spellcaster version

Gettin' judicious at Vintage Vinyl.

Andrej Blatnik, You Do Understand
Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw
Patti Smith, Twelve
Lou Reed, Animal Serenade
Blitzen Trapper, Wild Mountain Nation
László Kasznnahorkai, War and War
Ringo Starr, Ringo

• On You Do Understand: This was a great blur of a book, devoured in the time it took my daughter to find her books at the library. It is 60-odd stories on 80-odd pages, white space taking up both a big chunk of Blatnik's prose and the book itself. A quantifiably high majority of the microstories cover this arc: you play the movie of your life, whether it's one you wrote/directed/starred in or simply rented and watched; you press pause and ponder the rictus of the characters caught in mid speech, sigh at the eternal suspended animation of a sleeping one night stand as you slip on your shoes in the dark; then you press play again and the movie is totally different, or maybe you weren't following the plot is closely as you thought. (****, x-posted at Goodreads)
  
  
• Also, I would add: I like a short book.
  
  
• Twelve is mostly great, Patti Smith as the old gal at Karaoke Nite catching your ear suddenly opening up that PBS tote bag slung on her bony shoulder to release the locusts and yr all dead, husks serrated with bug bites and she's still doing the chorus like how karaoke makes you do - see her spellcaster version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", esp. around the 3:30 mark
  
  
  
• But even Patti Smith can't save "Everybody Wants to the Rule the World" from itself. The only time I've every heard somebody transcend the syrup in which the tune's admirable sentiments are suspended was when Debbie Landry did it at the long gone Alligator Bayou Bar because it was laden with tragedy; no one here was going to rule anything. The story originally appeared in Country Roads.
  
  
• Dude, everybody plays on Ringo. A guy at the record shop gave Maya the thumbs up for her choice because all four Beatles appear on it, but Marc Bolan, James Booker, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson too. I almost have her sold on Bowie and the Clash, if I can get her into T. Rex, my work will be complete. Also, we got word the band to which she's been assigned at the music studio/rock band lessons situation is named Black Diamond. Whooooo!