SOUNDTRACK

On the show New Girl, my favorite joke in the pilot (which was brought back in a recent episode) is the douchebag jar.  Every time someone in the house (well, Schmitt, really) says something a douchebaggy, money goes in the jar.

This song has a crazily simple bass line–which sounds like “Another Bites the Dust,” but isn’t.  It’s unclear from the beginning exactly what the song is about.  But once the chorus comes in, the song is just perfect: “D-Baaaaaags: Hey I’m calling from a handicapped stall, dude; D-Baaaaaags:oh I’m a jerkwad? I’m a jerkwad?  D-baaags, Don’t tell me how to carb load, I know how to carb load.”

There are three rappers in the song.  Mitchmatic takes the first verses.  Mikey Maybe gets the best line: “say irregardless while trying to seem smart.”  The Joe has a really fast delivery that reminds me of Paul Barman (in lyrics and style).

I’m really enjoying Mitchmatics’s beats.  You can download Two Week Off for free.  Or you can watch the video (which seems to have the studio version of the song over a live video)

The video goes on a little long after the song, but the song is pretty great.  It might actually do to give it a proper video.

[READ: January 24, 2012] “Shore Ting”

When I signed up to receive Narrative magazine, I also signed up for their emails.  And the January 9 email contained this story (as well as many other things).  This story was chosen as their Story of the Week.

I really wanted to not like this story.  There were so many things about it that seemed like they should be red flags to me: a tourist getting entwined with a local urchin; the tourist “doing good” for the urchin when none of the locals want anything to do with him; a wife who is very Christian; and the implication of forthcoming violence throughout the story.  Not to mention a piece of foreshadowing that I assumed gave away the ending (although it doesn’t).

The story opens with an interesting scene.  The tourist, Dale, gives the urchin (named Sammy, although this was obviously a name for tourists) a cigarette and then realizes that he has personally started this boy on a lifetime of smoking. And he feels bad about that.

Sammy hits up Dale for work.  Dale doesn’t have work, but since he is looking into renting a sailboat, he more or less hires Sammy to help him on the boat.  Dale asks Sammy if he can do various things and whatever he asks, Sammy replies, “Shore Ting.”

Dale’s not an idiot, he knows that Sammy is trouble.  In fact, Dale deals with people on a daily basis; he knows people.  Sometimes he trusts people for no damn reason, but it always works out.  That’s the kind of guy Dale is.

Dale’s wife doesn’t know that Dale rented a boat–she basically came on vacation to sit by the pool and do nothing else.  But then, Dale doesn’t really like his wife much anymore.  They met because they were both Christians.  And, well, Dales’ Christianity was a phase, but his wife’s wasn’t.  So he’s always trying to goad her into unChristain behavior.  The boat, and Sammy, are two more examples.

On the way back to the hotel, none of the locals want Sammy anywhere near them–not in cabs, not in hotels, nowhere–although no one will say why exactly.  But Dale buys Sammy some (way too expensive) clothes and vouches for him.  No one is impressed.  Least of all his wife.  Even when Sammy starts talking about Jesus.

The end of the story has them all on the boat, having a reasonably good time.  Until, that is, the voice of reason speaks up and the little fantasy that Dale has created is (inevitably) punctured.  But the story didn’t end the way I expected.  It was far more thoughtful and introspective than seemed likely.

In fact, the story surprised me (positively) on several different occasions.

This is the first Story of the Week I’ve read (you can vote for the five best stories of the year), but I’m curious to see what the competition is like.

Read it here.

SOUNDTRACK

This song reminds me in spirit of the old Fresh Prince songs–buoyant and fun, funny and a little silly.  And although it doesn’t sample I Dream of Jeannie, the mood is the same.

The track opens with a great sound of an old rotary phone.  When the music comes it, it’s completely loungey: strings and easy music propel this song to the heights of Cool.

The delivery style is gentle but fast and the lyrics are funny “I’m gonna tell you some reasons that you wanna date me.”

Mitchmatic is a Canadian rapper and his record is coming out soon on Old Ugly records.  Listen to the track at NPR and explore his stuff at his bandcamp site.

Darling I would like you so much more if you loved me back…

[READ: December 31, 2011 and January 24, 2012] “Wolves at the Door” and “Comment”

This is a blog post from Barry that deals with politics.  Although it was written in 2004 it is completely relevant to the current state of affairs in American politics.  I suppose it was ever thus, but it sure seems worse now.

He opens, “Stop me if I ‘m getting too cynical, but I think elections are won by the guy with the stupidest policies.”  He explains that it’s not because people are dumb; rather, it’s because when you are marketing to an entire country, “your best strategy is to scramble straight to the bottom of the barrel and start groping around in the muck there for the lowest common denominator.”  This is very true.

But I think the perfect summary for politics is (as Barry writes): “smart is complicated, but dumb is catchy.”

He reiterates that people aren’t dumb, they are just swayed by dumb arguments.  His example (again, from 2004) is the War on Terrorism (I actually think the War on Terror is a more egregious phrase).  You can’t defeat an “ism.”  The best we can do is mitigate its damage.

But he quotes from George W. Bush in August 2004 saying, “I don’t think you can win [a war on terrorism].  But I think you can create conditions so that… those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world”

This incredibly bright and well-reasoned argument (from a politician, and especially that politician) was ripped apart by Democrats.  Candidate John Edwards was even quoted, “the War on Terrorism is absolutely winnable.”

Which made Bush dig deeper into the muck: “In this different kind of war, we may never sit down at a peace table, but make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win.”

And people applaud, despite the absurdity.

Although Barry hoped that Kerry would win, he acknowledges, “Bush is ahead of Kerry on national security because Kerry has a kind of stupid, nuanced position and Bush has a really stupid but really simple position.”

Barry’s final word: “Electing a national leader is a lot like buying a…car: it’s too complicated to consider on the merits, so we end up basing out decision on something simple and stupid, like how it looks.”

Sad but true.  And politicians really just want  to get elected, regardless of what they say.

In the January 23 2012, Comment of the New Yorker, Jeffrey Frank talks about the dismal state of the Republican party.  And you know things are crazy when you read something that Richard Nixon said and think, man, I wish other politicians thought like that.  It’s as if Nixon predicted the state of politics in 2012:

In 1959, Vice-President Nixon, speaking to members of California’s Commonwealth Club, was asked if he’d like to see the parties undergo an ideological realignment—the sort that has since taken place—and he replied, “I think it would be a great tragedy . . . if we had our two major political parties divide on what we would call a conservative-liberal line.” He continued, “I think one of the attributes of our political system has been that we have avoided generally violent swings in Administrations from one extreme to the other. And the reason we have avoided that is that in both parties there has been room for a broad spectrum of opinion.” Therefore, “when your Administrations come to power, they will represent the whole people rather than just one segment of the people.”

We know what has happened since then.  Nixon’s own party has brought that tragedy to light.

Frank concludes:

Ten months before the general election, the increasingly angry, suspicious, and divided party of Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry seems ever more immersed in its current orthodoxies. None of the candidates, though, seem the least bit interested in even addressing how they, or their party, might actually govern the “whole people” of a fractious nation. ♦

In all this time, I knew that the Republican hopefuls had been moving more and more rightward, I knew that they were appealing to a more and more fringe base.  But I never really considered how they never talk about how they will help all of the people.  They talk about undoing things that they don’t like, but they never talk about all of us.  And yet somehow, the stupider they sound, the more popular they get.

I could go on, but there are people who say it better than I.

SOUNDTRACK

I learned about Le Butcherettes from their Tiny Desk Concert.  So I thought I’d check out their album.  I’ve listened to it a few times now and it’s really quite good.

While the Tiny Desk Concert showed a subtle side of Teri Gender Bender, this album rocks really hard.  All three songs from the Tiny Desk Concert rock much harder here, and are actually better in this full band context (especially “Henry Don’t Got Love”).

It has a punk feel and reminds me of a more commercial sounding Bikini Kill or other Kill Rock Stars punk.  “Dress Off” is all Teri’s voice shouting over drums: “You take my dress off. Yeah, you take my dress off.
Yeah, You take my pretty dress off.”

In the Tiny Desk concert, Teri Gender Bender channeled PJ Harvey completely.  On the album, she has a bunch of different vocal styles that all work well for the songs.  Although “New York” is totally PJ, “The Actress That Ate Rousseau” reminds me of punkier No Doubt and”Tainted in Sin” has a simple stark keyboard melody with Teri singing a more aggressive guttural style.

Unsurprisingly for someone named Teri Gender Bender, there are some political songs as well.  “Bang!” has the lyric, “George Bush and McCain taking over Mexico.  Next thing you’ll see is their army banning seranata“

Although there’s a lot of short songs (7 are 2 and a half minutes or under), there’s a few long ones too.  “The Leibniz Language is over 5 minutes and “I’m Getting Sick of You” and “Empty Dimes” are both over 4.  There’s also an instrumental, “Rikos’ Smooth Talking Mothers” which is a simple song spurred on mostly by scratchy guitars.

The final song, “Mr. Tolstoi” is the anomaly on the album.  Teri “sings” with a fake Russian accent  over a very Soviet-style keyboard march.  The chorus:

I want Raskolnikov To be inside of me.  I want Sonya’s eyes.  I want Sonya’s eyes.

Weird.  But not outrageously crazy for this record.  It’s good noisy fun.

[READ: January 23, 2012] “Labyrinth”

It’s no secret that I love Roberto Bolaño.  And I’ve said before that one thing I love about him is the astonishing variety of subjects and styles that he comes up with.

So this short story is forthcoming from his newly translated collection of unpublished short stories called The Secret of Evil.  What I love and find so unique about this story is that the entire story is based upon a photograph.  The New Yorker includes the photograph (I wonder if the The Secret of Evil will include it also).  In the photograph, eight writers/thinkers sit around a table.  Thy are: J. Henric, J.-J. Goux, Ph. Sollers, J. Kristeva, M-Th Réveillé, P. Guyotat, C. Devade, and M. Devade.  The only person I know of this list is J. Kristeva, whose work on semiotics I have read.  [I just looked her up on Wikipedia and learned that she has also written novels, including: Murder in Byzantium, which deals with themes from orthodox Christianity and politics and has been described by Kristeva as "a kind of anti-Da Vinci Code."  Gotta put that on my list].  But the others are (evidently) prominent in their fields as well (editor of Tel Quel, author of several novels and non-fiction, etc).

The beginning of the short story is an extensive detailing of the photograph.  Bolaño looks at each man and woman in the photo and describes them with exquisite accuracy.  Beyond that he imparts a bit of speculation about what they are wearing, where they are looking, their attractiveness and even, about the length (or lack) of necks.

It would have been interesting to read this without the picture, but with the picture it’s even better, because you can compare and you can see how comments like “It’s the face of a man who enjoys a good meal” are true!

Then after devoting these paragraphs to the photo, he tries to imagine when the picture was taken based on their dress.  He’s just as thorough with this as well.  Then he extrapolates from the photo what the web of relations between these people is.

Some he knows: Sollers and Kristeva are man and wife, C. Devade and M. Devade are either brother and sister or man and wife (and looking at them he says it’s safe to say they are married, not related).  But the others he puzzles out: who is hanging out with whom, who is having an affair?  Even what kind of sex the married couples are having (which seems awkward to me, since I assume they are still alive).

All of this is designed to help illuminate the photo even further (albeit fictionally), both by imagining what happened prior to the photo being taken and also what happened afterwards.

I admit that not all of the rest of the story is completely compelling.  Without knowing much about these people (and Bolaño doesn’t go into too much detail about them aside from their physical appearance) their little trysts are just stories about not-so-well-defined people.  Of course, Bolaño’s best works are stories about well-defined people, so it’s understandable that this wouldn’t be mind-blowing.  It almost seems like a kind of exercise, and a fun one at that.  I feel like it would be an excellent exercise for any writer to attempt.  It’s pretty impressive that he could get five pages of content from a photograph of 8 scholars sitting around a table.

As with much Bolaño, it’s his attention to detail that really impresses–his concern for the plants in the picture is hilarious and spot on.

Chris Andrews did the translation and as usual, he did a wonderful job.  And, yes indeed, I’m looking forward to the release of The Secret of Evil in April.  (I’m still waiting for my library to get Tres, although I suspect a bilingual poetry book is probably not that high on their list of acquisitions).

For ease of searching I include: Bolano, Reveille

SOUNDTRACK

tUnE-yArDs perform three songs in this Tiny Desk concert.  Merrill Garbus doesn’t chat a lot between songs, but she’s clearly having a good time (witness them all jumping at the end of “You, Yes You” and how much she smiles at the end of the set.  This is a wonderful opportunity to see and hear her live sampling technique in a small setting (with close up cameras!).

Her voice sounds great–she pulls off all of those voices that she conjures on the record.  And her ability to sample herself and make it work is wonderful to witness (I never imagined that some of those “sirens” and “keyboards” are actually her voice).

The live band is also really hot.  The bassist really hold everything together and the horns sound great–duplicating the sound of the record with just enough flare to keep it original.

And to think she’s making all of  that guitar noise with a ukulele!  It’s pretty groovy.

Watch it here.

[READ: January 21, 2012] The End of War

This is a non-fiction book in which Horgan believes that in the not too distant future (his lifetime I believe), we will see the end of war.  Not the end of violence, nor anger nor aggression–he’s not crazy–but military campaigns against another country could be ended if we reversed our fatalism about war’s inevitability.

Horgan is a writer for Scientific American and in this book he uses the scientific method to show that ending war is utterly possible.  Now, although Horgan is himself kind of a pacifist (he’s not entirely one, this interview explains), his family is not–his father and grandfather are both veterans and his son is looking to enlist in the army.  Nevertheless, Horgan feels that war is not a viable way to solve problems and that the cost of human life is never worth it.

His research shows him that war should be thought of as a solvable, scientific problem—like curing cancer.  The difference is that cancer is outside of our control, while war is not.  But like cancer, war can infect any society–there is no “reason” for it, but it is like a virus–it infects all cultures, even peaceful ones.  If one culture is aggressive the peaceful neighbors need to prepare for war or move away.

Horgan anticipates skepticism, indeed, many of the sources he quotes are skeptics, and he deals with all of their arguments accordingly.  He looks at those who say that war is genetically part of humanity (as many people believe) or that the best way to prepare for peace is to prepare for war (as just about everyone seems to believe).  He looks at those who say that scarcity causes war (not necessarily true), to those who say that as long as there are guns there will be war (he disagrees).  He has a reasonable, believable argument for all of these doubts.  He even shows that the whole “alpha male, XXY chromosome” argument has been disproven and while men are more prone to violence, they are not more prone to wage war.

He also shows scientific evidence that war has not been around as long as people (or even apes) have existed.  Indeed, the first evidence for “war” (as opposed to violence) is 10,000 years ago (not much in humanity’s timeline).

He culls data from previous wars to show that the causes of wars can never be narrowed down to one thing.  And yet, rather than seeing this as a negative–that so many things cause war, he sees it as a positive–that causes of war are not monolithic and impervious to breakdown.

I was skeptical of this book when I started reading it.  I was willing to accept the various scientific answers that he showed (that war is not innate, for example) but my skepticism came because of what I guess you call the military industrial complex–that our military budget is huge and is not going to go down any time soon.  Just see how much protest is garnered by the miniscule amount that President Obama wants to reduce it.  [Everybody knows this truth but it's worth seeing in print--our military budget is more than almost every other country combined.  China, who spends the next largest amount on their military has a budget that is 1/6 the size of ours.  That is shocking and depressing and a horrific waste of money].

But his point is that like with so many other things that we have outlawed or abolished over the years: slavery, apartheid, monarchy (as opposed to democracy), acceptance of torture; if we have enough consensus we can also abolish war.  He gives examples that it’s actually not as hard as we might think.  Germany and Japan become pacifist virtually overnight (it was forced on them, but they have taken to it with no problem) and even better, Sweden and Switzerland are pacifist voluntarily.

He also points out that war is already on the wane–although the United States was in two wars very recently, the warlike nature of the world is much less than it was even as recently as the first half of the 20th century.  The number of casualties from war has dropped dramatically compared to World War I.  We simply need to find ways to solve crises that do not involve killing people.

All of the chapters were interesting in this book (the book is more or less set up to deal with an issue per chapter).  Some of the chapters were a little long but at 186 pages (plus a bunch of citation pages) this book is short overall.  I appreciate all of his scientific rigor and his ability to show the arguments and then knock them down.

For me, the most interesting and satisfying chapter was the one that found that preparing for war, despite claims that it is necessary, actually does not keep a people safe. That the allocation of resources towards war removes resources from things that actually make people’s lives  better: art, culture, medicine, health.  Preparing for war doesn’t keep us safe, it actually harms us.

Similarly, he shows that competition for resources is not necessarily a cause for war.  To the contrary they have found that in some cultures scarcity brings out altruism.

In short, he says that the only thing that prevents us from abolishing wars is our fatalism that war is inevitable.  The more fatalistic we are about war the more we accept hawkish ideas which perpetuates more war. Once we stop believing that and we try to work towards the end, he believes that we war can end very quickly.

Horgan doesn’t really calm my fears about the military industrial complex–but who knows with enough popular opinion, maybe voters can change things.  It’s a wonderful thought.  And here’s hoping that this post can spread the good word.

And here’s an interview with Horgan that addresses a lot of these questions.

SOUNDTRACK

The write up for this Tony Desk show implies that I should know who Le Butcherettes, and leader Teri Gender Bender, are.  I don’t.  But that doesn’t matter.

In this set, it’s just Teri Gender Bender and her acoustic guitar.  And she is channeling early PJ Harvey like nobody’s business.  If you like PJ’s new album but miss the less than subtle aspects of her earlier  records (and who doesn’t, honestly), this is a very enjoyable set.  Teri is angry and it shows.  But it’s all done on an acoustic guitar, so the anger is modified by the music.  It’s a neat trick.  But it’s also a little disconcerting.  Not least because she seems so nakedly honest when she sings (when she coughs aggressively during “Henry Don’t Got No Love” it’s not entirely clear if that’s part of the song or not.  But also because Teri is not afraid to look right at the camera (or, indeed, the audience) when she sings the songs.  Teri is very pretty but there is something haunting about her, which makes these songs of loss and love all the more effective.

See for yourself here.

[READ: January 22, 2012] “Notes on The Chelsea Girls”

I’m not going to start reviewing films, or, worse yet, reviewing reviews of films.  But since I like to try to read all of the academic articles that get recommended to me, I wanted to mention this one too (I admit I will not be subjecting myself or readers to a thirty plus page article about Charles Darwin and pigeon fanciers (which seemed interesting, especially the pictures, until I saw that it was over thirty dense pages).

It’s childish to laugh that a reviewer of Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls is named Battcock, but I’m not above that sort of joke.  What is amazing, to me, is how intellectual this review is.  I’m used to reading reviews in Entertainment Weekly or even The New Yorker, which talk about the plot of the film and the quality of the direction and what not.  And The New Yorker often trashes mainstream film on highfalutin grounds.  But even that doesn’t come anywhere close to:

Warhol still questions the very nature of the medium and its relationship with the cultural matrix and the contemporary value structure–for which he clearly holds no brief.  He is determined to prove that only vital institutions can provide vital art statements; his challenges to the medium serve ultimately to assure its legitimacy.  If in his earlier movies he attempted to redefine the nature of film and to clarify its limitations, the new works may be said to check out the remaining restrictions of the art form.  These include such physical aspects as the two distinct types of images (the retinal-visual and the cerebro-visual), as well as the nature of the auditorium, projection and screen.

Battcock is kind of hash on the film–which is actually several short films–two of which are projected side by side at the same time.  He says the individual shorts, which run about 30 minutes each, are “a little bland.”  Although, as he points out above, the actual films themselves are kind of beside the point.

Indeed, he criticizes other critics for missing the “point” of these films, which is that Warhol is “stripping the cinematic medium of its pretension and decorations.”  Rather, he complains, “Nearly all the other critics writing in the popular press dwelt with the lugubrious insistence on the squalidness, sordidness, perversion, etc of the lives depicted in the film”

The review doesn’t really talk about the content of the film.  Although, given what he says, it sounds like there isn’t a lot of “content”–a series of rooms in the Chelsea Hotel and what goes on in them.  And, since Battcock doesn’t talk about the “‘dirty’ subject matter of the film,” I’m going to assume that there’s not much else.

I’ve never seen The Chelsea Girls (it’s not really available for home viewing) and, as with most experimental film, it seems like it’s better thought about than actually watched.   But now I get to imagine everything that goes on (the “cover” of the film seems to suggest a lot).

I suspect if I were in college I would think this movie was still pretty cool and subversive.  Ah, to be young and easily impressed.

SOUNDTRACK

I don’t know who Jim Bryson is (he’s a Canadian folk singer, duh), but I do know The Weakerthans.  And since this CD is always listed in The Weakerthans’ discography, I thought it was worth investigating.

All of the songs have a Weakerthans feel, there is no question (I mean, they play all the music).  And while I like the album quite a lot, I feel like without John K. Samson’s voice, the disc is missing something.  Nevertheless, the album is a wonderful folky album, a great mix of upbeat and slow tracks.

“Metal Girls” is a wonderful upbeat folk rocker.  It’s incredibly catchy.  “Fell Off the Dock” is a much slower, sadder song with the final repeated line, “everybody loved it here, but you.”  “Wild Folk” ups the tempo again.  “Constellation” is another slow song, this one with beautiful harmonies.

“Freeways in the Frontyard” has even better harmonies, from Jill Barber–a kind of minor key harmony that works very well.  “Up All Night” is another more uptempo track that could easily be an adult alternative hit.  “Kissing Cousins” is a slight track that seems like it should be funny but isn’t really.  “Decidedly” is one of my favorite tracks on the disc.  It’s boppy with a fun chorus: “Why would you ever grow leaves just to watch ‘em fall off again.”

The first and last tracks feel more like filler or intro/outro than real songs.  But that’s okay.  It’s a tidy little album of very pretty songs.  And the tempo changes keep everything interesting for half an hour or so.  You can’t complain about that.

And in case you were wondering, the Falcon Lake Incident is a reported UFO encounter near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada claimed to have occurred on May 20, 1967 (thanks Wikipedia).

[READ: January 19, 2012] “Happy New Year”

Of course, I wish I had read this article earlier in the month, but then I only found out about it a couple of days ago.

This is an article (I assume from the editor of The Lotus Magazine) which bemoans the loss of the New Year’s Day tradition of going to (pretty much) anyone’s house for meals and snacks and drinks and good times.

The article states that it may have been about 35 years ago (circa the 1880s) that the Dutch custom was abandoned.  Before then, people in New York City would throw open their doors and it was:

a breach of etiquette to omit any acquaintance in these annual calls, when old friendships were renewed and family differences amicably settled.  A hearty welcome was extended even to strangers of presentable appearance.

Indeed, it seems that certain houses were known for:

particular forms of entertainment.  At one was eggnog; at another, rum punch; at this one, pickled oysters; at that, boned turkey, or marvelous chocolate, or perfect Mocha coffee, or, for the connoisseur a drop of old madeira, as soft as rainwater and as delicate in flavor as the texture of the glass from which it was sipped.

What amazes me about the article is that it quotes “Tyrone Power, the actor, the elder of the name” as writing in his diary that in 1834 he was invited to New Year’s Day parties of people he didn’t know…and their families as well.

Evidently this tradition was abandoned once people started taking advantage of it–turning it into a burlesque.  Society women’s houses were invaded by people with whom they had no acquaintance whatsoever.  Sigh, what a sad loss.

The end of the article discusses how New Year’s Day is celebrated in different places.  Germany celebrates on New Year’s Eve, with family and friends gathering and ringing in the year.  In Vienna, the Emperor and archduchess entertain visitors.  And in France they exchange gifts on New Year’s Day as if it were Christmas, and the city is alive with jubilant life–even the shops are opens with brilliant displays.

For such a short article, this was quite entertaining.  And the accompanying pictures were cool, too.

This article was available through JSTOR, so if you have an account, you can read it too.

This track comes from Zanes’ Family Dance album and from the For The Kids compilation.

Dan Zanes is a wonderful troubadour of kid’s folk rock.  The funny thing about many of his songs, like this one, is that it’s not really a kid’s song–there’s nothing about the lyrics that says “only children will like this.”  It’s just a generally happy song that is safe for all ages.

The song opens with a simple accordion melody and is about riding a wonderwheel (I’m not sure what that is actually–a ferris wheel?).  The melody is great and there’s a nice female vocal harmony.  The song reminds me of a poppier, happier version of a Richard and Linda Thompson song.  It feels olde, like a classic song that people have been singing forever, and yet it’s brand new.

Dan Zanes is going to be playing a show around here in February and I’m pretty excited to go.  He’s one’s of my favorite kid’s music makers.  His songs are clever and catchy and never pander to the lowest common denominator.

[READ: November and December 2011 and January 2012] The Secrets of Droon, Books 1-12

Every night, my wife and I read picture books to my kids before bed.  Once in a while I would read chapter books to my son (they’re usually a little too much for my daughter to focus on). Clark is 6, Tabitha is 4.

We had been reading The Magic Tree House (which both kids love) and then I hit upon The Secrets of Droon.  I knew of the series from the library, but I didn’t know a thing about it.  I thought that Clark might read it himself, but he asked me to read that first book to him (it may indeed be too much for him to be able to read and fully enjoy).  I’m glad he did, because it has begun a special evening ritual for us.

We try to read three or four chapters of a Droon book a night.  And he really follows along well.  There are times when he guesses what will happen, and he certainly remembers more about what happened than I do.  Sure there are a few things he doesn’t quite get–some of the books in the teens are, if not intense, then certainly mind-boggling: I don’t think a 6-year-old can really grasp time travel or the apparition of a character who has disappeared, but he certainly likes the good vs evil story and he thinks that Neal, the comic relief, is really funny.

We started with Book 2 (Book 1 wasn’t at the library), and continued through Book 6 before going back and reading #1.  He thought #1 would be boring because we’d gotten so far beyond that already, but even that book was good–and filled in a few questions that I had.

There are 36 books in the series (as well as 6 Special Edition books (we haven’t read any of those yet so I don’t know what that means)).

The first twelve books form a kind of arc.  I suppose it’s official as an arc (at least it seems to be in all of the official info about the series), because a problem runs through all the books and is then solved.  However, there’s no real mention of it as an arc in the books, the kids “finish” that task, but simply continue to go back for a new adventure in Book 13.

So, just what is this series about?

There are three kids, Eric, Julie and Neal.  They are three friends in, elementary school–4th grade seems about right.  In the first book, they are asked to clean up Eric’s basement.  In the process, they find a tiny door under  the staircase.  When they open the door and turn off the light, a rainbow staircase appears. The kids go down the stairs (to fetch their soccer ball) and they end up in Droon.

Droon is a world where magic exists.  There are many strange creatures–with, I have to admit, really bad names.  Although I enjoy this series very much, Tony Abbott has some of the worst-to-read-aloud creature names in children’s fiction.  The kids soon meet a young Princess named Keeah.  Keeah is accompanied by Galen, a powerful wizard who is over 500 years old.  (I’m still not sure exactly how to pronounce Galen’s name. I say “Gay-len”).  Galen has a friend, an eight-legged spider troll named Max who is able to spin amazing webs of silk.  These three are the good guys in Droon.  Keeah’s mother nad father are King Zello and Queen Relna, rulers of the area of the world (there are many different “lands” in Droon).

The Princess and Galen are trying to save Droon from the attacks of Lord Sparr.  Sparr is a human (sort of) with fins on the back of his head.  They change color as Sparr gets angrier.  Sparr also has magic, but his magic is ancient and rather evil.  He hopes to take over Droon and, eventually climb the staircase to the Upper World.

In each book, the kids help the Princess and Galen to fight Sparr.  They come close to serious peril on a number of occasions (which gets me nervous, so I assume it gets my son nervous), but the kids are always excited to head back to Droon.  And yes, when they return home, no time has passed (although the adult in me can’t help but wonder, aren’t they super tired after several days of adventure in Droon?) only to (in one case) return to a soccer game.

I mentioned an arc.  The arc concerns Keeah’s mother, Queen Relna.  Relna has been placed under a spell.  She is plagued to forever shift shapes from one animal to another.  But this curse is better than what Keeah thought happened to Relna (Keeah thought she was killed in a battle).  So for the first few books we try to realize what happened to her and hope that she can find the kids.  So the 12 book arc is more or less an attempt to help Keeah find her mother.

I say more or less because although that thread runs through all of the books (with the Queen making several appearances in each book), every book has its own primary plot–most of which have to do with Lord Sparr.  So the kids fight Lord Sparr and if they can get more information about Relna in the process, that’s great too.

The first twelve books are:

1. The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet
2. Journey to the Volcano Palace
3. The Mysterious Island
4. City in the Clouds
5. The Great Ice Battle
6. The Sleeping Giant of Goll
7. Into the Land of the Lost
8. The Golden Wasp
9. The Tower of the Elf King
10. Quest for the Queen
11. The Hawk Bandits of Tarkoom
12. Under the Serpent Sea

It’s not really worth giving details about each book.  Suffice it to say that the kids go to Droon (and in these early books, the first chapter is a pretty lengthy exposition about what Droon is and how the kids get there–it’s a bit tedious although it’s useful for new readers (like since we started with Book 2).  Despite the repetition, Abbott does a good job of keeping each opening chapter different and of supplying enough new information that you can’t really ever skip them (There’s less exposition in the later books).

The title of each book more or less indicates what kind of peril they are in store for (volcanos, giants, wasps, etc).  What I like about the series is that Abbott introduces new characters in almost every book.  So not only does it flesh out the world of Droon, it also means that there’s some new kind of twist in each adventure.  Yes, we get the same group of kids, but the friends or enemies are different (except for Sparr who is behind everything).

The first few books have a basic set up–the kids go to Droon, meet someone and find out what the problem is.  They get into trouble and then help in some way.  Although Eric is the leader (especially later in the series), it’s nice that the books always talk about how they work together to solve their problems.  And often times they do it without the help of Keeah or any magic at all.

[The series has been recommended for fans of Harry Potter, and I saw one review online which describes the series as a H.P. knock off.  I agree with the first but disagree withe latter part.  Magic is present but the story is never about magic (books after #13 have more magic).  The story is also geared a lot younger than H.P.--I certainly plan to read H.P. with my kids but not for a couple of years.  Think of the series as maybe an introduction to wizardry.]

The book chug along pretty nicely for the first 5 or 6 and then in Book 7, Abbott either creates or remembers a detail (I can’t really remember myself) which takes the books into new levels of coolness and intensity.  The rule is that if you take anything out of Droon something will be taken out of the Upper World.  Similarly, if you leave anything from the Upper World in Droon, something from Droon will appear in the upper world. This happens at the end of Book 7 which leads to an awesome cliffhanger–what if the thing taken from the Upper World was alive!–the stakes are seriously raised for everyone!

Another cool twist occurs when Sparr is put out of commission. Everyone knows he’s not dead, but no one knows where he is.  Abbott uses this plot development to create new menaces which are different from the trouble that Sparr poses.  But we all know that Sparr is lurking around somewhere.

The stories are exciting and possibly a little scary–although Clark has never seemed really frightened. Some of the ideas and concepts are a bit over his head–I guess they’re really more for 7 or 8 year olds, but although I have explained a few things to him he never seems out of his depth.  And he loves the comic relief.  It’s never a lot, but he laughs out loud a few times per book.

Okay, I complained about the names of Abbott’s characters so let me give a couple:

• Batamogi (is actually fun to say) is king of the Oobja people (Abbott uses a lot of “oo” sounds in his name).
• Demither is an undersea queen (man, is that an ugly word to say).
• Khan (this seems just lazy, unless he wants me to say Khaaaaaaan! every time) is king of the, get this…
• The Lumpies–a race of pillow-like people (that’s probably the most egregious thing in the series–a weird idea that served as a kind of comic relief although they have now taken on more importance in the series.

The names don’t seem so bad written in a list, but when you have to say them out loud many times a night, they are quite awful.  But the series is so good that it’s worth it.

For a cool website with tons more information and cool games, and a checklist of the books, check out the Scholastic Droon site.

We’re already on to Book 14.

And since I’m at 250,000, here’s a snapshot of my most popular posts:

Pierdomenico Baccalario–Ulysses Moore series, books 1-4  (over 9,700 views).
If you Google this book, I’m pretty much the main site.  I only wish I could convince someone to publish the rest of the books!

Awkward Pauses [Ass Möde] (over 7,500 views)
Hilariously, if you Google “ass mode” I’m the #3 hit.  Thanks Craig Ferguson.

Terry Moore–Echo #23 & #24 (2010) (over 4,110 hits)
I believe this is more because of Pearl Jam than Terry Moore.  Although this reminds me that I have to order the final issues of the series.

James Joyce–[Week 4] Ulysses (1922) [Wandering Rocks, Sirens, Cyclops] (almost 3,700 hits)
Who knew so many people loved James Joyce?

Pseudonymous Bosch–The Name of This Book is Secret (2007) (almost 3,300 hits)
I have a very lengthy dialogue going on in this post about secrets and getting into the website.  Although I myself have never tried it.  Thanks, kids, you’ve made me 310 on Google.

The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis (2010) (2,350 hits)
I have no idea why this gets so many views.  It is constantly in my top search terms and that seems to have put me into the Top 10 on Google.  Cool.

Clash of the Gods (The History Channel, 2009) (just over 2,200 hits)
This post cycles in popularity whenever they re-air the series.  Everyone wants to know who the actors are, but I have no idea.  It’s a closely guarded secret apparently.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job Chrimbus Special (2010) (almost 1,845 hits)
I had no idea this post was so highly ranked on my site.

Jonathan Franzen–”Farther Away” (New Yorker, April 18, 2011) (just over 1810 hits)
This post received a lot of attention when it came out because, I assume, of the David Foster Wallace connection.

Pierdomenico Baccalario–Ulysses Moore–No More? (1,781 hits)
I’m surprised, given how popular the first post is, that this post doesn’t have more views. But that’s okay.  I tend to think of my site as being about David Foster Wallace and Roberto Bolaño, but clearly it’s all about Pierdomenico Baccalario!

Speaking of David Foster Wallace, his posts come in at rankings: 13, 22, 25, 26 and 27.

And poor Roberto Bolaño, who I feel like I never shut up about, he only manages 19, 64 and beyond.

Thanks for reading!

For ease of searching I include: ass mode, Roberto Bolano

SOUNDTRACK

These two songs came out some time after The King of Limbs.  They were available from a number of sites, like Stereogum and were also released as a 12″ vinyl.

I liked these when they came out (it’s Radiohead after all), but listening again now, sort of out of the Radiohead mindset, I’m a little more critical.

“Supercollider” is 7 minutes long and, surprisingly for a Radiohead song, it doesn’t really deviate from itself very much in all that time.  And I know that that’s the point, it’s a moody piece–much of King of Limbs was like that.  It’s an enjoyable song for its mood, but it’s not a very interesting song.  For many groups that’s a minor criticism, but for Radiohead I think it’s pretty big.

“The Butcher” on the other hand has my favorite thing about new Radiohead: skittery drum beats.  And while the bass line (which is all the melody you’ll get here) isn’t super complex, Yorke’s voice more than complements it by really nailing an interesting, slightly menacing tune.  And when you can finally get a grip on the lyrics at the end of the song, it all gels nicely.

Neither one of these songs would be out of place on Limbs, but then again, neither one would really stand out on Limbs either.

[READ: December 30, 2011] “Things I Learned from My Friend’s Dog”

Of all of the blog posts on Max Barry’s blog, this was the shortest.  But, given that it’s about dogs by a guy who has never owned a dog before I thought it would be fun to include it here.

The dog he’s watching is two years old (named Snow).  And Snow has taught Max what any dog owner knows:

There are smells (often bad) and sounds (surprisingly loud) that are specific to dogs.  Dogs have even worse selective hearing than people.  And my favorite, which I will quote: “If you step backwards (at any time), you will stand on Snow.”

Several of Snow’s issues seem to also apply to my mother-in-law’s dog, Sophie (who is a poodle), but not our dog, Pippin (who is a mutt).  Like standing as close as possible to a human.  Our dog likes to be outside, but Sophie, holy cow, she is magical in her ability to be underfoot and her inability to get out of the way.

Similarly, “it is uncouth to push open a slightly ajar door in order to pass through it; rather, one should sit in front of it and whine.”  Sophie doesn’t whine, but she does sit in front of a door waiting for it to open. In fact, when she’s not underfoot it’s safe to assume she is in front of a door waiting to go out.   Pippin, on the other hand, will push open anything.  Or bark loudly if he cannot.

Barry has a few points regarding the dog’s desire to do something other than what you are doing–outside is preferable to in unless you are inside (much like kids).

His final point is applicable to everyone, I think:

“If you don’t know what it is, lick it”

Read the whole list here.  That’s a picture of Snow by the way.

SOUNDTRACK

It’s interesting to compare this show by Wild Flag with their SXSW show.  This set is longer, but they retain the same raw energy and intensity.  It also sounds as though the tour has been rough on Carrie’s voice, which sounds a bit strained and hoarse (even when she talks!).

They play most of their debut album, but they also throw in a couple of new songs and even a few covers.  Perhaps the most fascinating part is the 15 minute (!) version of “Racehorse.”  There’s a lengthy noodling section as well as a cool part where Carrie goes a little crazy asking about money.

Janet Weiss is absolutely amazing here too.  And the keyboards, definitely complement everything well, but they are always the most notable flubs, and there’s the same one as in the SXSW show (not as bad, but noticeable).

Without a doubt the most interesting thing is the hearing that Mary Timony gives guitar lessons in Washington DC.  She lives there and evidently earns extra cash by doing guitar lessons.  Wow.  How cool would that be?

Check out the show here.

[READ: January 15, 2012] The Influencing Machine

Brooke Gladstone is one of two reporters who works on NPR’s On the Media.  On the Media is an awesome show which dissects things that happen in the world and examines the way the media portrays the events.  They work pretty hard to see who is reporting bias, who is exposing bias and how things are getting out to the average media consumer.  It’s worth anyone’s time to read (it doesn’t take very long).  And it’s also fun and enjoyable.  As anyone who has heard the ending of On the Media: “and edited [dramatic pause] by Brooke” knows, there’s always a smirking grin attached to the program.

When I heard that this book came out I was pretty excited to read it.  And then I promptly forgot all about it.  Lucky for me, my wife can take a hint, and she got it for me for Christmas.

The first surprise of the book is that it is written as a graphic novel–illustrations by Josh Neufeld (who has drawn for Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor).  The funny thing about the illustrations is that I have no idea what Brooke Gladstone looks like (which I rather prefer about my NPR announcers), but I really like the cartoony style of her avatar (which reminds me of Elaine from Seinfeld and which inspired me to draw a kind of similar version on my drawing site.

On to the book.

This book works as a primer for understanding media ownership, media consolidation and media power.  The opening few chapters are going to be nothing new for anyone who has read Chomsky or Vidal on the media.  But since most people haven’t, it’s a wonderful way into some of these thorny issues of who tells us what and why.

What I found especially enlightening is that she goes into historical contexts that extend way beyond the current state of the media.  But she also progresses into the current climate of the internet and blogs and massive media consolidation.  (I more or less stopped reading Chomsky on the media in the 90s, so this new input was enlightening).

Her introduction not only sets up the book, it asks questions of us as readers and consumers that we should be asking, if we’re not already.

We hunger for objectivity, but increasingly swallow “news” like Jell-O shots in ad hoc cyber-saloons….  But we don’t really get agitated until we encounter the other guys’ media.  Those guys are consuming lies.  They are getting juiced up.  Their media diet is making them stupid.
What if our media choices are making us stupid?  What if they’re shortening our attention span, exciting our lusts, eroding our values, hobbling our judgment?
I’ve been reporting on the media for some 25 years….  The concentration of media ownership, the blurring of news and opinion, the yawning news hole (there’s teeth in there) created by the 24-hour news cycles…scarifying local coverage…shriveled foreign coverage…liberal bias…conservative bias…celebrities…scandal…echo chamber…arrogance…slitism…bloggers with no standards.

That sets the scene, but her concluding comments may surprise you.  When speculating about whether the media will censor itself because of the government, she concludes:

The American media are not afraid of the government.  They are afraid of their audience and advertisers.  The media do not control you.  They pander to you.

Brooke opens with ancient history–how Roman emperors dealt with news and they way it was written (often rather forcefully).  It’s not until American courts set standards for libel that a free press really exists without fear of threat.  Of course America is not always a paragon of free speech.  Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act of 1917 which outlawed any speech that could “harm the war effort.”  Brooke walks us through the high and lowlights of American censorship through Vietnam to 9/11.

This censorship is done in the guise of keeping us safe.  Brooke asks us, are you safer not knowing the truth about why we invaded Iraq?  According to the Center for Public Integrity, the White House made 935 false statements about Iraq in the two years following the 9/11 attacks.   The scene of the toppling of the Saddam statue and how it was staged by the military was not only revelatory it was shocking to me (they used tight camera angles to make it look like a much bigger crowd).

Another unrelated but interesting statistic is that despite the mentality that if it bleeds it leads…that people only want sensational news, The Project for Excellence in Journalism found that “serious policy stories–if done well–were just as likely to hold viewers as car crashes.  Maybe even more so.”

You get the idea of what kind of book this is from these excerpts.  It’s a worthwhile book to read for anyone who tries to stay current.  If you believe the media is wrong, you are correct, but not always intentionally.  And with the internet reporting is easily challenged, if you’re willing to do the work.

What about bias?  She looks at this issue thoroughly and comes up with an interesting graph about presidential coverage on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news since Reagan.  They found that during the first seven months of their tenure, the three networks’ coverage was: Reagan: 37% positive; Clinton 34% positive; George W. Bush: 37% positive; Barack Obama 35% positive (Obama on Fox: 27% positive).  Not a lot of liberal bias there.  She says that rather than liberal or conservative, we should look for other types of bias: Commercial bias, bad news bias, status quo bias, access bias, visual bias and narrative bias (this last one is why science stories are always changing what is “good for you”–because it’s much easier for the media to tell a story–chocolate makes you thin–than to investigate and report on the complex data without having a “conclusion.”

Brooke moves through all of these issues, spending a lot of time on “war bias” and attempts at “objectivity” as well as how technology changes the way we perceive things.

I love this quote from Douglas Adams:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.  Anything that’s invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary.  Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.

This quote leads to her final section–what to do about the media…Don’t Panic.

Her final word is that now with technology at our fingertips we can influence the media.  It’s a powerful and happy thought.  But one that will require a lot of work.  It would be a lot easier if we were all cartoons, I’m sure.