Before we get to the reading, let’s start with the listening.
Recently acquired:
Greetings from Michigan Sufjan Stevens (Asthmatic Kitty)
Histoire de Melody Nelson Serge Gainsbourg (Philips, rereleased by The Attic Records)
Dark Was the Night Compilation featuring Antony, Arcade Fire, Beirut, Andrew Bird, Cat Power, Grizzly Bear, Feist, Kronos Quartet, and several others
The BBC Sessions Belle and Sebastian (Matador)
The BAM Concert Grizzly Bear and the Brooklyn Philharmonic (Available here)
Recently attended:
Bonnie “Prince” Billy at the Vic Theatre
Best moment: Having sung the verses about letting a woman go “if that is what she have me do,” with the band going great guns behind him, Will Oldham stands agape staring at the crowd. Bright white spotlight shining down. Amidst this scene of emotional wreckage, Oldham innocently asks,
“What’s a guy got to do to get a disco ball going in here?!”
Reading list:
Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years by J. Anthony Lukas
I found this massive slab of a book in a used bookstore for $7.50. Score. Lukas was one of the absolute greatest investigative reporters we had until he committed suicide in 1997. He built a story in tiny pieces that end up painting a complete picture, and each piece added a new wrinkle or twist or piece of information in such a way that I can’t quote any of it here. It wouldn’t make sense without explaining what came before and after it.
A Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Era by David A. Nichols.
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. Funny novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
“Whoever says it’s life that makes monsters out of people should check out the raw nature of children, a lot of pups who haven’t yet had their dose of failure, regret, disappointment, and betrayal but still behave like savage dogs. I have nothing against children, I just wouldn’t trust one not to giggle if I accidentally stepped on a land mine.”
Also, don’t anyone miss the new issue of Stop Smiling (“the magazine for high-minded lowlifes”). Interviews with David Lynch, Jonathan Lethem, and…Alex Ross? Yes, it’s true. Great quotes on music from both Lynch and Ross, in print only. Ross:
“There is no such thing as classical music for me. It’s not a genre. When you go through the whole thousand-year history of so-called classical music, it takes in early polyphonic church music…[to] Stravinsky’s vital rhythmic experiments.”
Lynch:
“I played the trumpet when I was growing up, and I really liked it, but I hated football and marching, and anyone in the band had to go to school early and march and play football games. So I said that was it…I’m not a musician, but I love this world so much that I like experimenting in it, and it’s really thrilling to me. And I love musicians. Musicians, to me, are among the most special people. They’re like children – they like to sleep late, and all of them get along, it seems. Except if you’re in a band, then they hate each other after a while.”