have to wonder if it was written for this compilation as proceeds went to MoveOn.org), Ben Kweller (great song title: “Jerry Falwell Destroyed the Earth”), Blink 182 (with the only song I know by them, “I Miss You” that reminds me When in Rome’s The Promise“), the much missed Sleater-Kinney, a remix by R.E.M., a great track from Nada Surf, a live piano version of “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” from The Flaming Lips, a staggering song by Laura Cantrell (who I only know from her work with TMBG, this song is a cover of a John Prine song), Tom Waits’ amazingly powerful and very emotional “Day After Tomorrow,” and a rocking piece from Elliott Smith.

Proceeds for the disc went to MoveOn.org in an attempt to raise money to defeat Bush in the 2004 election. We know how that turned out.  But, as that is not relevant anymore, if you like your indie music good, this is a wholly worthy collection.

[READ: December 17, 2009] Maintenance Volume 1

Now this is a comic that I can get into.  And I’m already delighted to see that there are two more volumes out.

The premise of the comic is that the two guys on the cover, Doug and Manny, work as maintenance men for TerroMax, Inc., the world’s biggest and best evil science think tank!  Their work is sometimes scary, often disgusting and always interesting.

There are three stories in this volume.  In the first one, the guys encounter a ManShark.  In the second, they are sent back in time to the cavemen era (where they learn that a scientist has already visited them) and in the third, a minor character from the first story comes back to play a large role in an alien invasion.

The dialogue is great, with oddball pop culture references that come from far out in left field (a dream about Tom Bosley, a caveman who sounds like Phoebe Cates).  And the secondary characters are wonderful: mad scientists wandering around discussing their failed plans for world domination (the cavemen were meant to be an army of assassins) and their secret lairs (the one in Sacramento or Chicago?).  There’s even an unrequited love story between one of the guys and the hot secretary (who proves she can hold her own in a fight).

The story’s pacing is great.  It’s comical action sprinkled with funny dialogue.  The characters aren’t really fleshed out, but that’s sort of beside the point.  They’re just everymen in a crazy job, always wondering if they’ll need a mop to clean up what the scientists create.  It’s a funny look at work and mad scientists!

The artwork is also great.  It follows a pretty traditional style of humorous comic, with solid lines and shading.  The characters are also very expressive (I’ve enjoyed Rodriguez’ work in the past quite a bit).

With a great combination of art and dialogue, how can you go wrong?  I’ve already ordered books two and three and the series, and I trust there will be even more in the future.

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK SABBATH-Sabotage (1975).

Sabotage seems to be somewhat forgotten (maybe because of the creepy cover art 0f Ozzy in a kimono and fascinating platform shoes, Bill Ward in red tights with a codpiece (and visible underwear on the back cover), and Geezer and Tony’s mustaches).
But this album rocks pretty hard and heavy.
“Hole in the Sky” is a sort of spastic rocker with Ozzy screaming vocals over the top of the rocking track.
“Don’t Start (Too Late)” is the by now obligatory acoustic guitar piece.  But this one is different, for it has some really wild and unpredictable aspects to it.

“Symptom of the Universe” is another classic Sabbath track, a blistering heavy fast riff with the wonderful Ozzy-screamed: “Yeaaaaaahs!”  It then surprises you by going into an extended acoustic guitar workout for a minute and a half at the end.

“Megalomania” is a slow ponderous piece. Unlike the psychedelic tracks from the previous records, this one moves along with a solid back beat. It also has a great bridge (“Why doesn’t everybody leave me alone?”). They definitely had fun with the effects (echoing vocals, etc.) on this one.  And, like their prog rock forebears, this song segues into another rhythm altogether when we get the wonderfully fast rock segment.  And the humorous point where the music pauses and Ozzy shouts “Suck me!”

“Thrill of it All” is a pretty good rocker, which after a  pretty simple opening morphs into a slow, surprisingly keyboard-fueled insanely catchy coda.  “Supertzar” is a wonderfully creepy instrumental.  It runs 3 minutes and is all minor-keys and creepy Exorcist-like choirs.  When the song breaks and the bizzaro Iommi riff is joined by the choir, you can’t help but wonder why no horror film has used this as its intro music.

“Am I Going Insane (Radio)” is a very catchy keyboardy track.  It clearly has crossover potential (although the lyrics are wonderfully bizarre).  But it ends with totally creepy laughing and then wailing.    “The Writ” ends the album. It’s another solid rocker and it ends with an acoustic coda with Ozzy’s plaintive vocals riding over the top.

Sabotage has some truly excellent moments.  It’s just hard to fathom the amount of prog-rock tendencies they’ve been throwing onto their last few discs (we’ll say Rick Wakeman had something to do with it).

Black Sabbath made two more albums before Ozzy left.  I haven’t listened to either one of them in probably fifteen years.  And my recollection of them is that they’re both pretty lousy.  Maybe one of these days I’ll see if they prove me wrong.

[READ: December 16, 2009] McSweeney’s #7

This was the first McSweeney’s edition that I didn’t buy new.  My subscription ran out after Issue #6 and I never saw #7  in the stores.  So, I recently had to resort to a used copy.

This issue came packaged with a cardboard cover, wrapped with a large elastic band.

Inside you get several small volumes each with its own story (this style hearkens back to McSweeney’s #4, but the presentation is quite different).  7 of the 9 booklets feature an artistic cover that relates to the story but is done by another artist (not sure if they were done FOR the story or not).  I have scanned all of the covers.  You can click on each one to see a larger picture.

The booklets range from 16 to 100 pages, but most are around 30 pages.  They are almost all fiction, except for the excerpt from William T. Vollman’s 3,500 page Rising Up and Rising Down and the essays that accompany the Allan Seager short story.

KEVIN BROCKMEIER-”The Ceiling” [cover by Eric White]
The basic plot of this story is quite simple: a large black square appears in the sky one day.  Slowly it sinks towards the earth, growing larger and larger.  Despite the somewhat Stephen King-like nature of the premise, the story is really all about how people live their lives: specifically, how one man’s family acts during this crisis.  I enjoyed the story quite a bit.

However, I was confused by the beginning.  The opening scene is at the son’s  birthday party.  There’s a lot of detail given, but it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the rest of the story.  It begins with the son telling a fictional tale about himself in a hot air balloon with the father noting, on a separate line: “This is a story.”

It seemed like this was all a set up for something special.  And I’m just not sure how that ties together with the rest of the story.  But I’m not too worried about it as I enjoyed the piece as a whole.

ANN CUMMINS-”Red Ant House” [cover by Tim Bower]
I really enjoyed Cummins’ story in McSweeney’s #6, so I was excited to read this one.  The red ant house is a house down the block that is infested with red ants.  A new family moves into the house and the daughter of that family immediately latches on to the narrator of the story, Leigh.  Leigh is one of 6 kids whose mother is pregnant again.

The new girl, Theresa Mooney, lives with a man who is not her father and a woman who is her mother.  The man seems to have families all over the place.  None of this is good news for Theresa Mooney, especially when Leigh and her siblings decide to point it out to her.  Despite her best intentions however, Leigh and Theresa become friendly, and their bonding is complete when they dare each other to do something risky.

This story didn’t blow me away as much as the previous one, but there was something oddly affecting about it.

A.M. HOMES-”Do Not Disturb” [cover by Melinda Beck]
This is a very prickly story.  It can easily be summed up by the exchange: “You knew I was a bitch before you married me, say something original.”  In the story, a man and his wife are quite obviously falling apart (as individuals and as a couple).  Before the evening’s events, the couple had yet another huge fight.  And he thinks, yet again, of leaving her.  But that night, during dinner, she becomes gravely ill.

Since she is a doctor, she is reluctant to go to the ER, but after several hours of agony, she relents.  She is diagnosed with cancer.  But this diagnosis, rather than softening her, as everyone suspects, just makes her more prickly, more demanding, even less compassionate.  But he can’t leave a cancer-riddled wife can he?  Even if she pushes him out?  This was a very dark story, but it was very powerful.  And, as with all of A.M. Homes work that I’ve read, it was very good.

MICHAEL CHABON-”The Return of the Amazing Cavalieri” [front & back covers by Chris Ware]
I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay when I read it a few years ago.  I was delighted to discover that this story (the cover art suggests it is an “Un-Told Tale of Kavalier and Clay”) was included here.  Sadly for me, I don’t remember too many details of the novel (it was like ten years ago, right?).  Happily for me, they are not relevant to this story.

This piece concerns Cavalieri himself.  He is walking to school with his nephew and the fear and dread he had during grammar school is rushing back at him.  Cavalieri’s nephew has promised his class that The Amazing Kavalier will perform some magic tricks (maybe even escape from a safe!) for Sharing Time.  Cavalieri susses up the class and decides that they are at the perfect age to be simply skeptical.  He grows more nervous as Sharing Time approaches.

He proceeds to perform his simple tricks, but when he suspects that the kids are not all that impressed, he attempts one grand feat.  I enjoyed this story immensely and it makes me want to re-read Kavalier and Clay (or at the very least Maps & Legends, which is sitting on my bedside right now).

The cover art by Chris Ware is, of course, fantastic.  The front cover is designed to look just like a comic book.  And the back cover is even more fun (in a sick and twisted way) as an ad for how much your life will suck if you have a baby.

HEIDI JULAVITS-”Little Little Big Man” [cover by Elizabeth Kairys]
This is, frankly, a bizarre story.  It involves a tiny man named Big who works for a rodeo.  And beyond that the story is full of what I can’t decide is fantasy, magical realism or just hallucinations.

Big becomes involved with a large woman who carries him over her shoulder (his face getting caught in her skirt ruffles as it bumps against her behind).  This part was very funny.

They become serious and settle down.  He grows unhappy and winds up spending a lot of his time climbing into her uterus to read the graffiti that her six children have written in there.

[Pause for people to digest that sentence].

So I’m not sure what to make of details like that.  There are questions of impotence, unfaithfulness and pseudo-bestiality.  And while I understand what happened plot-wise, arriving there was a very bizarre path.

J.T. LEROY-”Harold’s End” [cover by Sharon Leong]
Of course, now we know that J.T. Leroy is a fraud or a pseudonym depending on your opinion of the author’s stunt.  It makes it hard to read this for the first time without having the author’s reality impinging on the story.  I’m not sure if I would have been quite as cynical about the story if I didn’t know what I know about Leroy.  But I an inclined to think that I would have been at least suspicious of the details of the story anyhow.

The basic premise here is that a man approaches a group of kids on the street.  They are suspicious of him (is he a cop, a social worker, a john?), but when they see he is handing out free needles, they relent.  He singles out one boy and invites him back to his house, where they shoot heroin and hang out for an extended period of time.  A single event (that I will get to in a moment) happens which causes friction between them and the boy is asked to leave.

I was immediately suspicious of the story because the kids seem completely unreal.  I’m not even sure how old they are supposed to be.  They hang out on the curb but it’s unclear if they are trying to score drugs, if they are trying to score dates or what.  The only thing we know is that they all have pets (a rat, a pit bull and a boa constrictor)  hanging out with them.  And, the kids tell the man that all of their pets have pedigrees (in far more exacting detail than one might expect a kid to know).  The title of the story comes because the boy who the man brings home did not have a pet.  Along with the heroin, the man gives the boy a snail named Harold as a pet that he can take care of himself.

So, despite the fact that the man is in the role of chickenhawk for this young boy, nothing sexual ever happens between them, except for the event that causes the friction (which is wholly unexpected and really rather disgusting).  But it’s not even entirely apparent afterward why the man is upset (because it didn’t work? was he just embarrassed?).  The whole scene from start to finish seemed unbelievable.  Finally, as the story ends, we see the boy is too squeamish to clean out the snail’s poop, yet moments later he willingly dives into a dumpster (not to mention the disgusting scene above).  It just doesn’t add up.

The whole story rang false to me.  Maybe it was meant to be over the top; maybe it was meant to be surreally funny.  Maybe it was a hyperreal or fantasy look at kids on the street.  But I don’t think so.  It was just creepy.

COURTNEY ELDRIDGE-”The Former World Record Holder Settles Down” [cover by Katherine Streeter]
This is one of the longest stories that McSweeney’s has published.  It’s 75 pages.  And, what is so great about it is that it never feels like a long story.  And what’s even better is that the story goes through many twists and turns to end up in a sad but interesting place.

I loved the fact that the story begins by talking about the narrators’ husband.  And he is a bowling dork.  He loves bowling, he bowls all the time, and he has even gotten the narrator–a hipster New York woman who only thought of bowling ironically–to enjoy bowling.  As well as other sports, too.  He gets her to watch and enjoy baseball (and she develops a mad crush on Don Zimmer (!)).

But back to bowling.  Her husband, Joel, gets very mad at himself if he doesn’t bowl well.  And his mood stays dark for quite some time.

But.  He’s not the titular record holder.  The world record of the title comes as a complete shock (and I won’t reveal it).  But once we learn of the record, everything in the story changes (except they still love bowling).

As the story progresses, we learn more and more about the narrator and how much her father’s disappearance had affected her.  And how much she hates to talk about her past.  And how much she loves her husband for not pushing things about her past.  Until he does.  And then things comes to a head.

There’s so much going on in this story, and it all starts so simply as a bowling tale.   It was a great, great story.

WILLIAM T. VOLLMAN-”The Old Man:  A Case Study from Rising Up and Rising Down“
This is a 100-page excerpt from Vollman’s 3,500 page study of violence called Rising Up and Rising Down (which I will never read).  This excerpt is a case study, written in 1995 and concerns Muslim terrorists in Thailand.

The excerpt reads like a real-life version of Apocalypse Now.  Vollman is in Thailand trying to get an interview with The Old Man, the reputed head of PULO, the Pattani Unification Liberation Organization.  Vollman interviews (with his faithful translator D.) citizens of Thailand and Malaysia as well as political figures and former members of PULO.

The main problem I have with the excerpt is that the context is left out.  We never learn who D. is or how he met her.  And, we have no context for WHY he wants to do this.  He spends days and days negotiating with bureaucrats, thugs and taxi drivers only to ultimately end up right where he started from.  Is it all in aid of this book?  I’m not entirely sure.  I’m sure that the full text covers this, so it’s not really a compliant.  I just wish I had a little context  for this daunting piece.

As for the piece itself although it is a look at only one instance of violence, it is still fascinating to hear people involved in this organization (the quotes are direct in broken English, lending credence to the authenticity).  And it is fascinating to see the kind of security that this man, the head of a terrorist organization, has and yet doesn’t have (and the difficult in actually finding the man).  And to hear how much is hidden in plain sight about members of the organization is rather surprising.

No answers are forthcoming about the why’s of terrorism (maybe they are answered in the big book).  But Vollman is a dogged investigator and an excellent writer.  And although I don’t want to say I enjoyed the excerpt, I’m glad I read it.  (But I’m still not going to read the 3,500 page version).

ALLAN SEAGER-”This Town and Salamanca”
Seager is a once-revered writer whose work has largely gone out of print.  This booklet contains this short story as well as some commentary from others.  The three nonfiction essays attached add a lot of backstory, and certainly allow the reader to learn a lot more about his work and about Seager himself.

I didn’t think I would enjoy the story all that much.  They way it opened, I feared it was going to be a travelogue.  But as it progressed I found it really enjoyable and surprisingly deep.  The premise is that in his youth, John was a world traveler.  He built a boat and sailed to Cuba.  He joined the army to learn how to fly, and then he left the army and then he rejoined the army once again.  He learned to fence in Italy and France.  And then he returned from Salamanca to settle down in “this town.”

The story is really about the other residents of the town and how they more or less hung their hopes and dreams on his journeys, since none of them would ever leave the town.  They relish his stories when he returns and ask for as many details as they can get.  And his details are juicy and quite delightful.

But when he settles down in his home town, everyone is a little disappointed that their wanderer has stopped wandering.  It is a simple no-frills story, and was quite effective.

JOHN WARNER-”Allan Seager: An Introduction”
Warner provides a brief sketch of Seager’s life: his rise to fame as a short story writer (and the numerous places that have published his work: Esquire, The New Yorker, Playboy) and his eventual loss of recognition.  He also fills in details about his personal life (and health).

JOAN FRY-”Colorless in Limestone Caverns: a remembrance”
As a student, Fry set out to seduce Seager.  She was ultimately successful.  But their relationship proved to be a terrible hindrance to her creative writing (although she wound up being the impetus for one of Seager’s own stories).  She spent much of their time together trying to get away.  I actually found this true story to be slightly more compelling than Seager’s short story itself.

STEVEN CONNELLY-”Man is Born For Sorrow as the Sparks Fly Upwards: a remembrance”
Connelly was a student of Seager’s.  His essay here describes how autobiographical “This Town and Salamanca” is.  Seager also traveled the world and then settled down in his home town to write.  It also describes him as a wonderful teacher, who knew as much about James Joyce as anyone.  Seager was inspirational for Connelly as well as many other students.

~~

McSweeney’s #7 is another great collection of stories.  It was absolutely worth tracking it down.

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer June 2005 Music Issue CD (2005).

The second annual Believer CD ups the ante from the first by featuring all previously unreleased songs. And, just to put more of a twist on things, the artists were asked to do covers of songs that they have been listening to lately. There was only one song that I knew the original of (The Constantines’ track), so I can’t say a thing about how well the covers were covered.

This becomes something of a fun rarities mix CD. As with the previous one, there’s not a huge amount of diversity in the musicians, but given the target audience of The Believer, it all seems to make sense.

We get The Decemberists (actually Colin Meloy solo) covering Joanna Newsom (who I don’t know but whose song I liked quite a bit). The most interesting track to me was by a band called CocoRosie who I’m totally unfamiliar with. The song is recorded as if it they were using a 19th century recording machine. It sounds so far away and yet it feels modern at the same time. I have no idea what they normally sound like, but I’m certainly intrigued.

There’s a few parings that are practically predestined: The Mountain Goats cover The Silver Jews, The Shins cover The Postal Service and Devandra Banhart covers Antony & the Johnsons. There’s also a track from Wolf Parade, a band I have recently gotten into. Only two bands perform and are covered on the disc: Ida and The Constantines.

It’s an interesting assortment of songs. As with any cover, it’s hard to know if you would like the original artist or if you just enjoy the new artist’s’ interpretation. But a song like “Surprise, AZ” by Richard Buckner is so well written that I don’t think it matters what Cynthia G. Mason’s cover sounds like (which is quite good).

The disc is largely folky/alt-rock, but once again, it’s a good distillation of the genre, and a very enjoyable collection.  The track listing is available here.

[READ: December 10, 2009] “Kawabata”

This story had the (in my estimation) fascinating attribute of reading as if it were written a long time ago. The writing was very formal. It also centered around a man and a woman who meet at a bed and breakfast and do little more than walk around town. Since no real clues as to the time it is set are ever given, I could imagine them dressed in nearly turn of the (20th) century garb.

A few things do dispel this fantasy: the use of the word “tits” for one, and the fact that no married woman would have been seen out with a widower while her husband was away. But despite that, I enjoyed the formality of the story. I’m also not sure what the title means.

In a B&B, Bernard Crowe (who is in town on business) is introduced to Mrs Andrews. She is in town for her father’s funeral. The funeral plays a big part in the story. And it makes Bernard reflective about his wife’s funeral two long years ago.

Since not a lot happens, I’m going to spare any more details. Suffice it to say that these strangers have an impact on each others’ lives and then move on. It is the insight into Bernard’s mind that makes the story enjoyable.

There’s not a lot to this story, but I found its formality to be a very cool technique for showcasing grief.

SOUNDTRACK:  McSweeney’s #6 comes with a CD.

Most of the music on the CD is performed by They Might Be Giants (a rather perfect fit for McSweeney’s).  Some other musicians who appear are: M. Doughty, Philip Glass, Michael Meredith. Roger Greenawalt & S.E. Willis

Instructions included with book:

#3. The compact disc contains music.  There are 44 discrete pieces of music –”Tracks”–on this compact disc.  Each Track corresponds to a picture, series of pictures, or story–a Piece–in this journal.  When you are reading or looking at a certain Piece, we ask that you cue your compact disc to the corresponding Track on the disc.  The appropriate track number will appear prominently, usually under the title of each Piece.  Note: The track number will no appear on subsequent pages of the Piece.

#6. Please note that you may listen to Tracks without reading their Pieces and you may read Pieces without listening to their corresponding Tracks.  But this is not recommended.  You fucking bastard.

[READ: December 8, 2009] McSweeney’s #6

I’m finally getting back to reading some older McSweeney’s issues.  This was the final issue that I received from my initial subscription.  I distinctly remember being excited by the CD and maybe reading some of the book, but clearly never finishing it.

So yes, this issue comes with a CD.  The intro note explains that each Piece in the book has an accompanying  Track on the CD, and, you are to only listen to the Track that accompanies the Piece you are reading…never read a piece while listening to the wrong track.  Ever!  It explains that each Track has been created to be as long as it would take you to read each Piece.  But there are obviously many exceptions. The first story for instance is well over ten pages but the song is about 5 seconds long.  And, the Arthur Bradford Track is 8 minutes long when anyone could read the Piece much more quickly.

The bulk of the songs are by They Might Be Giants.  Anyone who knows TMBG knows you can’t summarize their work, and this book exercise is ideal for them: there are several pieces that are just a few second long.  But they also write some nice longer pieces as well.  And, of course, they are perfectly suited for mood music that works well with the writing.  Some of the songs have words which is a bit distracting while trying to read, but that’s okay.  I did try my best to follow the prescription about only listening to the appropriate song, but I admit to getting off pace from time to time. 

The notes also state that this was initially meant to be an all art issue.  They abandoned that premise, but there is still a lot of very cool art work in it. There are excerpts from artists’ works, there are drawings by non-artists, there’s even a full comic sketch from Chris Ware!

This is probably one of my favorite McSweeney’s thus far.  The music is great, the artwork is wonderful.  Some of the short stories are really really short (a page or two) and most of those are just okay, but they are made up for by some really strong ones (Zadie Smith).

BREYTEN-BREYTENBACH-”(Notes from the Middle World)”
Breytenbach is a South African writer. I’ve found his work to be hard to read (because of th content) in the past.  This piece I found doubly hard as it was very abstract (its about placelessness). The Middle World is meant to be the world in between realities.  I can’t say I got a lot of it, although I understood the gist.  This was apparently a speech, and I wonder if it would have worked better as one (with a handout).

KARL HAENDEL-various photos:
“Dollar for Dollar Invest in the Past,” “Oprah Helped Me Through This,” “It’s Getting Late”, “Mr. & Mrs. Nuclear,” “I Want It Faster Better Now,” “Grassroots Internet Revolution,” “Even My T-Shirt has a History,” “Lincoln, Washington,” “People Died Today,” “Be Kind and Gentle When You Have a Big Stick,” “Mona Lisa”
Haendel is an artist who (at least for these compositions) paints a few words onto white plywood and then photographs them in specific locations.  You can tell by the title list above a little of the intent behind them.  I enjoyed his pieces quite a bit.  Although they work more on a “huh” or perhaps a “yes!” level than as brilliant works of art.  The exception is Mona Lisa where the plywood has a print of Mona Lisa attached sideways to a car which is parked in front of an Art Gallery.

STEVE FEATHERSTONE-”The Garden of Eden”
A very short piece (one paragraph) about a man whose father is intending to build the Garden of Eden in his yard. Details are given, which are undermined by the story’s conclusion.  More of an exercise than a story, it’s hard to say much about it.

IAN FRAZIER-”Eulogy for Saul Steinberg”
This is a loving look at Saul Steinberg.  I didn’t know a thing about Steinberg before reading this, but I was charmed by the man and found this to be very enjoyable piece.
The song for this piece is John Linnel’s solo song “West Virginia.”

W. KOENIGSTEIN-”W. Koenigstein’s Colossal Outpouring: Affair Number Six”
With an Intro by Lawrence Weschler (more about him later).  Koenigstein created delightful landscapes with very simple line drawings.  This showcases several of the pictures from one notebook (And details his rather obsessive work).

SEAN WILSEY-”Marfa, Revisited”
This is a continuation of the Marfa saga that Wilsey wrote about in McSweeney’s #2.  Unlike that first piece, which was lengthy and packed with information, this Revisiting is a bit more fun. It is broken down into several small sections of examples of the quirky kinds of things that happen when you visit Marfa.  It is full of interesting characters, probably none of whom are unique to Marfa, but for whom Marfa was probably like a calling card.
The song for this piece was written and performed by Michael Meredith.

AMY SILLMAN-”Untitled”
A painting, part of a  35 foot long painting.  See samples of her work here.

ZADIE SMITH-”The Girl with Bangs”
This is the first Zadie Smith piece I’ve read since enjoying On Beauty.  It’s an older story (published after her forst novel), and I think it’s great.  The premise is that the narrator, a woman who usually dates men falls for a woman with spectacular bangs.  The narrator now understands what men go through when they’re rendered speechless by a beautiful woman.  It’s a funny and insightful piece and showed that Smith was a great writer, with an excellent grasp of emotions even then.  I fully intend to read the rest of her work, and this was a great impetus to find that first novel.

The story ends with a blank page that notes that Smith’s story used to be longer.

CANDY JERNIGAN-”Excerpt from 99 Blue Rocks”
Candy Jernigan  and her partner Philip Glass traveled to Nova Scotia.   He composed and she drew pictures of rocks.  Here’s a sample of many of these drawings.  And they are technically brilliant.  Most of them look like photographs.  But beyond that, the rocks also seems to have, if not personalities, then at least some kind of quality that makes them seem like more than “just rocks.”  It’s pretty amazing.
The music for this piece is written and performed by Philip Glass

ROY KESEY-”The Workshop”
This piece is a sort of fable about patience.  When a man is told to make an airplane out of a paperclip, he is perpetually sent back to work on it until it is done correctly.  The reaction to his success, and the conclusion of the piece are quite delightful.

GINA O’MARA-”After This, Everything Got Louder and No One Could be Heard”
This very short piece concerns the creation of a whale, out of the ether.  Something of a creation myth.  I’m just not that inspired by these shorter pieces.

ANN CUMMINS-”Billy by the Bay”
This is a funny/sad story about Billy.  Billy’s night has gone from awesome to terrible when he is publicly humiliated in from of the woman he was planning to hooking up with (she promised to feel his balls!).  Billy’s revenge is sweet but short-lived and is packed with adrenaline (and his large balls).
The accompanying song is Ann Cummins herself reciting the last six or seven paragraphs of the much longer story.  It’s fun to hear the author getting into her story.  Performed by Ann Cummins with S.E. Willis on piano.

WALKER EVANS-”The Deltiographs of Walker Evans”
A deltiograph is a picture postcard.  Walker Evans collected over 9,000 penny picture postcards.  They are preserved in a gallery.  Several are shown here and they are really quite neat.  They are either drawings or colored photographs from all over the country circa the early 20th century. There’s some really cool stuff here. I wish they were online for more thorough viewing.
The song is by Erika Kawalek with Roger Greenawalt on banjo.

BARRY BLITT-”Barry Blitt’s Vacation Postcards”
Blitt is an artist whose work is very familiar (he has done many New Yorker covers (including this week’s with President Obama and Santa Claus).  This is a collection of postcards that he designed and drew.  (He even includes the note inside the “place stamp here” box).  There’s a short interview with him which is also revealing.  I enjoying learning about his technique, and of course, the pictures themselves are great.

JOHN WARNER-”Tough Day for the Army: In the Beginning”
A weird little story that begins with he Army and ends with professional food photography.  I’m not entirely sure how they got from point A to point B.

LYDIA DAVIS-”Oral History with Hiccups”
This story was in Lydia Davis’ book Samuel Johnson is Indignant. I found this to be one of her lesser pieces, although it is mildly amusing.  There are graphic representations of hiccups in the story.

LAWRENCE WESCHLER-”Convergences: Gazing Out Toward: Kret/Friedrick/Diebenkorn”
Weschler’s Convergences book is pretty great.  This is another excerpt that was eventually put into the book. In this one he looks at several pictures of people gazing, whether at the viewer, at a sunset, or into the hazy distance. Weschler’s pieces are always fascinating.

CHRIS WARE-”Sketch for Little Lit:  A Very Sad Story About a Frog and A Banjo, Not at All Appropriate for Children”
Little Lit is a cool series of comic for kids.  This sketch was done for the inaugural edition.  However, if you know Chris Ware, you know that his stuff is not for children.  He somehow managed to rein this in and make it more kid friendly, but as it stands in this sketch, the piece is twisted (and quite funny).  The best thing about this piece here is that it shows Ware’s sketches.  So if you’ve ever wondered how he does his letters/figures, here’s a great chance to see them.  (It’s very cool).
The song is performed by M Doughty

SASKIA HAMILTON-”Robert Lowell’s Letters Containing Artwork”
This is a collection of poet Robert Lowell’s letters that contain art (he wrote a few when he was a kid, and then a few more much much later when his daughter was 13 or so).  His art is not very good, but as Hamilton argues, it was very expressive and revealed a lot about him.  It’s always fascinating to see an artist struggle (both before and after his success).

SAMANTHA HUNT-”Bathymetry”
A short piece about two sailors.  The American sailor mentions a mermaid but is lucky to be drawn away to his duty before the French sailor can regale him with a story of his own about a mermaid.  The mermaid story is pretty funny.

DAVE FORD-”Dave Ford’s Drawings by Trucks”
Dave Ford set up an art studio in he back of his big rig. It consisted of two liter bottles filled with fluid suspended from the top of the truck with pencils attached to the bottoms.  As he drove the truck the pencils would sketch out abstract “art.”  It’s fascinating, even if the art isn’t that inspirational.  But the picture of the bottles is pretty amazing.

MARK O’DONNELL-”Hard Truths”
Set up as a movie with stage directions, this piece is a series of clichés that attack each other in their attempt to get their messages across.

RICHARD ERIKSON-”Richard Erickson, Art Teacher Who Also Makes Art
Erikson’s art is fantastic.  The titles bring wonderful insight into the simple pictures (crumpled jeans are named “elephant”). Great stuff.”

ARTHUR BRADFORD-”Roslyn’s Dog”
The song for this track is Arthur Bradford reading the entire story.  Except…his ending is completely different in the audio versus the printed version.  It’s hard to know which to review.  The basic gist is that the narrator pet’s Rosyln’s dog which bites him.  In something reminiscent of a werewolf movie (although not scary), he gradually tuns into a dog himself. In the printed version, the dogs run off together; in the audio version, a major twist is thrown in.  I think I prefer the audio version, actually.

SHEILA HETI-”The Man from Out of Town”
This was a dark story which ended in a place that was surprisingly even more dark.

FRANZ SWANSON-”Slow”
This story is about an Indian named Slow, who will eventually grow up to be Sitting Bull.  It mostly involves Slow chasing Crow.  I wasn’t terribly inspired by this piece.

JUDY BUDNITZ-”Just Borrowing It for a Little While”
This was a fascinating story that left a lot to the imagination.  Two girls are driving, when something bad happens and they are sent to community service as hospital candy-stripers.  While there, they get into more (somewhat unintentional) mischief.  Although I’m not entirely sure what happened, I enjoyed reading it.

LAWRENCE WESCHLER-”Convergences: Girls in Their Turning: Richter/Vermeer/Velaszquez”
Another Convergence which relates back to the previous one.  This one is focused on girls turning away from the viewer.  The main painting is Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.  I like this stuff quite a bit.
The song contains vocal samples of Robin “Goldie” Goldwasser.

TOMMY WALLACH-”The Life of Doug”
This story follows Doug, a loner and a loser who needs a new blender.  While at the store, Jay convinces him to buy more things.  We then look at Jay’s life, and then at Sam (Jay’s boss)’s life and then at Sam’s wife’s life and on and on until we get back to Doug for a satisfying circle. This story was light and fun, and I enjoyed it quite a but.  Next.

MATT FAGAN-”Roller Coaster”
In this story a woman on a date tells her date about Fantasy Dates which were much better than this date.

“MARY GALLAGHER-A Brief Unrelated Companion Piece to ‘Roller Coaster’ Written Without Mr. Fagan’s Knowledge”
This story was tacked on at the end of “Roller Coaster.” It is two sentences about God and dignity.

AD REINHARDT-”Art in Art is Art-as Art (Art-as-art Dogma, Part III)”
This is a series of slogans or perhaps even a manifesto about what art is and is not.  I can’t say it was that inspiring, frankly.
The song is excerpted from Free Cooperation’s “Our Master’s Voice” recorded in Warsaw, 1985.

The book ends with Contributors notes, song notes and a reproduction of the hand written musical score for the Philip Glass piece.

The back cover features excerpted lyrics from the CD and a place for the CD itself.

As I said, I enjoyed this issue quite a lot.  The artwork (in full-color!) was great, and, of course, the music played  a nice accompaniment.

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-The Red Shoes (1993).

The Red Shoes is something of a disappointment. While I enjoyed The Sensual World, it was definitely moving in a more adult contemporary vein.  The Red Shoes proceeds even further in this direction.  Since Kate is getting older, it makes sense that her music would change as well.

But there are some really fun tracks on here as well.  And Kate’s initial experiments with world music (the Bulgarian Choir) has really expanded into a more global palette (the island feel of “Eat the Music,” for instance).

The first four songs of the disc are really great.  They show an amazing diversity.  The first single “Rubberband Girl” is quite fun and bouncey.  It has a rather silly middle section where she makes rubberband-like sounds.   “And So is Love” sounds like classic Kate, with some wonderful vocals.  “Eat the Music” is a crazy, up beat horn fueled island track (with wonderfully suggestive lyrics).  And  “Moments of Pleasure” is a delightfully romantic song.

However, beginning with “Song of Salomon” with its awkward chorus of “don’t want no bullshit, just want your sexuality” the album trails off a little bit.  The rest of the songs feel kind of hurried and unspecific; there’s nothing really grabby about them.  They’re not bad, but they’re not all that memorable.  In fact, “Constellation of the Heart” is one of those rare aspects of a Kate disc: a song that sounds really dated.

The one exception to this decline is “Top of the City,” a really nice ballad that features some classic Kate vocals.

Of the remainder, “Big Stripey Lie” has some cool sound effects and lots of weirdness floating around it (and I do quite like it) although it’s really not as substantial as her previous experimental pieces.

Probably the most controversial song on the disc is “Why Should I Love You?” a duet with Prince.  While the main chorus is pretty cool (and uncannily Prince-like) the rest of the track sounds (again) very dated.  The track also features the great comedian Lenny Henry on vocals.  However, since Henry is responsible for what may be the worst sitcom theme song ever in the history of music (it may actually make you want to not watch the rather funny Chef, it is so awful) his inclusion isn’t really all that wonderful.  The disc ends with “You’re the One” a weird (in a good way) track that features The Bulgarian Chorus again.  They seem to do a great job of keeping Kate’s songs focused, so the disc ends on a high note.

This disc is pretty soundly dismissed by even diehard Kate fans.  And it is definitely her least satisfying overall. But if you look deeper into the disc, there are some unfairly overlooked gems.

[READ: November 20, 2009] Symzonia

After reading Etidorhpa, I started looking around at other Hollow Earth books.  And thankfully, someone has done most of the work already. So, for an absurdly long list of Hollow Earth books, check out this link.  I was delighted to see that so many of them are quite short!

When I saw this book, and realized that it was about the world mentioned in “Symmes Hole” (from McSweeney’s) and that it was very likely written by Symmes himself (there is still debate, but it is convincing that he wrote it) I decided to check it out.

Sadly, this book was considerably duller than Etidorhpa.  It was 250 pages and the first 100 were details of his journey to the South Pole.  Which would be fine except that since the author is a sailor he gives excruciating details about not only sailing, but even shipbuilding (including how smart he was for making the ship as strong as he did,) and the directions of the wind and speculation about longitude and all that great seafaring stuff.  That’s not my thing, so I found it rather tedious.

He also talks about the detailed process of claiming the island that he lands on for the United States (the deed that he writes up and where he buries it!).

There’s even a near mutiny.  When they approach the South Pole, they lose all connection to their compass.  No one can figure out where they are except the captain (which actually seems like a flaw for the rest of the crew, but what do I know).  As such, no one can throw the captain overboard or they will be lost at sea.  Anyhow, this was probably the most exciting part of the book.

When they finally do get to the land at the South Pole, there is an opening in the earth which leads to the center world.  Although I can’t exactly tell how they sail into and out of this hole.  There’s a  diagram at the front of the book but it’s not terribly useful.

First they make landfall and create a superb structure (the Captain is clearly a fantastic builder) that allows them to camp in a frigid tundra and to hunt seal.  Well, actually half the crew hunt seal, the rest sail off to the paradise of the land inside the hole.

The ship sails on and the Captain meets the Symzonians.  Unlike in Editorhpa, in Symzonia, there doesn’t appear to be a world in the core of the earth.  Rather, the residents seem to live on the inside edge of the globe itself.

As in Editorhpa, the people inside are enlightened.  But if you imagined that the preachiness was pretty strong there, it’s twice as bad here.  The failings of people on the earth (or Externals) are pretty explicitly detailed.  Chapters are devoted (in more excruciating details) to the Internals’ form of government (including the various levels of government and how they are selected or excluded).  He compares it to the United States government (which has only been in existence for 50 years at this point!), and, of course, he find the U.S. version to be quite lacking.

They even have incredible energy production (vehicles that can go hundreds of miles an hour and stop on a dime), and the best tasting foods with no wasted energy, and everything else that is good and wonderful.  But they are also not interested in material finery: they have unlimited access to oysters, so they have pearls everywhere.  The captain asks for a handful and they give him some since the pearls have no value to them).  Of course, none of the details behind these amazing technological accomplishments are given, ostensibly because the externals couldn’t handle it.

The Internals are quite distrustful of the captain, and they keep him from returning to their land until he can learn their language.  So the ship stays moored until he learns their language and proves himself worthy of them.  In the meantime he gives them all of the literature on the ship (the Internals are, of course, much better at learning English than he is at learning their language).  And they are horrified when they read the fiction that the Captain brought, determining that Externals are basically greedy, selfish bastards bent on war and salves to their impulses.  And, they are likely descendants from the bad apples that they cast out of their Internal world years ago.  They deem him unworthy of staying in their land, and send him on his way.

The captain feels bad that he is not as pure and good as the Internals.  But, mostly he is sad because he was hoping to make a killing on his exploration and all his information (and pearls!) and book deals and everything else.  Which (doh!) goes to show that he ISN’T enlightened, just like they said.

He leaves the center of the earth to go back to the island where the other half of his crew has been hanging out for several months slaughtering seals.  He’s able to load up (and I kid you not) 100,000 seal pelts.  Good grief.

When he returns home he entrusts the wrong man with his massive monetary gain for the seal pelts, and he hits financial trouble, which is what inspired him to write this book.  So it’s kind of meta- in an 1820’s sort of way.

I gave away a lot of the story, but there’s not a lot of story there.  Further, the Table of Contents summarizes each chapter which basically gives away everything that happens.  And if I didn’t mention these parts there wouldn’t be much interesting story left.  Although that’s not entirely true, the plot isn’t really the point of the book.  It is really an opportunity for the author to air his grievances with the fledgling U.S. and point out all of the country’s failings.

Like Etidorhpa, this book was clearly written as a kind of proof that this internal world exists.  Hence all of the matter of fact (and dull) technical aspects of the story.  It also explains the ToC giving everything away, almost like a textbook.  The strangest thing for me though is that the author clearly had an amazing imagination to come up with this, but he seemed to lack the imagination to make the story more compelling.

A lot of this Hollow Earth work is preachy, and I hope that future stories prove more entertaining.

Many many years ago, I discovered Might magazine.  It was a funny, silly magazine that spoofed everything (but had a serious backbone, too).  (You can order back issues here).  And so, I subscribed around issue 13.  When the magazine folded (with issue 16–and you can read a little bit about that in the intro to Shiny Adidas Track Suits) it somehow morphed into McSweeney’s, and much of the creative team behind Might went with them.

The early volumes (1-5 are reviewed in these pages, and the rest will come one of these days) are a more literary enterprise than Might was.  There’s still a lot of the same humor (and a lot of silliness), but there are also lengthy non-fiction pieces.  The big difference is that McSweeney’s was bound as a softcover book rather than as a magazine. And, I guess technically it is called Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern as opposed to Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Issue #6 came with a CD of music by They Might Be Giants.  And from then on it was anybody’s guess what the next issue would look like.  (This Wikipedia page provides a nice summary of all of the issues that have been published, including authors).

The latest issue (#33) is being printed as a newspaper (just to give an idea of the diversity of product here).

The books (for most of them are books, despite the above newspaper) come out occasionally.  I gather it was supposed to be a quarterly, but I don’t know that they’ve ever really kept a schedule. Many of the books are hardcover (beautifully bound).  Some have been paperbacks.  Occasionally they come in a fancy packaging (boxes, slipcases etc). You never know what you’re going to get, which is a lot of the fun.

Although you do know that you’re going to get quality short stories.  The list of fantastic (and well-known) authors grows and grows. (Just a few: Michael Chabon, Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, George Saunders, Roddy Doyle, A.M. Homes, and Joyce Carol Oates.)  And mixed in with them are less well known (ie. more indie) authors, as well as occasional unknowns.  And even if I don’t love every story, I know that they’ll all be worth a read.

McSweeney’s itself has grown from a publisher of this quarterly to include an empire that publishes books (their book of the month club is the way to go), an official periodical (The Believer), and a video magazine (Wholphin).

I am probably a little too steeped in McSweeney’s-world, but I’ve never been disappointed with a release of theirs (okay, that’s not true, they have published a few clunkers).  I’m always excited to get the box with the little chair as the return address.

And, of course, I began a Wikipedia page of all of the McSweeney’s Books. I’m delighted to see that folks have been adding to it!

Original mention in Periodicals Page:

McSweeney’s. Technically a periodical. A collection of short stories and things like it. I’m usually too overwhelmed by the time this comes in, and frankly, I am many many issues behind on reading this. However, I plowed through 21 and 22 recently, and just got 23. So, I’m looking forward to it and its brethren. I got turned onto McSweeney’s because I used to subscribe to MIGHT magazine (R.I.P) which was a hilarious magazine ala Spy (R.I.P). Might ran for a dozen or so issues and then strangely morphed into McSweeney’s. I think somehow my subscription ran over into McSweeney’s and the rest is 23 issues of fun!

SOUNDTRACK: ONE RING ZERO-As Smart as We Are (2004).

I had this CD sitting around my house for about 4 years.  I had received it as a promo disc from Soft Skull Press (along with several other books on CD) and I just never put it on.  Then one day I was going through all these promos to see if any were books I wanted to listen to.  It was then that I actually read the disc label and saw that it was a band with lyrics written by some of my favorite authors.

I liked the disc so much I wound up buying it because the packaging is truly cool.  It’s a little booklet and it features an interview with the band and some really cool insights into how the songs came about, how they got the writers to submit lyrics, and the cool fact that One Ring Zero became McSweeney’s house band, accompanying writers during their weekly readings.

One Ring Zero is comprised of two guys (and guests).  And for this disc they split the tracks in half and one of them wrote melodies for 8 songs and the other guy wrote melodies for the other 8.  I’m not sure that I could tell the song writers apart by their styles, though.

But sure, the lyrics are probably great, but what does the band sound like?  Well, in the introduction, they are described as specializing “in the sort of 19th century, gypsy-klezmer, circus-flea-cartoon music you mainly hear in your dreams.” And, yep, that is a good summary of things.  The band uses water pipes, claviola, slide whistle and a theremin (among other homemade instruments).

And so, as with other McSweeney’s things, I’m going to list all of the lyricists with their titles.  But lyrically it’s an interesting concoction.  The authors were asked to write lyrics, but not necessarily songs.  So some pieces don’t have choruses.  Some pieces are just silly, and some pieces work quite nicely.  But most of them are really poems (and I can’t really review poems).  They’re fun to read, and it is fun to see what these authors made of this assignment.

PAUL AUSTER-”Natty Man Blues”
A rollicking opening that lopes around with the nonsensical lyrics, “There ain’t no sin in Cincinnati.” This one feels like a twisted Western.

DANIEL HANDLER-”Radio”
A supremely catchy (and rather vulgar) song that gets stuck in my head for days.  “Fucking good, fucking good, fucking good…”

DARIN STRAUSS-”We Both Have a Feeling That You Still Want Me”
A Dark and somewhat disturbing song that is also quite fun.

RICK MOODY-”Kiss Me, You Brat”
A delicate twinkly piece sung byguest vocalist Allysa Lamb *the first female vocalist to appear) .  Once the chorus breaks in, it has an almost carnivalesque tone to it.  This is the only song whose lyrics were written after the music.

LAWRENCE KRAUSER-”Deposition Disposition”
A twisted song that works as a call and response with delightful theremin sounds.  It has a very noir feel.

CLAY McLEOD CHAPMAN-”Half and Half”
This is a sort of comic torchy ballad.  Lyrically, it’ a bout being a hermaphrodite (and it’s dirty too).  Vocals by Hanna Cheek.

DAVE EGGERS-”The Ghost of Rita Gonzalo”
This has a sort of Beach Boys-y folky sound (albeit totally underproduced).  But that theremin is certainly back.

MARGARET ATWOOD-”Frankenstein Monster Song”
This song begins simply with some keyboard notes but it breaks into a very creepy middle section.  It’s fun to think of Margaret Atwood working on this piece.

AARON NAPARSTEX-”Honku”
This song’s only about 20 seconds long.  It is one of a series of haikus about cars, hence honku.

DENIS JOHNSON-”Blessing”
The most folk-sounding of all the tracks (acoustic guitar & tambourine).  It reminds me of Negativland, somehow.  It is also either religious or blasphemous.  I can’t quite be sure which.

NEIL GAIMAN-”On the Wall”
A tender piano ballad.  The chorus gets more sinister, although it retains that simple ballad feel throughout.  It’s probably the least catchy of all the songs.  But lyrically it’s quite sharp.

AMY FUSSELMAN-”All About House Plants”
An absurdist accordion-driven march.  This is probably the most TMBG-like of the bunch (especially when the background vocals kick in).

MYLA GOLDBERG-”Golem”
This song opens (appropriately) with a very Jewish-sounding vibe (especially the clarinet).  But once that intro is over, the song turns into a sinister, spare piece.

A.M. HOMES-”Snow”
This song opens as a sort of indie guitar rock song.  It slowly builds, but just as it reached a full sound, it quickly ends.  The song’s lyrics totally about twenty words.

BEN GREENMAN-”Nothing Else is Happening”
This song has more of that sinister carnivalesque feel to it (especially when the spooky background vocals and the accordion kick in).  The epilogue of a sample from a carnival ride doesn’t hurt either.

JONATHAN AMES-”The Story of the Hairy Call”
This song has a great lo-fi guitar sound (accented with what sounds like who knows what: an electronic thumb piano?).  It rages with a crazily catchy chorus, especially given the raging absurdity of the lyrics.

JONATHAN LETHEM-”Water”
This track is especially interesting. The two writers each wrote melodies for these lyrics.  So, rather than picking one, they simply merged them. It sounds schizophrenic, but is really quite wonderful.  The two melodies sound nothing alike, yet the work together quite well.

[READ: Some time in 2004 & Summer 2009] Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans

This was the first collection of McSweeney’s humorous stories/pieces/lists whatever you call them.  Some of the pieces came from McSweeney’s issues, but most of them came from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

The humor spans a great deal of categories, there’s some literary, some absurd, some nonsensical and, most amusingly, lists.  The back of the book has an entire selection of lists, but there are also some scattered throughout the book as well (I don’t know what criteria was used to allow some lists to be in the “main” part).

As with the other McSweeney’s collections, I’m only writing a line or two about each piece.  For the lists, I’m including a representative sample (not necessarily the best one, though!)

Overall, I enjoyed the book quite a lot (which is why I re-read it this year).  There are puns, there are twisted takes on pop culture, there are literary amusements (Ezra Pound features prominently, which seems odd).  It spans the spectrum of humor.  You may not like every piece, but there’s bound to be many things that make you laugh.

TIM CARVELL-”A Brief Parody of a Talk Show That Falls Apart about Halfway Through”
Many times, the titles tells you the whole story.  This is one of those cases.  It’s not the strongest piece, and seems like an odd one to open with.

KURT LUCHS-”The Spirit of Christmas”
This hilarious piece shows the dark side of charities asking, begging then threatening for money.

STUART WADE-”The Briefing: A Play in One Act”
A fantastic example of a press conference in which nothing is revealed (reminds one of presidential press secretaries).

J.M. TYREE-”On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor”
Hilarious pseudo-academic look at how the Death Star’s Trash Compactor could not work within the laws of physics.

JEFF JOHNSON-”Preview of Summer Camps”
Sample brochures from summer camps!

ANDY RATHBUN-”Comments Written on Evaluation of My Speech on Needle-Exchange Programs”
A brief one-note joke, that is pretty funny.

BRODIE H. BROCKIE & R.J. WHITE-”The Newest from Jokeland”
Undermining a lot of “classic” jokes (bar joke, polish joke, farmer’s daughter joke).

ARTHUR BRADFORD-”Excerpts from My Speech on Forest-Fire Prevention”
He’s a very impassioned young man.

JOHN MOE-”As A Porn Movie Titler, I May Lack Promise”
ie., O Brother, Where Art Thou Doing It?

BRIAN KENNEDY-”I Know What You Did Two Moons Ago (The Revenge)”
Reviewed here.  From McSweeney’s #2

STEPHANY AULENBACK-”Words That Would Make Nice Names for Babies If It Weren’t for Their Unsuitable Meanings”
ie., Uvula.

T.G. GIBBON-”Reviews of My Daydreams”
With titles and evaluations.

JASON ROEDER-”Insomniacs! I Bring Words of Hope and Wisdom”
More wisdom than hope.

GREG PURCELL-”The Ten Worst Films of All Time, as Reviewed by Ezra Pound over Italian Radio”
It’s all filthy!  I don’t know Pound that well, so this one is lost on me.

CHRISTOPHER MONKS-”Group Mobilization as a Desperate Cry for Help”
A hilarious send up of flash mobs (remember those).  This one designed with the sole purpose of revenge on a girlfriend. Very funny.

JOHN HODGMAN-”Fire: The Next Sharp Stick”
Reviewed here. From McSweeney’s #2

JOSHUA WATSON-”Not Very Scary Movies”
ie., Friday the 11th.

ALYSIA GREY PAINTER-”Candle Party”
A very detailed candle party at that.

TOM RUPRECHT-”It’s Not Actually a Small World”
Several examples of people meeting non-coincidentally.

JEFF ALEXANDER & TOM BISSELL-”Unused Audio Commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, Recorded Summer 2002, for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD (Platinum Series Extended Edition), Part One”
Lengthy and humorous political comments about TLOTR.

JOHN MOE-”Canceled Regional Morning TV Shows”
ie., Shame on You, Denver! (one of the longer lists in the book).

GREG PURCELL-”A Letter from Ezra Pound to Billy Wilder, 1963″
Sarcastic and nasty.

KEITH PILLE-”Journal of a New COBRA Recruit”
Hope you know your G.I. Joe.

JOHN HODGMAN-”A Logic Puzzle and Hangover Cure”
Funny plays on math word problems.

MICHAEL IAN BLACK-”Some People Don’t Like Celebrities”
Online insults directed at M.I.B.

R.J. WHITE-”Tips from Jokes and How to Tell Them, Published in 1963″
I’m not sure that the date is relevant, they’re just cliched bits (but funny in this context).

JAKE SWEARINGEN-”How Important Moments in My Life Would Have Been Different If I Was Shot in the Stomach”
Birth, First Day of School, etc.

JIM STALLARD-”No Justice, No Foul”
One of my favorite McSweeney’s pieces.  Reviewed here. From McSweeney’s #2.

T.G. GIBBON-”Actual Academic Journals Which Could Be Broadway Shows If They Had Exclamation Points Added!”
ie., Zygote!

CHRIS BACHELDER-”My Beard, Reviewed”
Various people chime in on its quality.

STEPHANY AULENBACK & SEAN CARMAN-”The Name Game”
You’ve done Porn Star name?  What about Witness Protection Program Name?

PETER FERLAND-”Circumstances Under Which I Would Have Sex with Some of My Fellow Jurors”
ie., #6: You notice me.  The rest are longer and quite funny.

ARTHUR BRADFORD-”The Bet”
Details the bet that he can make Fred throw up by punching him in the stomach.

TIM CARVELL-”The Dance Lesson”
Step #15:  I’m sorry I didn’t mean to laugh.

MARK O’DONNELL-”Attack of the Fabulons!”
Reviewed here.  From McSweeney’s #1.

KEVIN SHAY-”Pirate Riddles for Sophisticates”
Whom did the pirate vote for in the Haitian election? ARRRistide

TODD PRUZAN-”A Short Fictional Passage Entitled ‘Drift Nets’ in Which Several Enterprising Characters Troll the High Seas, Exploring Abandoned Trade Vessels for ‘Pirated’ Goods, and Learn to Cope with Distinct Personalities in a Close-Knit, High-Stress Environment”
Reviewed here.  From McSweeney’s #1.

DAN KENNEDY-”Ineffective Lines Deleted from Final Revisions of Violent Box-Office Hits”
Hilariously bad lines that a bad guy might say.

ZEV BOROW-”A Graceland for Adolf”
Reviewed here.  From McSweeney’s #2.

NEAL POLLOCK-”Trinity”
These stories are part of the Neal Pollack Anthology if American Literature.

SEAN CONDON-”Pop Quiz”
Answering the rhetorical questions that pop songs ask.  Like, “Are You Experienced?”

JEFF JOHNSON-”Bad Names for Professional Wrestlers”
ie., El Wusso!

DAN KENNEDY-”Evidently, It was Live Then”
A look back, with the writers who were there, at the difficulties of live TV, because, you know, there isn’t any now.

PAUL TULLIS-”Upcoming Titles from Gavin Menzies, Author of 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America“
Not just a list, there are summaries of books like: 1939: The Year Brazil Landed on the Moon

ROSS BARNES-”Good Westerns, Not Porn”
ie., Between Men

KEVIN GUILFOILE-”Norse Legends Reference Page”
Separate Norse faktum from fiksjon.  An odd concept, but very funny.

JIM STALLARD-”Goofus, Gallant, Rashomon”
Looking at Goofus and Gallant from different perspectives. “That freak belonged to the cult of manners.”  Also in The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes.

TIM BLAIR-”Not-Good Titles for Romantic Films”
ie., The Horse Renderer

BEN GREENMAN-”Black, Gray, Green, Red, Blue: A Letter from a Famous Painter on the Moon”
Letters to his beloved as he goes batty.

LISTS
Some of the funniest things in the books are the lists, so here’s a few more.

JOHN MOE-”Possible Follow-Up Songs for One-Hit Wonders”
ie., “Bust an Additional Move”

DANIEL ARCHER, PETER McGRATH, JENNY TRAIG-”Thirty Good Names for a Dance Troupe Including Five That Are Already Taken By Actual Dance Troupes, and Two That Are Taken By Cheeses”
ie., Jazzturbation

PETER WARD BROWN-”Ways This One Project Manager Replies to My Replies to Her E-mailed Questions About Documentation”
ie., Thanks.

JIM BEHRLE-”First Lines to Books I Won’t Write”
ie., Michael Kindness slept.

JEFF HURLOCK-”Things NYC Cab Drivers Yelled at Me While I Crossed the Street”
ie., Move it, you hump

SEAN CARMAN-”Lessons Learned from My Study of Literature”
ie., Children have the capacity to both frighten and delight

BRIAN McMULLEN-”All of Chewbacca’s Dialogue in the Comic Book Version of The Empire Strikes Back“
ie., Waark!

AMY L. STENDER-”Capitalized Words and Phrases Appearing in The Official Sea-Monkey Handbook”
ie., HAPPEN

JIM RULAND-”Bad Names for Boats”
ie., Sea Pinto

BLAKE WIRTH-”Actual User Comments in the “Fat Cats” Photo Gallery at Cutecats.com”
ie., I have seen fatter.

ELIZABETH BUTLER-”Ineffective Ways to Subdue a Jaguar”
ie., Hit him with a sock of pennies

JOHN MOE-”Music Industry Trends Not Yet Overexposed”
ie., Trance tuba

And Many many more.  If your list didn’t make my list, let me know and I’ll add you.  I’m just too tired to type any more of the 40 or so that are left.

ALTERNATE TITLES PROPOSED FOR THIS BOOK
Yet another (and the final) list.
ie., A Child’s Garden of McSweeney’s Erotica

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Tindersticks [the red one] (1993).

Tindersticks are a fascinating band.  The first distinctive thing about them is Stuart Staples’ voice: a deep rich bass that he uses almost like a whisper.  The second thing you notice is the music.  It’s an orchestral/chamber pop collection of dark rockers with fantastic moodiness to it.  And then you notice the lyrics: dark songs of lost (and decayed) love.

Yet despite the description of chamber pop, the nad is really much darker than chamber pop suggests.  The band has a very noir sound: organs that penetrate through walls of sound, tinkling pianos suring hushed moments.  The horns and strings add dark atmospherics (strings zing like a Hitchcock movie).  And the minor key chords are rich and loud.

You also get a song like “Whisky and Water” which genuinely rocks hard (loud guitars are featured).  Or a simple acoustic guitar driven song like “Blood.”  Throughout the disk you get these fantastic melodies that play off of Staples’ voice and the twisted lyrics.  “City Sickness” and “Patchwork” are just two of the tracks that are very catchy.

And then there’s the fantastic “Jism” with its awesome noir organ.  Or “Raindrops” with its accents of vibes and the beautiful piano trilling at the end (and the detailed and emotional lyrics: What we got here is a lazy love / It mooches around the house / Can’t wait to go out / What it needs, it just grabs / It never asks / We sit and watch the divide widen / We sit and listen to our hearts crumble”).  “Her” follows up with a wonderfully flamenco-infused spaghetti western number.

And lets not forget “Drunk Tank” a propulsive song that is as sinister as it is catchy.  Oh heck, I could just keep raving.  But there’s 22 songs!   Four songs are about a minute each, and the disc is about 75 minutes (not bad for a debut!).  And the disc never loses momentum or its sense of purpose.

What really distinguishes this disk is the mood of the music.  Like the best soundtracks, you can feel the emotions and imagery with the music alone, but when you add Staples’ evocative lyrics and powerful voice, it’s a deadly potent combination.

The disc was reissued a few years ago with a bonus disc of demo tracks.  The demos are surprisingly rich (they’re not at-home recordings or done without accompaniment) so they don’t differ that dramatically from the originals.  But they have a slightly less polished feel, which doesn’t hurt the band at all. There’s also a demo of the fantastic “For Those…” which doesn’t appear on the original disc.

I have to thank my friend Lar for getting me into this band. (Thanks Lar).

[READ: October 19, 2009] McSweeney’s #32

The concept for this issue is this: McSweeney’s asked several authors to “travel somewhere in the world–Budapest, Cape Town, Houston, any sleepy or sleepless outpost they could find–and send back a story set in that spot fifteen years from now, in the year 2024.”

And so, all of the stories are vaguely sci-fi-ish in that they are future related, but they are all grounded very heavily in reality, in particular, the reality of individuals trying to live in this future world.

ANTHONY DOERR-”Memory Wall”
This is the longest story in the collection.  And I thought to myself, I don’t think I care all that much about an old white woman in South Africa.  But I have to say, I was utterly engaged by this story.  It was fantastic.  The premise is that in the future, you are able to retrieve and then store your memories on little cards.  You can then re-watch them at any time.  Obviously a black market in other people’s memories quickly develops.

The story features an old woman who is slowly losing her memory.  She uses these memory card treatments to try to retain any sense of her life with her now-deceased husband.  Her husband happened upon a fantastic discovery just before he died.  She doesn’t care about this, she just wants to remember their life.  But when word of his discovery leaks out (the discovery was pretty monumental, and rumors about it spread quickly), an opportunist tries to piece together this discovery by watching her old memories.

What is so cool about this story is that with memories floating in different people’s heads, the story is able to follow different characters around the story.  The old woman , the young opportunist, even the older black man who was her servant (and the man’s son) all have their lives in the spotlight.  And as we get each of their perspectives, the story grows in depth.

The ending scene features generosity from an unexpected source which is unabashedly touching.  This was a truly wonderful story.

WELLS TOWER-”Raw Water”
This story is set in the American desert.  And it offers a water solution that seems like a good idea and a plausible solution.  Pipe water from the  Pacific ocean into a newly created lake in the desert.  This provides a body of water to build towns around; when some of the water evaporates, the clouds will rain the evaporated water onto the dry land.  It’s a great idea.

Except when it doesn’t work.  As it doesn’t here.

Rodney and Cora are traveling across country from Boston to this desert so that Cora can photograph the lake.  The lake is now bright red (because of the plankton and other organisms that thrive in this water body).  The new landscape has a complicated effect on Rodney and Cora, where this vast expanse gets Rodney a little stir crazy.

I enjoyed this story a lot (Wells Tower is becoming a favorite short story writer of mine).  The ending section of the story got a little creepy, and so the story wound up gong in a direction I did not expect, but it was not altogether implausible.  I admit that I missed Cora in the last few pages, which I think is a bit of a flaw, and yet overall the story was very satisfying.

CHRIS BACHELDER-”Eighth Wonder”
This story is set in, I think, Houston (lots of references to Sam Houston, so I assume that’s the locale).  It is set in (what I assume is) the Astrodome.  At any rate, it is set in a dome.  The city has flooded and people are taking refuge there.  People are trying their best to make do with what they have.  But one man, who has been reading the fliers about the dome, decides to make things better.  This is a story of the human spirit and it was quite moving.  Despite the obvious sadness (and parallels to Hurricane Katrina), it was still uplifting.

CHRIS ADRIAN-”The Black Square”
A black square has appeared on Nantucket Island.  If anything enters the square, it never comes back.  And so, people are choosing it as a way to end their current life.  (No one knows for certain what happens when they go into the Square, so they aren’t necessarily committing suicide).  Henry (and his former lover’s dog, Hobart) travel to Nantucket (where he grew up).  Henry is planning to enter the square (there’s a back up plan for Hobart, yes).

But what happens when he meets an interesting, warm and sweet man there?  Can he really get over his former lover?  This was another really strong story.  It begins with you, the reader, not liking Henry, (he has ceased caring about niceties and is awfully rude to a number of people) but as the story progresses, he grows stronger, more complicated and very sympathetic.  A great piece.

J. ERIN SWEENEY-”Oblast”
This story conflates two interesting ideas into one story.  The first is that humanity is being contaminated by a seal virus.  This has naturally led to a wholesale slaughter of seals everywhere (especially of those in captivity).  To protect the seals, organizations have been transporting them out of aquaria and into the open sea where at least they stand a chance (however slim) of survival.

The other story concerns two boys.  Their father has recently become the brutal dictator of a newly formed country, Karabakh.  And the boys have fled to the States.  The boys’ immigration status is in question, but if they are sent back to their homeland, they will surely be killed.  The boys, like the seals, must be sent to a neutral location, where they may or may not survive.  Each boy is different, so the conflict between them only complicates their situation.  And putting them both in a confined space (with seals who may have a virus) has really exacerbated the troubles.

I didn’t know if I’d like this one when it started (there’s a lot of naval/sea talk, which is not my thing), but it proved to be a really great story.

SHEILA HETI-”There is No Time in Waterloo”
This piece is set in Waterloo.  (Although which Waterloo, I don’t know).  As of 2024, Blackberry has created The Mother of all Blackberrys which can essentially predict not your future, but your destiny.  And so everyone consults their Mothers all the time to see what they should do.  There were some interesting things going on here (especially when one of the girls breaks her Mothers and is effectively ostracized) but I couldn’t get emotionally involved in the story.

HEIDI JULAVITS-”Material Proof of the Failure of Everything”
This story is set in Hungary after the collapse of their economy.  Because Hungary had been loaned money from German banks, it transpires that a German banker effectively owns the country.  In a shady deal, he “sold” the country to a rather questionable individual, known as the Visla.  The Visla has decreed that Hungary made the wrong choice in 1989 and so he has insisted that the entire country, buildings and all, be returned to the state they were in, in 1989. This is the Deszecesszionist movement.

The protagonist of the story, Gyula is a spy for Bela (who works for the Visla).  And essentially Gyula’s job consists of listening to people in a particular hotel (whether they are guilty or not) because they have to eavesdrop on someone.  But what happens when Bela is no longer around?  How will Gyula find work?

I loved the tortured and hilarious prose that Juvalits used in this story (especially as it opens).  The turns of phrase were just slightly off, and they made the story very memorable.  It also made you have to slow down a bit to fully read the words.  Very enjoyable (and very twisted as the story reaches it end).

JIM SHEPARD-”The Netherlands Lives with Water”
Yes, this story is about flooding in the Netherlands.  The narrator  is a geologist (or some future variant of a geologist) who knows that the Netherlands is doomed.  His wife, Cato, is a media liaison whose job is to paint a happy face on the eventual doomedness of the Netherlands.  This is definitely the least hopeful story of the bunch.

It begins as rather clinical and somewhat technical, but by the end the emotions come through.  But what makes the story really compelling is the interpersonal dynamics of the main characters.  He is, basically, emotionally stunted when it comes to talking to his wife.  And watching them fight about this, yet stay close because of all of the chaos, keeps the story centered amidst the storm.

SALVADOR PLASCENCIA-”The Enduring Nature of the Bromidic”
This story covers a lot of ground, although it doesn’t appear to be set in the future.  The story focuses on Gonzalo who is studying geology but whose grant keeps getting denied because the government believes he is making too much money.  His wife Cheli is also an academic, and she is writing a paper about the enduring nature of the bromidic, and since her area of focus is television, she sums up her thesis: everyone loves reruns.

There is also a lot of discussion about the reintegration of English into California (which I guess shows that it is set in the future).

But the story really centers around this family’s attempts to thrive against the difficulties of paperwork and the social security administration.  There was even a little bit of fun with bureaucracy as the story ended.  I found the story a little difficult to follow in the beginning (I wasn’t always clear who was who, especially since names are changed on purpose) but it was definitely enjoyable by the end.

But the thing I enjoyed most about this story was saying the authors name: PlahSENceeahhh.

SESSHU FOSTER-”Sky City”
This story had such a great concept: the chaotic winds and storms in future L.A. have pulled people and cars and all manner of things into what they are calling a sky city.  Many people don’t think it exists (but how else to explain cars falling from the sky?)

Two people are going to try and fly to it.  In a homemade zeppelin.  And the set-up of the story is that their entire conversation is being broadcast over pirate radio station.

The only problem I had with the story is that the two characters in the zeppelin really aren’t very interesting.  One (the guy who makes the zeppelins) is an anarchist, the other (the woman who is learning to fly it and who has the radio transmitter) is a communist who sells communist newspapers on the street corner.  Both characters are strident and unflinching in their devotion to opposing society.  But the state of society is such that there doesn’t seem to be much left to overthrow.  Much of the beginning of the story is spent with the two characters arguing back and forth about ideology and his ex-girlfriend.

I just wanted to hear more about Sky City.

There was a lot of cool stuff about the zeppelin (and about how abandoned malls allowed him to build it in secret).  There was also some cool descriptions of flying silently over a sleeping city.  Ultimately, the payoff was rewarding, although, really, I would have liked to have seen more.

–

So overall this was another enjoyable issue.  The artificial constraint on the stories led to some interesting concepts that probably wouldn’t have come out otherwise.  But despite the constraint, the authors chose to focus on the lives of the people, rather than just future events.  And so, the stories are intriguing as well as engaging.  And you can’t ask for much more than that.