Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Books being read

books

Currently: 

William Gay, The Long Home. My yard has this really thick thatch of grass to it, so much so that when I go to dig a hole, I have to put the fullness of my weight on the shovel to break through the dense outer woven complexity to get to the dirt I need, or rather, to the emptiness of dirt that I need. There are points I feel the same way with The Long Home, that his sentences are such intricate wonders that there is little point trying to cut through them, but then I keep digging and the dirt underneath is black and loamy and infinitely fertile. I would like to walk William Gay up to Faulkner and say, "See?" but they are both dead, so what can you do? Dig up the whole yard, I guess.

Joe Bonomo, This Is Where My Obsession with Infinity Began.  Joe and I are friends in he modern media sense in that we like he same things and each others' on pushbutton networks. I've interviewed him and reviewed his books on Jerry Lee Lewis  and AC?DC. Now, I am picking through his book of quick, illuminative essays on the self and the not-self and origins and ends. Each one is a sharp little acupuncture needle that touches a part of your consciousness in a way that charges it, relaxes it, does something to it.

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. I'm reading it on my phone. I mentioned this in a profile they did on me in in the paper and a friend commented that reading Infinite Jest on your phone is the dumbest idea he'd ever heard and he's likely right. I finished neither Anna Karenina nor Ulysses on this same phone, why should I expect to finish this one.?There was some weird sale where it was $1 for Kindle so I have it ostensibly forever. You know he wrote a book actually about infinity, right? It is of readable length and, for a book about higher math, weirdly sad.  It hit me the way Nirvana's In Utero does, everything sounded a but like a suicide note. Anyway, it is a nice bout of futility to be on IJ's page 27 of 1027 that lulls me right on to sleep when the light is out and a glowing book is a fellow of most excellent fancy. 1

On deck:

Harry Crews, A Feast of Snakes. I checked it out from the library for a bro of mine and then never caught up with said bro, leaving it hissing in my backpack like the snakes in the book, and then he got his own copy, so I'll read it again. We'll have our own little bro book club and shut up, it's a totally normal thing for bros to do.

1. See what I did there?

Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Music of 8/19/2013 - 8/25/2013


Here is the week in its semester-preperatin' glory. I will be thinking of Belle & Sebastian's coy musings as freshman stumble through the halls on the wobbly hooves of baby deer, Wagner's grand machinations as they migrate into vast halls and Murder By Death mostly because I am really into them lately.



Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Music of 8/5/2013 - 8/11/2013 and The Music of 8/12/2013 - 8/18/2013

View the story "The Music of 8/5/2013 - 8/11/2013" on Storify

View the story "The Music of 8/12/2013 - 8/18/2013" on Storify
I forgot to post last week's. I wondered why everyone was giving me that weird look. You adoring fans should clamor more.

I think this Daniel Johnston cover is my favorite thing I've done. I even do it better now. It is BETTER THAN FAVORITE!


"I Save Cigarette Butts"

Also I wrote a new song that certain discerning ears are liking.


"A Man Without Love"

From the angles, both of these videos look like they were shot by someone passed out on the floor, incapacitated, unable to escape me playing songs for them.

This, though, is the greatest video of the week. I want to play in a band with a little person tambourine player.


Marc & the Mambas, "Sleaze (Take It! Shake It!)"

Marc Almond likely had an incapacitated victim listener on retainer.

Oh, and this. Nothing beats this.


Honey Lt. (produced by Lee Hazelwood, "Louie Louie"

Also, Tess Brunet of/formerly known as Au Ras Au Ras


Au Ras Au Ras, "I'm a Liar"

has a record store called Lagniappe Records in her house just down the street from me.



Posting all this is about as close as I am to being that cool.