I recently received an e-mail from a nice person at Prospect (a British magazine).  The email asked if I’d like to review their magazine.  After being completely flattered, I said, “Of course!”  And then I waited nervously hoping that the magazine was good and that I wouldn’t have to say anything mean about it, because I would.  Oh yes, I would.

But I don’t have to. They grabbed me right off the bat because the c & the t in the title are connected by a little filigree doodad.   I love typography, so that little flourish was a selling point (okay a superficial one, but I liked it immediately).

The “subtitle” of the magazine is “Good Writing About Things That Matter” and it is a totally apt description.  Prospect is a monthly magazine that covers all aspects of society: British, European, American and the world.  And, indeed, the writing is quite good.

In many ways it reminded me of The Walrus, a favorite magazine of mine.  (It’s a weird comparison since The Walrus has only been around for a few years, while Prospect has been around for about 13 (the November issue is number 164, so I’m guessing here), but it’s an apt comparison for its coverage: politics, culture, arts and more.

Because this was a new (to me)  magazine (and because I knew I’d be reviewing it), I decided to read every article.  There were a few that I thought I wouldn’t care much about.  But the writing totally grabbed me.  For instance, the article about Princess Diana (about whom I am indifferent) was fantastic.  It was cynical and funny and totally engaging.  And the same was true for just about every article in the magazine.

Normally I like to have at least two issues to refer to when reviewing.  So there may very well be things about this issue that are different from the others.  So, forgive, please, if I generalize incorrectly.

The first thing I wanted to mention was advertising.  In the magazines I read, I pretty much completely ignore the ads.  I see a picture of a car and I flip the page.  But in a new magazine, especially a foreign magazine, I like to see what’s up for sale.  (I especially like to see ads for products that are unavailable here).  But Prospect is virtually ad-free.  I’m not sure how things work for British magazines and advertising–if like NPR, there is a “sponsor” or two, or if it’s a pay as you go thing.  Anyhow, flipping through, we get a few full page or two page ads in the beginning: BMW, IBM and Baillie Gifford (which I’ve never heard of).  But once you get into the heart of the issue, there’s really no more (well, one for ExxonMobil just before the Letters).  But after that the ads are small and are for web sites that I’ve never heard of (a lot of publishers & small businesses).

The last few pages also have Classifieds Section (like the ones in most of the progressive magazines I read).  And that’s it.  It’s rather refreshing.  (But I guess I’ll have to read Heat to get the fun trashy ads–and yes I only know about Heat from The IT Crowd).

But moving on…

The opening article, In Prospect discusses what’s in the magazine.  This issue has a special section on the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Conference.  I’m not sure if all of the issues have special sections like this (set off in a different color and everything) or if this is a one off.

The thing that I liked immediately about the magazine was the If I Ruled the World Column.  From what I can tell, this is a regular feature of the magazine in which various people tell how they would make things better.  What an interesting concept, especially if the authors are smart (not just celebrities). (Or maybe it’s a regular column by Sam Leith…I’m not quite sure).

Next, there’s the second thing that delighted me: Six Things to Do This Month.  Lots of magazine recommend entertainment to see and do, and it’s interesting to see what kind of taste a new magazine has (while it’s true that these are all things happening in England, you can still judge the taste of the magazine as it applies to your location).  So, they suggest (and gives reasons why you should see): Film (An Education); Art (David Hockney); Music (Martha Wainwright(!)); Painting, Dance and Theatre.  So, even though I won’t be able to do 5 of the 6, I enjoy the artistic taste of the magazine.

This is followed by Political Notes.  It’s a brief article British politics.  While this may not affect me directly, whoever wins the British election will shape the world.  It’s an interesting insight into the politics of the magazine to see what they talk about here.

Next comes Diary (and this reminds me a lot of the opening Walrus pages).  It contains short articles about various things around the world: Media (Giving the newspaper game away in London); Finance (Global finance keeps on drifting eastward) North America (Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize…which offers an insight I had not heard before and one I found quite useful).  And (my friend Rich would have loved this) evidently a monthly column by Brian Eno (!).  I also really enjoyed the “Word of the Month” paragraph. (This month’s was “Dingbat,” a font type that I always talk about in my computer classes).

The Data page presents a few factual tidbits: a chart (about internet use) and a series of facts and quotes from various sources (In Detroit the average sale price of a house is $7,100 (from The Wall Street Journal)).  And, my favorite: Didier Drogba studied accountancy (from Didier Drogba’s Facebook page).

Next comes Letters and Opinions.  The first piece discusses the option of diminishing the power of British arms producers (to save the budget for the military).  The second encourages Bill Gates (and the Gates Foundation) to go after HIV like they did Netscape and wipe it off the map (great parallel there).  And then two articles: one about the Soviets and one about suffragettes which show personal insights into these issues.

From Our Correspondents has stories from across the globe.  It’s always embarrassing when you have to go abroad to hear about your own country, but the article about Republican Eric Cantor was completely enlightening to me.  The other articles abroad this month were from Brussels and China.

Then some of the major articles come up.  The first is about President Obama and his failure to heal party divisions in the country (despite his political successes).  There’s a second one about Obama’s foreign policy.  In the States, we’re stuck hearing the same talking points over and over again (just watch the Daily Show to see how many media people use the same exact phrase over and over.)  So it’s refreshing to have a thoughtful new perspective on something so close to home.

The rest of the big articles are what I love about monthly newsmagazines and why they are so much better than weeklies.  First off, if you need news now, you go to the internet, there’s no question.  But the problem with a weekly is that they often get stuck reporting about what’s happening NOW, THIS WEEK! whether it is significant or not (balloon boy?).  A monthly magazine, on the other hand, may not be current, but it can always be significant.

So, an article about Angela Merkel and the state of German elections is timely without being up to the minute.  But it was wonderfully informative (and check out the awesome election campaign poster graphic they included–the German reads: “We have more  to offer” (with that delightful shot of Merkel’s cleavage).  Then came the article on Princess Diana (which was actually about her family’s attempt to cash in on her at her birth home).  It was a first person narrative and was quite fascinating (and which I’m sure the Spencer’s didn’t appreciate).

The third one was possibly the most interesting article I have read in a while, period.  “How to really hug a hoodie” discusses an attempt in Glasgow to use a controversial American technique to reduce gang violence.  First off, why hadn’t I ever heard of this technique being used in America?  And second, it is clearly effective, so why are people shying away from it elsewhere.  This article was simply fantastic.  It’s available here.  Check it out!

Then comes the Arts section.  Now, clearly I love the arts, so it was a treat to see nearly half the magazine devoted to them.  But what I liked about them was the (in context) serious nature of the articles.  Why Britain Can’t Do The Wire looks at the struggles of writers in dealing with the BBC.  This very issue was brought up in the recent Monty Python documentary.  They complained about how much the BBC hierarchy has changed in the last 40 years, and how hard it is to do anything creative there.  Now, I of course love BBC comedies and think that many of them are fresh and better than what we can do here.  But I don’t know a lot about their dramas (they compare The Wire to Life on Mars, but I thought the UK Life on Mars was brilliant while the US version was rather flat.  Nevertheless, the points they makes are really strong.

Another TV article looked at the gruesomeness of current TV medical dramas.  They compared the calm and mellow medical examinations of Quincy to shows like NCIS, and how we aren’t squeamish about intense medical investigations anymore (or maybe we are, but we can’t turn away).

Sporting life covers sports.  I don’t really care about sports, but (and this will tell you how out of touch with sports I am), I was interested to read it because it told me about Mark Buehrle’s perfect game (and DeWayne Wise’s amazing catch in said game.  I used to watch and play sports a lot when I was a kid so I am well versed in the language and can totally appreciate magnificence in sports, I just don’t care about it).  So, thanks for that, anyhow (I watched the catch online and it was pretty amazing).  Although I do like reading about English football, for some reason, even if I don’t know anything about the teams.

The Arts & Books section features a number of great reviews.  And the reviews are fascinating for many reasons.  But first, the section opens with a print of The Suicide of Lucretia by Lucas Cranach the Elder.  This very painting was featured prominently in a Warehouse 13 episode we watched a few weeks before (synchronicity!).

The first book review is a first person account by another author.  The reviewed book is a fictional account of the writer’s father’s suicide; the reviewer talks about her own father’s suicide.  Rather than reviewing the book in great detail (she says it was amazing and kind of leaves it at that) she talks about the effect the book had on her life and on her writing.  It was a unique attitude in the often dull world of reviews.  There was also a review of Superfreakonomics which is just making the rounds here, and I’ll be curious to see how this review compares.

The Music article was “Who’s Afraid of the Avant Garde” and it was absolutely correct: avant garde painting is accepted (even if not everyone likes it) but avant garde music is often derided as just noise.

There’s a lot of good articles in here about painting as well.  I don’ often read gallery articles because I don’t get to go very often, but this one about an unknown (to me) painter Frank Auerbach was really interesting.

The Way We Were shows extracts from diaries that are quite amusing (and I rather hope that’s a regular feature).  While the Widescreen page looks at filmmaking in Iraq (and I, too, hope that the boy he mentions can indeed become a filmmaker when he grows up).

Finally, there’s Fiction.  I reviewed the story yesterday, and it seems like many well-respected authors get published here.  But I don’t think any of the stories are online so I can’t go back and check.

Lastly, one of my favorites: Puzzles!  There’s a rather difficult puzzle (with a contest) and then a very difficult crossword (with a contest).  I love crosswords, and I have always had a hard time with British ones. Although I greatly appreciate that they include the number of letters/words in the answer.  So far I have managed to get only three out of some 60 clues.  Phew.

And, of course, the back page.  Prospect’s back page features an Agony Aunt.  I’ve always enjoyed the phrase “agony aunt,” and find it be more dynamic than our simple “advice” sections.  This Agony Aunt seems to deal with various problems (elder parents, job stresses) with a very stern hand.  I don’t read advice columns generally (unless, you know, I see them) but I liked the way the Agony Aunt didn’t pull punches.

The special section about Copenhagen was very informative.  I’m a little weirded out that it appears to have been sponsored by Shell Oil, which seems counterintuitive (although I do appreciate that corporate “greenwashing” was discussed).  The Copenhagen Conference is an important environmental meeting that, consensus suggests, will likely not do all that much for preventing global catastrophe.  But these articles showed both positives and negatives, optimists and pessimists and, most importantly tried to be realistic about the whole thing.  So I finished the section feeling kind of glum about the future, but with a ray of hope.

So, yeah, I pretty much loved this magazine.  I feel like I may have been a little too gushy (and verbose) in this review, but this magazine spoke to me like few others do.  It reminds me of Harper’s but there’s more original work (as opposed to Harper’s excerpts from elsewhere).  And, as far as I can tell its not aggressively political (there is obviously a political slant to it, but it’s not in your face (or at least not in my face).

So, yes, if you can find Prospect here (and I haven’t actually seen what its availability is in the States), it’s a really great magazine.  In depth, but not overlong articles about issues that impact the world.  What more can you ask from a magazine?

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-can our love… (2001).

After Simple Pleasure, Tindersticks continued in this looser, less chamber-pop vein.  This disc features more organ fueled songs.  And– in something of a departure–they made many of the songs quite long (two are over seven minutes, one is almost nine!).  You could almost say these are jams, but that would give the wrong impression.

The band still sounds like Tindersticks (there’s no mistaking that voice), but they feel looser, less intense.  Yet they’re still passionate.  In fact, “People Keep Coming Round” and “Can Our Love” are two of their best tracks.  “People” has this really long keyboard section that my wife said sounded like the Doors, and she’s quite right about that.  But it’s more than just a Doors-keyboard solo.  It’s a catchy yet haunting single.

It’s easy to be feel disappointed about the latter Tindertsicks discs because they don’t rival the crazed intensity of their earlier ones.  And yet, Tindersticks is now a different band, playing a different kind of music.  It’s still beautiful, still affecting, it’s just different.

“No Man of the World,” the second to last song is a slow, meandering, deceptively simple song.  It features spoken lyrics and gently sung backing vocals.  And on first listen it’s nothing special, but the more you listen, the more elements you notice: strings, horns, sadness.  It’s really quite moving.

The disc ends with “Chiletime” another deceptively simple song that begins with an organ drone and simple strings.  Staples whispers his way through the first few bars.  But then the track builds to a full band with gorgeous vocals.  Then it slows down as if coming to and end, but it builds once more, this time to a beautiful finish.  It’s a perfect ending to this disc.

[READ: November 3, 2009] “The Girt Pike”

De Bernières wrote Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (which I’ve neither read nor seen the film).  In fact, this is the first story by him that I’ve read, and I’m fascinated by his style.  I don’t know if his other works are like this but I’m rather intrigued by this one.

This is a fairly simply story of a boy going fishing.  (I don’t fish myself, and I don’t really care all that much about fishing, but I’ve gotten a great deal of pleasure out of fishing stories (Paul Quarrington’s Fishing with My Old Guy was a surprise treat)).

The story opens with an endearing style that I would consider almost fairy-tale-like.  (The second sentence does indeed open with “Once upon a time”).  But the words are not of fairy-tales, rather, they reflect a somewhat nostalgic past: when boys fished in ponds with sticks and then threw the sticks to their dogs who splashed in the ponds.  Such an idyllic set up is altered somewhat once the “action” starts with the sentence: “On the morning that concerns us, however….”

And here we learn the story of Robert.  Robert was bequeathed his grandfather’s beauty of a fishing pole (coveted by all the boys in town).  And he is using it to reel in some fish at a local pond when a woman approaches and asks what he’s fishing for.

Mrs Rendall is impressed by his skill and knowledge (which he is playing up for her benefit as she is quite striking).  And then she asks that he do the impossible:  Will Robert come to her house to catch and remove the giant pike which lurks in her pond and eats her adorable ducklings when they hatch.  Robert is thrilled at the idea of catching the fabled Girt Pike (as the boys call it, although he doesn’t know why it’s called that).  But he plays it cool and asks for a meal while he’s there: peanut butter (crunchy) sandwiches and tea.  Mrs Rendall agrees to his terms.

The remainder of the story shows Robert prepping for this challenge (the pike is about 3 feet long, but the biggest fish he has caught has been about 8 inches).  We see Robert experimenting with creating a new pole and spending his cash on all the trimmings he’ll need.  There’s wonderful insight into Robert’s character, as well as the attitudes of the few locals that he runs into.

This is an excerpt from a longer story.  I don’t know if sections were cut or if paragraphs that have been trimmed down.  But I was really impressed with the pacing of the story.  There wasn’t a lot of dawdling and dragging things out for suspense.  It was a fast-paced story full of excitement and a bit of intrigue.  I especially appreciated that the ending (which looks into Robert’s future) was introduced without a lot of fuss.

This is the first story I’ve read from Prospect.  If it’s any indication of the quality of writing, then Prospect turns out to be a good source of fiction.  (I’ll be reviewing Prospect magazine tomorrow.)

For ease of searching, I include: De Bernieres

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Live at the Botanique, 9th-12 May 2001 (2001).

This is called an “official bootleg.”  It must be very rare as I can’t even find a picture of it online.  My friend Lar must have gotten it for me, as I have never seen the band live and it was (apparently) only available at their shows.  Or maybe I got it online during the tour?  Whatever the case, it’s a great live selection of their later songs.

It’s a cool collection of songs from shows over the course of three days.  It’s also interesting that the track listing is five songs from one gig, then three from the final gig and two from the middle one.  The band sounds great (the live setting always suits them). On this disc, Paula Frazer sings the duet of “Buried Bones” and there are some nice backing vocals from Gina Foster and Viki St. James on the last two tracks.

It’s a rather mellow set list, but the crowd certainly enjoys it.  And, as this is something of a greatest hits (of the more recent tracks), I could listen to it all day.

There appears to have been only one other “Official Bootleg”: Coliseu Dos Recreios De Lisboa – October 30th 2001.  But I’ve never seen it.

[READ: October 25, 2009] “Three Fragments from a Longer Thing,” “Good People,” “The Compliance Branch,” “Wiggle Room” and “Irrelevant Bob”

These are the last pieces of uncollected David Foster Wallace fiction that I had left to read.  I saved this for last because, well, they are supposedly parts of the soon to be released The Pale King.  Some of these pieces are definitely from The Pale King (it states so in the magazine  openings).  A couple are possible contenders for The Pale King, but we won’t know until the book comes out (sometime in 2010, I’m led to believe).  I had read some of these pieces before but it is much more satisfying to read them together.

The strange thing for me about these pieces is that when I read the New Yorker titles initially, there was no indication that the pieces were excerpts.  They treated them as short stories (even giving them titles).  So, when you read them, they feel like something is missing (namely 900 more pages).  And in many respects, I think that’s bad for the author.  Sure its good to get the work out there, but when a story feels unfinished, it leaves a bad taste in the readers’ mouth.

All the bold text comes from The Howling Fantods.  He gives summaries of where the fragments come from.  And since he’s a much bigger DFW fan than I am, I’m going to assume that when he says something is from TPK, he knows what he’s talking about.

“Three Fragments from a Longer Thing”. Lannan Readings & Conversations; Dec. 6, 2000. [NOTES: In December of 2000, DFW read three pieces he referred to as 'fragments' and which he said were from a longer thing (possibly "The Pale King" but this remains unconfirmed). Listen to the reading here or read it, lovingly transcribed by yours truly, here.]

DFW read these pieces aloud in 2000.  [The audio, by the way is fantastic.  It really brings to life the technical and medical sections of the story.]  The Longer Thing is never specified, but it’s possible that it is The Pale King.  These fragments have no direct connection to the later fragments below, but with any DFW novel, you never know how people are going to connect in a book!

FIRST & THIRD FRAGMENT

The first and third fragments are about the same unnamed boy.  This boy, when he was six, decided that he wanted to press his lips to every single inch of his body.  It wasn’t a sexual thing, it was more of an ownership thing.  And so, he sets out to press his lips everywhere.  When he ends up dislocating something, the chiropractor shows him proper stretching techniques and ways to ensure spinal health (without actually asking what the boy was doing).

These chiropractic sections are filled with very technical medical passages.  But DFW has gotten his pacing down so well that after every couple of highly professional lines, he throws in a hilarious non sequitir.  (“No lollipops were anywhere in view.”)

The third fragment continues this boy’s quest.  He’s now older and is showing severe physical deformities from his stretching exercises.  He also acknowledges that some portions of his body will be extremely tough (like the back of his head), but he is determined.

I can’t imagine how this would fit into a larger novel.  The boy has virtually no connection to the outside world.  But I do hope it is, because I’d love to find out more about him and his family.  He spends hours at a time trying these crazy contortions.  Surely they must thing something is amiss.

What a strange conceit.

SECOND FRAGMENT

The second fragment concerns a different boy.  This boy is named Leonard Stesek and he is the most generous, thoughtful, giving boy ever.  And everyone hates him because of it.  And then they feel bad that they hate him, which makes them hate him even more.

This story was so funny for Leonard’s outrageously over the top safety procedures (calling his father every hour on the hour, except when the phone gets disconnected and then calling the phone company to get it fixed) and outrageous generosity (rather than accepting an ice cream from his dad, he requests the money go to UNICEF).

I loved this fragment.  It was funny and twisted.  As with the previous one, I absolutely cannot imagine what more he could do with this.  What would Leonard be like as a grown up??  And, I can’t imagine how it would fit in with a novel.

I mention these fragments not fitting because the excerpts below which are from the novel concern an accountant and his work and home life.  And he is clearly not one of these above boys.  But, given the disparate characters and character arcs in IJ, it’s not outside of the realm of plausibility.  I hope something more comes of these, but I’m satisfied with the fragments.

“Good People”. The New Yorker; Feb 5, 2007. [NOTES: Excerpt from "The Pale King." Read it here.]

This piece doesn’t say in the New Yorker that it is from The Pale King, but it is the same character as the later story that does, so…

This is a very affecting story about a young couple facing a very important decision.  I won’t say what the decision is, but it is quite obvious once the story gets going.  The story  concerns the awkwardly named Lane Dean. (It’s not easy to say).  He and his girlfriend sit by the river.  He is trying to get up the courage to talk to her, yet he remains in his head through most of the story.

There’s very little else to it, but it is powerful and very detailed.  As with many of these fragments, it is weird to read something that is clearly not complete.  This piece does work as a fragment, and you can definitely become invested in these characters. But it would be even better within a longer story.

“The Compliance Branch”. Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 2008. [NOTES: This excerpt from "The Pale King" was originally presented at a reading for le conversazioni on Feb. 7, 2006 as "Untitled Excerpt from Something Longer That Isn't Even Close to Halfway Finished Yet." This version was printed and distributed in a booklet, available here. The Harper's version is available here.]

Harper’s also does not state that this is from The Pale King, but given the work location of the unnamed character, it works quite well as part of the novel.

This is a twisted little story about the narrator’s Group Manager and his son.  From time to time the Group Manager brings his baby into the office with him.  He has a nursery type set up in his office. But that’s not important, because the focus is on the baby.  The baby is described as “fierce, intimidating, aggressive” as he hangs there in his papoose.

In DFW’s inimitable style, he describes the workings and contraptions of the baby gear as if he had never seen any of the apparti before (“a modern, ingenious mobile supporting device”).  After pages of being freaked out about this baby, the day arrives when he is asked to “babysit” the boy.  (The reasons why are part of the story and are a little too detailed to give here).  From there it just gets more surreal.

This hilarious passage will hopefully have a delightful payoff in the novel.  I enjoyed it immensely.

“Wiggle Room”. The New Yorker; March 9, 2009. [NOTES: Excerpt from "The Pale King." Read it here.]

I reviewed this piece back in March.

But having read the other fragments (especially “Good People”) at the same time as this one, made this one that much more powerful.  Lane Dean, having accepted his decision from the earlier story is now in a soul sucking job.  One where he watches the clock incessantly and thinks of the definition of the word “boring.”

He is an IRS auditor who must double check completed files.  And he hates it.

As the story comes to a close, he is visited by what may be a ghost or a spirit of the office.  He sits on Dean’s desk and talks to him about the word “boring” and then leaves.

The amazing part of the story is the intensely detailed opening pieces about boredom.  You can palpably feel the boredom that Dean is dealing with, and yet the writing itself is not boring.  That is no mean feat. I feel like the novel would explain more about this ghost figure (although with DFW, possibly not), but regardless, it will obviously feature more of Lane Dean and his life and challenges.

“Irrelevant Bob”. The New Yorker, WEB ONLY; March 9, 2009 [NOTES: A newyorker.com-exclusive fragment of probably an excerpt from "The Pale King" (this remains unconfirmed) presented as two scanned pages of annotated manuscript. Read it here.]

It’s barely worth mentioning this in a review. It is two pages long and ends in the middle of a sentence.  It is notable for the fact that it is manuscript in process, with corrections and editing comments.  So, for the DFW fan, that’s interesting.  The two pages concern an unnamed narrator (in first person) who is talking about his memory, or lack of it.  Not that he can’t remember things, but that everything he remembers is mundane and 1970s pop culture-y (the clothes they wore, the TV shows they watched (Saturday Night Live features prominently). And that’s about it.  It’s an interesting character set up, but it’s impossible to say anything more about it.

Included in the slide show are two art pieces from Wallace’s wife, Karen Green.  They’re pretty interesting and I have to wonder if they will be included with The Pale King (probably not).

Comments:

As I mentioned, many times, The New Yorker will publish pieces with a title, and it seems like a short story.  But fragments are not short stories almost by definition.  I can remember reading “Wiggle Room” and enjoying it but feeling dissatisfied with the end (and not in a DFW-the-story-ended-without-finishing way).  Knowing they are part  of a longer thing, and reading them together like this has done nothing but whet my appetite for The Pale King. Despite my initial concerns about releasing the novel without DFW’s final input, now I really can’t wait for the book to come out.

SOUNDTRACK: POSSESSED-Seven Churches (1985).

Back in high school I was really into heavy metal.  And I got into something of a contest to find the heaviest, scariest metal bands around.  (To counter the guy in class who was into Stryper, naturally).  Well, I think I hit the jackpot with this album.

This is brutally fast speed metal.  Growling vocals, staccato super fast drums and a general sense of doom.

The song titles tell it all: “Burning in Hell,” “Holy Hell,” “Pentagram,” “Satan’s Curse” and “Death Metal.”  Allmusic.com states that this is the first death metal album.  So, how about that?

At this point, though, I think it is most notable for featuring Larry LaLonde on guitars.

LaLonde went on to be the guitarist for Primus for many many years.  So, he turned in his upside down cross and fake blood for purple hair and an alternative rock gig.

And I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

[READ: November 3, 2009] Black Metal

This graphic novel comes from the beloved Oni Press.  It’s the story of the brothers Stronghand, adopted siblings who live and breathe black metal.  They are notoriously evil and their past precedes them. They have been to five schools in four years and, as the story starts, we see them on their first day at Ronald Reagan Jr High.  (Which at first I thought was actually “Ronald Reagan Junior” High School, which would have been even more hilarious.)

By lunchtime, they have intimidated everyone with their black metal stares.  But, when someone questions their manhood, they strike back and are instantly expelled.

It’s then that we meet their adoptive family: a super sweet blonde woman and her natural child: a booger-eating sweetly babbling toddler.

While they were at school, one of the brothers saw a girl wearing a Frost Axe shirt.  Frost Axe is, of course, a seriously heavy black metal band from Norway.  They track down the album and it blows their mind.  Lyrically, it’s about the story of a magical sword forged by The Roth, which was used in an epic battle in Hell.

When they play the album backwards, they are given a chance to pull the sword from Hell’s stone.  The rest is history.

This only gets through to about half of the story.  The rest is battles, intrigues, secrets raveled and, of course, and epic meeting with Hell’s demons and with Frost Axe themselves.

The story was fun for its epic storytelling style and adherence to Norwegian black metal’s mythic stories.  It’s also got all kinds of funny (and often juvenile) humor.  But it is rated T for teen, so it’s never too too raunchy.

The art is wonderfully dark and sinister.  The brothers Stronghand have a weird Asian/Native/Central American appearance (yeah, that’s an unlikely mix, but it works) which helps them stand out from the rest of the WASPy kids.  The demons and hellpit stuff is also pretty cool with plenty of light areas to counterpoint the darkness.

Occasionally, I found it hard to tell the characters apart. Sam and Shawn look enough alike that it’s not always clear who is who (which may even be the point).  And when the Frost Axe girl enters the picture (with the same haircut and general appearance) let’s just say there are times in battle scenes where I have no idea who is doing what. But that’s not really a big deal.

Of course, when the story reaches its end, we get a very ominous To Be Continued….  I don’t mind sequels, but I don’t like when a story is so clearly set up for a sequel that it doesn’t finish itself.  Fortunately, this story doesn’t do that.  It wraps itself up very nicely and then preps us all for the next stage of the saga.  Which is alright by me. And which I’m looking forward to.

If you like your metal black, you’ll enjoy this book.

And my word count is now 666.

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Simple Pleasure (1999).

Tindersticks changed a bit with this disc.  And it’s evident from the moment the opening track kicks in: “Can We Start Again” is the most upbeat (musically) song they’ve ever done.  (Even if lyrically it’s not exactly puppies and rainbows).  And it is a truly magnificent song.  The next track, “If You’re Looking for a Way Out” has Staples singing so emotionally, his voice almost seems to break.”

As the disc proceeds, new aspects of the Tindersticks come into view.  The biggest change is an influx of soul stylings.  Staples actually croons from time to time; but the two biggest soul aspects are the groovy keyboards (not unheard of on previous discs, but very prominent here) and some gorgeous female backing vocals.  Indeed, “From the Inside” is propulsive instrumental with very 60s-sounding organ.

“If She’s Torn” sounds like a beautiful long-lost soul song, especially with the delicate keyboard notes that sprinkle down as the songs ends.  The final two tracks “I Know That Loving” and “CF GF” prominently feature the backing vocalists and they end the disc on a glorious note.

This disc is considerably shorter than their previous ones.  It seems like rather than making an epic mood piece, they settled down to make a more simple soul, almost pop record (although surely not pop by conventional standards).

This was the first Tindersticks disc I bought and it remains one of my favorites.

[READ: October 29, 2009] “While the Women Are Sleeping”

I have not read any Marias before.  And I was delighted by the multifaceted nature of this story.

It begins rather lightly with a man and his wife people-watching on a beach.  He needs glasses but, as this is the beach, he doesn’t wear them (no facial tan lines!).  So, he squints at people until, through some fascinating physics, he looks through his wife’s straw hat and is able to see much better.  (The image of a man with a straw hat held to his face is quite amusing).

After relaxing and spying for a few days, a new couple appears on the beach.  She is stunningly beautiful and is pretty much always naked on the lounger (this is Europe after all).  Her boyfriend is a considerably older, overweight, balding man.  He spends his entire time on the beach filming her, every inch of her, while she rests/sleeps/checks for blemishes.

The narrator and his wife are bemused by this, as it continues for many days, with the young woman never looking at him or posing for him or even talking to him.

Finally one night, the narrator can’t sleep and he sees the man outside by the pool,all alone.  He trudges down and begins talking to the man.  We learn a number of dark secrets that the man possesses and the touching and yet very creepy reason why he films his girlfriend all the time.

The story turned a corner about half way through and grew very, very dark.  It began slow and languorous and then became tension filled; it was extremely enjoyable.  The other thing I noticed about it was that the langauge made it seem like it wasn’t written recently.  It was only the videocamera that provided a time frame.  I don’t know if it is because he is a European writer, or because it was translated (translators seem to give a timeless aspect to works), but the writing made it seem like it could have been written any time since the late 20th century.  Which was pretty cool.

You can read it here.

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Trouble Every Day [soundtrack] (2001).

This is the second soundtrack that Tindersticks made for director Clair Denis.  This disc is rather unlike Nenette Et Boni, in that this soundtrack is much more stark.  There are several moments on the disc where there is nothing but silence for several seconds.   “Core on Stairs” features a bass note or two and then even more silence, then one more note and more silence.  On “Room 231,” there are times when the only sound is a gently shaken maraca.  It’s rather eerie (and I’d like to believe it suits the film well).  But predominantly this is a string laden affair, highlighting the sadness of the movie.

The title track, however, contains the full band, including Stuart Staples’ singing.  And it’s a moody, evocative song.  Strings are plucked as Staples croons about trouble.  Actually the title song is broken up into the Opening and Closing Credits.  But they rather thoughtfully include the whole song at the end of the disc as well.

This is not an essential Tindersticks disc (you can get the title song elsewhere).  But if you like your music moody, this is a good one.  It may be a bit too sparse for casual listening, but it certain conjures up some interesting ideas.

[READ: October 27, 2009 ] DFW’s comments in The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus

According to the Howling Fantods I have read all of the uncollected DFW pieces (except for the ones from the Pale King), and so this is my final piece (hooray!). It’s not really anything major.  As you can read from the Fantods’ summary below, this excerpt contains DFW’s comments inside this 1100 page Thesaurus.  Several authors contributed comments to the Thesaurus and all of their comments appear after the entry for the word.  They rest in boxes and are capped off by their initials.  The PDF that you can click on below is 85 pages long.  But if you search for DFW there are only 24 entries.  I copied and pasted them into a Word document that came out to 8 pages long.  So, it’s not unmanageable to read just DFW’s entries.

I’m not sure that this is the entirely of his contribution to the book.  (I assume it is, as I wouldn’t imagine The Fantods would skimp on us, but I’m also not going to find the book to confirm either.

“The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus”. Compiled by Christine A. Lindberg. Oxford University Press; October, 2004. [NOTES: This is an actual (1100-page plus) thesaurus for writers. Scattered throughout are 'Word Notes' wherein various authors, DFW among them, discuss usage and that forever quest for the perfect word. Read selections featuring DFW here.]

Basically what you get here is DFW’s knowledge about word usage.  Anyone who has read his work knows he’s practically memorized the OED.  And with his familial love of grammar, he is  stickler for using words correctly.  Which makes him kind of a prig, except that he’s not a prig; he’s very funny.  And the examples he cites are great!

It will make you feel foolish of course if you do any of the things that he says make you look ignorant at best, but such is the price of learning.  If you have any interest in language and words, DFW’s comments are really very useful.  I don’t mean to short change the other contributors (I don’t even know how many other contributors there are or who any of them may be) as they are not listed anywhere in this excerpt.  I didn’t read any of their contributions (it is a thesaurus after all, so I’m not, just, you know, going to read it all).  But DFW’s entries at least, are certainly enjoyable.

If you plan to be a writer I would think the book itself is pretty indispensable.

DFW comments on 24 words in the book: all of, pulchritude, beg, bland, noma, critique, dialogue, dysphesia, effette, impossibly, feckless, fervent, focus, hairy, if, individual, loan, myriad, privilege, that, toward, unique, utilize, mucous.

Some of his entries are quite long, but a few are brief and funny.  Like pulchritude: A paradoxical noun because it means beauty but is itself one of the ugliest words in the language….”  His entry on if makes a good explanation for the distinction between if and whether.  His entry for loan begins: “If you use loan as a verb in anything other than ultra-informal speech, you’re marking yourself as ignorant or careless.”  He points out the distinction (that I never knew) that toward is the U.S. version and towards is the U.K. version, and you should always, always use toward, unless you are writing in the U.K.  And, my favorite, in the commentary on that, he writes, “you can occupy a bright child for most of a very quiet morning by challenging her to use “that” five times in a row in a single coherent sentence… ‘He said that that that that that writer used should really have been a which.’”  It took me a few reads before I could figure out how to say it properly (it’s about the distinction of using “which” instead of “that,” by the way.

And that’s what you get.  Smarty pants assistance for helping you become a better writer.  The geek in me thinks it would be kind of fun to read the whole book (or at least the boxed comments).  That I’d learn an awful lot.  Maybe if they made it a page-a-day calendar!

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERTSICKS-”curtains” (1997).

“Rented Rooms” from Curtains is another one of my favorite songs. It is dark yet sensual at the same time: “We had to go find somewhere else more… you know.”  The disc itself works similarly to their first two discs.  It’s not as long, and is a little less dynamic.  But it is still unmistakably Tindertsicks.

The album has a lot more strings on it (not that it didn’t have strings before, but they feature more prominently here).  And they add a new dimension of tension and intensity to the proceedings. “Don’t Look Don’t ” has sections that sound like a scary action movie. “Desperate Man” returns to that gorgeous flamenco-tinged music that they played with on the first disc.

And “Fast One” has crazy demented strings as the song chugs along quite fast.  “Bearsuit” is a whimsical (!) look at sex.

“Buried Bones” is a gorgeous duet.  (Female singers complement Staples’ voice so well).  While “(Tonight) Are You Trying to Fall in Love Again” is another great uptempo string-filled song.  The disc ends with a trio of great tracks.  The beautiful “I Was Your Man” the sinister (I’ve never heard a band make a piano sound so sinister) “Bathtime” and the closer, “Walking”

The reissue comes with a bonus disc of alternate versions of songs from the disc (and some that didn’t make it). Yet another version of “For Those…”  It also has two versions of “Rented Rooms” (the orchestral version is quite fascinating). “Paco’s Theme” is a great instrumental. “Shadow” has that flamenco thing in spades as well.  Probably the best addition is “A Marriage Made in Heaven” a beautiful duet with Isabella Rossellini.

Curtains is something of a transitional record for Tinderstciks, and it’s not quite as awesome as the first two, but it is full of top notch songs.

[READ: October 29, 2009] “Unmasked”

I’ve enjoyed Chris Ware’s work  for years.  His cartoons are meticulous, fascinatingly detailed, often with crazily-sized boxes and sometimes hard-to-follow linear styles.  They are almost universally sad.  And I can’t get enough of them.

This one is the first I can remember in a long time that focuses on adult-adult relationships.  That’s not precisely true, as many of his stories deal with familial themes and the problems of growing up.  But, and perhaps that’s because this was a shorter piece (I’m more familiar with his longer multi-character-filled stories, the main characters are a woman and her mother.  (Her daughter is with them, and her husband is working).

It’s a fascinating look at familial dynamics as well as infidelity (real and imagined). And it ends on a note of possibly mistaken positivity.

It’ a very impressive piece.  It goes without saying that the artwork is fantastic…It must take him months to do even a relatively short story like this.

You can read it here.

[READ & WORKED ON: October 21, 2009] Replacing bulbs

Don’t worry, I’m not going to review the manual. I wanted to point out the hilarious warning that accompanies the changing of a light bulb.

So the headlight on our 2004 Jetta burnt out. When I was about 17 I changed a headlight on my Ford Fairmont (a great big glass thing that was the entire headlamp). It was time-consuming but fairly easy.  So I figured how hard could it be now?

I’m mechanically inclined (I built a chicken coop after all) but I’m not a car guy.   I guess you could say I’m afraid to tamper with anything that I drive everyday and that holds my family most days.  But a light bulb? I had to at least try.

The friendly owner’s manual says:

Replacing bulbs
It is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to replace vehicle light bulbs since in many cases, other parts of the car must first be removed before you are able to get to the bulb. This applies especially to the light bulbs in the front of the car which you can only reach through the engine compartment.

A HUGE WARNING BOX!

• H7 bulbs are pressurized and can explode when being changed. Potential risk of injury!
• On vehicles equipped with gas discharge bulbs life-threatening injuries can result from improper handling of the high-voltage portions of such lamps!

For your safety, we recommend that you have your authorized VOLKSWAGEN dealer replace any bulbs for you, since your dealer has necessary tools, the correct bulbs and expertise.

ANOTHER HUGE WARNING BOX!
Before you check anything in the engine compartment, always read and heed all WARNINGS on page 34.

Adjusting headlights
Special tools and expertise are required to adjust the headlights. For your safety we recommend that you have your authorized VOLKSWAGEN dealer check and adjust the headlights when necessary.

That’s a little repetitive.  But Wow! You’d have to be CRAZY to try and change this  light bulb. Or would you?

I Googled it, and got this very helpful Wiki Answers page.

I bought the bulb at my local Hapi Auto Parts store (sadly no picture available, but what a great store!).  It was not the huge glass block like from years ago, it was a small halogen bulb.

I followed her instructions and, aside from pausing to run back inside to get a flat head screwdriver (which I needed to pry something off) the whole thing went without a hitch.  The bulb was replaced in about five minutes.

I guess you can’t believe everything you read.

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Asking for Flowers (2008).

I first heard of Kathleen Edwards because of her duet with John Doe on “The Golden State.”  I thought her voice was great and I wanted to hear more.  I picked this album because it was her newest.

My first impression was mild.  I thought initially, great, I’ve gotten yet another Canadian country singer.  And yet, as with Neko Case, there’s something about Canadian country-tinged music that I really like (I’m not a fan of U.S. country, by and large).  And so, while there are trapping of country music on this disc (slide guitar is scattered throughout), after the third or fourth listen, something clicked and I fell hard for this disc.

While listening, especially on the more rocking songs, I kept thinking of The Tragically Hip.  And while I would not in any way say she sounds like the Hip, there is something about her sensibility, lyrically and tonally, that I think is very Hip-like.  She sings with great passion about moderately esoteric things and about Canadiana (referencing Gretsky in one song, titling another song “Oh Canada”).  And as The Hip have recently released a more folky album, the two could probably share a coffeehouse stage quite easily.

Edwards’ voice is beautiful.  But it wasn’t until I really started hearing her lyrics that it made the songs that much more intense.

“The Cheapest Key” is a rollicking song (that reminds me of The Hip in many ways).  Especially the lyrics: “A is for all the times I bit my tongue / B is for bullshit and you fed me some.”  And while I think the whole disc is great, it’s the trifecta of “I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory,” “Oil Man’s War” and “Sure as Shit” that makes this album amazing.  Lyrically, musically, passionately, they’re simply awesome.  Individually, each song is great, but together, the rocking humor of “Dough” followed by the moving sadness of “Oil Man’s War” and the mildly vulgar wit of “Sure as Shit” show such depth in just three songs.

She also pulls out a really powerful song in “Oh Canada.”  I recently wagged my finger at The Trews for being too preachy on their song “Gun Control,” Edwards tackles a similar subject by going in a different direction and by making poetry, not preachery: ” It’s not the year of the gun / We don’t say it out loud / There are no headlines / When a black girl dies / It’s not the lack of a sense / It’s called ambivalence.”

The final song, “Goodnight California” has a chord progression that sounds somewhat familiar, and yet the vocal line she lays on top of it is different, just off enough to be really enchanting.  And even though it is a slow moody piece, it has a fairly scorching harmonica (!) solo.

I’m delighted to see that she has other discs out because I can’t wait to hear more from her.

[READ: October 29, 2009] “Fanshawe”

This Shouts & Murmurs piece was really funny.  It was easily the funniest one I have read in a long time.  It reminded me a lot of early funny Woody Allen pieces (especially when he mentions what the mother died from).

The story is about Fanshawe.  He has just the one name (and comes from a long line of people named simply, Fanshawe. 

In fact, everyone in his family is named Fanshawe, just one name.  This in itself isn’t all that funny, but the absurd situations that Frazier creates (like marrying a woman named “Maria Conchita Something Something DiBiasio y Cosmo Something”) are quite giggle- inducing.

But the best part of the story comes near the end when the author interrupts the proceedings to say what a mistake it was to create a family of characters with the whole name.  Very funny.

It’s available here.

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Bloomsbury Theatre 12.3.95 (1995).

This is a rare and out of print live CD from an early Tindersticks show.  My friend Lar found it used for me in Ireland (thank you!).  But it turns out he found it for me about a week before it was reissued as a bonus disc with the Second Tindersticks CD.

It’s a great concert, with Tindersticks in fine form.  After the amazing creative success of the second disc, the band sounds energetic and Stuart Staples’ voice is fantastic. Live Tindersticks don’t sound drastically different from the record, but there is a very cool “close and intimate” vibe to  this show that makes the songs sing a little more.

Normally, I’d encourage anyone to try and find this disc, but since it has been reissued with the second disc, it’s worth getting that package instead.

[READ: October 25, 2009] “Order and Flux in Northampton”

This is the final uncollected DFW short story that I hadn’t read yet (not including the excerpts from The Pale King).   And it’s a very good one!  The story is chock full of DFW’s awesome character descriptions and hilarious word play.  He also has a bit of fun with James Joyce, which is always a treat.

This story concerns three characters who live in Northampton, MA.  Barry Dingle is a severely cross-eyed hippie who owns The Whole Thing, one of two local health food stores.   He harbors unparalleled love for Myrnaloy Trask. Myrnaloy works at Collective Copy, the copy shop next to The Whole Thing.  Barry has never talked to her, but he fell madly for her when he saw her reflected in a bus window.  But Myrnaloy is only interested in Don Megala, a professional student (he’s on his seventh unfinished PhD).

Barry’s backstory is that his mother dominated every aspect of his life, and seemed to predict his shortcomings.  For example, he didn’t like the taste of milk so he never drank it.  His mother said this would make him weak-boned.  And he is.  She was especially insistent that he never, ever, ever cross his eyes, because she believed they would stay that way.  Dingle’s mother was always right.  So, when, at fifteen years old, in a fit of pique with his mother, he crossed his eyes dramatically at her, they did, in fact, stay that way.  He was from that point forward severely cross-eyed and needed special glasses to correct the problem.  (But even the correction wasn’t all that beneficial).

Barry’s love is personified in this story as well.   His love is a little homunculus living inside him.  And after two years of pining for Myrnaloy, it finally forces him to do something about it (by intensifying the pain in his ingrown toenails).

Barry knows Myrnaloy and Megala’s routine, and he “happens” upon them at various establishments (although he never talks to them or acknowledges them, he just, well, spies).  In one instance he overhears her tell Megala that she is still a virgin and she is quite afraid of sex.  Megala sympathizes and says that he, too, is afraid of sex, but, you know, it is one our most primal instincts, right.  Barry’s love screams out (to Barry) that Megala is full of it.

Megala’s life as a professional student is quite humorous.  His latest PhD thesis is about James Joyce and is titled “The Ineluctable Modality of the Ineluctably Modal.”  But being a professional student means that he is always surrounded by the female students at Smith College (and the description of Megala with one of them is hilariously vulgar.

Barry finally gets up the nerve to talk to Myrnaloy (by pretending that his store’s copier is broken).  And a connection is made.  Barry’s foolproof plan is to follow up this meeting with another “chance encounter.” Barry ’s mother once predicted that love would give him nothing but trouble.  Does it transpire that she is, indeed, always right?

This story was very straightforward and lots and lots of fun.  I was hooked from the start. I especially enjoyed the use of the word “reproduced” in terms of Barry checking out Myrnaloy while she is making copies.   But, it wouldn’t be DFW if he didn’t twist things a little bit. The final few pages change from a straight ahead narrative to this set up:

The interval 11:50 to 11:57 am EDT, 15 June, 1983, finds a tiny percentage of the planet’s persons involved in a tiny percentage in a tiny percentage of the planet’s various ineluctably modal situations.

And the remaining paragraphs all begin with a time and show a small detail about what is happening to various people.  Most of these people have not appeared directly in the story (Dingle’s sister, Dingle’s college professor and, inexplicably, Aristotle Onassis), but also Dingle and Myrnaloy.

The story ends before the excitement can be fully consummated. But unlike IJ or some of his other stories, the ending point comes a little bit later. So, you don’t actually see the finale, but you know of its inevitability. It would have been interesting to see it play out, although the story is totally satisfying even without it.

Oh, and like IJ, the story has footnotes!  Both are used as citations backing up facts (one is about the history of Northampton–DFW’s summary of the city is hilarious!  And the other is about germs.)  I am fairly certain both are fake, which is a shame, as the Northampton one sounds like it would be an amusing read.

And, also like in IJ, there is a comment about Quebec Separatism!

It is a fantastic story and, again, I’m surprised it has not been anthologized yet.

You can read it here.