A couple of notes, all of them oscillating wildly on my own personal relevance scale:
1. My buddy Greg just started a blog here, that I am both obliged and delighted to link to. It's good to have someone else to link to, to be honest. Though it might seem bizarre given that there are seemingly millions of blogs created every second, the blogosphere can be an awfully lonely place with little discursive reward unless you really whore yourself out like Perez Hilton or Drudge or whomever. Greg, by the way, played McCullough in "Dino & McCullough: The Legend Begins," if you haven't seen that yet. I have a big role in it as well, as an erratic homosexual police chief.
I think Mendy needs to get a blog, too, if only to expound on some of the more mystifying choices he made in his top ten list, like the Hold Steady, and explain why he puts Nick Cave so low on his list.
2. My predictions regarding Secret Invasion: strangely, not that far off, at least compared to the complete misfire that was my prediction for Civil War. If you recall, I claimed that the Skrulls would win the fight by detonating the Wasp using whatever growth formula the fake Hank Pym gave her, and would take out the rest of the group with the help of Norman Osborn. I was wrong in that respect: the Skrulls got their asses handed to them (and, judging from what I've read in the latest issue of New Avengers, Bendis still seems to have no moral qualms with annihilating the remainder of Earth's Skrull populace, with extreme prejudice), but Norman still got to look like the hero while Tony Stark ran off, and now he is running not S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. but a new organization called H.A.M.M.E.R., which I believe is an acronym yet to be determined. I was right that the Wasp died, but I was wrong in predicting that Jessica Jones would die trying to save her baby from Skrull-Jarvis: instead, Skrull-Jarvis just ran off with the baby, which I think is a pretty ballsy move on Bendis' part, to leave the possibility of infanticide as a dangling plot thread. Unfortunately, this still doesn't explain why Norman Osborn knew what was going on with Captain Marvel when he barged into Thunderbolts mountain, which is one of many inconsistencies and gaffes in this book. The Dark Avengers, as far as I can tell, won't be Skrulls but rather Norman Osborn's Thunderbolt's rejiggered as classic Avengers. From what I can guess, you got Moonstone as Ms. Marvel, Bullseye as Hawkeye, Venom as Spider-Man (how is he going to pull off not having the tongue thing?), and Osborn himself as the new "Iron Patriot," alongside Wolverine's son Daken, Marvel Boy, the Sentry, and Ares.
I'm actually pretty pumped for what might happen in "Dark Reign," particularly with Tony Stark now on the run from the government and Osborn having a government sanctioned band of grade-A psychos as his nu-new Avengers. However, I'm actually more interested right now in what has been going on with Final Crisis, which has managed to be blowing my mind further and further as Secret Invasion has gotten more and more formulaic. That comic is being written by Grant Morrison, one of my favorite comic writers, and after reading the entirety of his Seven Soldiers and seeing how it relates to what's going on now, I've realized that Morrison is basically recasting the entirety of the DC universe in his own crazy, narcotics-enhanced vision--this is entirely a good thing. In the future, I need to devote an entire post to the oeuvre of Morrison, which I find I can't get enough of these days.
3. My own top ten list is forthcoming. I'm in the midst of reading through all of Infinite Jest right now--my one goal for the break--and as expected, it's taking a while.
4. My father got two DVDs for Chanukah the other day, 24-Hour Party People and Joy Divison (not Control, the fictional Anton Corbijn movie, but the documentary that was released with it). I am extremely jealous, but I got a book of Tobias Wolff short stories, so I'm good for now.
5. Philip Roth project is going fine, I got 25+ pages with it and my sponsor seems happy with it. I had somewhat of a hurdle getting it past certain members of faculty who took umbrage with my lack of specificity, which is a problem with my writing I always have as well.
6. Just quickly, I want to gauge if there's any interest if I were to put some short stories of my own writing up here. Actually, more generally I want to see if I can gauge any response regarding anything at all.
7. Finally, R.I.P. Harold Pinter, one of those guys that really did deserve a Nobel Prize for literature. I remember buying a copy of The Room and The Birthday Party and enjoying them very much, and now (as I am wont to do whenever an author dies) I am inclined to read more.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
My review of Chinese Democracy
My review of Chinese Democracy, uncut. The reason I put albums in quotes as opposed to italicizing them is because that's The Cornellian policy.
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It would be unwise to review Guns N’ Roses’ new, unprecedentedly delayed album “Chinese Democracy” without first putting it into historical perspective. GnR’s last album, “Use Your Illusion,” came out in 1991. Bush 41 was waging war in Kuwait, and I was just entering kindergarten. Over the following decade and a half, Guns N’ Roses has been whittled down to frontman Axl Rose and a series of increasingly anonymous studio musicians. Izzy Stradlin, the rhythm guitarist who wrote all the best songs on “Appetite For Destruction,” left the band not long after, citing the fact that Axl would never show up to gigs on time. Lead guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum held on for a bit longer, but after observing Rose managing the simultaneous feat of becoming more lazy and demagogic at the same time, they bailed and formed their own horrible band, Velvet Revolver.
Meanwhile, Axl Rose had been smart enough to retain creative ownership of the name “Guns n’ Roses” and started recruiting instrumental foils who would be smart enough not to question his genius or subvert his spotlight. In 1995, while I was in fourth grade, he started initial recording sessions for what would become “Chinese Democracy.” His new stable of musicians would include, among hundreds of others, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, multi-instrumentalist Chris Pittman, drummer Josh Freese, guitarists Paul Tobias, Robin Finck, Buckethead and Bumblefoot, and, most inexplicably, former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, whose transformation from archetypal anti-establishment rocker to paid employee of the biggest authoritarian in the business still makes me depressed. The average life span of a musician in Guns N’ Roses was something like three months and understandably so: Rose possessed something of a work ethic, but he was famously temperamental and an ardent perfectionist, given to recording hundreds of takes of each of his songs and discarding them at roughly the same rate.
Thirteen years later, I am a senior in college and “Chinese Democracy” has cost Geffen Records at least $13 million. In the past few years, one or two songs would occasionally leak on the Internet, to be followed by Rose and his team of lawyers demanding extreme litigious action to be taken against whoever leaked tracks with ridiculous names like “The Blues,” “Catcher In The Rye” and “I.R.S.” And yet, here it now is, in its final form: 14 tracks of new official GnR (making Rose’s songwriting average of about one per year significantly below what we generally expect of serious musicians). It was inevitable that the album would come out sounding as overdone as one would imagine a thirteen-year-old album would, but not even I was prepared for how truly insular Axl Rose had become in this past decade: This album will probably best be appreciated as an unintentionally hilarious series of extremely poor musical choices. Fortunately, we have no one to blame but Rose himself.
The album is a terrible, barely listenable mess with D-grade songwriting, utilizing state-of-the-art production values that already sound dated even a day after the album has been officially released. For a band that, despite their less than stellar work ethic, managed to produce remarkably consistent albums up to now, it is disheartening to see Axl Rose strike out fourteen times in a row, although some songs are more worthy attempts at capturing the old GnR magic than others. The reason for this is simple: Rose has simply no one in his fold with the temerity to try editing his more ridiculous impulses. Rose’s new army of five guitarists can all shred perfectly fine, but they are all drowned in a mix meant to subvert any means of displaying personality or character. Compare this to the Guns N’ Roses of old. Sure, Slash was a cheese merchant and not the most original guitarist in the world, but at least he played with flair and an intuitive blues vocabulary that was entirely his own. I can’t tell if the guitar solo in “Shackler’s Revenge,” for instance, is Buckethead, Bumblefoot or some other fret-wanker with a stupid name, but it doesn’t matter because it sounds like a solo played by ProTools and fed through a soul-sucking Lazarus machine. If nothing else, this new album is symptomatic of a popular genre I like to alternately call either “meathead rock” or “autotune rock.” “Chinese Democracy” resembles less the albums of the band’s past than it does the new breed of terrible establishment rockers like Mudvayne or Staind. I attribute this to Rose’s infatuation with the industrial stylings of Nine Inch Nails: though he may have found it novel to combine industrial beats with heavy, processed guitars, he ends up making an album only one step removed from that most dated of sub-genres, nu-metal.
“Chinese Democracy” is full of terrible attempts at genre cross-pollination. The opening title track and first single opens with a full minute of vaguely eastern-sounding droning (kind of like how Led Zeppelin’s “In Through The Out Door” starts, actually) followed by a ferociously dumb riff of the “Louie, Louie” sort. This is understandable, but then it is repeated for virtually the whole song. I’m not the biggest GnR fan, but I know Rose is capable of better songwriting than this. There was a time in their history when they were capable of throwing off pretty good riffs with abandon that would all make sense within the context of the song. You might not notice in a track like “Sweet Child O’ Mine” because of its ubiquity, but Slash was brave enough to discard the opening “carnival” riff, as good as it was, halfway through the song in favor of a more expansive and interesting song comprised of a chorus and verse that functioned interdependently, in addition to several memorable solos and an eerie breakdown toward the denouement. Rose is completely incapable of doing this anymore, so he instead tries to distinguish different parts of his songs with expensive ideas like gigantic choirs, ill-advised electronic noises, flamenco guitars, Pink Floyd-esque programmed soundscapes and hoary balladry. Often, all of these elements will appear within the same song. To say that the album sounds schizophrenic does a disservice to schizophrenics capable of producing great art. The only word I care to use for it, really, is “awful.”
Even the songs with a few bright moments, such as “Better” (not a cover of the Regina Spektor song, unfortunately), with its arresting vocals and catchy harmonics, are offset by moments of sheer ludicrousness, with Rose overstepping his meager talents at almost every turn and showing his true face as a meathead, chest-thumping rocker with nothing relevant to say. The lyrics themselves are filled with Rose’s usual boastful come-ons, alternating about every third song with an almost unnerving sentimentality. What’s weird is that several of the songs here could be about the process of the making of “Chinese Democracy,” such as when Axl says in “Catcher In The Rye” (trying to paint himself as the Salinger of rock, I guess), “All at once a song I heard/No longer wouldn’t play for anybody/Or anyone.” True, and funny, but for all the struggling rock musicians trying to make it by through their dedication and talent, watching someone like Rose burn limitless amounts of money on such a useless album and then boast about it is enough to make anyone want to give up the dream.
“Chinese Democracy” is already getting a few good reviews from media outlets—the always dependably rock establishment-reverent “Rolling Stone” gave it four stars, for example—but the chances of this album holding up the way “Appetite For Destruction” did are roughly congruent to the chances of Slash and Axl settling their differences in a WWE-style steel cage match. This is one of the worst albums I have ever forced myself to listen to multiple times. It is a disservice to the legacy of Axl Rose and company, and obviously proof that Rose either needs a genuine musical foil or needs to get out of the business altogether. I would suggest that this album should be forgot about altogether, but that seems unlikely. The only distinguishing characteristic of “Chinese Democracy” is its inherent “Heaven’s Gate”-ness, in that it will be forever characterized by just how bloated and unprecedented of a failure it turned out to be.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
A comics-related post
The last issue of Secret Invasion is upon us, and although the last few issues have been somewhat underwhelming, I'm still pumped to see what sort of twists might happen. A few days before Marvel's last big event, Civil War, I attempted to predict what would happen in the last issue. I figured that what was most likely to happen would be that Tony Stark would sacrifice himself battling off a crazed clone of Thor, which would simultaneously redeem himself in the eyes of the readers as well as call an end to the Superhuman Registration Act. As it turned out, I was dead wrong. Tony Stark lived (duh, a movie was going to come out), Captain America died, and the SRA is still in place, although it seems that Stark and co. are starting to care less and less about enforcing it as they realize that people like Spider-Man aren't even remotely a threat to anyone's safety.
Anyway, I thought I'd attempt to do something similar with Secret Invasion, to see how wrong I can possibly be this time. Here's what I think will happen. Though it looked like the Skrulls were going to be defeated last issue, I believe they are here to stay for the long run. In fact, I think they will covertly take over with the help of Thunderbolts leader Norman Osborn, who will turn out to be a turncoat the whole time (this would explain why Osborn knew what Captain Marvel was in the first place when he just busted into Thunderbolts headquarters without warning). The Skrull-controlled media will make it seem as if Osborn beat the Skrulls, and he will be redeemed in the public eye for whatever wrongdoings he committed as the Green Goblin. He will probably replace Stark, who will be framed as a Skrull criminal and locked up, as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (if it still exists, and if not, then as head of S.W.O.R.D.). During the final battle, I believe that the Wasp is probably going to die as the result of whatever growth serum she took, and the ensuing explosion will injure many and probably kill Jessica Jones, amongst a few others (some of the Young Avengers, maybe, or members of the Hood's party). The heroes will be defeated and unable to voice their concerns with a media already biased against them. As a result, all superheroes are completely banned from being active, save for a new group of Dark Avengers, who are actually Skrulls in disguise and have their reputation bolstered by claiming to have the resurrected Steve Rogers on their team, now known as the Iron Patriot. The new Captain America, Bucky Barnes, will find himself completely outcast again. The rest of the heroes are driven underground and forced to team up with the likes of Dr. Doom or go to other countries like Wakanda.
We'll see how right I am.
Anyway, I thought I'd attempt to do something similar with Secret Invasion, to see how wrong I can possibly be this time. Here's what I think will happen. Though it looked like the Skrulls were going to be defeated last issue, I believe they are here to stay for the long run. In fact, I think they will covertly take over with the help of Thunderbolts leader Norman Osborn, who will turn out to be a turncoat the whole time (this would explain why Osborn knew what Captain Marvel was in the first place when he just busted into Thunderbolts headquarters without warning). The Skrull-controlled media will make it seem as if Osborn beat the Skrulls, and he will be redeemed in the public eye for whatever wrongdoings he committed as the Green Goblin. He will probably replace Stark, who will be framed as a Skrull criminal and locked up, as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (if it still exists, and if not, then as head of S.W.O.R.D.). During the final battle, I believe that the Wasp is probably going to die as the result of whatever growth serum she took, and the ensuing explosion will injure many and probably kill Jessica Jones, amongst a few others (some of the Young Avengers, maybe, or members of the Hood's party). The heroes will be defeated and unable to voice their concerns with a media already biased against them. As a result, all superheroes are completely banned from being active, save for a new group of Dark Avengers, who are actually Skrulls in disguise and have their reputation bolstered by claiming to have the resurrected Steve Rogers on their team, now known as the Iron Patriot. The new Captain America, Bucky Barnes, will find himself completely outcast again. The rest of the heroes are driven underground and forced to team up with the likes of Dr. Doom or go to other countries like Wakanda.
We'll see how right I am.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Why I hate Van Halen (a dissection of "Jump")
I just put this on my last.fm blog. Check me out sometime.
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Van Halen gets too much respect these days and I want to know why. I have my guesses, mainly that the people who enjoy this band grew up in the 80s and have an unhealthy attachment to anything heard on the radio during their formative years; additionally, we are starting to deal with the rise of young music listeners who faced a similar predicament, if only because their parents are those same listeners from the 80s. Surely, Van Halen had a few virtues far beyond those of the average cheese metal band (although its influence on the most horrid examples of the genre, such as Poison, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt, cannot be denied), but such modest virtues consisted solely of Eddie Van Halen's novel approach to guitar playing, which I will grant that, at the time of their debut album in 1978, may have seemed like a logical extension of the sort of things Led Zeppelin was doing, even as Led Zeppelin's better years were behind them, with Jimmy Page devoting himself full time to heroin and Aleister Crowley. Some believed that Eddie's chops were enough to offset David Lee Roth's horrible lyrics and even worse vocals in those days, but by the time something like "Jump" came around, I don't think anyone was attempting anything resembling good songwriting.
People seem to have a special spot in their heart for "Jump" among all Van Halen songs. I really can't figure out why. It's anchored by a keyboard riff that is as shockingly pedestrian as any that has been replayed over and over on classic rock radio, and you better believe that is saying a lot. It is a textbook case of beating a bad riff into the ground. "Jump" was part of Eddie Van Halen's opus 1984, which was a poor attempt on his part to master the keyboards in the same way that he had proven himself to be a master of guitar. Obviously, something went horribly wrong.
I begin with, as I must, with the lyrics. You might ask, why bother? Even the biggest David Lee Roth fan in the world has to admit that he is one of the two or three worst lyricists of all time (this is assuming that Roth is writing these lyrics, which I'm not sure--if it's Eddie, there's another reason for him to quit his day job). Roth of course was an amateurish singer, a preening prima donna of a showman, an incomparable chauvinist asshole, and, from all records, an impressive martial artist. Roth brings all these experiences and more to this beautiful opening aphorism:
This is Roth's statement of purpose, foregrounded by Eddie's already gratingly repetitive keyboard riff. As far as I can tell (and by doing this I am putting more thought into David Lee Roth's lyrics than anyone else in the history of the world, certainly more than Roth himself), Roth is trying to cheer up a woman who's not doing too well, telling her to "roll with the punches to get to what's real." This means, as far as I can tell, that if she just keeps taking it, eventually something good will come out of it. Thanks a lot, Roth.
Let's continue with what I guess is the bridge part, a blessed respite from that fucking tinny keyboard, kind of:
Record machine? Surely he isn't referring too, I don't know, a record player of some sort? Perhaps a jukebox, which would suggest that Roth's players are in some communal place like a bar, or perhaps a local soda fountain. Then he says, "I ain't the worst that you've seen," which perhaps could be construed as an attempt by Roth at self-deprecation, until he says, "Can't you see what I mean?" So, he isn't the worst that you've seen, wink wink nudge nudge? Does that mean that he is, actually, the worst thing that you've seen? I doubt it. More likely, Roth believes that any sentence followed by ,"if you know what I mean" qualifies as a pickup line. He is entitled to think that as the singer of a successful rock band (albeit, apparently, an ungrateful one).
So after this is the chant. "You might as well JUMP!" which is followed by someone else yelling, "JUMP!" Every time Roth says the title of the song, someone else (Eddie?) responds in turn. I find this to be one of the most annoying aspects of the song, particularly because Roth has to continue shouting nonsense like, "Yeah, jump! Go ahead, jump! Might as well jump!" etc. I'm willing to postulate that, to people who grew up with this song, this may be the most affecting part. That is, if one can put aside what some could construe to be a casual message of encouragement to those who consider suicide. Others could possibly take it to mean, I don't know, doing something crazy because you're young and invincible. Or something like that. It seems a lot of terrible songs from the 80s cover the same topic.
The rest of the song's lyrics basically repeat the bridge and the chorus over and over again, although there is one more verse that is, as you'll see, complete nonsense:
By now you will be arguing, "well of course the music is more important than the lyrics." I agree with you, so let's take the music on its own terms. The entire production sounds, at this point, phenomenally dated, in the same way in which similar "classics" like Born In The USA and Thriller sound dated. As products of the 80s, all the levels are reduced to car stereo quality, making everything sound tinny and inexpressive; additionally, keyboards are front and center and all the non-electronic instruments sound as if they are electronically augmented, even if they are not. As a result, the music sounds as inauthentic and "non-live" as traditional rock music can get, in a way that Led Zeppelin or even previous Van Halen never did.
Let's talk about the overall arc of the songwriting. For someone considered an incredible virtuoso, one of the crowning princes of his instrument, Eddie Van Halen surely doesn't extend his experimental edge to his songwriting. I think this has to be intentional, and a good reason why he is far more popular and revered than more esoteric players like Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai (or progenitors like Zappa). Not that there's anything wrong with that: in fact, I think it's probably a good thing that Eddie tried to temper his virtuosity by channeling it into typical pop structures. Still, even as a pop song, "Jump" is really nothing special. If you listen to both the verses and the chorus (this is one of many, many mainstream 80s songs where the verse and the chorus are the exact same thing), you'll notice that what you have is a I-IV-V progression--which, as songs from "Louie, Louie" to "Get Off Of My Cloud" to at least every other Ramones song will attest, is as typical a chord progression as is possible. In "Jump"'s case, you got C, then F, then G. It's really as simple as that. Over this progression is the keyboard riff, which overpowers every other instrument to an absurd degree. It's the same thing over and over again. Obviously, that's the point, it's a riff, but let me explain my distaste. I feel as if I have different responses to keyboard riffs than I do with guitar riffs: with a good guitar riff, you can at least feel the joy of expressing that sort of thing through repetition, whereas with this keyboard there's no real way to tell if Eddie didn't just play it once, put it on repeat, and make a song out of it. The fact that he tries changing it to some degree once in a while doesn't really do much for me, as even when he does that, the rhythm doesn't change at all, as if the whole tune has been preset.
The less said about the ineffectual rhythm section running behind Van Halen and Roth, the better. It's really a shame how inferior Alex Van Halen is compared to his brother, and yet it's moving to see him try to become some sort of drum legend when all the chips are stacked against him. That number one chip being, of course, bassist Michael Anthony, who as far as I can tell has a hard time playing more than one note for an indefinite period of time. Well, so did Dee Dee Ramone, you claim, but Dee Dee didn't have a drummer who played copious and poorly considered fills all the time. Alex's drumming is famously flashy, yet counter-intuitive given the nature of the song. On "Jump," neither of them can play worth shit, which is good because Eddie is clearly running the show here, and you can tell by what instruments are prominent.
Oh, but Eddie...there are several things wrong with this song's structure. Apart from actually giving us some audible guitar during the bridge (the "record machine" part), the most prominent guitar playing is during the solo, which, I must say, is pretty piss-poor. It sounds like Eddie recorded it in bits and pieces and edited it together at the last second after realizing he forgot to put in a solo, like a pimply teenager who tries to desperately rub one out before his prom date arrives. I was disturbed to read on Wikipedia that Eddie considers this to be his finest solo, although I couldn't find any evidence of him pointing out why. It comes out of nowhere, has nothing to do with the rest of the song, is completely unmemorable, and (his greatest sin) sounds like it's just trying to waste time. It's this kind of onanistic chaff that deservedly gives virtuoso guitar playing its bad rap.
Eddie's keyboard solo, which immediately follows the guitar solo, is embarrassingly bad for an entirely opposite reason. Here, it seems he can barely get a hang on the instrument, and his "solo" is nothing more than a quick succession of triplets, rather than the full chord at once. I don't know if Eddie got a bit better at the instrument later in his career (I hear he did), but at that point, it seems he is stuck with the most rudimentary of chords--triads--and he is not adventurous enough to try anything else.
So it seems we have Eddie Van Halen exemplifying the two opposite poles of bad instrumental soloing: total incompetence, of course, as well as super-competence, and the resulting high self-regard for what is essentially aimless noodling.
By the way, I personally prefer this video of Van Halen playing. It includes a noble attempt at "Iron Man":
Children of the 1980s, guitar enthusiasts, lovers of shitty lyrics, hear my plea. The next time you hear "Jump" on the radio, ask yourself these questions: why is this a good song? Why is it even on the radio? Has this aged well? Maybe you should consider that it was that stupid video on MTV, coupled with its aggressive airing on commercial radio, that foisted this upon you, and as such you are not required to like it at all. Just think about it. There's nothing worthwhile in this song. It's just a piss-poor excuse for a synthesizer riff that must have taken Eddie Van Halen five seconds to come up with. It is aural boredom. If you want a great keyboard lick from the 80s, might I suggest "Enola Gay" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark? And, of course, "Take On Me" by a-ha.
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Van Halen gets too much respect these days and I want to know why. I have my guesses, mainly that the people who enjoy this band grew up in the 80s and have an unhealthy attachment to anything heard on the radio during their formative years; additionally, we are starting to deal with the rise of young music listeners who faced a similar predicament, if only because their parents are those same listeners from the 80s. Surely, Van Halen had a few virtues far beyond those of the average cheese metal band (although its influence on the most horrid examples of the genre, such as Poison, Mötley Crüe, and Ratt, cannot be denied), but such modest virtues consisted solely of Eddie Van Halen's novel approach to guitar playing, which I will grant that, at the time of their debut album in 1978, may have seemed like a logical extension of the sort of things Led Zeppelin was doing, even as Led Zeppelin's better years were behind them, with Jimmy Page devoting himself full time to heroin and Aleister Crowley. Some believed that Eddie's chops were enough to offset David Lee Roth's horrible lyrics and even worse vocals in those days, but by the time something like "Jump" came around, I don't think anyone was attempting anything resembling good songwriting.
People seem to have a special spot in their heart for "Jump" among all Van Halen songs. I really can't figure out why. It's anchored by a keyboard riff that is as shockingly pedestrian as any that has been replayed over and over on classic rock radio, and you better believe that is saying a lot. It is a textbook case of beating a bad riff into the ground. "Jump" was part of Eddie Van Halen's opus 1984, which was a poor attempt on his part to master the keyboards in the same way that he had proven himself to be a master of guitar. Obviously, something went horribly wrong.
I begin with, as I must, with the lyrics. You might ask, why bother? Even the biggest David Lee Roth fan in the world has to admit that he is one of the two or three worst lyricists of all time (this is assuming that Roth is writing these lyrics, which I'm not sure--if it's Eddie, there's another reason for him to quit his day job). Roth of course was an amateurish singer, a preening prima donna of a showman, an incomparable chauvinist asshole, and, from all records, an impressive martial artist. Roth brings all these experiences and more to this beautiful opening aphorism:
I get upWhether or not it is true that it is difficult to get Roth down once he gets up, you have to wonder what he means by "getting up." Knowing Roth, it possibly has something to do with drugs but more likely is just Roth trumpeting his own irrepressible (read: annoying) personality, refusing to let all the haters hold him back. This opening line would make a lot of sense in a Viagra commercial, but beyond that, come on. Let's see if Roth can follow up this claim.
and nothing gets me down
You got it tough
I've seen the toughest around
And I know, baby, just how you feel
You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real
This is Roth's statement of purpose, foregrounded by Eddie's already gratingly repetitive keyboard riff. As far as I can tell (and by doing this I am putting more thought into David Lee Roth's lyrics than anyone else in the history of the world, certainly more than Roth himself), Roth is trying to cheer up a woman who's not doing too well, telling her to "roll with the punches to get to what's real." This means, as far as I can tell, that if she just keeps taking it, eventually something good will come out of it. Thanks a lot, Roth.
Let's continue with what I guess is the bridge part, a blessed respite from that fucking tinny keyboard, kind of:
Oh can't you see me standing here, I've got my back against the record machine
I ain't the worst that you've seen
Oh can't you see what I mean?
Record machine? Surely he isn't referring too, I don't know, a record player of some sort? Perhaps a jukebox, which would suggest that Roth's players are in some communal place like a bar, or perhaps a local soda fountain. Then he says, "I ain't the worst that you've seen," which perhaps could be construed as an attempt by Roth at self-deprecation, until he says, "Can't you see what I mean?" So, he isn't the worst that you've seen, wink wink nudge nudge? Does that mean that he is, actually, the worst thing that you've seen? I doubt it. More likely, Roth believes that any sentence followed by ,"if you know what I mean" qualifies as a pickup line. He is entitled to think that as the singer of a successful rock band (albeit, apparently, an ungrateful one).
So after this is the chant. "You might as well JUMP!" which is followed by someone else yelling, "JUMP!" Every time Roth says the title of the song, someone else (Eddie?) responds in turn. I find this to be one of the most annoying aspects of the song, particularly because Roth has to continue shouting nonsense like, "Yeah, jump! Go ahead, jump! Might as well jump!" etc. I'm willing to postulate that, to people who grew up with this song, this may be the most affecting part. That is, if one can put aside what some could construe to be a casual message of encouragement to those who consider suicide. Others could possibly take it to mean, I don't know, doing something crazy because you're young and invincible. Or something like that. It seems a lot of terrible songs from the 80s cover the same topic.
The rest of the song's lyrics basically repeat the bridge and the chorus over and over again, although there is one more verse that is, as you'll see, complete nonsense:
Aaa-ooh, hey you! Who said that?Christ, I don't even feel like going into this any more. Obviously it's just stupid, and it's not even the most egregious example of Rothian nonsense. I have a theory for why he wrote lyrics like this (seriously, did he just make them up on the spot?). David Lee Roth once said something to the effect of, "Rock critics love Elvis Costello more than me because they all look like Elvis Costello." It seems that me that this brilliant realization of Roth's inspired him to be everything that Elvis Costello is not, and so, to counter Costello's proclivity to write intelligent lyrics, Roth chose the meathead route. He must have figured that the quality of an individual's lyrics is inversely proportional to how much said individual gets laid; for all I know, he could be correct (although Costello was no slouch).
Baby, how you been?
You say you don't know, you won't know
until we begin.
By now you will be arguing, "well of course the music is more important than the lyrics." I agree with you, so let's take the music on its own terms. The entire production sounds, at this point, phenomenally dated, in the same way in which similar "classics" like Born In The USA and Thriller sound dated. As products of the 80s, all the levels are reduced to car stereo quality, making everything sound tinny and inexpressive; additionally, keyboards are front and center and all the non-electronic instruments sound as if they are electronically augmented, even if they are not. As a result, the music sounds as inauthentic and "non-live" as traditional rock music can get, in a way that Led Zeppelin or even previous Van Halen never did.
Let's talk about the overall arc of the songwriting. For someone considered an incredible virtuoso, one of the crowning princes of his instrument, Eddie Van Halen surely doesn't extend his experimental edge to his songwriting. I think this has to be intentional, and a good reason why he is far more popular and revered than more esoteric players like Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai (or progenitors like Zappa). Not that there's anything wrong with that: in fact, I think it's probably a good thing that Eddie tried to temper his virtuosity by channeling it into typical pop structures. Still, even as a pop song, "Jump" is really nothing special. If you listen to both the verses and the chorus (this is one of many, many mainstream 80s songs where the verse and the chorus are the exact same thing), you'll notice that what you have is a I-IV-V progression--which, as songs from "Louie, Louie" to "Get Off Of My Cloud" to at least every other Ramones song will attest, is as typical a chord progression as is possible. In "Jump"'s case, you got C, then F, then G. It's really as simple as that. Over this progression is the keyboard riff, which overpowers every other instrument to an absurd degree. It's the same thing over and over again. Obviously, that's the point, it's a riff, but let me explain my distaste. I feel as if I have different responses to keyboard riffs than I do with guitar riffs: with a good guitar riff, you can at least feel the joy of expressing that sort of thing through repetition, whereas with this keyboard there's no real way to tell if Eddie didn't just play it once, put it on repeat, and make a song out of it. The fact that he tries changing it to some degree once in a while doesn't really do much for me, as even when he does that, the rhythm doesn't change at all, as if the whole tune has been preset.
The less said about the ineffectual rhythm section running behind Van Halen and Roth, the better. It's really a shame how inferior Alex Van Halen is compared to his brother, and yet it's moving to see him try to become some sort of drum legend when all the chips are stacked against him. That number one chip being, of course, bassist Michael Anthony, who as far as I can tell has a hard time playing more than one note for an indefinite period of time. Well, so did Dee Dee Ramone, you claim, but Dee Dee didn't have a drummer who played copious and poorly considered fills all the time. Alex's drumming is famously flashy, yet counter-intuitive given the nature of the song. On "Jump," neither of them can play worth shit, which is good because Eddie is clearly running the show here, and you can tell by what instruments are prominent.
Oh, but Eddie...there are several things wrong with this song's structure. Apart from actually giving us some audible guitar during the bridge (the "record machine" part), the most prominent guitar playing is during the solo, which, I must say, is pretty piss-poor. It sounds like Eddie recorded it in bits and pieces and edited it together at the last second after realizing he forgot to put in a solo, like a pimply teenager who tries to desperately rub one out before his prom date arrives. I was disturbed to read on Wikipedia that Eddie considers this to be his finest solo, although I couldn't find any evidence of him pointing out why. It comes out of nowhere, has nothing to do with the rest of the song, is completely unmemorable, and (his greatest sin) sounds like it's just trying to waste time. It's this kind of onanistic chaff that deservedly gives virtuoso guitar playing its bad rap.
Eddie's keyboard solo, which immediately follows the guitar solo, is embarrassingly bad for an entirely opposite reason. Here, it seems he can barely get a hang on the instrument, and his "solo" is nothing more than a quick succession of triplets, rather than the full chord at once. I don't know if Eddie got a bit better at the instrument later in his career (I hear he did), but at that point, it seems he is stuck with the most rudimentary of chords--triads--and he is not adventurous enough to try anything else.
So it seems we have Eddie Van Halen exemplifying the two opposite poles of bad instrumental soloing: total incompetence, of course, as well as super-competence, and the resulting high self-regard for what is essentially aimless noodling.
By the way, I personally prefer this video of Van Halen playing. It includes a noble attempt at "Iron Man":
Children of the 1980s, guitar enthusiasts, lovers of shitty lyrics, hear my plea. The next time you hear "Jump" on the radio, ask yourself these questions: why is this a good song? Why is it even on the radio? Has this aged well? Maybe you should consider that it was that stupid video on MTV, coupled with its aggressive airing on commercial radio, that foisted this upon you, and as such you are not required to like it at all. Just think about it. There's nothing worthwhile in this song. It's just a piss-poor excuse for a synthesizer riff that must have taken Eddie Van Halen five seconds to come up with. It is aural boredom. If you want a great keyboard lick from the 80s, might I suggest "Enola Gay" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark? And, of course, "Take On Me" by a-ha.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
The Batman, emphasis on "The Man," also: Watchmen trailer
No thanks to you bozos, I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight, and of course as a fan of what Christopher Nolan is doing with the character, generally, I found it to be yet another very powerful and effective superhero movie (does anybody besides me notice the ratio of good superhero movies to bad superhero movies these days? No wonder they're a sure bet at the box office these days--it seems every other summer movie can't resist being labeled a mixed bag at best). Heath Ledger was extremely good, I thought, and definitely the best Joker I've ever seen on screen (don't count me as a fan of Jack Nicholson's impression), even as his portrayal didn't exactly match the conception I had of him from the comics. It was also fun and somewhat novel to see a movie version that argued basically the inverse of what V For Vendetta was going for: that, as Thomas Hobbes suggested, life is nasty and filled with awful people, and only self-appointed guardians of order, legitimately elected or not, can keep us from tearing ourselves apart. Much has been written about how the Joker has been remade as a political terrorist a la Zarqawi or whoever, and it's sort of interesting to see the formerly anti-establishment Batman teaming up with the cops to restore capitalism and democracy, albeit not by playing by the books (then again, who ever did?). I was also happy to see the Joker providing a true-life example of "the prisoner's dilemma" for us to witness--as a screenplay device, it's kind of hoary, and the payoff is even worse, but the idea of the Joker as a amateur political scientist strikes me as gold.
Some things bugged me, but I don't know if they qualify as actual criticisms of the movie. The film brings up a lot of properly weighty themes that are discarded without a moment's notice--the Joker-Batman inverted psychoses theory first posited (as far as I know) by Alan Moore; the interesting notion that Batman is indirectly responsible for most of the supervillains who hang around Gotham City; that Two-Face follows this tragic arc and remains, unlike the rest of the characters, unredeemed. I never felt, for all the speechifying done by various characters (including countless moments where Joker says something to the effect of, "I'm just like you, Batman, I'm the yin to your yang, Batman, you are order and I am chaos, blah blah blah"), any of this was satisfactorily resolved. When Two-Face finally gets involved in the action, as fearsome as he looks, it seems that he is supposed to represent the new breed of evil in Gotham--and he doesn't seem that bad. The conversation he and Joker have doesn't make any sense. Additionally, I felt the film crossed the line with having Batman devise some sort of widespread sonar device that could determine the location of anyone with a cell phone, even if it's meant to be temporary. Has it come to the point where audiences can only trust Batman if he is the superhero embodiment of Big Brother, working with law enforcement to take down unabashed anarchists? I don't think this is an encouraging development (and what would Batman have done with V?). I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, because it seems that Nolan is trying to set up something not frequently explored in the comics, that of Batman operating completely outside of the law and, indeed, in opposition to it. It would be cool to see a movie where Batman fought police brutality or battled war profiteers by waging corporate warfare as Bruce Wayne (there was an excellent arc in Morrison's JLA where Batman "buys out" Lex Luthor in order to stop one of his schemes). Won't happen though. The way the movie ends, I like to think it would dovetail nicely into an arc involving Killer Croc or Solomon Grundy (Batman has to relocate in the sewers) or maybe Catwoman. Then, maybe in the future, we can get a Superman team-up?
But let's not get into that. Let's talk about this Watchmen trailer.
I, like many millions of Americans, am a big fan of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. Many people like to say that it is the greatest comic book story of all time, and while I am trying to slowly wean myself from making grand pronouncements like that, I think it is absolutely essential reading for just about anyone. Certainly, if I were to ever teach a class on postmodern fiction, I would include that as required reading, no question. As a statement on industrial imperialism, compounded by the world's first US superpower employing people with literal superpowers, and the resulting fecundity of cold war resentment, it is without peer, and I honestly believe that, even with all the superheroes running around. The layers of detail and exposition warrant many repeated readings, and the ending is appropriately (given the times) morally ambiguous: I've had long arguments with people concerning whether or not we felt Rorschach's actions at the end were justified.
I feel as if Watchmen fans are now divided in two halves: those who can't wait for Zack Snyder's movie adaptation and those who are uneasy with the notion of Watchmen being made into a film, particularly by Zack"300" Snyder. You can count me among those who felt that 300 was an absolutely loathsome movie, which, if not an outright gesture of support for the continuing War on Terror was sufficiently xenophobic, homophobic, and full of enough macho self-posturing to make me want to gag. Additionally, the fact that Alan Moore explicitly stated that a movie cannot and should not be made of Watchmen was enough to give me additional pause.
Funny fact: I was delighted to find that Moore and I have similar feelings about 300, per an interview he did recently with Entertainment Weekly:
He makes good points, and he admits he may be making generalizations.
Anyway, I saw the trailer, and I couldn't help but be taken aback by how strikingly similar to the comic it is, at least in terms of angles: in fact, I was downright moved by the proceedings. I'm not convinced yet this is a good idea, but who knows? It was a good choice to have them play the Smashing Pumpkins song "The End is the Beginning is the End," as it fits the heavily stylized industrial atmosphere, as well as give it an updated 80's flavor (although, it should be pointed out, that song was written by Billy Corgan not for any album but for the soundtrack for Batman & Robin--a bad omen if you think about it). The Owlship, I was pleased to see, looks very cool. Nite Owl now looks kind of like a doughy Batman ripoff, and it's kind of silly to see him dropkicking some prisoners, but whatever. Silk Spectre now wears less clothes, no surprise there. Dr. Manhattan looks very cool, and very similar to the comics, as does the Comedian. Ozymandius unfortunately looks pretty underwhelming, but maybe that's part of the point. My beloved Rorschach (who, incidentally, shares Mendelson's birthday), looks spiffy as well, although I'm dubious about how Snyder is going to try translating the constantly shifting patterns on his mask--having them change on screen gives it a slightly different effect than having them change from panel to panel.
Anyway, it's an addictive trailer. I will probably see it when it comes out, but consider me, like Moore, to be skeptical. Hurm.
Some things bugged me, but I don't know if they qualify as actual criticisms of the movie. The film brings up a lot of properly weighty themes that are discarded without a moment's notice--the Joker-Batman inverted psychoses theory first posited (as far as I know) by Alan Moore; the interesting notion that Batman is indirectly responsible for most of the supervillains who hang around Gotham City; that Two-Face follows this tragic arc and remains, unlike the rest of the characters, unredeemed. I never felt, for all the speechifying done by various characters (including countless moments where Joker says something to the effect of, "I'm just like you, Batman, I'm the yin to your yang, Batman, you are order and I am chaos, blah blah blah"), any of this was satisfactorily resolved. When Two-Face finally gets involved in the action, as fearsome as he looks, it seems that he is supposed to represent the new breed of evil in Gotham--and he doesn't seem that bad. The conversation he and Joker have doesn't make any sense. Additionally, I felt the film crossed the line with having Batman devise some sort of widespread sonar device that could determine the location of anyone with a cell phone, even if it's meant to be temporary. Has it come to the point where audiences can only trust Batman if he is the superhero embodiment of Big Brother, working with law enforcement to take down unabashed anarchists? I don't think this is an encouraging development (and what would Batman have done with V?). I was pleasantly surprised by the ending, because it seems that Nolan is trying to set up something not frequently explored in the comics, that of Batman operating completely outside of the law and, indeed, in opposition to it. It would be cool to see a movie where Batman fought police brutality or battled war profiteers by waging corporate warfare as Bruce Wayne (there was an excellent arc in Morrison's JLA where Batman "buys out" Lex Luthor in order to stop one of his schemes). Won't happen though. The way the movie ends, I like to think it would dovetail nicely into an arc involving Killer Croc or Solomon Grundy (Batman has to relocate in the sewers) or maybe Catwoman. Then, maybe in the future, we can get a Superman team-up?
But let's not get into that. Let's talk about this Watchmen trailer.
I, like many millions of Americans, am a big fan of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. Many people like to say that it is the greatest comic book story of all time, and while I am trying to slowly wean myself from making grand pronouncements like that, I think it is absolutely essential reading for just about anyone. Certainly, if I were to ever teach a class on postmodern fiction, I would include that as required reading, no question. As a statement on industrial imperialism, compounded by the world's first US superpower employing people with literal superpowers, and the resulting fecundity of cold war resentment, it is without peer, and I honestly believe that, even with all the superheroes running around. The layers of detail and exposition warrant many repeated readings, and the ending is appropriately (given the times) morally ambiguous: I've had long arguments with people concerning whether or not we felt Rorschach's actions at the end were justified.
I feel as if Watchmen fans are now divided in two halves: those who can't wait for Zack Snyder's movie adaptation and those who are uneasy with the notion of Watchmen being made into a film, particularly by Zack"300" Snyder. You can count me among those who felt that 300 was an absolutely loathsome movie, which, if not an outright gesture of support for the continuing War on Terror was sufficiently xenophobic, homophobic, and full of enough macho self-posturing to make me want to gag. Additionally, the fact that Alan Moore explicitly stated that a movie cannot and should not be made of Watchmen was enough to give me additional pause.
Funny fact: I was delighted to find that Moore and I have similar feelings about 300, per an interview he did recently with Entertainment Weekly:
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Don't you have the slightest curiosity about what Watchmen director Zack Snyder is doing with your work?
ALAN MOORE: I would rather not know.He's supposed to be a very nice guy.
He may very well be, but the thing is that he's also the person who made 300. I've not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn't particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that's not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but...I wasn't impressed with that.... I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the '80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ''Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, 'I wouldn't.''' And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can't.
He makes good points, and he admits he may be making generalizations.
Anyway, I saw the trailer, and I couldn't help but be taken aback by how strikingly similar to the comic it is, at least in terms of angles: in fact, I was downright moved by the proceedings. I'm not convinced yet this is a good idea, but who knows? It was a good choice to have them play the Smashing Pumpkins song "The End is the Beginning is the End," as it fits the heavily stylized industrial atmosphere, as well as give it an updated 80's flavor (although, it should be pointed out, that song was written by Billy Corgan not for any album but for the soundtrack for Batman & Robin--a bad omen if you think about it). The Owlship, I was pleased to see, looks very cool. Nite Owl now looks kind of like a doughy Batman ripoff, and it's kind of silly to see him dropkicking some prisoners, but whatever. Silk Spectre now wears less clothes, no surprise there. Dr. Manhattan looks very cool, and very similar to the comics, as does the Comedian. Ozymandius unfortunately looks pretty underwhelming, but maybe that's part of the point. My beloved Rorschach (who, incidentally, shares Mendelson's birthday), looks spiffy as well, although I'm dubious about how Snyder is going to try translating the constantly shifting patterns on his mask--having them change on screen gives it a slightly different effect than having them change from panel to panel.
Anyway, it's an addictive trailer. I will probably see it when it comes out, but consider me, like Moore, to be skeptical. Hurm.
Friday, July 18, 2008
An open plea
Does someone want to see The Dark Knight with me, someone who preferably is already in Ames?
Monday, July 14, 2008
There's no way you will be interested in this
My class schedule for next year, for those of you interested. In case you are confused, I go to a liberal arts school that's divided into nine "blocks," which translates into four classes one semester and five in the other. Looking back on my college career, I am proud to say that I never took a block off, and I never skipped class, not even when I was sick (not that I ever got sick). Unfortunately, the days when one got rewarded for this are now over, and I have to depend on my intellect to reap me benefits. I'm screwed.
1. Senior Seminar: Colonial Literature and Postcolonial Theory
2. Intermediate French
3. American Survey
4. Virginia Woolf
5. Jazz Improvisation
6. Topic: Who Owns Music? The Practice and Politics of Musical Borrowing
7. Advanced Critical Writing
8. Race, Sex, and the Constitution
9. Critical Theory
I know what you are thinking: Is this Sacks guy so hardcore that he is going to end his college career with Critical Theory? Damn right. I couldn't fit it anywhere else.
Some other notes:
-Regarding Intermediate French, I'm screwed. Part of a liberal arts education is that you need to take a requisite number of classes outside your major, which includes a language. Technically the only class you need to pass is one language class at the 205 level, but unfortunately you need to either make it through three beginning classes or pass into a higher level by taking a test at the beginning of freshman year. I passed into French 103, which meant I would have to take two classes. I took 103 back freshman year, but for numerous reasons I have had to keep pushing back when I would take 205. Now, I don't remember any French. This is bad news. I feel especially bad considering the amount of friends, particularly from high school, who have gone and lived in other countries and learned other languages. For some reason, I have tried to remain willfully ignorant of other languages, in part because I never really liked the French language to begin with. I wonder why I never went abroad, anywhere. I guess I couldn't imagine leaving my little liberal arts alcove, but now I'm gonna have to leave, or end up like Eric Stoltz in Kicking and Screaming (see that movie if you haven't).
-Jazz Improvisation is looking to be somewhat hardcore, although I'm sure I can take it way better than most people. I wonder if my teacher will be down for some jazz fusion in the form of, I dunno, Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow.
-I'm only taking Virginia Woolf because it's with the master of all things Woolf, and at Cornell there are disappointingly few classes devoted to a singular author (one on Milton, if I remember, and two on Shakespeare).
-I found out not long ago that a professor of some repute who recently left Cornell (and whose name is not really that googleable but I will withhold it, just in case), talked a bunch of shit about me to a friend of mine. He took great issue with my article on Mark Steyn, which angers me only because I consider that article/interview to be the only worthwhile thing I did on that paper, and he proceeded to tear me up for not being sufficiently critical of Steyn and Cornell for inviting a public speaker that a) didn't have old-school scholarly credentials, and b) maintained that multiculturalism is a deterrent on American progress. I felt like writing an angry E-Mail but I abstained, as surely he is a far superior rhetoritician. Still, I swear to God, if I were ever to become a professor I would not end up being a knee-jerk peacenik like so much of the faculty. I mean at least they can entertain a speaker's presence for a day or so.
-Jesse Helms was a prick.
Also, I need to consider giving this blog a bit more oomph. Those who have known me or seen me will understand when I say I have no concept of visual aesthetics, and I will pay someone to help redesign (and maybe get a guest blogger up in here, anyone interested?*) If some of my bloggier friends (Mendy, Jim, Ricky) want to work something out I would be glad and somewhat relieved.
Oh yeah, since Mendy posted a link to my last.fm meme I am bound by my code of honor to do the same for him: Here. I think his answers ended up being a lot more interesting then mine, but then he got lucky.
*Not Juell.
1. Senior Seminar: Colonial Literature and Postcolonial Theory
2. Intermediate French
3. American Survey
4. Virginia Woolf
5. Jazz Improvisation
6. Topic: Who Owns Music? The Practice and Politics of Musical Borrowing
7. Advanced Critical Writing
8. Race, Sex, and the Constitution
9. Critical Theory
I know what you are thinking: Is this Sacks guy so hardcore that he is going to end his college career with Critical Theory? Damn right. I couldn't fit it anywhere else.
Some other notes:
-Regarding Intermediate French, I'm screwed. Part of a liberal arts education is that you need to take a requisite number of classes outside your major, which includes a language. Technically the only class you need to pass is one language class at the 205 level, but unfortunately you need to either make it through three beginning classes or pass into a higher level by taking a test at the beginning of freshman year. I passed into French 103, which meant I would have to take two classes. I took 103 back freshman year, but for numerous reasons I have had to keep pushing back when I would take 205. Now, I don't remember any French. This is bad news. I feel especially bad considering the amount of friends, particularly from high school, who have gone and lived in other countries and learned other languages. For some reason, I have tried to remain willfully ignorant of other languages, in part because I never really liked the French language to begin with. I wonder why I never went abroad, anywhere. I guess I couldn't imagine leaving my little liberal arts alcove, but now I'm gonna have to leave, or end up like Eric Stoltz in Kicking and Screaming (see that movie if you haven't).
-Jazz Improvisation is looking to be somewhat hardcore, although I'm sure I can take it way better than most people. I wonder if my teacher will be down for some jazz fusion in the form of, I dunno, Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow.
-I'm only taking Virginia Woolf because it's with the master of all things Woolf, and at Cornell there are disappointingly few classes devoted to a singular author (one on Milton, if I remember, and two on Shakespeare).
-I found out not long ago that a professor of some repute who recently left Cornell (and whose name is not really that googleable but I will withhold it, just in case), talked a bunch of shit about me to a friend of mine. He took great issue with my article on Mark Steyn, which angers me only because I consider that article/interview to be the only worthwhile thing I did on that paper, and he proceeded to tear me up for not being sufficiently critical of Steyn and Cornell for inviting a public speaker that a) didn't have old-school scholarly credentials, and b) maintained that multiculturalism is a deterrent on American progress. I felt like writing an angry E-Mail but I abstained, as surely he is a far superior rhetoritician. Still, I swear to God, if I were ever to become a professor I would not end up being a knee-jerk peacenik like so much of the faculty. I mean at least they can entertain a speaker's presence for a day or so.
-Jesse Helms was a prick.
Also, I need to consider giving this blog a bit more oomph. Those who have known me or seen me will understand when I say I have no concept of visual aesthetics, and I will pay someone to help redesign (and maybe get a guest blogger up in here, anyone interested?*) If some of my bloggier friends (Mendy, Jim, Ricky) want to work something out I would be glad and somewhat relieved.
Oh yeah, since Mendy posted a link to my last.fm meme I am bound by my code of honor to do the same for him: Here. I think his answers ended up being a lot more interesting then mine, but then he got lucky.
*Not Juell.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Quotes, for the sake of wasting time
"These seances are intercut with concert footage, during which the band typically sings the lyrics through once and then gets mired in endless loops of instrumental repetition that seem positioned somewhere between mantras and autism. The music is shapeless, graceless, and built from rhythm, not melody; it is amusing, given the undisciplined sound, to eavesdrop later as they argue in a van about whether they all were following the same arrangement."
-Roger Ebert, on the music of Neil Young & Crazy Horse
"I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't...Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life as a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that."
-Spike Lee, offering the most ridiculous generalization masquerading as criticism I've heard in a while, and I'm not even that big of a Coen brothers fan.
"astenou6 you's da faygot spiderman is teh greatest marvel superhero character ever not because of his powers but, because of what he represents your to much of a noob to get taht!"
-Youtube user Ace48071, spreading the Spider-Man gospel in ways I could only hope to emulate.
"So here is the problem. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for 100,000 years, but apparently for more than 95,000 of these years he accomplished virtually nothing. No real art, no writing, no inventions, no culture, no civilization. How is this possible? Were our ancestors, otherwise mentally and physically undistinguishable [sic] from us, such blithering idiots that they couldn't figure out anything other than the arts of primitive warfare?"
-Dinesh D'Souza, undeservedly proud of his new counter-theory against "the atheists" claiming that it makes no sense that God would only choose to intervene in human affairs sporadically over the last 5,000 years (I generally have little regard for anything anyone says over the internet, and I include myself, but I was heartened to see people on D'Souza's site ripping apart this argument fairly readily).
-Roger Ebert, on the music of Neil Young & Crazy Horse
"I always treat life and death with respect, but most people don't...Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life as a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that."
-Spike Lee, offering the most ridiculous generalization masquerading as criticism I've heard in a while, and I'm not even that big of a Coen brothers fan.
"astenou6 you's da faygot spiderman is teh greatest marvel superhero character ever not because of his powers but, because of what he represents your to much of a noob to get taht!"
-Youtube user Ace48071, spreading the Spider-Man gospel in ways I could only hope to emulate.
"So here is the problem. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for 100,000 years, but apparently for more than 95,000 of these years he accomplished virtually nothing. No real art, no writing, no inventions, no culture, no civilization. How is this possible? Were our ancestors, otherwise mentally and physically undistinguishable [sic] from us, such blithering idiots that they couldn't figure out anything other than the arts of primitive warfare?"
-Dinesh D'Souza, undeservedly proud of his new counter-theory against "the atheists" claiming that it makes no sense that God would only choose to intervene in human affairs sporadically over the last 5,000 years (I generally have little regard for anything anyone says over the internet, and I include myself, but I was heartened to see people on D'Souza's site ripping apart this argument fairly readily).
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Oh snap, you been shylock'd!
In case you haven't heard, it's the new Fox news game show: respond to any attacks on Fox News' character by showing ridiculously Jewed-up pictures of the perpetrators. This is what Steve Doocy and co. tried to do on Fox & Friends in a segment in which Doocy was complaining about some attack against Fox News leveled by The New York Times. So they showed an obviously doctored photo of the reporter in question, Jacques Steinberg. Compare below (courtesy Media Matters):
Seems kind of weird. They also took down another "attacker," Steven Reddicliffe:
What the hell? The question isn't whether or not Fox News actually did doctor these photos: obviously, they did, and a spokeswoman for the company said that it is common practice on cable news networks to photoshop pictures of people, but why do it this way? First of all, this is some terrible, me-level photoshopping. Second of all, it looks like pictures straight out of 30s German propaganda, and not even the good stuff, like Leni Riefenstahl. Can you imagine them taking a picture of, say, Al Sharpton, and doctoring some huge red lips on it? Shameful.
And yet some people say that anti-Semitism is not a factor, or is unimportant compared to various other forms of prejudice. As if it's a contest.
Vanity Fair has gotten into the game, posting a bunch of ridiculous photos of Fox News personalities, although in this case I would imagine it would not be in their best interest to shylock somebody already Jewish, like Bill Kristol. Speaking of Bill Kristol, I just saw the movie Arguing the World and I would like to talk about it at some point. Not that it has anything to do with Bill, but the deep lack of respect Irving Kristol's peers now hold for him is telling, I think.
Seems kind of weird. They also took down another "attacker," Steven Reddicliffe:
What the hell? The question isn't whether or not Fox News actually did doctor these photos: obviously, they did, and a spokeswoman for the company said that it is common practice on cable news networks to photoshop pictures of people, but why do it this way? First of all, this is some terrible, me-level photoshopping. Second of all, it looks like pictures straight out of 30s German propaganda, and not even the good stuff, like Leni Riefenstahl. Can you imagine them taking a picture of, say, Al Sharpton, and doctoring some huge red lips on it? Shameful.And yet some people say that anti-Semitism is not a factor, or is unimportant compared to various other forms of prejudice. As if it's a contest.
Vanity Fair has gotten into the game, posting a bunch of ridiculous photos of Fox News personalities, although in this case I would imagine it would not be in their best interest to shylock somebody already Jewish, like Bill Kristol. Speaking of Bill Kristol, I just saw the movie Arguing the World and I would like to talk about it at some point. Not that it has anything to do with Bill, but the deep lack of respect Irving Kristol's peers now hold for him is telling, I think.
Philip Roth, Part VI: The End
So, only three more books, all of them having nothing to do with any Kepeshes, Zuckermans, or Roths. The journey was fun and immensely helpful in regards to my honors stuff, and I hope to do this again with another author. But which one? Probably a white male. I fear I will spend the rest of my life feeling that I am woefully under read. I can now carefully consider myself a Roth scholar, but I want more. Indignation comes out in October.
Sabbath's Theater: If I were to choose one book from Roth's oeuvre to read again immediately, this one might be it, despite its comparatively massive length and the pallor of decay and gloom hanging over it. Make no mistake, this is an absolutely perfect novel that distills all the best aspects of Roth: comical scatology; spot-on dialogue; a feel for even the most minor of characters; an ability to pace; and a predilection to do new, interesting and novel things with the form. He squeezes every last drop of narrative potential from what could have been a very ordinary story about an aging, disgraced puppeteer near the end of his life, mourning the loss by cancer of a very special mistress and yearning to redo the whole thing again. Mickey Sabbath is an incredibly disgusting and vile, yet he is a lovable character, and his relationship with the doomed mistress, Drenka, is as touching as it is vomit-inducing (I swear, I don't know how he does this stuff so well). There are a good dozen or so brilliant moments that I feel like rereading immediately, including a transcript of a phone sex conversation (can't think of any better one off the top of my head), a Ulysses-esque digression imagined by Sabbath on a subway, Sabbath trying in vain to buy some vodka so that a woman he met at a rehab facility--where he was supposed to be visiting his wife--would sleep with him, Sabbath revisiting his home, the description of various depraved sexual practices that Sabbath and Drenka engage in without abandon, and several others. This is a very special book that packs an emotional wallop right to the very end, and has probably the best opening and closing lines of any Roth book I can think of. This book is about as depraved as Roth got, and it isn't for the faint of heart, but it's as moving a character study as I believe Roth is capable of constructing.
Shop Talk: Not much to say about this book: like Reading Myself and Others, this is straight non-fiction (a rarity for the author), although this time Roth is smart enough to take himself out of the equation, mostly, and presents a series of mostly interviews and appreciations of authors he admires. I found this book only intermittently interesting as I had yet to read many of the authors he interviews in this book, but it's always nice to hear Roth talk about how enamored he became with the artistic scene in Czechoslovakia (the book contains interviews with both Milan Kundera and Ivan Klima, both of ramble on intelligently about the positives and negatives in choosing to represent a society that is so hostile to open ideas and art) and also how he views himself in the pantheon of 20th century Jewish writers, via his appreciations of Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud (there's also a quick interview with Isaac Bashevis Singer--having read Singer, I really don't see how they would have much in common, but they are respectful). It should also be noted that his interview with Aharon Applefeld showed up almost verbatim in Operation Shylock. This is not necessary reading by any means unless you happen to be interested in the authors Roth is talking about, which in most cases I was.
Everyman: This book was quite a doozy to end on, and I'm sort of sorry I chose to end it this way. This is a very short and powerful read, although it doesn't offer much beyond this very novel notion that it is a biography (the protagonist of which is nameless) that consists entirely of Everyman's illnesses: Roth will mention in fleeting how his character lived 25 years with no health problems and move on to the next operation or hospital visit. The intent is obvious, to convey the horror and depression of someone who knows he is inching ever closer to the end of his life, and cursing the failings of his body and mind. As one can imagine, this does not make for happy reading. There is virtually nothing in the way of humor in this book, a rarity among Roth's works, and the descriptions of Everyman's few infidelities aren't terrible interesting compared with what we know Roth is capable of. There are many powerful sequences, but I suspect Roth intends them to be secondary to the overall mood of the piece, which is to convey his own anxiety about growing old and seeing his body fail (I'm told that Roth, unlike his older characters, is more or less in excellent health). This would have made a fitting epitaph had Roth chosen to end it this way, particularly the scene where he goes to the graveyard to visit the grave of his mother and father. I felt this passage to be absolutely heartbreaking:
I don't think that this is a sentiment that can only be understood by 71-year olds. If there's anyone in any of Roth's book that says anything worth taking to heart, it's Everyman's father.
Sabbath's Theater: If I were to choose one book from Roth's oeuvre to read again immediately, this one might be it, despite its comparatively massive length and the pallor of decay and gloom hanging over it. Make no mistake, this is an absolutely perfect novel that distills all the best aspects of Roth: comical scatology; spot-on dialogue; a feel for even the most minor of characters; an ability to pace; and a predilection to do new, interesting and novel things with the form. He squeezes every last drop of narrative potential from what could have been a very ordinary story about an aging, disgraced puppeteer near the end of his life, mourning the loss by cancer of a very special mistress and yearning to redo the whole thing again. Mickey Sabbath is an incredibly disgusting and vile, yet he is a lovable character, and his relationship with the doomed mistress, Drenka, is as touching as it is vomit-inducing (I swear, I don't know how he does this stuff so well). There are a good dozen or so brilliant moments that I feel like rereading immediately, including a transcript of a phone sex conversation (can't think of any better one off the top of my head), a Ulysses-esque digression imagined by Sabbath on a subway, Sabbath trying in vain to buy some vodka so that a woman he met at a rehab facility--where he was supposed to be visiting his wife--would sleep with him, Sabbath revisiting his home, the description of various depraved sexual practices that Sabbath and Drenka engage in without abandon, and several others. This is a very special book that packs an emotional wallop right to the very end, and has probably the best opening and closing lines of any Roth book I can think of. This book is about as depraved as Roth got, and it isn't for the faint of heart, but it's as moving a character study as I believe Roth is capable of constructing.
Shop Talk: Not much to say about this book: like Reading Myself and Others, this is straight non-fiction (a rarity for the author), although this time Roth is smart enough to take himself out of the equation, mostly, and presents a series of mostly interviews and appreciations of authors he admires. I found this book only intermittently interesting as I had yet to read many of the authors he interviews in this book, but it's always nice to hear Roth talk about how enamored he became with the artistic scene in Czechoslovakia (the book contains interviews with both Milan Kundera and Ivan Klima, both of ramble on intelligently about the positives and negatives in choosing to represent a society that is so hostile to open ideas and art) and also how he views himself in the pantheon of 20th century Jewish writers, via his appreciations of Saul Bellow and Bernard Malamud (there's also a quick interview with Isaac Bashevis Singer--having read Singer, I really don't see how they would have much in common, but they are respectful). It should also be noted that his interview with Aharon Applefeld showed up almost verbatim in Operation Shylock. This is not necessary reading by any means unless you happen to be interested in the authors Roth is talking about, which in most cases I was.
Everyman: This book was quite a doozy to end on, and I'm sort of sorry I chose to end it this way. This is a very short and powerful read, although it doesn't offer much beyond this very novel notion that it is a biography (the protagonist of which is nameless) that consists entirely of Everyman's illnesses: Roth will mention in fleeting how his character lived 25 years with no health problems and move on to the next operation or hospital visit. The intent is obvious, to convey the horror and depression of someone who knows he is inching ever closer to the end of his life, and cursing the failings of his body and mind. As one can imagine, this does not make for happy reading. There is virtually nothing in the way of humor in this book, a rarity among Roth's works, and the descriptions of Everyman's few infidelities aren't terrible interesting compared with what we know Roth is capable of. There are many powerful sequences, but I suspect Roth intends them to be secondary to the overall mood of the piece, which is to convey his own anxiety about growing old and seeing his body fail (I'm told that Roth, unlike his older characters, is more or less in excellent health). This would have made a fitting epitaph had Roth chosen to end it this way, particularly the scene where he goes to the graveyard to visit the grave of his mother and father. I felt this passage to be absolutely heartbreaking:
Aloud, he said to them: "I'm 71. Your boy is 71." "Good, you lived," his mother replied. And his father said, "Look back and atone for what you can atone for, and make the best of what you have left."
I don't think that this is a sentiment that can only be understood by 71-year olds. If there's anyone in any of Roth's book that says anything worth taking to heart, it's Everyman's father.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Philip Roth, Part V
As promised, I continue. At this point in my journey, I was reading pretty voraciously, at the rate of about one book every two days. I recommend to everyone trying to do something like that for a month, but after that it can get to be a problem. I was also plagued by headaches during this time, and still am.
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography: As I imagined, about as comprehensive as I imagine a "novelist's autobiography"--that is, not really at all. At first it seems like Roth wrote this for the obvious reasons, those being to address certain aspects of his fiction and compare them to real-life occurrences. That does happen a bit, but Roth doesn't seem to want to elaborate on any of it. Simply put, this isn't much of an autobiography, and Roth freely admits to being unable to stay away from embellishing certain themes even as he tacitly denies that, being as spiritually bankrupt as he is, they can actually mean anything. Still, though, there are anecdotes aplenty worth comparing Roth's fiction to, and independently a few stand out as being artfully presented. The framing device of having Roth send a manuscript of The Facts as well as a letter to his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, is confusing, as is Zuckerman's long written response to Roth at the end of the book. It does serve to highlight the fact that there are severe differences between Zuckerman and Roth--for instance, Zuckerman's dad died before his mom, and Roth's dad didn't die mouthing the word "bastard." Still, what is to be meant of Zuckerman's criticism of the preceding manuscript? Does it even count as self-criticism? Is it meant to prove that this "autobiography" is nothing of the sort, and still belongs under fiction? I tend to think the latter. Roth's autobiography isn't really different from his fiction, and Zuckerman recognizes that, if that makes any sense.
Deception: A Novel: This is a very bizarre read, structured as it is almost entirely of dialogue, with no description, no modifiers, and very frequently no idea who is talking to who. It's kind of brilliant, and it proves that Roth can write dialogue that, while not what we would call "realistic," is certainly fascinating enough on its own. It's called Deception, of course, because it is about a series of (imagined?) affairs that Roth has, principally with a married British woman and a Czech runaway. As one can tell, most of these conversations happen post-coitus, and Roth is expert at capturing both the desperation and the flippancy of such conversations. It is never boring, exactly, and strikes me as a possibly very good play, except part of the pleasure of the book is not knowing who exactly is talking. If that doesn't sound pleasurable to you, you probably don't want to read it. If you want to read a book of people rambling on intelligently about sex, and I almost always do, then you don't do much better than this. By the way, this novel falls under the "Roth" aegis even though the principle character is referred to as "Philip" only once--this becomes a critical plot point later in yet another one of Roth's futile attempts to write himself into his stories as a means to escape persistent drama.
Patrimony: A True Story: Roth's second, more streamlined attempt at writing a memoir is quite a gesture, basically detailing the story of his father's final years and his battle with cancer. Roth's father, Herman, comes off as an extraordinarily likable figure, a far cry from Zuckerman's father, and what's more he seems to have a sense of humor about his son's work. There are several very funny sequences, which one appreciates more and more as Herman's cancer gets worse and Roth is unable to do anything other than write about it. I appreciate very much how candid Roth is in going through the precise medical details of someone dying of cancer (this is something he would get into in later works). When his father does die in the end, of course it makes for compelling reading, but at least part of the compulsion has to do with wondering how the hell someone can sit down and write about something like that. But he does, plainly, honestly, and admirably in my opinion. While this book is quite a downer, it is as fitting of an epitaph as one could imagine of an 86-year old former insurance agent who just happens to have sired a notorious novelist. How he managed to do this and not be sentimental is anyone's guess, but he far exceeded my expectations.
Operation Shylock: A Confession: I can't begin to imagine what inspired Roth to write a book like this, but I can only imagine he had a score to settle with someone, probably regarding the state of Israel. While previously his alter-ego Zuckerman had balked at the idea of talking about middle-eastern geopolitics, Roth delves into the issue headlong for the first time since The Counterlife, and crafts a very unsettling and compelling fictional memoir. At least part of this account we know to be true--Roth had a bad reaction to some sort of painkiller meant to help him after a knee operation, and he became depressed and suicidal for a brief time. After recovering, Roth finds that, bizarrely, someone has been impersonating him in Israel, going to public events claiming to be the real Philip Roth and preaching the creed of "diasporism," a sort of reverse Zionism wherein Jews would leave what was supposedly an unlawful occupation of Israel and come back to live in Europe and speak Yiddish. What makes matters more bizarre is that this fake Philip Roth looks and acts exactly like the real one. The real Roth was already planning on traveling to Israel to interview the author Aharon Applefeld, so he decides to do a bit of detective work while he's there. Suffice to say, however bizarre one thinks the situation already is, it gets far worse. Roth has never been more politically incisive: while he is obviously critical of a ludicrous ideology like diasporism, he is unsparing in his criticism of Israel, but not necessarily denying the necessity of a Jewish state. This is multifaceted, compelling pseudo-journalism at work here. Whether or not all or part of this book is some sort of elaborate fantasy is unclear, but this is definitely a book one can imagine Roth enjoying writing, if only for the fact that he'd relish making a few new enemies in the process.
The Plot Against America: A bit plot-heavy by Roth standards, but given the subject matter, it needed to be. The notion of alternate histories and "what if" scenarios had been a big part of science-fiction and especially comic books for quite some time. Roth's idea, to imagine such a scenario in the micro, in reference to his own boyhood, makes it far more charmingly personal and less ham-fisted. At least, until the end. Here's what happens (happened?): The famous aviator, anti-Semite and Hitler sympathizer Charles Lindbergh becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 1940, and later defeats FDR soundly on an isolationist platform. As a result, America never enters World War II, which spells dire consequences for England and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, young Philip Roth is 10 and a perfectly innocent young boy, alarmed by the fear that his parents seem to exhibit now that Lindbergh is president. Eventually, things do start to happen: Jewish families are "relocated," there are camps for Americanizing young Jewish boys, and anti-Semitic riots start breaking out. There's a lot of brilliant stuff going on here, even if it all seems a tad unlikely, given the circumstances. In fact, the big twist at the end (a rarity for Roth to even attempt such a thing) seems to come out of left field, even if it does make perfect sense in a blunt sort of way. However, Roth's feel for his hometown and his childhood, even in this alternate universe, is as keen and expressive as ever. But what is his message at the end? That for all America's wrongdoings, it will eventually correct itself in the end? It does seem a tad convenient at times.
Almost done. Coming up: Sabbath's Theater (my favorite!), Shop Talk and Everyman. Then I am done.
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography: As I imagined, about as comprehensive as I imagine a "novelist's autobiography"--that is, not really at all. At first it seems like Roth wrote this for the obvious reasons, those being to address certain aspects of his fiction and compare them to real-life occurrences. That does happen a bit, but Roth doesn't seem to want to elaborate on any of it. Simply put, this isn't much of an autobiography, and Roth freely admits to being unable to stay away from embellishing certain themes even as he tacitly denies that, being as spiritually bankrupt as he is, they can actually mean anything. Still, though, there are anecdotes aplenty worth comparing Roth's fiction to, and independently a few stand out as being artfully presented. The framing device of having Roth send a manuscript of The Facts as well as a letter to his fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, is confusing, as is Zuckerman's long written response to Roth at the end of the book. It does serve to highlight the fact that there are severe differences between Zuckerman and Roth--for instance, Zuckerman's dad died before his mom, and Roth's dad didn't die mouthing the word "bastard." Still, what is to be meant of Zuckerman's criticism of the preceding manuscript? Does it even count as self-criticism? Is it meant to prove that this "autobiography" is nothing of the sort, and still belongs under fiction? I tend to think the latter. Roth's autobiography isn't really different from his fiction, and Zuckerman recognizes that, if that makes any sense.
Deception: A Novel: This is a very bizarre read, structured as it is almost entirely of dialogue, with no description, no modifiers, and very frequently no idea who is talking to who. It's kind of brilliant, and it proves that Roth can write dialogue that, while not what we would call "realistic," is certainly fascinating enough on its own. It's called Deception, of course, because it is about a series of (imagined?) affairs that Roth has, principally with a married British woman and a Czech runaway. As one can tell, most of these conversations happen post-coitus, and Roth is expert at capturing both the desperation and the flippancy of such conversations. It is never boring, exactly, and strikes me as a possibly very good play, except part of the pleasure of the book is not knowing who exactly is talking. If that doesn't sound pleasurable to you, you probably don't want to read it. If you want to read a book of people rambling on intelligently about sex, and I almost always do, then you don't do much better than this. By the way, this novel falls under the "Roth" aegis even though the principle character is referred to as "Philip" only once--this becomes a critical plot point later in yet another one of Roth's futile attempts to write himself into his stories as a means to escape persistent drama.
Patrimony: A True Story: Roth's second, more streamlined attempt at writing a memoir is quite a gesture, basically detailing the story of his father's final years and his battle with cancer. Roth's father, Herman, comes off as an extraordinarily likable figure, a far cry from Zuckerman's father, and what's more he seems to have a sense of humor about his son's work. There are several very funny sequences, which one appreciates more and more as Herman's cancer gets worse and Roth is unable to do anything other than write about it. I appreciate very much how candid Roth is in going through the precise medical details of someone dying of cancer (this is something he would get into in later works). When his father does die in the end, of course it makes for compelling reading, but at least part of the compulsion has to do with wondering how the hell someone can sit down and write about something like that. But he does, plainly, honestly, and admirably in my opinion. While this book is quite a downer, it is as fitting of an epitaph as one could imagine of an 86-year old former insurance agent who just happens to have sired a notorious novelist. How he managed to do this and not be sentimental is anyone's guess, but he far exceeded my expectations.
Operation Shylock: A Confession: I can't begin to imagine what inspired Roth to write a book like this, but I can only imagine he had a score to settle with someone, probably regarding the state of Israel. While previously his alter-ego Zuckerman had balked at the idea of talking about middle-eastern geopolitics, Roth delves into the issue headlong for the first time since The Counterlife, and crafts a very unsettling and compelling fictional memoir. At least part of this account we know to be true--Roth had a bad reaction to some sort of painkiller meant to help him after a knee operation, and he became depressed and suicidal for a brief time. After recovering, Roth finds that, bizarrely, someone has been impersonating him in Israel, going to public events claiming to be the real Philip Roth and preaching the creed of "diasporism," a sort of reverse Zionism wherein Jews would leave what was supposedly an unlawful occupation of Israel and come back to live in Europe and speak Yiddish. What makes matters more bizarre is that this fake Philip Roth looks and acts exactly like the real one. The real Roth was already planning on traveling to Israel to interview the author Aharon Applefeld, so he decides to do a bit of detective work while he's there. Suffice to say, however bizarre one thinks the situation already is, it gets far worse. Roth has never been more politically incisive: while he is obviously critical of a ludicrous ideology like diasporism, he is unsparing in his criticism of Israel, but not necessarily denying the necessity of a Jewish state. This is multifaceted, compelling pseudo-journalism at work here. Whether or not all or part of this book is some sort of elaborate fantasy is unclear, but this is definitely a book one can imagine Roth enjoying writing, if only for the fact that he'd relish making a few new enemies in the process.
The Plot Against America: A bit plot-heavy by Roth standards, but given the subject matter, it needed to be. The notion of alternate histories and "what if" scenarios had been a big part of science-fiction and especially comic books for quite some time. Roth's idea, to imagine such a scenario in the micro, in reference to his own boyhood, makes it far more charmingly personal and less ham-fisted. At least, until the end. Here's what happens (happened?): The famous aviator, anti-Semite and Hitler sympathizer Charles Lindbergh becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 1940, and later defeats FDR soundly on an isolationist platform. As a result, America never enters World War II, which spells dire consequences for England and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, young Philip Roth is 10 and a perfectly innocent young boy, alarmed by the fear that his parents seem to exhibit now that Lindbergh is president. Eventually, things do start to happen: Jewish families are "relocated," there are camps for Americanizing young Jewish boys, and anti-Semitic riots start breaking out. There's a lot of brilliant stuff going on here, even if it all seems a tad unlikely, given the circumstances. In fact, the big twist at the end (a rarity for Roth to even attempt such a thing) seems to come out of left field, even if it does make perfect sense in a blunt sort of way. However, Roth's feel for his hometown and his childhood, even in this alternate universe, is as keen and expressive as ever. But what is his message at the end? That for all America's wrongdoings, it will eventually correct itself in the end? It does seem a tad convenient at times.
Almost done. Coming up: Sabbath's Theater (my favorite!), Shop Talk and Everyman. Then I am done.
Philip Roth, Part IV
Sorry. In case you're wondering, I'm done, and have been for a while. I have already mentioned before how ridiculous it was to start with someone as prolific as Roth. In fact, he has a new book, Indignation, coming out in October. I'll read it when I get the chance and probably review it.
I'll do these all in quick succession. You might notice that pretty much all the books reviewed here border on straight up superlative--this was a man who had quite a winning streak later in life. It's been a pleasure, and immeasurably helpful in honing my honors thesis. I begin with the pseudo-continuation of the Zuckerman saga.
The Counterlife: Where this fits in the continuity spectrum of the Zuckerman novels is unclear; I get the impression that Roth never has really concerned himself with those issues, anyway. While the books that comprised Zuckerman Bound were essentially straightforward narratives with a fair amount of metatextual embellishment (such as the Anne Frank chapter in The Ghost Writer), The Counterlife is on a whole different level entirely. He experiments with the Zuckerman character using different fragments of narrative that often aren't elaborated upon or even referred to in the next chapter. A synopsis would be best served by addressing the individual chapters, but I don't think it's in your best interest for me to do so. Several aspects of Roth's work are worth talking about: for the first time, he takes on the gigantic subject of Israel, in a chapter where Zuckerman's brother leaves his family to join a fanatical Zionist kibbutz. The conversations that Nathan and his brother, Henry, have regarding the necessity and the foolhardiness of establishing the state of Israel strike me as being a far better attempt at political commentary than Our Gang. Some of the later chapters, which deal with anti-Semitism in Zuckerman's adopted England, seem less powerful, if only because I was shocked to find Roth aiming his vitriol at Christians, of all people. Not that they don't need it, but what sort of middle-ground is he suggesting, between fanatical Zionist bloodletting and a English passive-aggressive anti-Semitism? Zuckermanism, or something else none of us can subscribe to.
American Pastoral: And then, of course, is this beauty of a novel, which I have actually read before. It's often referred to as the "second" Zuckerman trilogy (The Prague Orgy counts as an appendix to the first one, and The Counterlife has no choice but to stand alone). What differs this trilogy from the previous one is that, while Zuckerman is once again the author, he takes a secondary role, instead choosing to highlight (and subsequently fictionalize) minor figures in his life and devise a way in which to make these lives reflect the tapestry of American social upheaval. American Pastoral is about "Swede" Levov, a Jewish Adonis and former sports hero who is the most fundamentally decent character I think Roth has ever created. He takes over his father's glove factory (leading to some brilliant exposition from Roth about the science of glove-making--you probably don't believe me but it is mind-blowing stuff), marries a former Miss New Jersey, and has a daughter. As good a husband and father as he is, he can't prevent his daughter from becoming increasingly radicalized by the situation in Vietnam, and she starts hanging out with unsavory, Weather Underground type characters. Eventually, she bombs a post office and kills someone, and subsequently vanishes. Seeing "Swede" Levov try to reconcile these feelings of paternal love with the knowledge that her daughter murdered someone is affecting, as is their final confrontation. I should add that their daughter, Merry, struck me as such a loathsome toolbag that it almost justifies the Vietnam war.
I Married A Communist: Once again, Zuckerman writes about a childhood figure, although ostensibly this time his recount of the life of the actor Ira Ringgold is less fictionalized than it is stratified through the minds of both Zuckerman and Ira's brother, who recounts about half of what goes on. This is often considered the weak link in the trilogy, and I agree with that assessment: Unlike Swede Levov and Coleman Silk, Ira Ringgold seems more of a victim not of the times but of his own pathetic attempts to stay attached to his communist ideology. Not that a great book couldn't be made out of this, and admittedly, it is filled with great stuff. While painted in broad strokes, Roth's depiction of the communist witch hunters is certainly entertaining and well thought out, although Roth has the habit of making all the enemies of communism by extension closet fascist sympathizers, with the exception of Ira's brother. Ira as a character still seems somewhat of a mystery, and his relationship with the young Zuckerman seems to be a tad on the convenient side: considering all that Zuckerman has been through, the fact that he never mentions this person before makes us wonder if Zuckerman isn't writing fiction again. As I stated before, I don't think that's something Roth is ever very concerned with.
The Human Stain: Almost unbearably emotionally resonant, in the manner of My Life as a Man and The Anatomy Lesson, this book packs quite a punch, even if Roth spends much of it attacking the shallowness and intellectual dishonesty of my age group (the "dumbest generation," Coleman Silk says at one point). Unlike the first two parts of the trilogy, this is set in the recent past, during the Clinton Whitewater hearings, and Roth makes much of how ridiculous it was that America was concerned with the sexual habits of the president. Against this backdrop, Roth tells the story of Coleman Silk, a neighbor of Zuckerman's and a professor at a small liberal arts college who gets kicked out for a supposed racial slur (he calls two students-- who happen to be black--spooks, referring to their continual absence from his classroom, not their race). The subsequent stress and disappointment ends up taking its toll on Silk's wife, so he implores Zuckerman to write his story. At first, Zuckerman refuses, but they become friends nonetheless. Silk, who is 71, starts having a torrid love affair with a 33-year old janitor whose life has been so tragic it verges on being a Chekhovian cartoon. All of this stuff is excellently told, and Roth easily manages to pull of the feat of having Zuckerman get in the minds of these different characters who don't even know who he is. While far from an impartial observer, Zuckerman manages to stay out of the fray until he is needed in the final sequence, which is quite a good one. This was made into a movie with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, if you remember. This would seem at first like the least filmable of the trilogy, but I guess others disagree.
Exit Ghost: Roth's most recent book, and reportedly the last one to involve Nathan Zuckerman. This is probably a good thing, because after three straight books where he tried telling other people's stories, he has become self-involved to the point where he strikes me as being a bitter old phoney (sp?). Zuckerman, now in his 70s, is completely incontinent and impotent from prostate surgery, but is told that a possible cure is awaiting him in New York City. So, the reclusive Zuckerman travels to New York for the first time in several decades, and immediately starts kvetching about all the cell phones and iPods he sees. If anything, Exit Ghost is meant to mirror many of the themes and strands of the first Zuckerman book, The Ghost Writer. E.I. Lonoff is long dead, and a young hotshot writer tries to interview Zuckerman about his relationship with the writer, to be part of some sort of revelatory biography. In response, Zuckerman treats the young man like shit, vowing to go so far as to ruin his literary aspirations if he publishes this biography. Meanwhile, he starts having sexual feelings for a woman whose apartment he plans to rent for a year, feelings of course he cannot act upon due to his impotence. Meanwhile, he complains about how hard and humiliating it is to have to wear diapers, and the surgery doesn't do much to help him. This is a sad and very slight book, a bizarre end note to be sure. Zuckerman, towards the end of his life, no longer seems to be an interesting or enlightening character, but rather an old and disgruntled man furious about his impending death. It doesn't make for the most compelling reading.
Next: all of the Roth books, including The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography, Deception: A Novel, Patrimony: A True Story, Operation Shylock: A Confession, and The Plot Against America (Why did Roth become so enamored with colons all of a sudden? Why have I?).
I'll do these all in quick succession. You might notice that pretty much all the books reviewed here border on straight up superlative--this was a man who had quite a winning streak later in life. It's been a pleasure, and immeasurably helpful in honing my honors thesis. I begin with the pseudo-continuation of the Zuckerman saga.
The Counterlife: Where this fits in the continuity spectrum of the Zuckerman novels is unclear; I get the impression that Roth never has really concerned himself with those issues, anyway. While the books that comprised Zuckerman Bound were essentially straightforward narratives with a fair amount of metatextual embellishment (such as the Anne Frank chapter in The Ghost Writer), The Counterlife is on a whole different level entirely. He experiments with the Zuckerman character using different fragments of narrative that often aren't elaborated upon or even referred to in the next chapter. A synopsis would be best served by addressing the individual chapters, but I don't think it's in your best interest for me to do so. Several aspects of Roth's work are worth talking about: for the first time, he takes on the gigantic subject of Israel, in a chapter where Zuckerman's brother leaves his family to join a fanatical Zionist kibbutz. The conversations that Nathan and his brother, Henry, have regarding the necessity and the foolhardiness of establishing the state of Israel strike me as being a far better attempt at political commentary than Our Gang. Some of the later chapters, which deal with anti-Semitism in Zuckerman's adopted England, seem less powerful, if only because I was shocked to find Roth aiming his vitriol at Christians, of all people. Not that they don't need it, but what sort of middle-ground is he suggesting, between fanatical Zionist bloodletting and a English passive-aggressive anti-Semitism? Zuckermanism, or something else none of us can subscribe to.
American Pastoral: And then, of course, is this beauty of a novel, which I have actually read before. It's often referred to as the "second" Zuckerman trilogy (The Prague Orgy counts as an appendix to the first one, and The Counterlife has no choice but to stand alone). What differs this trilogy from the previous one is that, while Zuckerman is once again the author, he takes a secondary role, instead choosing to highlight (and subsequently fictionalize) minor figures in his life and devise a way in which to make these lives reflect the tapestry of American social upheaval. American Pastoral is about "Swede" Levov, a Jewish Adonis and former sports hero who is the most fundamentally decent character I think Roth has ever created. He takes over his father's glove factory (leading to some brilliant exposition from Roth about the science of glove-making--you probably don't believe me but it is mind-blowing stuff), marries a former Miss New Jersey, and has a daughter. As good a husband and father as he is, he can't prevent his daughter from becoming increasingly radicalized by the situation in Vietnam, and she starts hanging out with unsavory, Weather Underground type characters. Eventually, she bombs a post office and kills someone, and subsequently vanishes. Seeing "Swede" Levov try to reconcile these feelings of paternal love with the knowledge that her daughter murdered someone is affecting, as is their final confrontation. I should add that their daughter, Merry, struck me as such a loathsome toolbag that it almost justifies the Vietnam war.
I Married A Communist: Once again, Zuckerman writes about a childhood figure, although ostensibly this time his recount of the life of the actor Ira Ringgold is less fictionalized than it is stratified through the minds of both Zuckerman and Ira's brother, who recounts about half of what goes on. This is often considered the weak link in the trilogy, and I agree with that assessment: Unlike Swede Levov and Coleman Silk, Ira Ringgold seems more of a victim not of the times but of his own pathetic attempts to stay attached to his communist ideology. Not that a great book couldn't be made out of this, and admittedly, it is filled with great stuff. While painted in broad strokes, Roth's depiction of the communist witch hunters is certainly entertaining and well thought out, although Roth has the habit of making all the enemies of communism by extension closet fascist sympathizers, with the exception of Ira's brother. Ira as a character still seems somewhat of a mystery, and his relationship with the young Zuckerman seems to be a tad on the convenient side: considering all that Zuckerman has been through, the fact that he never mentions this person before makes us wonder if Zuckerman isn't writing fiction again. As I stated before, I don't think that's something Roth is ever very concerned with.
The Human Stain: Almost unbearably emotionally resonant, in the manner of My Life as a Man and The Anatomy Lesson, this book packs quite a punch, even if Roth spends much of it attacking the shallowness and intellectual dishonesty of my age group (the "dumbest generation," Coleman Silk says at one point). Unlike the first two parts of the trilogy, this is set in the recent past, during the Clinton Whitewater hearings, and Roth makes much of how ridiculous it was that America was concerned with the sexual habits of the president. Against this backdrop, Roth tells the story of Coleman Silk, a neighbor of Zuckerman's and a professor at a small liberal arts college who gets kicked out for a supposed racial slur (he calls two students-- who happen to be black--spooks, referring to their continual absence from his classroom, not their race). The subsequent stress and disappointment ends up taking its toll on Silk's wife, so he implores Zuckerman to write his story. At first, Zuckerman refuses, but they become friends nonetheless. Silk, who is 71, starts having a torrid love affair with a 33-year old janitor whose life has been so tragic it verges on being a Chekhovian cartoon. All of this stuff is excellently told, and Roth easily manages to pull of the feat of having Zuckerman get in the minds of these different characters who don't even know who he is. While far from an impartial observer, Zuckerman manages to stay out of the fray until he is needed in the final sequence, which is quite a good one. This was made into a movie with Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, if you remember. This would seem at first like the least filmable of the trilogy, but I guess others disagree.
Exit Ghost: Roth's most recent book, and reportedly the last one to involve Nathan Zuckerman. This is probably a good thing, because after three straight books where he tried telling other people's stories, he has become self-involved to the point where he strikes me as being a bitter old phoney (sp?). Zuckerman, now in his 70s, is completely incontinent and impotent from prostate surgery, but is told that a possible cure is awaiting him in New York City. So, the reclusive Zuckerman travels to New York for the first time in several decades, and immediately starts kvetching about all the cell phones and iPods he sees. If anything, Exit Ghost is meant to mirror many of the themes and strands of the first Zuckerman book, The Ghost Writer. E.I. Lonoff is long dead, and a young hotshot writer tries to interview Zuckerman about his relationship with the writer, to be part of some sort of revelatory biography. In response, Zuckerman treats the young man like shit, vowing to go so far as to ruin his literary aspirations if he publishes this biography. Meanwhile, he starts having sexual feelings for a woman whose apartment he plans to rent for a year, feelings of course he cannot act upon due to his impotence. Meanwhile, he complains about how hard and humiliating it is to have to wear diapers, and the surgery doesn't do much to help him. This is a sad and very slight book, a bizarre end note to be sure. Zuckerman, towards the end of his life, no longer seems to be an interesting or enlightening character, but rather an old and disgruntled man furious about his impending death. It doesn't make for the most compelling reading.
Next: all of the Roth books, including The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography, Deception: A Novel, Patrimony: A True Story, Operation Shylock: A Confession, and The Plot Against America (Why did Roth become so enamored with colons all of a sudden? Why have I?).
Monday, June 23, 2008
A moment of levity, by my standards
Now that we've finally been rid of Hillary Clinton and her increasingly poorly managed (and racist) campaign, I can, I hope, safely say that I plan to vote for Barack Obama in this coming election. So, in case he was curious, he gets my oh-so-coveted endorsement.
This is not to say I am a blind partisan (or Obamabot, as they call them) drawn to unrealistic notions of "change." What appealed to me about Obama, and what always confused me with all these criticisms, was that he seemed to lay down in pretty concrete and intelligent terms what he planned to do. Partisanbots tried to paint him as having nothing but a bunch of vague utterances at the core of his campaign, and having seen the man speak a few times I can say that this is a mostly baseless accusation. I could give examples, and I might in a later post. Anyway, I will support the man, but not apologize for him. He seems like a good guy, and I find myself becoming more and more disturbed by McCain's behavior over the last few weeks, and Bob Barr is of course definitely out. Now Nader, I still might vote for him. Still though, Obama is not a perfect man, and in the interest of fair play, I present to you 10 Things I Do Not Like About Barack Obama
1. To start with an obvious one, his recent announcement to reject public financing. Not a bad idea in itself, but it seems the point he is trying to make is that, without big money interests, he can outspend McCain by however much he wants, while McCain is stuck with, at most, $84.1 million. Surely Obama, in the spirit of fair play, could have matched McCain's amount and offered to use the rest of the donations to do something else like, say, help people who are flooded or victims of genocide. As it stands, if Obama wins this thing, people will claim it is because of the money factor. Those of us who care about campaign finance reform, and we are a dying breed, weep.
2. The Obama campaign's response to accusations that he is somehow a secret Muslim. Obama's response was something along the lines of, "Of course I am not, I am a Christian like you." His response should have been, "Who gives a fuck?"
3. In one of the poorest examples of supposed "bipartisanship," Obama supported the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer house bill that grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies who collaborate with our administration to spy on people. This is wildly unconstitutional and is unfortunately being supported by Nancy Pelosi as well as the majority of democrats in the house. It's possible Obama thinks that, as president-to-be, he would not use these warrantless wiretapping powers in vain, but come on.
4. He supported Joe Lieberman in his reelection bid after being ousted as the democratic nominee by Ned Lamont. Now I'm not the hugest Ned Lamont fan, but there are few people in the senate or anywhere else that I find so dishonorable and downright disgusting a political creature as Joe Lieberman. That is the subject of another post entirely, but it's worth pointing out that Lieberman did not respond in turn, and has now become a strong McCain backer. That is by far the least of why he is a scumbag.
5. His position on gay marriage. Doesn't support it, but supports "civil unions." Say what you want, but that's discriminatory. For supposedly the most "liberal" person in the senate, this is a glaring problem and offensive to homosexuals and non-bigots like myself.
6. The fact that he used to be an agnostic, which would be a pretty big deal if he still was (and a good thing), but then fell in with that lame church in order to circumvent stupid questions about his "faith." Looks like that didn't work out the way he planned.
7. Supports merit pay. 9 times out of 10, doesn't really work out the way it should, and the NEA wholeheartedly opposes it.
8. Made some generalizations about rap music that are pretty par for the course for ignorant old white politicians, but for someone who claims to have Jay-Z on his iPod, seems kind of an about face.
9. Said he liked Leon Uris. Blech.
10. Support of ethanol, which is troubling given that gas prices nevertheless make me want to cry. What's more, food prices are going up, which is particular bad timing given that vast swaths of the United States have been ravaged by national disasters.
I was thinking maybe I would do 10 things I would like about John McCain, again in the interest of fairness, but I don't know if I can even do that. His good qualities seem to be disappearing, one by one.
This is not to say I am a blind partisan (or Obamabot, as they call them) drawn to unrealistic notions of "change." What appealed to me about Obama, and what always confused me with all these criticisms, was that he seemed to lay down in pretty concrete and intelligent terms what he planned to do. Partisanbots tried to paint him as having nothing but a bunch of vague utterances at the core of his campaign, and having seen the man speak a few times I can say that this is a mostly baseless accusation. I could give examples, and I might in a later post. Anyway, I will support the man, but not apologize for him. He seems like a good guy, and I find myself becoming more and more disturbed by McCain's behavior over the last few weeks, and Bob Barr is of course definitely out. Now Nader, I still might vote for him. Still though, Obama is not a perfect man, and in the interest of fair play, I present to you 10 Things I Do Not Like About Barack Obama
1. To start with an obvious one, his recent announcement to reject public financing. Not a bad idea in itself, but it seems the point he is trying to make is that, without big money interests, he can outspend McCain by however much he wants, while McCain is stuck with, at most, $84.1 million. Surely Obama, in the spirit of fair play, could have matched McCain's amount and offered to use the rest of the donations to do something else like, say, help people who are flooded or victims of genocide. As it stands, if Obama wins this thing, people will claim it is because of the money factor. Those of us who care about campaign finance reform, and we are a dying breed, weep.
2. The Obama campaign's response to accusations that he is somehow a secret Muslim. Obama's response was something along the lines of, "Of course I am not, I am a Christian like you." His response should have been, "Who gives a fuck?"
3. In one of the poorest examples of supposed "bipartisanship," Obama supported the Cheney/Rockefeller/Hoyer house bill that grants legal immunity to telecommunications companies who collaborate with our administration to spy on people. This is wildly unconstitutional and is unfortunately being supported by Nancy Pelosi as well as the majority of democrats in the house. It's possible Obama thinks that, as president-to-be, he would not use these warrantless wiretapping powers in vain, but come on.
4. He supported Joe Lieberman in his reelection bid after being ousted as the democratic nominee by Ned Lamont. Now I'm not the hugest Ned Lamont fan, but there are few people in the senate or anywhere else that I find so dishonorable and downright disgusting a political creature as Joe Lieberman. That is the subject of another post entirely, but it's worth pointing out that Lieberman did not respond in turn, and has now become a strong McCain backer. That is by far the least of why he is a scumbag.
5. His position on gay marriage. Doesn't support it, but supports "civil unions." Say what you want, but that's discriminatory. For supposedly the most "liberal" person in the senate, this is a glaring problem and offensive to homosexuals and non-bigots like myself.
6. The fact that he used to be an agnostic, which would be a pretty big deal if he still was (and a good thing), but then fell in with that lame church in order to circumvent stupid questions about his "faith." Looks like that didn't work out the way he planned.
7. Supports merit pay. 9 times out of 10, doesn't really work out the way it should, and the NEA wholeheartedly opposes it.
8. Made some generalizations about rap music that are pretty par for the course for ignorant old white politicians, but for someone who claims to have Jay-Z on his iPod, seems kind of an about face.
9. Said he liked Leon Uris. Blech.
10. Support of ethanol, which is troubling given that gas prices nevertheless make me want to cry. What's more, food prices are going up, which is particular bad timing given that vast swaths of the United States have been ravaged by national disasters.
I was thinking maybe I would do 10 things I would like about John McCain, again in the interest of fairness, but I don't know if I can even do that. His good qualities seem to be disappearing, one by one.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
My top 50
This is a last.fm meme I had been meaning to do for a long time. I would post it on my last.fm blog but I thought I'd do it here as well. I'm always interested to look at my top 50, in order to see what it perhaps says about me. Numbers here are rankings based on number of tracks scrobbled from each artist.
- How did you get into 29? Big Black
Read about them in Michael Azzerad’s book, naturally. I think of the 13 bands profiled in the book, Big Black was one of the last bands I listened to and got into. I think only Beat Happening and Butthole Surfers came later. Anyhow I got Songs About Fucking first, because it was recommended by Pitchfork, and of course I was blown away. I was aware at the time of Albini’s producing (sorry, engineering) work for plenty of bands I admired.
2. What was the first song you ever heard by 22? Wire
It would have to be “Reuters” because the first time I ever listened to Wire I listened to Pink Flag all the way through.
3. What’s your favorite lyric by 33? Kyuss
“My hair is real long/No brains, all groin/no shoes, just thongs/I hate slow songs” is a good one.
4. What is your favorite album by 49? Jeff Beck
My iTunes counts Truth as a Jeff Beck album as opposed to a Jeff Beck Group album, so I will say Truth.
5. How many albums by 13 do you own? Game Theory.
Just one, actually. I should get more, but Lolita Nation has a lot of tracks and all of them are excellent, even the 14-second ones.
6. What is your favorite song by 50? Crime
“Instrumental Instrumental” always gets me going.
7. Is there a song by 39 that makes you sad? Johnny Thunders
Oh, yes. His entire repertoire is pretty heartbreaking in light of what happened to him. Obviously, “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory” comes to mind, but I would probably choose “So Alone,” cause Thunders’ guitar can always make me a bit weepy.
8. What is your favorite album by 15? Guitar Wolf
J-J-J-Jet Generation!
9. What is your favorite song by 5? The Clash.
This has to be the hardest question yet. I’ll say “Charlie Don’t Surf,” but as I say it, all these songs from London Calling come welling back—shit, let’s say “Charlie Don’t Surf.”
10. Is there a song by 6 that makes you happy? Minutemen
There’s several, but one that comes to mind is “History Lesson-Part II,” a heartwarming story of friendship and band harmony that is unprecedented in its autobiographical candor as well as its kind disposition.
11. What is your favorite album by 40? Jay Reatard.
Blood Visions is the only one I got.
12. What is your favorite song by 10? Frank Zappa
Jesus, another hard one. “Trouble Every Day” is so magnificent, even if it is on his first album. It also has probably his best, least random lyrics.
13. What is a good memory you have involving 30? Butthole Surfers
I actually have a wonderful memory of being at Chameleon’s in
14. What is your favorite song by 38? The La’s
“I Can’t Sleep” is the jumpiest and happiest of many jumpy and happy cuts.
15. Is there a song by 19 that makes you happy? Elvis Costello
Elvis isn’t the kind of lyricist who writes “happy” lyrics—nevertheless, the music for “The Impostor” is pretty cheerful for what it is (ska).
16. How many times have you seen 25 live?
Never, but I would love to.
17. What is the first song you ever heard by 23? Meat Puppets.
Obviously it must have been “
18. What is your favorite album by 11? Dinosaur Jr.
Has to be You’re Living All Over Me. Stiff competition from Bug and that’s about it, although all Dinosaur Jr. albums have good tracks.
19. Who is a favorite member of 1? Bad Brains.
Dr. Know is the MVP of all Bad Brains albums, at least until that Soul Brains nonsense when H.R. took over. As much as I love every member of the band, consummate musicians all, if forced to take one on a desert island I would choose Dr. Know, for his consummately brilliant soloing abilities as well as his ability to play really, really fast. Like Johnny Ramone and Van Halen rolled into one.
20. Have you ever seen 14 live? Frank Black.
No, but I will in a few weeks in
21. What is a good memory involving 27? Fugazi
Any memory involving Fugazi is a good one. Walking around campus while listening to “Public Witness Program” on repeat seems like a good one, it was like my way of calming down after my music theory classes.
22. What is your favorite song by 16? Radiohead
Currently, I’m partial to “All I Need,” because I have a lot of very good memories associated with it. Apart from that, “Paranoid Android” will always have a good place in my heart, despite its ubiquity.
23. What is the first song you ever heard by 47? The Rolling Stones
Who knows? The earliest I remember is dancing to “Jumping Jack Flash” as a youngster.
24. What is your favorite album by 18? The Replacements
I’ll say Pleased To Meet Me, an album that continually surprises and moves me—not only does it have the awesome opener “I.O.U.”—a piss-take on all the Replacements fans bitching about their moving to a major label—but it also has the perfect ending in “Can’t Hardly Wait.” In between, it has “The Ledge,” “Skyway” and of course the mighty “Alex Chilton.” I even listen to “Nightclub Jitters” when I’m in the mood.
25. What is your favorite song by 21? R.E.M.
Anything from their first five albums is tops, but I’ll choose “Harborcoat” because it embodies the two aspects of R.E.M. I always liked the most—the jittery, off-kilter dance rhythms and the anthemic (if obscure) chorus.
26. What is the first song you ever heard by 26? 999
“Homicide,” via its placement on No Thanks: The 70s Punk Rebellion, which was my bible for a while back in high school. Of all the songs that I played and replayed, “Homicide” is definitely one I listened to often.
27. What is your favorite album by 3? Steely Dan
The Royal Scam. Maybe a month ago I would have said Aja, but I can’t get over those first two songs, especially the end of “The Caves of Altamira” when the horns start going crazy. Plus, all of them have amazing lyrics, including “Haitian Divorce.”
28. What is your favorite song by 2? The Stranglers
This might be the hardest one to do yet. As much as I deeply love pretty much every part of the Stranglers’ discography, particularly the first three albums, I will go out on a limb and say I am particularly enamored with “Down In The Sewer.” If you haven’t heard it before, you should, it’s like the best sort of punk “rock opera” or whatever they call it, and it has this really righteous and exciting ending. It keeps building and topping itself, which is the sort of thing I like (that’s why I like the Wipers so much).
29. What was the first song you ever heard by 32? Magazine
“Shot on Both Sides,” also via No Thanks. I should add, though, that the stupid Rolling Stone record guide said that Magazine never made anything nearly as good as “Shot on Both Sides,” a simply stupid assumption. If you haven’t heard Magazine, you must. Great, probably the best, post-punk.
30. What is your favorite song by 8? The Germs
I know their discography by heart, and I can tell you pretty easily what my least favorite song is (that would be “Shut Down (Annihilation Man)”. As for my favorite, “Let’s Pretend” comes to mind. Some of Pat Smear’s best work there.
31. How many times have you seen 17 live? Warren Zevon
0, and it looks like I never will.
32. Is there a song by 44 that makes you happy? Led Zeppelin
Anything off Led Zeppelin III. Particularly, “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.”
33. What is your favorite album by 12? Pixies
Impossible question. Can’t answer it.
34. What is the worst song by 45? Stiff Little Fingers
“Here We Are Nowhere,” if only because it’s too short.
35. What was the first song you ever heard by 34? Sonic Youth
I remember hearing about Goodbye, Old Century on NPR but the first Sonic Youth song proper I heard was probably “Tom Violence” off EVOL. I remember being not that impressed, shows how stupid I was in middle school.
36. What is your favorite album by 48? Neil Young
On The Beach is the one I listen to the most, so I’ll say that.
37. How many times have you seen 42 live? Tom Waits
Never, but boy would I love to.
38. What is your favorite song by 36? The Jam
The one I listen to the most is probably their cover of “Heat Wave,” but considering that’s not a Jam original I’ll say “Set The House Ablaze,” which by the way Bloc Party completely ripped off verbatim.
39. What was the first song you ever heard by 28? Wu-Tang Clan
“Gravel Pit,” I think. I think I saw the video. Very weird video, if you haven’t seen it.
40. What is your favorite album by 7? Husker Du.
Once again, an absolutely impossible question to answer. What the hell, Zen Arcade.
41. Is there a song by 31 that makes you happy? David Bowie
42. What is your favorite album by 41? Battles
Easiest question yet. Mirrored by default. I suppose I could choose one of the EPs but I’m not going to.
43. What is your favorite song by 24? Stevie Wonder
“As,” though I’ve completely overplayed that song over the course of the last year. Gets me going, I guess.
44. What is a good memory you have involving 46? Of
The first time I heard “Disconnect the Dots” and proceeded to spend the next few weeks listening to only that song.
45. What is your favorite song by 35? Big Star
“Feel,” I guess. Never topped that.
46. Is there a song by 9 that makes you happy? At The Drive-In
Oh, hell yeah. “Rolodex Propaganda” has great, loopy backing vocals by Iggy Pop and is of course righteous like everything else they do.
47. What is your favorite album by 4? Wipers.
Shit, yet another impossible question to answer. If pressed, I choose Youth of America. Chances are if you don’t like it I don’t like you.
48. Who is a favorite member of 37? The Who
Keith Moon is undoubtedly the greatest instrumental powerhouse of the Who, and of course that is saying a lot. I am feeling dubious about this Keith Moon biopic with Mike Myers (who will play Townshend? Adrien Brody? Who has the nose?).
49. What is the first song you ever heard by 43? Pink Floyd
Again, it’s difficult to remember. It might be “Learning To Fly” because of my dad. Ick.
50. How many albums do you own by 20? Portishead
All three of the studio albums proper. There's a band that should record more often.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Reconciling myself
Well, I certainly dropped the ball on this thing. I was seized, unfortunately, by one of those Salinger (or Residents!) moments where I felt like being a bit more anonymous. In fact, I don't even know what I'm trying to do right now. I'll give you a brief lowdown on what you may have missed, had you not been present during every moment of my life and don't happen to be a nu-nu. This is in relatively chronological order.
-On what I believe was 4/20, I delivered my symposium project on Philip Roth. Entitled "Telling a Man by the Songs He Sings: Claims and Counterclaims of Anti-semitism in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus and Letting Go," I had spent the last several months, reading through as much of Roth's work as I could while simultaneously producing a 15-page paper that my sponsor would find of enduring quality. Luckily, she didn't find my thesis or anything I said to be that bad (I was probably helped by the fact that, even as an American literature professor, and a Jew to boot, she wasn't that familiar with Roth). Of course, the day before I had to pare down the fucking thing to a manageable 10 minutes. It turns out that reading my entire 15-page paper took something like 25 minutes, so I spent all of Friday hacking it until I was pretty sure I had produced something utterly unintelligible. No matter: very, very few people showed up. I would wager there were maybe 10 people there, and that includes the three students also speaking during my session (entitled "Literary Landscapes: Paradise, Politics, and Religion"--check out my abstract and stuff here) and their respective sponsors, although my sponsor couldn't be there because, irony of ironies, she had to go home for Passover.
Anyhow, I finally did it, and at least my moderator seemed to like it, and was particularly impressed that I did all the research outside of class. I asked her if (as department chairman) this would be good to go as an honors thesis, and she said yes. So at that point I was pretty happy.
-All of the internships I applied for--and I won't bother naming them all here--turned me down. Every single last one of them. So, faced with few other ideas, I decided to go back home once again for the summer. Turns out this was a bad idea.
-I did, however, receive an academic award from the school, which was cool because along with the prestige (I'm aware, don't laugh at me) of it I got $100. It was the Winifred Van Etten award, in case you were wondering. It's not a big deal, there are enough of these to make me feel not so special. Still, it was nice, particularly because I had no idea what I was getting until it was announced at the English awards/Open Field party. Mouton, or someone in the English department wrote a lovely introduction for me too. The only reason I enjoyed it was because it was poetic justice for none of my stuff getting into Open Field, which is the campus literary magazine. This is even though Freeman thought one of my stories was good enough to be entered into the Nick Adams short story contest (which I lost unsurprisingly, although I should add deservedly--I read the story that won, and it is actually an amazing piece of work). Apparently, my peers didn't think anything I did was good enough. I was depressed, but that made it a bit better.
Weirdly, I was invited to attend the English awards night as well as the interdepartmental awards night. Since I had already gotten my award previously, I was just asked to stand up to be recognized. There was no reason why I should have gone. The whole thing was like three hours and nearly unbearable, despite what was supposed to be fancy food. Apparently, there are a lot of awards here.
-Got hired to be the new Arts & Entertainment editor of The Cornellian, which, unlike my job back in high school, actually pays a salary. I was going for Opinions editor but I'm not surprised that they didn't choose me. To date, I have written pieces about the new Portishead album, the new R.E.M. album, and Iron Man. As is custom, the new editorial staff does one issue at the very end of the year, and it ended up not going so well for me as the result of some advertising mishaps, so I basically had to do the whole thing over again. The result: an epic piece on Iron Man that took up the entire page. It wasn't my proudest moment, and it was sort of another reason to be depressed. I couldn't look at it afterwards, that was for sure.
-I saw Iron Man. Loved it. I don't think my review is online, but I'll post it at some point.
-Took two classes, both of which fucked me up in unexpected ways: Grammar & The Politics of English turned out to be a mind-blowingly frustrating class, although not so much with the politics part as it was with the grammar. I don't know if anyone here has ever had to diagram sentences. I certainly hadn't before, but now I can say that it is a loathsome, disgusting, and surprisingly helpful activity. I think I am a better writer for taking the class, and it was sort of nice to have a professor who didn't like anything I did at all. I definitely needed that, but too bad it killed my straight-A winning streak for the semester. I'm not as concerned with that as I am with the way I was demoralized--somehow, even as someone with enough knowledge and passion of issues pertaining to language politics and linguistics, I found I had little of value to say. I did, however, get to do a paper on Salman Rushdie, who readers will know I am a big fan of. I think my thesis was something like the Ayatollah couldn't have possibly read The Satanic Verses before he issued his fatwa, and he definitely didn't read it afterward either. I know, it's so obvious. Story of my life.
Contrast this with Contemporary Fiction, a class I owned unequivocally. I found, astonishingly, that I was more in my element doing literary analysis, and what's more, I found myself enjoying the theory--yes, the theory--of postmodernists like Jean Baudrillard and Roland Barthes. Plus, we got to read some wonderful books, including one of my favorites, If on a winter's night a traveler. We also read Breakfast of Champions and J.M. Coetzee's Foe, amongst selections from a big Norton anthology of postmodern literature from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Sherman Alexie, Marilynne Robinson, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others. Philip Roth was in the anthology (excerpting The Ghost Writer) but we did not read him in class. I felt very much on top of things and was very proud of the writing I did in the class. In fact, I feel like I might put it on here, except it doesn't seem that profound on the internet as it did in the classroom. Anyway, my professor seemed to like it, and me, a lot. I think he liked that I would actually talk about some of the postmodern theory while most would complain it was impenetrable. As he would likely say, that's the point.
-I keep chugging away at Philip Roth. Just finished Deception, by the way, so I'm entering the home stretch. In my next post I'll talk about The Counterlife through Exit Ghost, assuming I can remember anything about them.
-I ended my junior year by doing my take-home final while having an extreme headache, and later, after attending quarter draws night at the bar, getting extremely feverish. Also, I hate packing and I knew I would miss my roommate, Jeremiah, although I'll see him again next year.
-Came home for the summer. The drive back was excruciating. Not only was I feeling extremely sick, to the point where I couldn't eat anything, but it was raining as hard as I've ever seen, to the point where I couldn't really see on the road. It was risky business, but I made it home okay. I've looked, in vain, for a job. It's hard, because pretty much everything has been filled up by people who came back for summer long before I did, as a result of Cornell ending pretty late. I need money and I don't know what to do.
So that's it. I'll get back into the swing of things, slowly. My question is this: from reading this, does this constitute a life well-lived? Obviously I'm not including stuff that is personal, but let's just say that that part is covered. Am I doing enough with my life? What should I be doing? What am I doing wrong?
-On what I believe was 4/20, I delivered my symposium project on Philip Roth. Entitled "Telling a Man by the Songs He Sings: Claims and Counterclaims of Anti-semitism in Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus and Letting Go," I had spent the last several months, reading through as much of Roth's work as I could while simultaneously producing a 15-page paper that my sponsor would find of enduring quality. Luckily, she didn't find my thesis or anything I said to be that bad (I was probably helped by the fact that, even as an American literature professor, and a Jew to boot, she wasn't that familiar with Roth). Of course, the day before I had to pare down the fucking thing to a manageable 10 minutes. It turns out that reading my entire 15-page paper took something like 25 minutes, so I spent all of Friday hacking it until I was pretty sure I had produced something utterly unintelligible. No matter: very, very few people showed up. I would wager there were maybe 10 people there, and that includes the three students also speaking during my session (entitled "Literary Landscapes: Paradise, Politics, and Religion"--check out my abstract and stuff here) and their respective sponsors, although my sponsor couldn't be there because, irony of ironies, she had to go home for Passover.
Anyhow, I finally did it, and at least my moderator seemed to like it, and was particularly impressed that I did all the research outside of class. I asked her if (as department chairman) this would be good to go as an honors thesis, and she said yes. So at that point I was pretty happy.
-All of the internships I applied for--and I won't bother naming them all here--turned me down. Every single last one of them. So, faced with few other ideas, I decided to go back home once again for the summer. Turns out this was a bad idea.
-I did, however, receive an academic award from the school, which was cool because along with the prestige (I'm aware, don't laugh at me) of it I got $100. It was the Winifred Van Etten award, in case you were wondering. It's not a big deal, there are enough of these to make me feel not so special. Still, it was nice, particularly because I had no idea what I was getting until it was announced at the English awards/Open Field party. Mouton, or someone in the English department wrote a lovely introduction for me too. The only reason I enjoyed it was because it was poetic justice for none of my stuff getting into Open Field, which is the campus literary magazine. This is even though Freeman thought one of my stories was good enough to be entered into the Nick Adams short story contest (which I lost unsurprisingly, although I should add deservedly--I read the story that won, and it is actually an amazing piece of work). Apparently, my peers didn't think anything I did was good enough. I was depressed, but that made it a bit better.
Weirdly, I was invited to attend the English awards night as well as the interdepartmental awards night. Since I had already gotten my award previously, I was just asked to stand up to be recognized. There was no reason why I should have gone. The whole thing was like three hours and nearly unbearable, despite what was supposed to be fancy food. Apparently, there are a lot of awards here.
-Got hired to be the new Arts & Entertainment editor of The Cornellian, which, unlike my job back in high school, actually pays a salary. I was going for Opinions editor but I'm not surprised that they didn't choose me. To date, I have written pieces about the new Portishead album, the new R.E.M. album, and Iron Man. As is custom, the new editorial staff does one issue at the very end of the year, and it ended up not going so well for me as the result of some advertising mishaps, so I basically had to do the whole thing over again. The result: an epic piece on Iron Man that took up the entire page. It wasn't my proudest moment, and it was sort of another reason to be depressed. I couldn't look at it afterwards, that was for sure.
-I saw Iron Man. Loved it. I don't think my review is online, but I'll post it at some point.
-Took two classes, both of which fucked me up in unexpected ways: Grammar & The Politics of English turned out to be a mind-blowingly frustrating class, although not so much with the politics part as it was with the grammar. I don't know if anyone here has ever had to diagram sentences. I certainly hadn't before, but now I can say that it is a loathsome, disgusting, and surprisingly helpful activity. I think I am a better writer for taking the class, and it was sort of nice to have a professor who didn't like anything I did at all. I definitely needed that, but too bad it killed my straight-A winning streak for the semester. I'm not as concerned with that as I am with the way I was demoralized--somehow, even as someone with enough knowledge and passion of issues pertaining to language politics and linguistics, I found I had little of value to say. I did, however, get to do a paper on Salman Rushdie, who readers will know I am a big fan of. I think my thesis was something like the Ayatollah couldn't have possibly read The Satanic Verses before he issued his fatwa, and he definitely didn't read it afterward either. I know, it's so obvious. Story of my life.
Contrast this with Contemporary Fiction, a class I owned unequivocally. I found, astonishingly, that I was more in my element doing literary analysis, and what's more, I found myself enjoying the theory--yes, the theory--of postmodernists like Jean Baudrillard and Roland Barthes. Plus, we got to read some wonderful books, including one of my favorites, If on a winter's night a traveler. We also read Breakfast of Champions and J.M. Coetzee's Foe, amongst selections from a big Norton anthology of postmodern literature from the likes of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Sherman Alexie, Marilynne Robinson, Maxine Hong Kingston, and others. Philip Roth was in the anthology (excerpting The Ghost Writer) but we did not read him in class. I felt very much on top of things and was very proud of the writing I did in the class. In fact, I feel like I might put it on here, except it doesn't seem that profound on the internet as it did in the classroom. Anyway, my professor seemed to like it, and me, a lot. I think he liked that I would actually talk about some of the postmodern theory while most would complain it was impenetrable. As he would likely say, that's the point.
-I keep chugging away at Philip Roth. Just finished Deception, by the way, so I'm entering the home stretch. In my next post I'll talk about The Counterlife through Exit Ghost, assuming I can remember anything about them.
-I ended my junior year by doing my take-home final while having an extreme headache, and later, after attending quarter draws night at the bar, getting extremely feverish. Also, I hate packing and I knew I would miss my roommate, Jeremiah, although I'll see him again next year.
-Came home for the summer. The drive back was excruciating. Not only was I feeling extremely sick, to the point where I couldn't eat anything, but it was raining as hard as I've ever seen, to the point where I couldn't really see on the road. It was risky business, but I made it home okay. I've looked, in vain, for a job. It's hard, because pretty much everything has been filled up by people who came back for summer long before I did, as a result of Cornell ending pretty late. I need money and I don't know what to do.
So that's it. I'll get back into the swing of things, slowly. My question is this: from reading this, does this constitute a life well-lived? Obviously I'm not including stuff that is personal, but let's just say that that part is covered. Am I doing enough with my life? What should I be doing? What am I doing wrong?
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