| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10164 Registered: 05-2005 |
From the Corner of My Eyes, a short story collection from Owl Canyon Press in Colorado. Some top notch writers here. https://www.owlcanyonpress.com/product-p age/from-the-corner-of-my-eyes | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4665 Registered: 03-2005 |
A few days ago I finally finished reading "Les Miserables." It was the translation by Lascelles Wraxall. Has anybody on here read this? For a 21st Century reader with an attention span addled by a couple decades of web surfing this was a major challenge. I don't know if book publishers employed editors back in 1860 but that's definitely something that would have helped this book. Some of the lengthy sections devoted to recapitulation of popular events in France from 30 years prior to the book's publication will have played well to the original readership but is hopelessly anachronistic 160 years further down the road. Some of Hugo's philosophical meanderings might score better with readers who profited from the classical education I did not receive. But there is unquestionably some thudding writing here and there. I found Hugo's reveries on youthful love and marriage to have all the persuasive impact of the smarmy pablum in a Hallmark greeting card. On the other hand, Marius' epistle to Cosette is a breathtaking jewel of romantic writing. 500 pages could have been excised from this 1,500 page book and left a masterpiece. As it is, "Les Miserables" is still a masterpiece, but a frustratingly flawed one. In a dramatic shift of mood I am now reading Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts," a copy having been lent to me by a friend. I'm about one-third of the way in. It's certainly much quicker to read than the Victor Hugo but I wonder if I'll start waking from bad dreams. | ||
| Ric Member Username: Ric Post Number: 12 Registered: 05-2019 |
I tried reading the Water Babies to the kids a few years ago; we gave up - there's pages and pages of random satirical political rants, and dictionary look-ups every other chapter - 'irrefragable', indeed. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10170 Registered: 05-2005 |
This article brilliantly damns all the moronic enablers, from the media as well as the music business, of the vile scum that is R Kelly. https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-ameri ca/r-kelly-is-on-trial-but-don-t-forget- those-who-helped-him-dodge-justice-for-y ears-20210901-p58nsk.html | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10180 Registered: 05-2005 |
Brexit chickens coming home to roost https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/12/busin ess/brexit-reality-bites-in-britain-intl -gbr-cmd/index.html Anti-vax chickens coming home to roost https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/10/busin ess/united-no-pay-religious-objections-v accine/index.html | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 692 Registered: 08-2005 |
Pádraig, re Brexit. What could possibly go wrong when you put a man twice sacked for lying and who's known not having a grasp of details – and who employed people purely for the reasons of dogma – in charge of a project with the scale of Brexit?! | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1978 Registered: 10-2006 |
I read Les Mis a few years ago, Randy in preparation for seeing the stage show, which could possibly be construed as being over-ready. A great, engrossing read though, I enjoyed most of it I think. On the other hand, I've never been able to get past page 3 of the Humpback. Hugo led me on to Balzac, who is less inclined to diverge but is almost pathologically given to pricing everything he talks about, a gift to economic historians, I imagine. No Hallmark smarmimess in his books, that's for sure, just carefully evaluated darkness. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4675 Registered: 03-2005 |
Brexit. Grrrr. That's all I will say about it on its merits. Concerning Brexit as a phenomenon, and anti-vaxxers and "Stop the Steal" Trump fantasists, my intuitive sense is that the nature of media is so fundamentally different than it was when I was younger that it breeds and amplifies fringe attitudes far beyond their natural reach much like stagnant water breeds mosquitos. And how can that be corrected? I'm not smart enough to have any suggestions except for one which undoubtedly comes from my former legal career and is also painfully American: allow private citizens to sue the mouthpieces and disseminators of false material whenever they can demonstrate that they have themselves suffered harm as a consequence. The exposure to such lawsuits can reintroduce a level of responsibility that will hopefully restrain malefactors from doing their worst. Is that adequate or even a good idea? I don't know. I finished "Shuggie Bain" a few days ago. Whew! That was a hell of a ride for me. I come from a family with a high incidence of depression on my father's side. I have two near relations who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The overspill on me manifests in a vulnerability to bouts of depression which thankfully I have always been good at pulling myself out of, even if sometimes it's been a white-knuckle experience. A book so full of relatable tragedy and pain like "Shuggie Bain" is a real challenge for me. Douglas Stuart's depiction of the fallout of deindustrializing Glasgow, and the impact of severe alcoholism, and the often daily torment by their peers of kids who are different and, lastly but not least, the struggling love between adolescent siblings who are conflicted between the urge to protect and the need to survive, came so close to completely overwhelming me. It is a brilliant book full of human truth. If you haven't read it and you wish to do so, be ready for some serious inner storms. Reach out to whoever you can. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1980 Registered: 10-2006 |
Running on from another thread, more about Hamish Hawk... https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/1956 7026.hamish-hawk-scottish-singer-next-bi g-thing/ | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10187 Registered: 05-2005 |
Rolling Stone magazine's new top 500 songs of all time. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music -lists/best-songs-of-all-time-1224767/ | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 1994 Registered: 10-2006 |
The Guardian’s almost euphoric review of the Smiths music tour. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/o ct/10/rick-astley-blossoms-review-smiths -karaoke-albert-hall-manchester?CMP=Shar e_AndroidApp_Other Well, it's good that the music is out there again, certainly the most important 4 albums of my life after those of the Velvets, saved from Moz's rather eerie present self, and, I suppose, that Rick A has a job – or has he been around all the while? Either this or two songs from no-voice Johnny on one of his tours, I guess. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10201 Registered: 05-2005 |
Stuart, have a look here. It’s great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0A6AnuE qRw | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10210 Registered: 05-2005 |
An NME article about the new David McComb film. https://www.nme.com/en_au/features/opini on/triffids-david-mccomb-documentary-lov e-in-bright-landscapes-3088321 | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4689 Registered: 03-2005 |
Thanks for the news Pádraig. I look forward to seeing that film. I hope it is issued on physical format since I seriously doubt it will ever be shown onscreen here in Los Angeles. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2015 Registered: 10-2006 |
https://www.popmatters.com/taking-it-slo w-an-interview-with-glenn-mercer-of-the- feelies-2496204063.html Good, straightforwardly informative article about the Glenn Mercer album mentioned by Fred T on Song of the Day thread. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2022 Registered: 10-2006 |
Roy Foster - Yeats part 2 The continuing awe-inspiring life of WBY, as he is called throughout, dense with the kind of information, wit and intelligence that every great poet deserves, though in this case one with so many irons in so many fires – if at a loss, he’d forge his own iron, start his own fire – that the head reels. Has any other poet been so intimately involved in his county’s life and history while producing such a volcanic flow of brilliant verse? He’s now scribbling down the Crazy Jane poems, one at least of which will one day be sung by our very own Australian bard, while resting up in 1920s Rapallo and trying to steer Ezra Pound’s work into healthier directions – but EP is raging into Fascism and churning out his unreadable Cantos. 10 years and 300 pages to go. Pure enjoyment. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10229 Registered: 05-2005 |
What a great precis, you've sold me on that, Stuart. | ||
| Jerry Clark Member Username: Jerry Post Number: 1301 Registered: 08-2004 |
And Away - Bob Mortimer One of my favourite comedians. Basically how to grow old without growing up. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2041 Registered: 10-2006 |
Music Finland staff picks: Our favourite Finnish albums of 2021 This popped up by chance this morning so, you never know, maybe there's something to tickle your Finnish fancy on this! https://musicfinland.com/en/news/music-f inland-staff-picks-favourite-finnish-alb ums-of-2021?fbclid=IwAR3n23ftxhMOiXfcNuV S5vunOCAZXZvnO12FBLAod66AwnBxNPvdoYH2oKU | ||
| Hugh Nimmo Member Username: Hugh_nimmo Post Number: 1418 Registered: 03-2007 |
Stuart, My favourite Finnish album of 2021 which is not on the list. Tvärtom by Tvärtom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg6Soh_r PHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUGYqjAZ 10Y | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2052 Registered: 10-2006 |
There was a great song on the radio a couple of weeks back and I remember being surprised to hear it was by Labi Siffre – “He still going then?” – with most of his career a blank to me since the early 70s. Now along comes the Graun to fill in the details. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/j an/31/i-had-the-perfect-life-then-both-m y-husbands-died-singer-labi-siffre-on-lo ve-loss-and-happiness | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4723 Registered: 03-2005 |
Who Are We - Gary Younge This was picked up on impulse. Missing his insightful commentary since he retreated into academia I decided to run an internet search for onetime Guardian journalist Gary Younge. This volume published in 2011 explores identity politics. I thought it might be hopelessly dated given all that has transpired in the decade since, but in fact Younge chillingly predicts the forces that resulted in Brexit. And I learned that there's a tribunal in Israel that decides who is, and who is not, Jewish. The criteria have changed according to whether the country is feeling overrun by foreigners. There's an interesting chapter on the evolution of Ireland over the past few decades. And, as you might imagine, quite a bit about U.S. ethnic cross-currents and about U.K. and Continental struggles with their post-colonial immigration. Some of his thoughts about the response to adherents of Islam are interesting. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2076 Registered: 10-2006 |
30 years ago?? Hell's teeth. Remembering "the perfect pop album". https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/ 03/14/the-youthful-melancholy-of-the-lem onheads | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1475 Registered: 04-2005 |
"Alternatives to Valium: How Punk Rock Saved a Shy Boy’s Life" by Alastair McKay. A brilliant book by an ex-flat mate of mine from the mid 80s. And a Go-Betweens fan too. He has always been a distinctive and thoughtful writer and this is a lovely read, split between his childhood growing up in North Berwick and his journalist career, interviewing the famous and infamous. https://birlinn.co.uk/product/alternativ es-to-valium/ | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2094 Registered: 10-2006 |
From The Guardian: "At issue throughout much of their marriage, Depp said, was Heard’s anger at his inability to stop using substances. At one point, he convinced Heard to stay at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills hotel while he attempted to come off a brand of potent prescription opioid painkillers, under the care of his doctor. “You won’t have to sit around ‘Mr Shakey’,” he told the jury he had said to his wife. He continued in his second day of testimony: “She wasn’t happy with it but she did eventually leave. So for a few days I sat around in a metal chair with one song on a loop so I could focus on the lyrics and the power of the song to help me get through it.” Well, ok, for heavens sake, but WHAT WAS THE SONG?? | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10260 Registered: 05-2005 |
I think “Mr Shakey” is a VERY big clue, Stuart. It was Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens. Johnny did the wife a favour. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2098 Registered: 10-2006 |
Well, that would fit anyone’s definition of marital cruelty, Pádraig. Isn’t Mr Shakey or something similar also one of Neil Young’s pseudonyms? So I suppose the tune in question could be one of his great drug songs, like needle & the damage done. Neil on a loop would be understandable. I have glanced at the TV proceedings now and then, mainly to enjoy JD’s sartorial concept of trial-going wear. Very natty. But don’t the two of them pay insane amounts of money to people to counsel them against doing this sort of career-killing thing? | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10261 Registered: 05-2005 |
Yes, NY is also known as Shakey. But there wasn’t nearly as much fun to be had with suggesting Depp played Needle And The Damage Done over and over. Or, indeed, played Over And Over over and over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3PV8rDe z5c. I weighed up the comic possibilities of invoking Welsh Shakey versus Canadian Shakey, and Welsh Shakey won. There is no timeline in any universe currently known or yet to be discovered where Welsh Shakey doesn’t win this battle. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4746 Registered: 03-2005 |
Ok, I just dialed up the Shakin's Stevens vid as I totally missed him back in the day. He looks like Cliff Richard's love child singing that sappy song. That'd be enough to send me back to the spike in my vein. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-PyWfVk jZc | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1476 Registered: 04-2005 |
Back in the day, in another life I was Night Manager in an Edinburgh hotel and Shakey was in town. He however, stayed in a more up-market joint, but his band were in my hotel. They were your hard-drinking well-seasoned guns-for-hire type of musician. At the end of the evening I got into a conversation with the legendary John Earle, the saxophonist who told me that he and the band frequently made rude gestures behind the singer’s back to alleviate their boredom on stage. Just for the anecdote Shakin’ Stevens was a member of the Young Communist League as a teenager. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10262 Registered: 05-2005 |
Six posts in a row about Shakin' Stevens. I think even a dedicated Shakin' Stevens site (http://www.forevershaky.co.uk) would struggle to match that. | ||
| fsh Member Username: Fsh Post Number: 384 Registered: 05-2005 |
Yep, remember many years ago trying to argue on the board that it was a go-betweens site and shouldn’t be dominated by non go-betweens stuff which could be happily hosted elsewhere. Delighted the chickens are finally coming home to roost. | ||
| Tony Unregistered guest |
Bernard Shakey as NY calls himself | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4796 Registered: 03-2005 |
While in London in October waiting for L. A. Salami's set to start I saw some copies of "Soul Survivor" by P. P. Arnold on a shelf at Rough Trade East. I thought "wow, that's deep diving into esoterica." When I saw that it was only £20 with a sticker bearing Ms. Arnold's signature I snapped it up. P. P. Arnold is familiar to me as "The First Lady of Immediate," the ex-Ikette black American soul singer on whom Andrew Loog Oldham, Mick Jagger and Steve Marriott (Small Faces/Humble Pie) projected some of their most florid musical fantasies. Her output on Immediate was extraordinary, often marrying gritty American soul with extremely British musical settings now and then bordering on prog. She recorded the definitive version of Cat Stevens' "The First Cut is the Deepest," effective covers of songs like "Eleanor Rigby" and "As Tears Go By" and a reasonable smattering of songs written by or for her. Her distinctive voice can be heard on Nick Drake's "Poor Boy" on the "Bryter Layter" album. I didn't have much hope for the actual experience of reading the book but it turns out that this native of pre-Civil Rights era Watts in south central Los Angeles had been a bookworm and model student until she was derailed by pregnancy at the age of 15. The book is a thoughtfully written account of her unlikely evolution from teenaged mother chained to an abusive teenaged husband to cosmopolitan associate of an extraordinary number of the biggest names in pop music in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. She crashed and burned many times over--usually because of unlucky choices in love--but these connections always managed to appear at the last possible time when she was at the lowest possible point. Resonant for me in particular was her particular repeated experience of Los Angeles as a sort of death march. She struggled with the competing sense of home common to many expats. Even as a cultural anomaly she consistently fared better when she was in the U.K. while Los Angeles always had the worst in wait for her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujeUrXWJ XBY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asYqqW67 -zc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsZXLiBn h9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxY0Hnp1 o_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiHBOUPt BDA You get the idea. The marriage of P. P. Arnold's authentic soul interpretation and the Immediate family's unrestrained creativity has no parallel. But she wasn't only "The First Lady of Immediate." She was one of the frontliners in Jack Good's "Catch My Soul." Barry Gibb next tried his hand with her which unfortunately didn't see the light of day until decades later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZbbZ5hQ Lcc Then Caleb Quaye in a co-write with her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RESX1kBk 13c Decades later she'd remind us of one of Michael Nesmith's early classics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9mlHboc ILE The Brits, god love 'em, never forgot her. Primal Scream teamed up with her to cover the Small Faces' classic mod anthem "Understanding" in the mid-90s. She recorded a lockdown performance two years ago to raise funds for the campaign to save the Birmingham Symphony Hall and Town Hall. She is 73 years old covering a 55 year old Small Faces album track here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg1IxotC N50 And at the age of 76 she released a new Christmas song 9 days ago. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2156 Registered: 10-2006 |
RF on TV... https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/j an/02/robert-forster-venus-by-television -is-the-most-perfect-song-of-all-time | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4798 Registered: 03-2005 |
Thanks for that Stuart. For me the lovely thing about that first Television album is its demonstration that guitar solos--almost always boring bits showcasing the player as athlete rather than musician--can in fact be musical and actually contribute to the progress of the song. I wish "Adventure" lived up to the promise. As for what I'm reading right now: The Road to Los Angeles -- John Fante John Fante's reputation was revived by the (I think overrated) poet Charles Bukowski. I found "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" to be a reasonably entertaining window into growing up as the kid of immigrant Italians in the unexpected environs of small town Colorado. On the other hand "The Road to Los Angeles" reads like an 18 year old's homage to "Notes From the Underground." This has proven to be the most unengaging 162 page book. Every ten pages has been a demotivating slog. I'm only 18 pages from the end and it may somehow be transformed by these final pages but I doubt it. I can only read about a frustrated virgin boy's fantasies and inability to function in any context for so long. Written in 1930 it is unpleasantly predictive of a 21st century incel blog. It was Fante's first novel, rejected by publishers at the time. Gee, I wonder why. | ||
| David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 504 Registered: 02-2007 |
Randy, I have read Fante's "The Brotherhood Of The Grape" and "Ask The Dust". The latter is his 2nd book from 1939. I think this one had a big influence on Bukowski maybe. Both are worth checking out. I havent read anything else of his though. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 4799 Registered: 03-2005 |
Thanks for the tip David. It was my original plan to buy the Black Sparrow hardcover versions of the four "Bandini" series of novels. I also have "Dreams From Bunker Hill" which is the last of the series, dictated by Fante to his wife after he'd lost his sight. "Ask the Dust" is the popular one with the consequence that the price of one of the hardcover Black Sparrow copies is totally over the top. I was hanging back waiting for a reasonably-priced copy to appear but expect I'll have to get the paperback for that one. I did finish those final pages of "The Road to Los Angeles." The book manages to organize itself into something that feels like the traditional end to a book intended to have a follow-up but I can't say that it rewarded me for reading all that came before. Next up: a volume entitled "In Praise of Shadows" issued to accompany a huge exhibit at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles of the multi-media work of South African artist William Kentridge. I was so impressed by the exhibit that I went back for a second visit. |