SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Binaural (2000).
Binaural bursts forth with the rampaging “Breakerfall” and “God’s Dice.” The latter pauses only briefly for a chorus break. They are followed by “Evacuation,” a song that sounds a bit off kilter in this studio version but which blasts off on the live version. It’s got a great shouty chorus too.
“Light Years” is another wonderfully singalongable PJ track. The verses are delicate and, while the choruses don’t build, they are still very catchy. “Nothing as It Seems” is a haunting track that is dark and fantastic. The opening guitar riff sounds like it’s coming from the middle of a desert, and the rest of the song is great and great sounding too. “Thin Air” is another mid- tempo song that doesn’t wear out its welcome, and is fun to sing along to as well.
“Insignificance” is one of the great stop/start songs in PJ’s history. The staggered guitar work builds and stops, builds and stops and just gets better as it goes along. “Of the Girl” is one of those moody pieces that on previous discs sounded kind of throwaway, and yet this song has enough interesting nooks in it that it never gets dull. It doesn’t really ever bust out into big chorus, but the subtle changes are just as powerful. “Grievance” is also fantastic. Another staggered type of song with powerful lyrics and rocking verses and choruses. And when played live, this song is a behemoth.
“Rival” is one of those weird little songs that PJ throws in. An experiment that works more than some of t heir others. Followed by “Sleight of Hand” one of their more impressive ballads. Even though the chorus isn’t dramatically different, it’s still very powerful. “Parting Ways” is one of their best album enders in a long time. It’s another slow one, yet it doesn’t meander. There’s some nice guitar interplay that keeps the song interesting.
And then there’s “Soon Forget” a little number played on a ukulele. For another band this would be a gimmick yet Eddie’s sincerity pulls it off quite nicely. There’s also a hidden track at the end (evidently called “Writer’s Block”) which is the sound of a typewriter typing.
This was the disc that got me back into Pearl Jam, and it really is a great album. Most of their first barrage of live discs came from this tour, which may explain why I like these songs so much (I heard them all about 70 times, right?), but it’s a great place to start for latter-day Pearl Jam.
[READ: April 2007] The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
I read this book a long time ago, in college, based on the recommendation of my friend Gene. I really enjoyed it and found it quite funny. Then, last year, I watched Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, which is sort of a film adaptation of Tristram Shandy. A post about this movie could be just as long as the movie itself, but the short version is that the hilarious Steve Coogan is an actor in a production of the film of Tristram Shandy. As they are filming Tristram Shandy, the camera follows Coogan, the actor, as his neuroses get the better of him in both his professional and personal life. This Coogan stuff has absolutely nothing to do with the book, making the whole proceeding weird and wonderful.
Tristram Shandy is a pretty unfilmable book, as it is meta- beyond virtually anything else. But the movie was very funny, and the few scenes that are actually from the book were well done, and it inspired me to read the book again. The Gillian Anderson cameo was pretty sweet as well.
But I have to say that this time I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the first time. I’m guessing this is due to two things. The first is that I had a lot more free time to sit and get absorbed by the book then. And the second is that when I read it the first time, I was an English major, and had been reading more difficult works, so my frame of mind was more attuned to this sort of complex story.
And difficult and complex this story is.
As the lengthy title explains, this is the life’s story of Tristram Shandy, gentleman. Shandy himself has set about to write his own autobiography, and in order to be fully detailed, he is going to start from the moment of his birth. And yet, as he tries to fill in all these details, he finds himself telling the story of the day of his birth. And he realizes how much Walter–his father–and his Uncle Toby play a role in his birth too. As such, he doesn’t even get to his actual birth until Chapter III. He makes a point of wondering how long it will take him to finish the book at this rate.
And so, we find ourselves encountering a number of other fascinating characters. Walter and Uncle Toby spend a lot of time talking while his mother is actually giving birth to him. Walter is an intense, easily aggravated man, while Toby is a gentle soul. The discussions are convoluted and often at odds with each other. Another major character is Toby’s servant Trim, who attempts to help Toby in all of his endeavors. One such endeavor is a hilarious flashback to Toby’s labored pursuit of an eligible lady (in the film Gillian Anderson professes to love this part of the story).
As you can tell from this set up, Tristram has a hard time getting to the point. And that, more than anything else, is the central joke of the book. Tristram the narrator is easily sidetracked, often spending page after page on a digression. He always finds his way back, eventually, but at much expense to the narrative itself. Some of these digressions concern noses, names, and siege warfare.
The digression about his name is particularly funny because it impacts his entire life. While Tristram is being born, Walter tells Toby about his philosophy that a man’s name is the most important thing about him. He wishes to name his son Trismegistus, in honor of his favorite philosopher (Hermes Trismegistus). Unfortunately, when he tells Susannah, the maid, that “Trismegistus” is to be his son’s name, by the time she gets to the clergyman to present the name, she forgets exactly what it is. She stumbles with the name until the clergyman, whose name is Tristram, convinces her that the name the father meant was, in fact, Tristram. It is with utter horror that Walter learns of his son’s given name, which he considers to be the worst name imaginable and which can only bring bad luck. And such is the life of Tristram Shandy.
And this is the kind of thing that Sterne does so well. Utter nonsense, stretched out into preposterous situations. All for comic purpose. The only thing is, well, the two things are: the book was written over two hundred years ago, so the language is a little difficult, and Sterne was trying to obfuscate the story as much as possible, so the language is a little difficult. What I’m saying is that it’s not an easy read. And it may not be very enjoyable for most contemporary readers. Which is a shame as the humor is very funny, and more than a little bawdy. In one unfortunate incident, when a chamber pot can not be found, Susannah encourages a five year old Tristram to “**** *** ** *** ******.” And then “slap came the [window] sash like lightning upon us. ‘Nothing is left’ cried Susannah!”
There is also a lot of humor about the physical process of writing itself. He messes around with people’s ideas of what a book is. I’m going to quote this passage from the Glasgow University Library because it summarizes things better than I could:
Other oddities scattered throughout the volumes include the black page when Yorick dies… parallel texts in Latin and English, one sentence chapters, misplaced chapters and missing chapters – as in volume 4, where the pagination jumps from page 146 to 156 on account of missing chapter 24…. Such peculiarities draw attention to the appearance of the page and highlight the novel’s lack of conventional form; indeed, although written in a conversational style, the enjoyment of the book very much depends upon the reader experiencing it as a physical object.
So, there’s a lot going on with this book. It’s daunting, but if you’ve got time to appreciate the book, it’s definitely worth the read. In fact, just writing this makes me want to re-read it again more slowly so I can really appreciate it.
For a really good summary of all the parts of the book, check out this from English Online.
Astonishingly, the whole book is also available online in a cool interactive format here at tristramshandyweb. This is the most fascinating book website I have ever seen, and it’s an cool way to see the book as it was originally published.
I encourage you to read this book, if you’ve the inclination.
http://ecl.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/27/1/72
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