Crack Up

Big Black is one of those bands which attracts eternal followers. One of the tasks of the followers is to gather all of the desiderata. If you want giant hooks, you have come to the right place. Rather than forcing you to buy the otherwise uninteresting God's Favorite Dog, here is Crack Up.

USA books

Happy Independence Day! Here are a few good books on the US that I have enjoyed.

The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S Wood. It dispels the notion that the American revolution was a conservative affair.

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauff. The title is not ironic.

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson. It's thick but it is good one stop shopping for the Civil War.

The USA trilogy by John Dos Passos. For the literary minded, this critical take of the early 20th century is outstanding.

Special Providence by Walter Mead Russell. The best treatment of American foreign policy that I have yet found.

Newsweek loves books

I like the new Newsweek. The longer articles are better and the new visual style is fresh and appealing. I am most happy though that the new issue is titled What To Read Now. The title refers to a book list that is more interesting than the typical top books list. Starting any list with an Anthony Trollope is going to make me happy, but I was particularly happy to see Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes. He remains an underappreciated crime novelist and I hope to see his books re-released.

There are also author interviews, the "best books ever" by a few experts, and other articles including this one on re-reading books. Jonathan Lethem's photo tour of literary New York is worth a peek too.

Kids today

It's easier to be a fan of genre writing than literary writing. If your favorite author comes out with something you don't like, you can take solace in that he or she will pump out another one in a year, or even less. Some literary writers take so many years between books that we have to make do with the occasional essay or short story.

So I am excited that Michael Chabon has a new essay in the NY Review of Books. It is titled the Wilderness of Childhood and it is about the cult of safety that parents, including Chabon himself, in which parents today find themselves mired.

He speaks to the possible impact on literature, as kids who do not explore have less chance of developing an adventurous imagination. He also talks about the conflict he feels as a parent:

What is the impact of the closing down of the Wilderness on the development of children's imaginations? This is what I worry about the most. I grew up with a freedom, a liberty that now seems breathtaking and almost impossible. Recently, my younger daughter, after the usual struggle and exhilaration, learned to ride her bicycle. Her joy at her achievement was rapidly followed by a creeping sense of puzzlement and disappointment as it became clear to both of us that there was nowhere for her to ride it—nowhere that I was willing to let her go. Should I send my children out to play?

There is a small grocery store around the corner, not over two hundred yards from our front door. Can I let her ride there alone to experience the singular pleasure of buying herself an ice cream on a hot summer day and eating it on the sidewalk, alone with her thoughts? Soon after she learned to ride, we went out together after dinner, she on her bike, with me following along at a safe distance behind. What struck me at once on that lovely summer evening, as we wandered the streets of our lovely residential neighborhood at that after-dinner hour that had once represented the peak moment, the magic hour of my own childhood, was that we didn't encounter a single other child.

Even if I do send them out, will there be anyone to play with?

(via Bookstorm)

Last week we were at Eagle Crest, a vacation spot in Central Oregon. In the evening, the kids from connecting condos would rush out and play amongst the golf course trees. I remember doing this almost every night as a kid, but this was out of the ordinary for my kids.

Short takes

Here are a few notes on some recent reads.

Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief by James McPherson. Written by the leading popular authority on the Civil War, this is a concise study of Lincoln as military commander. This is not a military history, but a easy to understand study in civil-military relations. It is easy enough for the uninitiated, but also helpful to fans who want to understand why Lincoln put up with the incompetents as long as he did.

Postcards from Tomorrow Square by James Fallows. This is a collections of Fallows China essays for the Atlantic. The quality is high, so you will probably want to read them all. Unlike other collections, I actually read this one cover to cover. It is typical Fallows, plenty of insight in reader friendly prose.

Nobody Move by Denis Johnson. This one didn't do it for me. The small time crooks trying to game one another felt like a Elmore Leonard novel with more hard boiled language. It wasn't bad, but I didn't care enough about the story to get fully invested.

The Issues of Red Seas Under Red Skies

I'm in the happy position of owning a large number of unread very large fantasy novels. I've been watching the pile grow, but getting The Blade Itself for Father's Day made me decide I really had to tame the beast. I chose Red Seas Under Red Skies for the next one. Short review: Good read, but no Lies of Locke Lamora.

More on that later, but I have to mention a fundamental problem with these books. The main characters are thieves who happen to be as good with a weapon as they are with a cheeky quip. They are just too nice to be thieves in the nasty world that author Scott Lynch portrays. Lynch has a town where bored aristocrats pay money to watch the poor publicly tortured. Assassins are everywhere and the powerful are venal to a person. Danger is everywhere.

The thieves just don't act like the worn down people they would have to be. They regularly spare people, even people who were just trying to kill them. At one vexing point, someone tries to cut a rope that if cut, would lead to a violent death. They escape and let the fellow go, with a mild beating. This was done no doubt for plot purposes I have yet to see, but it is simply unbelievable. In another scene, a young man loses a contest and dies for it. Locke Lamora goes over to say a little prayer for him. Really? I know he wants us to like the guy, but come on.

It is like he wants a brutal world like China Mieville's while populating it with happy go lucky Oceans 11 characters. I felt the same way about the first book, but I was willing to let it slide because the plotting was so good. The less well crafted sequel makes the fundamental problems more glaring.

Anyway, it is good enough to continue. I will see if he can rescue the book.

Albums as set lists

Carrie Brownstein delivers the news that the Pixies will be playing Doolittle in track order in an upcoming tour. This follows similar efforts by Sonic Youth with Daydream Nation and Liz Phair with Exile and Guyville. I think that someone like myself, who missed the band in the heyday and really wants to hear a certain set of songs, is the target for these shows. This raises the question of which shows, prompted perhaps, by a need to pay for the kids's steep college bills, we would like to see. I suspect my top votes would be for Slanted and Enchanted, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, and Q:Are We Not Men A: We are Devo. I was going to say London Calling (impossible I know) but there is a bit too much fluff there.

A bad way to start your week

I've made no secret that good covers are among my favorite things on Earth. Some covers though are about as fun as someone vomiting directly into your mouth. The Spinnerette cover of Devo's The Day My Baby Me a Surprize makes the horrendous No Doubt cover of Stand and Deliver seem like Cash's cover of Hurt. In fact, pretend I didn't tell you about this Spinnerette garbage and just listen to the Man in Black instead.

Or check this TV special version of Cash's cover of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, with Jim Varney as an Army of Northern Virginia regular.

You can come back Lizzie, indie rock never forgets

Liz Phair is to indie rock fans as Anakin is to Obi Wan at the end of Revenge of the Sith. As she turns to the dark side, we weep and cry out "You were the Chosen One!" Then we see her dispatched in the fiery lava of critical lambast. It is my hope that we may now be approaching the scene where she turns back to the Light and tells us "You were right, tell the fans, you were right."

You may have caught last year's re-release of Exile In Guyville, her epochal debut release. Last year she played a few shows during which she played only songs from Exile (I should have caught one of these. Oh well, I get to see the Pogues with Shane this year). She is now apparently working on a new solo record, which is supposed to be a return to the early sounds. The video below gives me some hope as she mocks her lost decade and her sex kitten reputation.


It's hard to overstate how much I loved this record when it came out. She brings so much emotional power to her lyrical short stories that I listened again and again. Haters will argue that the only reason indie guys like her is that she is A) hot and B) frequently given to dirty, dirty talk. Both of these things are true, and are in fact, awesome. This is certainly an element in her success, but without it we would like only slightly, only slightly less than we used to.

Still, the sex element can't be dismissed. You can point to her covering the classic ode to masturbation Turning Japanese, or lyrics as blue as "I want to fuck you like a dog, Ill take you home and make you like it." I still maintain it is the truth in songs like Divorce Song that makes her the special artist she can be.




So I await the new album with measured excitement. It could be something quite good, if she really is going back to the roots. Yes, she is working with Banana Republic, but indie gods Sonic Youth put out a hits ALBUM with Starbucks. So I am willing to cut her some slack there. Won't you?