our balcony is beautiful this time of year…
WALKING OUT
Give every book 50 pages before you commit to it, or give it up. Time is too short to read something you don’t like.– Nancy Pearl
We walked out of the Walkmen show at the Beachland last night after three or four songs. The sound was atrocious. They were so loud that Meg and I walked out to the front hall to listen, and even after that, Leithauser was screaming so much into the microphone that it was pretty much unlistenable.
Since when did he decide shrieking was better than crooning? Whatever happened to their dynamics? Their textures? How could a great band do this to their sound?
I was really surprised, because I’ve seen them a few times. The first show I saw of theirs at the Southgate House in Kentucky was amazing. It was like a stereo swirl around your head: there was buildup, there was subtlety, and you could hear each instrument.
Part of me wants to say that the Beachland’s soundsystem is too damned loud for the place. Part of me wants to blame the soundman. But I know that the music just isn’t for me anymore. Watching them on stage, I saw no attempt to bring me into the music, to share something with me. That really turns me off.
I don’t want to be screamed at. I don’t want my ears to bleed for five days. I just want a good beat, a little wisdom, a little mystery. Cue the Van Morrison, please.
Regardless, it was my first time at the Beachland, and before the music started, I had a great time. They’ve got a good bar, and a great jukebox. Music Saves is right around the corner, and we bought some LPs we’d been meaning to get. (On a side note: I saw that Calexico is doing what I’ve always thought bands should do: if you purchase their new LP, they include a secret code you can redeem so you can download the MP3s for free.) And I love Jon Hicks’ screenprint posters that they have hanging on the wall.
The bottom line is this: don’t like what you’re hearing? Leave. Life is too short. Cut your losses. Take your woman home, make some gram crackers and milk, and watch a Sopranos.
THE SQUANDERING INFIDELS
It’s ninety degrees up here in Cleveland, so I spent the afternoon buying an air conditioner.
* * *
In celebration of the World Cup, I’m reading prose-poet Eduardo Galeano’s Soccer In Sun and Shadow.
Here’s an excerpt.
Barry Yourgrau highly recommended it. The writing is gorgeous.
I don’t know much of anything about soccer: I’ve lived in two countries where the game is a religion, but the only match I ever caught was in Columbus, Ohio. I went to a Crew game with the son of one the team’s doctors, and had my mind blown from the terrific seats.
There’s something about watching a game for the first time: everything looks foreign and magical. Galeano’s book has the same effect.
* * *
Up on the lit balcony this morning, we got to talking about Amy Hempel.
She’s another one for my map: Ray Carver–>Gordon Lish–>Amy Hempel.
Check out her story, “The Harvest.”
* * *
The Art Spiegelman piece in Harper’s on the Muhammad cartoons is really something. If you care anything about the serious study of cartoons, you should get ‘hold of a copy.
Here’s a big block quote from the beginning.
Here’s a big scan of Spiegelman’s cover.
Here’s the earlier dialogue between Joe Sacco and Spiegelman.
* * *
Get a whole MP3 set of Destroyer, Live in Atlanta.
ABSTRACT ANIMALS
in my last comic (which I haven’t posted, because I want to send it out), i drew pigeons as triangles, now i’m experimenting with boiling other animals down to shapes. bears on the brain, right now.
- Lester Bangs once said, “In the history of rock n’ roll, no artist has squandered his talent so completely as Rod Stewart.” (Bangs also wrote a mini-biography of Stewart that I’m trying to get my hands on.) I can honestly say that EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY is one of my favorite albums ever. Seriously. Get it.
- The Walkmen are doing a live concert on NPR. Although I’m disappointed by the new album (the boring songs, the way-out-of-register singing…Pitchfork had a good review), I’m still looking forward to seeing them later this month.
- Article in VQR on Little Nemo In Slumberland, a favorite read before bed.
- Dancing On Fly Ash is two fellas who post daily 100-word stories. I like some of the stories a lot, and they post to some good-looking magazines I’d never heard of.
200,000 RIDES A DAY
These are caricatures I did last night during a poetry reading. Poetry folks are a different clan. More about that later…
Meg always saves me the Science Times section. I’m obsessed with it. It’s the only part of the newspaper I read regularly.
Today I read about a tribe in Columbia that walked out of the jungle after thousands of years, and declared it wanted to be part of civilization. They asked “whether the planes that fly overhead are moving on some sort of invisible road.” A thousand miles away, a boy is slowly turning into bone. Other people with his disease twist into living statues. He has a mother who protects him, but not all creatures are so lucky.
To my imagination, this stuff is golden. Magic. What is it about reading science that has this effect on me? That makes life seem so spectacular and mysterious?
All other news pales in comparison: the remix page for MLITBOG is finally up, there’s a nice long post about the novel Kurt Vonnegut didn’t write, and George Saunders recalls leaving Ayn Rand for Sam Beckett.
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