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From a conversation this morning with a friend who will go unnamed, in which he recounted a recent and pretty much inexplicable hot steak in which he was stalked and taken by a forty-something cougar last Friday night, hooked up with a gorgeous Indian woman on Sunday night, and tomorrow is being visited by another woman who's basically flying 3000 miles for a booty call:
"It's like you're playing musical chairs, and you're the chair."
Neilson Hubbard: I Love Your Muscles
A limp, wet noodle of an album, and a huge disappointment from one of my favorite singer-songwriter types. Admittedly, my expectations for this were high -- especially given that Hubbard had previously put out the quiet and beautifully meditative "Stars" and the often-wrenching "Why Men Fail," which is easily one of the best records you've never heard. What do we get instead? EZ listening, bland lyrics, unimaginative arrangements... by the time you reach his cover of "Lady in Red" (shudder) you may wonder what you ever saw in him in the first place.
Alcest: Souvenirs d'Un Autre Monde
This one's easy to describe -- kind of a folk/black metal hybrid that ends up sounding a lot like shoegaze. With French lyrics. Wait... where are you going? (Honestly, it's really quite lovely. And sad. Even with my dim recollection of high school-level French, I can figure out the sad part. Plus, it's pretty much a guarantee that you'll be the first kid on your block to hear it...)
Sigur Rós: Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Bliss. Just... bliss. And no, I don't know how to pronounce the title. And no, it couldn't possibly matter less. This is a sunnier version of Sigur Ros than we've encountered before, but no less breathtakingly gorgeous. Run, don't walk (naked, if necessary) to make this a part of your life.
Bob Mould: District Line
I picked this up when I saw him play live back in March, but it wasn't until earlier this week that it really caught and held my ear. Overall, this is a very solid album - with several songs that would sound perfectly in place with any of your favorite Sugar CDs - but two songs stand out head and shoulders above the rest. The first is "Again and Again," which I'd been mishearing (and enjoying) for months as a classic bitter Bob sendoff to an ex-lover, along the lines of "Explode and Make Up." Wrong: a closer examination (read: I started paying attention) shows that behind the gorgeous Richard Thompson-esque guitar solo and great ragged Bob voice lies nothing less than a heart-wrenching account of a life spiraling downward and out of control... in short, a suicide note. I can't remember suddenly hearing a song I've been half-listening to and GETTING it like this - and being so deeply moved - since the light turned on for me with Peter Gabriel's "Family Snapshot" back in high school. What's really impressive is that "Again and Again" bookends with "Old Highs New Lows," which is as lovely a song as he's ever recorded -- a love song, basically, to his life in music. The song blurs slightly into electronica (a relatively recent passion of Mr. Mould's, thoroughly explored on his never-to-be-heard-by-me album "Modulate"), but in the end it's just a gorgeous piece of work. Viva Bob!
The Autumns: Fake Noise From a Box of Toys
Here's the thing: I can see what they were trying to do, and I think they succeeded. But I just don't enjoy it. Over the past decade-plus, The Autumns have created some of the most strange, beautiful and drama-soaked music anywhere -- try listening to The Boy With Aluminum Stilts or Hush, Plain Girls and not be moved by the power of what you hear. That being said, it's clear they came at this new album with a different tactic... it's like they're trying to capture the dischordant sounds of a world coming apart at the seams. And they do it, with great skill. But. That strange beauty that characterized so much of their earlier music is gone... and with it, my ability to enjoy this album.
Koushun Takami: Battle Royale
A completely insane Japanese update on "Lord of the Flies." The writing (or the translation) is on the crude side, but there's no denying the visceral impact of a plot where, as part of a government program, 42 Japanese teenagers are dropped onto an island and told to start killing each other.
Boston Teran: Never Count Out the Dead
Another ferocious crime novel from the mysterious and psuedonymous Boston Teran -- this one featuring what may be the single most damaged mother-daughter relationship in literary history. Not for the weak of heart.
Suzanne Finnamore: Otherwise Engaged: A Novel
This was a Jonniker recommendation, and while I bought it for TheWife as a birthday gift I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about it -- most of the blurb reviews spotlighted this as chick lit in its most classic sense. Now, don't get me wrong: I enjoyed Bridget Jones' Diary (the movie, at least) as much as anyone else, and I definitely understand the appeal of the genre. But it's not something I usually stray into. Well, let me clarify: this isn't chick lit... this is fucking GOOD writing. The trappings of the plot - woman in her 30s gets engaged, has doubts, gets stressed, hurtles toward her wedding - scream chick lit, but the execution is waaaaaay beyond anything you'd associate with that diminutizing description. Finnamore has an eye for detail that is razor sharp in the sense that not only does she capture unexpected nuances in crystalline perfection, but in that the observations cut deep and true -- transforming her very funny scene-snippits into snapshots of a life gone numb with entitlement and pointless ambition and defensive sarcasm and, beneath it all, a deep and profound and nameless fear of the known and the unknown and everything in between. The fact that the novel manages to achieve all of this depth while simultaneously being funny and entertaining is just about the highest praise I can imagine. Screw genre categorization -- this is great writing.
Barry Eisler: The Last Assassin
Is it a bad sign when you're 110 pages into a theoretically fast-paced thriller and all you can think is that you wish you'd picked up something else instead? Probably. (Update: uh... yeah, that was a bad sign. What a disappointment from a usually reliable author.)
Kim Stanley Robinson: Antarctica
672 pages of ecopolitics. There's a lot to admire in this book - the in-depth portrayal of societies in microcosm, feng shui, geology/glaciology, the way global politics impact lives on a small scale, etc. - but in the end I think I admired it more than I enjoyed it. Although there was a span of about 200 pages or so where Robinson managed to weave in a pretty compelling adventure/survival story... if only more of the book had been that riveting.
Pop Goes the Weasel.
Sorry - I don't know why I did that.
Posted by:mr. big dubya | April 17, 2008 at 01:40 PM
This sounds like the pinnacle of a life that will be talked about years from now.
Posted by:foradifferentkindofgirl | April 17, 2008 at 04:37 PM
Musical chairs?
I was thinking more "Pin The Tail On The Donkey"
Posted by:above average joe | April 17, 2008 at 09:12 PM
I can't explain it, I don't endorse it, but I sure as hell find a lot of amusement hearing about it.
Posted by:TwoBusy | April 17, 2008 at 10:57 PM