SOUNDTRACK: PJ HARVEY-Uh Huh Her (2004).
After the sort of mellow, almost commercial release of Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey throws the fans a left turn once again with Uh Huh Her. It’s a heavy, raw album although not raw like Dry was. It seems simpler, somehow. And I think it’s with this disc that you realize that every PJ Harvey record is going to be different. It was apparent that she had a trajectory on those first few discs, but this one changes everything, and she proves that you’ll never know what’s going to come from her.
“The Life and Death of Mr Badmouth” has a very simple blues riff with kind of chanting (and occasional creepy backing vocals) by PJ. While “Shame” adds more texture (melodica?) and some more washes of sound. “Who the Fuck?” is a wonderfully vulgar and raw track with brutal guitars and overly loud vocals. “Pocket Knife” is a buzzy but quiet track which feels like a demo (the guitar even seems out of tune), while “The Letter” has a great fuzzy guitar sound and a cool melody.
“The Slow Drug” is one of several slower pieces. As with many of her quieter stuff this does nothing for me, although it’s a nice change on the disc. “No Child of Mine” is a brief acoustic number. It feels more like an excerpt or a transitional song than any actual song (being only a minute long). It leads to the rocking “Cat on a Wall.” “You Came Through” mixes things up very nicely with a heavy percussion. The effects in the song are really captivating.
“It’s You” is a slow piano-based song, while “The End” is a brief instrumental (more melodica). And “The Desperate Kingdom of Love” is a dark ballad. The oddest track is “Seagulls” which is a minute of actual seagulls squawking…an unusual addition for any disc. The album ends with “The Darker Days of Me & Him.” It’s a quiet acoustic song which shows just how many different style she’s willing to experiment with even on one disc. Even though to me this is a raw rocking disc, there are still a number of acoustic tracks as well.
This album feels like some kind of psychic purge.
[READ: March 31, 2011] The Littlest Hitler
I picked up this collection of stories because I enjoyed Boudinot’s story in the BlackBook collection very much. I didn’t realize that that story was in fact part one of a two-part story (although part two bore no relation to part one, as you’ll see). The story in BlackBook was funny and dark, but it didn’t prepare me for just how dark these stories would get. And for the most part, it seemed like the darkness came at the very end; a surprise, a shock. I admit i grew a little weary of the device by the end of the collection, although not all of the stories employed it, so there was some diversity.
“The Littlest Hitler” starts with the titular premise: a fourth grader decides he wants to dress up as Hitler for Halloween. His father lets him (!) and awkward hilarity ensues. The best part of all was when a classmate dressed up like Anne Frank engages him. It seemed like the conflict could have ended right there, but Boudinot takes it much further. The narrator, disgraced at wearing a Hitler costume, modifies it for trick or treating and then it ends on a really dark, personal note.
“On Sex and Relationships” is a story of a friendship that has drifted apart. The four characters are old friends, happy to get together after having not seen each other for a while. They catch up but realize that their time apart has built some differences between them (especially when the one friend reveals his step by step website for learning to play “Stairway To Heaven” oohitmakesmewonder.com (which sadly doesn’t exist) and the other friend didn’t even know about it). Midway through the party, is turns really dark (I’m reminded of the Kids in the Hall skit where Scott Thompson has sex with Dave Foley’s wife on the dining room table–although the story doesn’t go in that direction, the tone is similar). Rather, it turns acrimonious between the one unmarried couple. And, as the story ends, the final lines blew me away.
“Bee Beard” is another story of betrayal, although I felt it was far more whimsical in its depiction of betrayal. A man starts dating a woman who wears a bee beard all the time. Of course, this also means that she leaves bees everywhere.
“Blood Relatives” is the two-part story that “My Mother Was a Monster” came from. I enjoyed it just as much on a second reading, although the shock was obviously less. The second part of the story was called “Profession” In it, the kids’ dads all go to school to talk about their jobs. The narrator is the father of one of the kids and he reveals that he is a serial killer. It is played very straight and therefore very humorously. But like the first part, it proves itself to be true (and grows quite dark). The weird thing about these stories is that the first half of them are really funny. I mean, they’re super dark and twisted but they are really funny. But the back half of the story is really serious, very dark and intense. It’s almost like they don’t belong together, but they do work together very well.
“Drugs and Toys” begins very amusingly. The local family owned drug store has been in the small town for generations. And the owner knows everyone’s business. There’s some very funny and utterly embarrassing conversations regarding bodily functions that are played straight and which don’t embarrass anyone because the drug store is like a sacred space. (The conversation about the condoms is hilarious especially when it goes in an unexpected direction).
Then about halfway through the “toys” section comes into the fore. The store across the street opens up as a warehouse for a toy distributor. People think it’s a toy store, but it is not open to the public, only to retailers. Needless to say people are pissed that this store looks like a toy store but isn’t. And they express their outrage. Meanwhile, the drug store owner is also mad that the toy store lady isn’t appreciating his warmth and friendliness.
By the very end of the story, the drug store owner proves to be even more peculiar than might have been suspected, and the ending is miles away from the beginning.
“Contaminant” is a bizarre story that was not as satisfying as the others. It opens with a carload of guys transporting a dead body (and the poor 4th guy who has to sit it in the backseat). It seems like an execution story, until we learn that the dead guy is going to work with them, and that he is on the factory line. The level of absurdity did not really work for me, although when the contaminant was inevitably discovered (and how could it not be…that’s what bugged me), it was kind of fun.
“Civilization” is a (yes) dark story from start to finish (no surprise ending here). It’s similar to Logan’s Run in premise except that the children are tasked to kill their own parents as part of the civic duty. The narrator is reluctant even though everyone else (including the parents) is very encouraging
“Written by Machines” is a lengthy story with some very funny aspects. The narrator explains that he is trying to protect the identities of people involved by giving them all names of Happy Days characters (so Ralph Malph is now a programmer), but that’s sort of the end of the nonsensical humor. His computer team is full of programmers who are working on a machine that can guess language. The machine can guess from context the missing word with 93% accuracy. But that 7% was really crazy off. It turns out that the machine had been hacked by a former employee, Kevin, who was fired for watching more than his allotted share of porn.
The narrator goes to confront Kevin, but Kevin is unabashed in his disdain for the company (who he believes fired him because he had contracted cancer and didn’t want to pay for his health care). Well, Kevin has taken some of the software and rewritten it and now it spits out poetry (rather convincing poetry). The narrator wants to learn the system, but Kevin, bitter, drug addled and kind of a dick is willing to doll out only little pieces at a time.
There’s a backstory as well. It’s about how the narrator’s father doesn’t think much of the narrator’s line of work–it’s not producing anything, it’s just making money. And this angle is interesting and fraught with arguments. The ending of the story is optimistic in a (wait for it) dark sort of way.
“The Flautist” is a weird little story about a guy who plays three instruments but who is in love with playing the flute. He works as a session flautist, recording hundreds of (cheesy) songs a day. The whole recording session area is very funny.
But the flautist’s girlfriend isn’t too impressed with his job. She is a hot woman who goes to bars and gets people to buy the drink she is drinking (this career seemed to “exist” in the late 90s and I wonder if it ever did (outside of fiction) and if it still does). Anyhow, she gets him a gig with Storm of Horses to do a flute solo on their new album.
The twist is projected pretty early on, but it’s still enjoyable. As are all the Jethro Tull details.
“The Sales Team” references Glengarry Glen Ross right away and makes a joke that if you know the movie you don’t really have to read this because you know it already (except there was no rape in Glengarry). And indeed, this story is about some crazed salesmen, but it is much much crazier and darker than anything David Mamet dreamed up (well, no probably not dreamed up, but at least put down on paper). And it’s crazy right from the get go. Despite the violence, I rather enjoyed this.
“Absolut Boudinot” is a two page story and I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s about committing terrorist acts on Halloween. Funny, I guess. I can’t quite place the title with the story (unless he wrote it as an ad)
“So Little Time” seemed like it would be a fairly normal story. Well, relatively normal. The three main characters are picking bulbs to earn money so they can go to the The Dr. Who Convention (with their dad who also loves Dr. Who). The crux of the story is that their one friend Chris is very poor. Very very poor. Incredibly poor. (and he goes on and on about it, god). There is a very funny sequence in which Chris goes to buy his own shirt–it is so painful it’s impossible not to laugh.
The story shows the kids playing Dungeons and Dragons (of course) and watching a Dr Who marathon. But when things go bad with Chris, tempers flare and their trip to the Convention is in jeopardy.
The end of the story is another one where the rug gets pulled out from under you. It just brings in something that you would never expect to end this story. And yet it is not out of the realm of possibility either. A very good one.
“Newholly” is a story of a man who works from home and the Somali immigrants who live next door. The Somali mother beats the kids all the time, and he is torn between doing what he things is right or staying uninvolved. The story grows surprisingly violent and ends with a final line that is as controversial as it is perfect.
Table of Contents
- The Littlest Hitler
- On Sex and Relationships
- Bee Beard
- Blood Relatives
- My Mother Was a Monster
- Profession
- Drugs and Toys
- Contaminant
- Civilization
- Written by Machines
- The Flautist
- The Sales team
- Absolut Boudinot
- So Little Time
- Newholly
[…] next night I read a story by Ryan Boudinot (in The Littlest Hitler). The story is not current at all, and yet he also mentions the Turing […]
[…] story sounded familiar. It is in Boudinot’s The Littlest Hitler. What I said about it then is still accurate: “It’s similar to Logan’s Run in premise except that the […]