review – Gideon Defoe

Gideon Defoe’s Pirate! adventure series could quite possibly be one of the most cleverly conceived treatises on existentialism yet conceived.  Sure, each installment is anachronistic, brief, side-splittingly funny, or what the erudites term “humorous”, and given the fact that the whole series not-so-subtly gains its impetus from Defoe’s unrequited love, is besides the point.   Doesn’t existentialism entail all of the above anyway?

In any case, take Defoe’s latest exposition, The Pirates! in an Adventure with Napoleon, whereby our faithful and true Pirate Captain takes a brief respite to ponder his place in the pirate world, and whether perhaps beekeeping or even the unparalleled  superciliousness of an exiled Napoleon can provide some meaning or contentment in this lifetime. For it is here that our fearless captain comes to a realization all Pirate Captains must eventually consider:

The Pirate Captain sighed. ‘Well then, I suppose we’d better go and see what’s more interesting than me.’

Beyond the philosophical reverberations of the work, we have the usual salty complement to offset the dueling shenanigans of the Pirate Captain and Napoleon; specifically, the pirate with a scarf, the pirate in green, and Jennifer the Victorian all lend a supporting hand.  As this is a work of action and adventure, while reading of luxurious beards, ham and the highly democratic war over the St. Helena Residents’ association, take heed and consider your place in the pirate world.

review – modern ranch living

In Modern Ranch Living, Mark Jude Poirier spends a great deal of time detailing the eccentricities of life in Tucson. It’s an entertaining read, as bright and sweeping as the Arizona sun’s perpetual blanket upon the desert. How quaint are the characters within, specifically a sixteen year old exercise-obsessed and grammatically challenged Kendra Lumm, along with her awkwardly inanimate neighbor Merv, Splash World employee extraordinaire who lives with mother…at the age of thirty. How amusing it is to behold Kendra’s incessant indignation toward the unfit and uneducated in the ways of proper weightlifting and dietary habits as well as Merv’s altruism in adjusting the catheters of certain Splash World patrons who need that extra bit of customer support.

One can undoubtedly progress through Modern Ranch Living without much of a care as to the result of the novel’s plot. Roughly, it concerns the whereabouts of a missing neighbor shared by Kendra and Merv; really though, it’s about how the characters find a release from the stagnation of the Arizona summer, as well as their own lives. As carefree as the atmosphere is, Poirier foreshadows almost too well, for towards the very end of the novel he destroys the whimsical and eccentric nature of the desert dwellers with a gut-check of uneasiness lingering well after the novel concludes. Modern Ranch Living deals with overcoming the disturbing behavior that while born out of weirdness and eccentricity, is nevertheless disturbing.

review – the drowned life

Channeling the gravitas of Borges and Calvino, Jeffrey Ford’s collection of short stories titled The Drowned Life, though at times overreaching in scope, sublimely conjures a sense of sheer wonder and befuddlement when confronted with the intersection of everyday life and the dreams that shape it, or are shaped by it.

Ford alternates his stories between the subtle and grandiose, the mundane and the outlandish, incorporating through each a pervasive sense of mystery and weirdness. When he is not detailing the wisdom of a soothsaying octopus, a town’s dependence upon an annual, magical breeze, and the peculiar behavior surrounding the annual “deathberry” drinkers, he describes the power contained within an overlooked scribble, an apartment’s potentially haunting flicker of light, losing a Chinese curse in a poker game, and the dictated writings of a comatose daughter through her mother.

This see-saw between the highly fantastical and the merely strange begs careful attention and even patience of the reader, noting the eternal truth that things are never what they seem. Several stories, especially that which introduces the fascinating Madame Mutandis, are deserving of their own novels. The Drowned Life is a deep and resonating read.

Also worth mentioning is an extended supplement in which Ford describes his biography and approach to writing, both of which explain much and lend credence to the saying that truth is stranger than fiction.

getting chatty on LT

One cool relatively new aspect to LibraryThing is its ability not only to to get authors to sign up for their own profile on the site, but to participate in extended chats about their works as well as books and stuff in general.

I’m a fan of Hannah Tinti after reading her work Animal Crackers.  She’s taking questions on LT till the 4th.

review – faces in the fire

Faces in the Fire is a quick and intriguing read in which T.L. Hines very deftly conveys his sense of “noire bizarre” around a curious set of characters, bottom-feeders he stresses, in a nonlinear progression. The characters, a truck driver, an email spammer, tattoo artist and hit man are equally as disparate as the circumstances around which they they cross paths; phantom catfish, haunted shoes, mystical tattoo ink, and a mysterious phone number all contribute to the progression of each character’s interconnected lives.

Hines doesn’t quite offer enough noire to the level out the bizarre. True, it’s a dark and suspenseful enough story but the characters, possessing a sense of anxious desperation, come off as more emotionally exhausted than perhaps darkly humorous or energized. Particularly memorable, though, is Hines’ characterization of Corrine the spammer; he delicately describes a profession and person not normally considered worthy of anything but detest. Hines uses an interesting metaphor of representing the characters’ movement as that of sharks, creatures that can never move backward, but rather only forward in pursuit of their catharsis from years of missed opportunity.

Faces in the Fire is a mysterious and entertaining work which makes the reader think long after the read is finished. Which is, I think, the sign of a well-crafted book.

review – the domino men

Whether burned or bloody, Jonathan Barnes does love to see London in complete chaos.  It happened in his last novel The Somnambulist, and has now continued in The Domino Men.  Few things crossover between the two, save the intriguingly bizarre characters constituting his uber-secret and not-so-normal civil service division called The Directorate.  Oh, and The Prefects, can’t forget them.

The story centers around Henry Lamb, a completely ordinary though perhaps even dull, clerk who through a series of extraordinary  though familial events is drawn into a hunt, a race to prevent London’s descent into utter ruin.  By all accounts he has no business within the Directorate or even approaching The Domino Men, the only ones who can either help or even destroy the chances for success.

Barnes excellently scripts his mystery around the fog that continually encompasses London, though he also lowers a fog over the reader’s mind as well, keeping us in the dark about the major players of the novel.  He offers breadcrumbs about the Directorate and the Domino Men, the comatose grandfather of Henry, and the ever over-confident mastermind Director Dedlock, though his description is never enough to quash the ever-lingering questions the reader may conjure. A frustrating yet gripping method.  We know of a battle waged for centuries and that the Prefects are dangerous to say the least, but Barnes, hopefully in anticipation of another novel, tells us only what were allowed to know of the process.  All that is requested is that we must “trust the process”.  And in the end, the distinction of who the villain was is not at all clear.

In several ways the Domino Men surpasses The Somnambulist; the ending is much more captivating though at times the pacing can be a bit slower.  His inclusion and description of the aristocracy (Prince Arthur in particular) is quite interesting, for it is neither kind nor overtly cruel. The Prefects, however, were a bit under-described as they were in the former. Their playfully comic nastiness, hinted to atmospheric levels, falls just short of their behaviour, though admittedly ruthless and reckless as the story hits its crescendo.  Their actions are more a vehicle of the story than the framework.  Overall, its another fascinating story about London, manipulated by all creatures forceful and ubiquitously normal.  Fun yet creepy, one can only wonder how many times and what twisted ways London has fallen and yet continues to rebuild itself in the mind of Barnes.

review – the atlantic ocean

It’s hard to take Richard Swift seriously at face value.  He looks kinda like Jack Black and has a similar cheekiness in his music. Also like Black, once you hear how adept he is as a musician you’re likely to be surprised.  Unlike Black, Swift is a bit more mellow in sound, his voice sounding like an amalgam of Bob Dylan and Frankie Valli. His surround sound bears a combined similarity to what one would hear on a Wilco album and your local oldies station, all mixed under the purview of Gnarles Barkley’s Danger Mouse.

With The Atlantic Ocean, Swift continues his surprisingly catchy oeuvre after the subtle yet very quality Dressed Up For the Letdown. The Atlantic Ocean is a bit more up-tempo, comprised of a weird yet intriguing inclusion of electronica weaving in between an omnipresent piano, lonely horn section, crunchy guitar and banjo ensemble.

For me, the album starts out as any typical alt-rock album would but slowly morphs into a 70ish guitar driven contemplation, to finally an echoing Motown dirge.  And Swift, with all his weirdness, pulls it off.  Favorite tracks include the immaculate The Original Thought, R.I.P., Bat Coma Motown, The End of an Age, A Song for Milton Feher, and the ultra funky Lady Luck.

The Atlantic Ocean is one of those albums that sticks in your head long after the headset is removed. It may not win many awards, but Swift proves he has a lot of originality to offer. Those taking a chance on Swift will be amply rewarded.

new music – hold time

M. Ward’s latest release, Hold Time, continues his trend of revisiting and perhaps reinventing the good-old-time sound of none other than the good-old-times.  An ever-present countrified guitar, mixed with his usual lo-fi and low-key raspy voice, and a really well-conceived set of songs makes makes this his most thorough release evah.

A little more rock ‘n roll than his typical folkish sound, Ward keeps a good balance of electric vs. acoustic guitarmanship, with a subtle string section thrown in for good measure.  Add an impossibly haunting duet with Lucinda Williams and a beautiful complement of background vocals from Zooey Deschanel, and you’re left with an album that, like the throwback nostalgia Ward encapsulates, will stand on it own for repeated listening.

Among the many, standout tracks include One Hundred Million Years, Blake’s View, Jailbird, Stars of Leo, and Oh Lonesome Me.

review – yours truly, the commuter

Jason Lytle will admit through his lyrics that this is not a triumphant return, but his reemergence back to the indie, alt-country, southwestern music scene is certainly redeeming.   Rather than further eulogizing the dissolution of Grandaddy, Jason has reified his talent through his new solo album Yours Truly, The Commuter.  Not only is it a lo-fi production continuing the Grandaddy vision of natural wonder surrounded with crunchy guitars and ethereal overtones, but it’s also a statement.  Lytle, in his pursuit of serenity, is here for the long-haul, not as a rock star, but as an artist.

The overall theme of the album is somewhat a continuation of Grandaddy’s What Happened to the Fambly Cat, where Lytle is not subtle about never being able to return to his Shangri-La, geographical or otherwise. The Commuter, however, stresses the classic idea of having the destination matter less than the actual journey, and it is in this journey that Lytle realizes the heroism of the ability to keep pushing on rather than cling to fleeting paradise.

As the album progresses the landscape changes from the typical earthy Grandaddy sound of intertwined guitar, synth and subtle percussion to the takeoff of ethereal chords and extended, up-close confessionals.  Plenty of standout tracks on this one; mine include Brand New Sun, Ghost of My Old Dog, Rollin’ Home Alone, Flying Thru Canyons and Here for Good.   It’s an album that gathers an emotional momentum, but soon dissipates, for it’s typical of Lytle: all his intention is to make an honest sound, watch it fly around, and then be on his way.

new music – middle cyclone

Neko Case’s new album Middle Cyclone, is well titled.  A force of nature, it’s a commanding collection of songs not only showcasing the beauty and strength of her voice, but it’s also an intelligently conceived expression of a bold though suppressed anger of the overlooked feminine psyche.  More overtly, the album is a warning not to overlook the force of mother nature herself; in the closing thirty minutes Case deliberately bends our ears toward the night music of the marsh, the crying of crickets and frogs.  But more than that,  Case alludes to the theme of the feminine being taken for granted, and the resulting cyclone in wait.

Be forewarned, the first half of the record starts with the “tiniest sparks” and the “tenderest sound”, a lovely beginning to the showcase, as it were.  Once the listener reaches “I’m an Animal”, however, the cyclone becomes manifest, a darkening crescendo of turbulence.  With all songs are fairly short and predictably impressive, the absolute masterpiece for me is the longer “Prison Girls”; it’s a funeral dirge for those women eternally unimpressed, who’ve “traded more for cigarettes than I’ve managed to express”.

Middle Cyclone is an hugely solid album with incredible accompaniment.  The sound is awash with the drums, upright bass, piano, and guitars from eternal alt-country ambassadors Howe Gelb, Calexico, and M. Ward.  Case’s own band is impeccable as well, not only highlighting her voice but surrounding it with a fullness that nearly suffocating.  As usual, the lyrics are as haunting as in any prior Neko Case release, too.  Standing equal with Fox Confessor, Middle Cyclone is yet another jewel in Case’s crown.