Travel Broadens the Mind

I'm in Irvine, CA, visiting my Valve colleague Scott Kaufman and preparing to attend a very interesting meeting on Monday. Thus I am jetlagged but did get some reading done. On the plane I read Pratchett's A Hat Full of Sky. Eh. There's a certain sort of 'now the witches are fighting the evil force and it gets all eldritch and thrilling yet vaguely sentiment, and the jokes stop' moment, which usually lasts 10 pages. And that's ok, because usually your sides hurt from laughing so you need a rest. This time that part was too long. I also watched Chicken Little, Jarhead and Syriana. (I was curious about Jarhead after realizing that Joel Turnipseed, regular CT and occasional Valve commenter, was somehow part of this story.) Jarhead was pretty good and Syriana was really quite tremendous, I thought.

Half-passed out on Scott's couch, I read Marvel 1602, which I found somewhat disappointing. Marvel's finest, but transmogrified into Elizabethan whatsit. Humorous, but somehow the fact that the story itself wasn't a parody just made it feel too much like an old issue of "What If?" I think they should have had Galactus and/or the skrulls show up wearing enormous ruffs, on the general principle that the aliens always vaguely dress like humans, so if humans wear big old ruffs ... I think figuring out how to turn Jack Kirby's signature look into a kind of Galactus-as-Shakespeare outfit would have been a very interesting exercise.

Then Scott and I went up to Amoeba Records and spent our time and money. (Good to see you again, Daniel.) I'll throw all my acquisitions in the sidebar so you can judge my purchasing wisdom, and Belle can know what to look forward to. And I had my second great idea of the day. A new subgenre of music: prog-a-billy! A cross between Can and the Stray Cats. Can't you just hear it already, scraping the sanity off the insides of your brain? Why hasn't someone done this already?

Albums purchased that Amazon doesn't know: couple of Mojo Magazine promo compilation discs - "Mojo Psych Out!" and "The Who Covered". I'm really curious to hear the Jam covering "Disguises", the Flaming Lips covering "Anyway, Anywhere, Anyhow" and Richard Thompson covering "Legal Matter". "Psych Out!" has some good Troggs, Small Faces, the Smoke and so forth. Next, "Selections From Children of Nuggets", from Rhino Records. It is somewhat musicologically dubious: "the full smorgasbord of post-punk music that married a stylish foot in the past to a passionate rock and roll spirit." But it's got the Soft Boys, "Wading Through a Ventilator", so who's complaining? Next, "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to The Decline of Western Civilization, Part II: the Metal Years". Alice Cooper, Motorhead, Armored Saint, Faster Pussycat, Lizzy Borden. This one's for Belle! Last but not least, Daniel Tures' own "White Widow". (Daniel is the man.)

Comments

[ben wolfson]

The Richard Thompson cover is probably from 1000 Years of Popular Music, which is great, and also features him covering Britney Spears and Purcell.

[Zeke]

Alice Cooper? What a phreak.

Tho' Tom Waits Studies in various of the Cali gulag edu-shoppes might work.

Today's reading, Ca-lasssss: Mr. Waits' "Hang on St. Christopher."

Just add some Stan Kenton, a lil' Brubeck/Desmond, Ellington, 'n ZOOT Horn Rollo

[jholbo]

I think I have enough beefheart already.

[bob mcmanus]

I had the Zombies in my original recommendations for Belle's concept albums, before I had to rewrite it due to lost connection.
That kind of softer psych is not for everyone.

Flaming Lips are great. I declare them a honorary Texas band, Oklahoma being a suburb. Fearless Freaks was one of the better rock docs I have seen, rock star as fast-food manager in his night job. I realy got a sense of the kind of person and kind of job holding a rock group together is. Wayne Coyne is fascinating.

[Zeke]

A lil' goes a long way, true; nonetheless, Waits and Beefheart produced something which might be called musical "ahht," in its better moments, and not merely rock-pop product. Most "alternative" noise still makes use of all the corny major/minor harmonies, the stale beats, the endless coffeehouse tragedy, regardless of some cool lyrics. With Waits, the music is complex, edgy and noirish enough to be interesting. A Beefheart album like Doc at the Radar station more jazz and modern classical-influenced than pop (Fowler Bros. not such poor mambo-jass composers and players); maybe it doesn't all work, but methinks quite more powerful that the latest Richard Thompson/Celtic /folk/Dylano rehashings. (Some of us puke when hearing those minstrely tonal chords). But really I'd ruther listen to Stravinsky or even Miles, Bird & co.etc.

[Zeke]

Which is to say, one could, if one were sufficiently competent and mad enough, interpret the "alternative" rock-folk harmonies (re-spawned into life by Zimmermann, Inc.) as part of the bourgeois culture industry--a bit edgy, tan romantica, but nonetheless comforting, pastoral: like a soundtrack for life in a Bay Area 'burb, or variations on Bank of America commercial jingles. Gazing at LA or SF city-scapes, architecture, technology, autopolis: dissonant, massive, entropic. Bird Parker or Thelonius Monk seem to fit, a bit of Hendrix o zappa, Waits, maybe Steve Reich if not varese. Tonality is hegemony, man, as are those pop march beats. If one, on the other hand, eschews any ideas of musical realism, and instead views muzak as comfort, therapy one might as well stick with some real pastoral: Ludwig Van's 6th or Tchaikovsky, etc., catholic choirs: Te Dium, requiem azzternum.....

[Neil]

Hat full of Sky, like all Tiffany Aching books, isn't very good. Luckily the 'adult' Discworld books continue to be excellent.

[Mandos]

I'm fascinated that they showed Syriana on an airplane.

[Patrick Nielsen Hayden]

Thompson has also taken to covering "Substitute" in his live shows, reasonably frequently.

[ben wolfson]

I was at Aquarius yesterday and saw a Robert Mitchum calypso album, and thought of you and Belle. I'm not sure if it was this one, but I think the review incorporating "The angular, avant-garde banjo on "I Learn a Meringue, Mama" beats anything DNA or Robert Fripp ever put on wax" might have been written by our friend Zeke (note homage in title).

[JL]

Thompson has also taken to covering "Substitute" in his live shows, reasonably frequently.

He's been doing it since at least '89 or '90 or so, though it may appear more frequently now. I remember because he played it at Newport sometime around then. It was before Rumor and Sigh came out--everyone went nuts for a song unreleased at the time, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning."

[ben wolfson]

Incidentally, the cover of "Calvary Cross" on that Tortoise/BPB album is really good.

[Zeke]

What is sort of predictable about blog-music chats is how they go from a somewhat serious mode to kitsch with a drop of a cat. Non-classical muzak does lend itself to kitsch, and most literary types probably conceive of someone like, say, Keith Emerson playing Mussorsky as kitsch, phunn, not really art, but more an opportunity for laffs, irony, parody etc., notwithstanding Emerson's skills. And really the move to kitsch, to the irony-at-any-cost is somewhat typical of the literatteur-libertine. Tom Waits, not so far from a Bukowski type of figure, writes music about some real tragedy and absurdity, even if that tragedy is occuring to po' people; to those countless citizens who were not permitted access through the gates of the UC fortresses. Regardless of his tragic intent, however, Waits becomes another figure of fun, a clown, however talented. On the jukebox of the literary Phunnhouse, Waits sings "Obituary Polka", then maybe Mitchum croons Coconut Water, then perhaps Bird Parker and all are sort of cool-scary but really dismissable, not being "real" writers or artists like the academics specialize in.

[ben wolfson]

It's "Cemetery Polka", you git.

[z.]

You sure izz impressive, puto. Takin' time away from what a busy day of comma correctin' to point this out (btw--obituary mambo is alluded to in Swordfishtrombones ). You're as bogus, kitschy, lightweight as like an Irving Copi text. Got that, u dirt-f-n byatch?

[Doctor Slack]

You're as bogus, kitschy, lightweight as like an Irving Copi text...

Which reminds me: has anyone considered putting together a Troll of Sorrow autotext generator? It shouldn't be hard.

[Z.]

Yeah, Doc--get that ol java compiler out--if you can't write, at least you might spam some code in. First tho' tell me who Irving Copi wuz (oops Google 'er real fast RadioShack man). Ah doubt you're a programmer either, fratboy: jus' another techie neo-con putting on his liberal schtick.

[ben wolfson]

Ah, I can see them now
Clutching a handkerchief
And blowing me a kiss
Discreetly asking how
How come he died so young
Or was he very old
Is the body still warm
Is it already cold
All doors are open wide
They poke around inside
My desk, my drawers, my trunk
There's nothing left to hide
Some love letters are there
And an old photograph
They've l aid my poor soul bare
And all they do is laugh
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha - ha, ha, ha!
Ah, I can see them all
So formal and so stiff
Like a sergeant-at-arms
At the policeman's ball
And everybody's pushing
To be the first in line
Their hearts upon their sleeves
Like a ten-cent valentine
The old women are there
Too old to give a damn
They even brought the kids
Who don't know who I am
They're thinking about the price
Of my funeral bouquet
What they're thinking isn't nice
'Cause now they'll have to pay
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha - ha, ha, ha
Ah, I see all of you
All of my phony friends
Who can't wait till it ends
Who can't wait till it's through
Oh, I see all of you
You've been laughing all these years
And now all that you have le ft
Are a few crocodile tears
Ah, you don't even know
That you're entering your hell
As you leave my cemetery
And you think you're doing well
With that one who's at your side
You're as proud as you can be
Ah, she's going to make you cry
But not the way you cried for me
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha - ha, ha, ha
Ah, I can see me now
So cold and so alone
As the flowers slowly die
In my field of little bones
Ah, I can see me now
I can see me at the end
Of this voyage that I' m on
Without a love, without a friend
Now all this that I see
Is not what I deserve
They really have a nerve
To say these things to me
No, girls, just bread and water
All your money you must save
Or there'll be nothing left for us
When you're dead and in your grave
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha - ha, ha, há

[perezoso]

Tip jar! tip jahr... man, ah can so hear the A-minor chords a tinklin' and like espresso pissin'--or maybe pepperonis sizzlin'-- and some hep bi-grrls cooin' in the corner, like over JD Slazinger; and then slam "Trane's Resolution, back to the 101 and ah feel a bit better...

[Matt]

Poor Turnipseed; I liked his book. It was original. I thought Jarhead kind of sucked, both versions, reeking of formula and anti-climax. Just like the war, you might say. And who needs to pay to be told twice about that.

[Doctor Slack]

get that ol java compiler out--if you can't write. . . First tho' tell me who Irving Copi wuz . . . Ah doubt you're a programmer either, fratboy . . . man, ah can so hear the A-minor chords a tinklin' and like espresso pissin' . . .

See what I mean?

[ben wolfson]

Quine was a big Brel fan.

[Z]

Hey Slack have you figured out that comment boxes are not a place where a person posts like translations of Artie mutha-f-ing Rom-baud?

---
Quine also enjoyed Dixieland jass, so I read. yr gonna start croonin' maybe like Brecht/Weill....September Song, o Mackie...yeah

ah the shark, babe, got such teeth.ya...n he uh keeps dem... Pearlay white.... DAT's a diddy, and PC and scary too

[Doctor Slack]

have you figured out that comment boxes are not a place where a person posts like translations [blather blather]

You'd need a way to model the progressive incoherence, though. I'm not sure how you'd go about that.

[Zeke]

you need a context function, tho' Doc; like when speaking to radio shack managers, filter references men such as Rimbaud or even Irving Copi

[Doctor Memory]

Slack: what makes you so sure that "he's" not a Markov bot in the first place?

[Doctor Slack]

Memory: Good point. I'm not, come to think of it.

[z]

Why are you on a lit. or philosophy site, Doc, when there's like Radio Shack or FORTRAN or GOP sites a plenty? I don't give a phuck about your coding skills; ah code as well, whoreson.

[Complete Guide to Cat Care and Cat Training]

Sometimes fancy cat toys bought at the pet store are not as much fun as some that you can easily make- making them puts a little love into their toys! Here’ s my list of favorites that I have seen work with my cats. Let us know if you have some additions to the list.