Dedicated to classics and hits.

Friday, November 09, 2018

Show Review: Tyler Childers @ The Troubador


Tyler Childers performs at legendary Los Angeles venue, the Troubadour.

Show Review:
Tyler Childers
@ The Troubador

  It must be hard for middle aged major label record label executives these days, especially those from the rock era.  I'm not saying that I feel sorry for them, but you can't help but wince on their behalf when you look at the artists who have captured the pop star/rock star label in the internet era.  Take, for example, the micro genre turned chart topper world of internet rap:  drug addicted young adults, funded by gang money, topping the charts without a physical record, let alone an album or a major label backed album campaign.

   I'm pretty sure that there is no coming back from the precipice opened up by the streaming era.  Soundcloud rap provides strong evidence that if one is simply popular enough, you can leverage the rest of it. I'm not sure that really was the case before Soundcloud rap started storming up the actual charts, the model was more that one would bring oneself to the attention of the "real" music industry via promotional tools like Soundcloud, not that one would actually use those formats to become a top 200 most popular artist in the world type person.

  The thing is though, is that all those rock and roll guys are still around.  The way the cultural industrial complex works, if you make a lot of money for a large corporation over an extended period of time, you get to stick around.  If you don't make anyone money, you are out, but if you do, you get to become one of these guys (very few are women).  My point being that there were a LOT of these guys there.   

   Specifically, Ian Thornton, the Huntington West Virginia based manager of Tyler Childers.   When I walked in with Amy (Monotone) he was with Bill Bennett, former Warner Bros Nashville exec and current Hollywood/country fixer.  They were shortly joined by others from Monotone, and label executives from Interscope, RCA and Sony. zero mentions on Stereogum  Also present was Jeffrey Azoff, son of Irving Azoff.  So, to be clear, Ian Thornton manages Tyler Childers.  Tyler Childers does not have a record contract.  Many people are both interested in managing Childers and signing him to a record contract, and it is clear that he a) has a manager and b) perhaps isn't that interested in signing a record contract.

  All of this took place in the front bar of the Troubadour, during the set of opening act Blank Range.  There was also a description worthy mix of fans, guy in an NRA shirt under his denim vest, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, a guy wearing a "Make Nashville Rock Again" hat. And women! It was not the sausage fest of a Jamey Johnson or Sturgill Simpson concert.  I honestly don't know if Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend is a fan or if he just decided to hang out with his manager Ian (Montone, not Thornton).

  It was a lot of what might be called "feeling out," but there is no question that Thornton is running that ship. The show itself was a triumph.  Not the immortal triumph of his first appearance at the Ryman Auditorium, opening for Margo Price, earlier this year, but a triumph.   The buzz in the audience was palpable.  Childers opened with his hit, Whitehouse Road, which seems like something he didn't have to do.  I sensed that he was nervous, and a little bit unsure of the crowd.  It was different at the Ryman Auditorium, which he owned like he was born to play there.    If I had a chance to say something to him, I would have told him not to worry, that the crowd was with him and that he could do no wrong.

    I would say that his live show is not quite as developed as Stapleton or Margo Price, but that he is better life than Sturgill Simpson, who I've now seen in "jam mode" twice.   I think ultimately it is the quality of his voice, as supposed to his lyrics- which are really good- or the band- which is just ok, that has given him his viral quality.  He is an astonishing internet era story of an artist from the most outsidery of outsider places, who has developed outside any publicized "scene."

  Even more astonishing that he nets a total of zero mentions on Pitchfork, zero mentions on Stereogum, only Brooklyn Vegan has been tracking his unlikely rise.   It is both shameful and embarrassing that Pitchfork has slept so long on Childers.  Certainly, if you are going to cover artists like Willie Nelson, Chris Stapleton, Margo Price and Sturgill Simpson, you have to include Tyler Childers on that list.  He belongs there, unquestionably, beyond debate.

    How incredible, also, that, like Price and Simpson (but not Stapleton) he has come from wholly outside the formidable Nashville music industry.   This really is THE indie/local music scene story of this decade, in my mind.   It is something that is really happening, generating interest among audiences and professionals/corporations alike.  That is the succesful combination that you need. 

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

Tirant lo Blanc (1490) by Joanot Martorell


Book Review
Tirant lo Blanc (1490)
 by Joanot Martorell

Replaces:  Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) by John Lyly (Review August 2018)

  Any replacement would be an improvement on Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, by 16th century English writer John Lyly. Euphues borders on being the most incomprehensible of all the books on the 1001 Books list.  I suspect that is because most of the 15th and 16th century cultural reference points that Lyly uses are opaque to any modern reader who doesn't possess a classics degree from Oxford University.  A reader would need to take a class to "get" Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, and that is a strong argument as to why it shouldn't have made the original list.

  Tirant lo Blanc, on the other hand, is a good natured romp- written by a regional Spanish author- highly popular in its time and deeply influential on Miguel de Cervantes when he wrote the first book of Don Quixote. Tirant lo Blanc has other factors going for it: exotic locations, intricate battles and a decent love story.  The characters aren't quite modern but they also aren't the cardboard cut outs of your typical chivalric tales.   Tirant lo Blanc is about the knight of that name, who becomes embroiled in a convoluted series of battles between the Byzantine Empire and the Turks, which takes him to Africa and back to Europe, fighting and winning battles, both on land and sea, and often overcoming ridiculous odds.

  Like Quixote, Tirant lo Blanc is long, though not as long as Quixote itself, with its two volumes.  Unlike Quixote, there is nothing self-reflexive or meta-fictional about Tirant lo Blanc- he is just a knight who single handedly saves the Byzantine Empire.

Friday, September 28, 2018

Don Quixote (1615) by Miguel de Cervantes



Image result for don quixote
A statue of Don Quixote stands in Madrid.

Book Review
Don Quixote (1615)
 by Miguel de Cervantes

    Don Quixote is actually an original novel and a sequel, published a decade apart.  Don Quixote is a massive, protean, seminal and canonical work- called "the first canonical novel" on its glorious wikipedia page, and nearly one thousand pages in printed form (and forty hours long as an Audiobook in the edition I checked out from the Los Angeles Public Library.)  Like Tristram Shandy, Don Quixote is one of those books that manages to be "post-modern" centuries before modernism had established itself, let alone post-modernism.

  Specifically, the second volume of the single book known today as the one novel, was written a decade after the first book, and in the universe of the second novel, people have read the first book, and Don Quixote has gained fame for the misadventures of his first book.  Indeed, the plot of the entire second volume is driven forward by a local Duke and Duchess who are great fans of the first volume of Don Quixote's adventures, and use their wealth and leisure to construct a series of increasingly outrageous stunts and pranks, up to and including making Sancho Panza the "Governor" of an island in their territory.

   The first volume is more straight forward, consisting mainly of two separate forays by Quixote into his surroundings, where he is frequently confused, baffled and mislead by friends, foes and complete strangers, including his own squire, Sancho Panza.  Quixote's ultimate tormentors are, in his mind, some nameless "Enchanters" who are capable of changing what Quixote perceives, so, for example, he might see a farm maid and be told by other that she is his long-sought after Princess.  Throughout Quixote, the nature of reality is called into question in a fashion that immediately brings to mind some of the basic principles of so-called "post-modern" literature.

    These days, Quixote, along with other thousand page titans of pre 19th century literature, have fallen into disuse outside the academy.  Even in universities, my sense is that the length of Quixote prevents it from being frequently taught. One thousand pages in print is enough to scare off even the most hardened fan of canonical literature.  As an Audiobook, on the other hand, Quixote was very digestible.  Most of the book is spoken dialogue, well adapted for the Audiobook format, and the picaresque form of the narrative makes following along easy considering the age of the text.

   

Monday, September 24, 2018

The Tale of Genji (1100) by Murasaki Shikibu


Book Review
The Tale of Genji (1100)
 by Murasaki Shikibu

Replaced: Metamorphoses by Ovid (Review 2015)

  The Tale of Genji is a 1500 page proto-novel, written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu, AKA Lady Murasaki around the turn of the millenium in Japan.   The Genji of the title is a royal prince, not in direct line for the throne, who is renowned for his beauty and the type of skills which were highly valued in feudal Japan:  He can write a mean hand at calligraphy, is a master of the ceremonial dance, and can play instruments and sing.  He is also a connoisseur of women, something along the lines of a don juan without the vicious cuckolding.  Apparently, the social structure of Japan left many aristocratic single women, and there were no religious or social prohibitions of a wealthy, aristocratic man enjoying the company of many women more or less at the same time.

  The Tale of Genji is a startling riposte to the conventional idea of the novel developing exclusively in western Europe in the 18th century.  Here, in Japan, in 1100 A.D., a woman wrote a book that, if not exactly a novel, is certainly novel-like enough to merit inclusion in any history of that literary genre.  Unfortunately, The Tale of Genji is not particularly accessible to a casual reader- not only is it 1500 pages, but nearly 500 pages of that length is arguably a sequel with a different author, about the children of Genji.  I stopped reading after Genji died, because, for all it's obvious literary merit, much of The Tale of Genji is repetitive and there is little to nothing EXCEPT endless details about love affairs, calligraphy, poetry, etc.    In fact, I think the closest western analogy would be the chivalric romances of the late middle ages in France, Spain and England.   Those chivalric tales are another underrepresented proto-novel genre that is emphasized in the 2008 first revision of the 1001 Books project.

    

Thursday, September 06, 2018

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (1000 AD) by Anon


Book Review
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (1000 AD)
 by Anon

 Replaces: 282. Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus (May 2015 Review)

  The major difference between the 282 books that were replaced between the first and second edition of the 1001 Books list is the addition of more books by non-English authors and the removal of authors from England, greater Britain and America.  It seems that another potential change is that fewer female authors are included in the second edition, since that was one area- specifically the inclusion of white, English language female authors in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries- where the first edition of the 1001 Books did make an effort to diversify from the traditional white-male centric literary canon.

   The very first switch is the introduction of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a 10th century example of the "Japanese fictional prose narrative" that functions as a parallel tradition of literary fiction. In fact, the first two replacements, this book and the overwhelming Tales of Genji (which might actually be the first novel in the world) are Japanese leading to the question of how they were excluded from the first edition. Aesop's Fables, on the other hand, was an uninspired choice- just a compilation of short fables that reads nothing like the modern novel.

   Similar to Aesop's Fables, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter belongs to the world of "folk-tales" with mythical and quasi-science fictional elements. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter remains obscure in the west- the only print copy owned by the Los Angeles Public Library is an art-book edition published in 1998. 

Monday, August 20, 2018

The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by John Bunyan


Book Review
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
by John Bunyan

   The Pilgrim's Progress is another consistent contender for "first novel;" though that status in recent years has suffered because the Christian themes are so thoroughly out of date with the bulk of academics and critics who opine on such matters.  A more recent, and perhaps more accurate assessment is that The Piligrim's Progress was the first "best seller" in terms of a mass-produced work of prose allegory(if not a novel)  which captured the attention of the then reading public, which, in the mid to late 17th century, was very interested in religious tracts.  Religious tracts do in fact comprise a large segment of the first centuries out put of what today we would call "popular culture" and as you go back in time towards the Renaissance and Middle Ages, the segment stretches to close to 100%.  Popular culture was religious culture, and non-religious culture was treated with suspicion.

  The introduction of the Reformation and it's suite of associated ideas that strongly involved people reading and thinking for themselves gave direct rise to both authors, fired by the religious ideas of the day, and an audience of literate folks interested in the subject.  Since The Pilgrim's Progress is generally considered to be the first novel-like book to fire the imagination of a popular, English language audience, the description of it as the "first novel" isn't totally wrong.

  Unfortunately, none of that makes this book enjoyable, and at 300 pages, it is not brief.  The entirely allegorical story involves a man named Christian who travels from the city of despair to the celestial kingdom, and presumably it appealed to people at a time when someone writing a work of straight fiction would probably be taken to task for lying- a criticism that lasted for centuries through the early history of the novel.  The second part involves the same trip made by Christian's wife and children.   Along with John Lyly's Anatomy of Wit, The Pilgrim's Progress the least readable of all the books in the 1001 Books project, and it doesn't surprise me that it was dropped from the first revised list in 2008.

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Pre 18th century Adds to the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die 2008 edition

    The overriding theme of the original edition of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list is the domination of the west, and specifically, the English/English language tradition of the novel as articulated by critics of the mid 20th century- themselves English speakers and academics.  Ironically, looking at the list of books dropped by the pre 18th century selections from the second edition of 2008, we see a net loss in the 18th and 19th century of  eight titles to the pre 18th century period.   Within the books dropped women are dramatically over-represented,  with Maria Edgeworth getting two of her three books dropped from the first revision and Jane Austen and Fanny Burney each losing a minor title. 

 The other drops from the 18th/19th century are all English, and all authors with multiple titles on the original list:  Austen, Fielding, Smollett, Defoe and Swift all have other titles left over. 

  The adds- all from before the 18th century- demonstrate the increased literature on non-Western novels written prior to the 18th century "birth" of the English novel.  Only one book is in English, with places like China entering the list for the fist time.  The exclusion of the Chinese tradition from the first edition of the 1001 Books list is one of the signal failures of the original project.   The other major novel component to the 2008 edition of the 1001 Books list is the Spanish romance, which likewise has seen a revival of interest from English language academics seeking to redress omissions of scholarship from the past century. 


Adds:

Pre 18th century

269. The Adventurous Simplicissimus – Hans von Grimmelshausen
270. The Conquest of New Spain – Bernal Diaz del Castillo
271. The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
272. Thomas of Reading – Thomas Deloney
273. Monkey: Journey to the West – Wu Cheng’en
274. The Lusiad – Luis Vaz de Camoes
275. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes – Anonymous
276. Amadis of Gaul – Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo
277. La Celestina – Fernando de Rojas
278. Tirant lo Blanc – Joanot Martorell
279. The Water Margin – Shi Nai’an
280. Romance of the Three Kingdoms – Luo Guanzhong
281. The Tale of Genji Murasaki – Shikibu
282. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter – Unknown 

Drops:
18th/19th century

269. Persuasion – Jane Austen
270. Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
271. The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
272. Cecilia – Fanny Burney
273. Amelia – Henry Fielding
274. Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
275. Roxana – Daniel Defoe
276. A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift

Pre 18th century
277. The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan
278. Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
279. Aithiopika – Heliodorus
280. Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
281. Metamorphoses – Ovid
282. Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus



18th Century Literature 1001 Books to Read Before You Die (2006)

Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin (11/1/09)
The Nun – Denis Diderot (4/28/12)
Camilla – Fanny Burney (1/17/12)
The Monk – M.G. Lewis (3/13/10)
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (4/17/12)
The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe (04/24/12)
The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano (3/05/12)
The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin (4/21/12)
Justine – Marquis de Sade (5/1/12)
Vathek – William Beckford (1/21/10)
The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade (2/16/10)
Cecilia – Fanny Burney (4/22/10) (DROP 2008)
The Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau (5/7/12)
Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (5/21/12)
Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau (5/8/12)
Evelina – Fanny Burney (3/28/10)
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (11/1/08).
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett (1/30/12)
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie (4/12/12)
A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne (4/23/11)
Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne (10/19/08)
The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith (9/25/08)
The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole (04/26/12)
Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau (4/14/12)
Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot (4/13/12)
Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau (*)
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson (3/30/12)
Candide – Voltaire (3/23/12)
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox (5/10/10)
Amelia – Henry Fielding (4/20/12) (DROP 2008)
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett (4/19/12)
Fanny Hill – John Cleland (05/10/12)
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding (9/24/08)
Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett (10/05/08)  (DROP 2008)
Clarissa – Samuel Richardson (4/30/12)
Pamela – Samuel Richardson (10/12/08)
Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot (05/4/12)
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift (3/21/12)
Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding (2/8/08)
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift (3/26/12) (DROP 2008)
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift (04/25/12)
Roxana – Daniel Defoe (4/18/12) (DROP 2008)
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe (2/10/08)
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood (11/1/08)
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe (2/11/08)
A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift (2/12/08) (DROP 2008) 

Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) by John Lyly


Book Review
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578)
 by John Lyly

   Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit is a strong contender, along with several other pre-18th century selections from the original 1001 Books list for "least pleasant read."   From what I'm able to gather- Euphues is an example of  humorous prose writing that was a la mode in the 16th century.  Nearly every sentence is a quote from some earlier, almost entirely non English, source.  Erasmus is a favorite- he wrote in latin, but Lyly also draws directly from what was known of Roman and Greek literature after the Renaissance.

  The copy I read had footnotes for nearly every sentence, sometimes multiple footnotes from a single sentence.   There is some kind of plot, based around Euphues and his life and times, with an emphasis on correspondence. Later chapters consist of letters directly modeled on the letters of the stoics of the late Roman Empire.

  It is all quite tedious, and no surprise it was dropped from the first revision, replaced by Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell from 1490.  Tirant lo Blanc is an example of chivalric romance, which is a category which has been excluded from the "history of the novel" narrative promulgated by English language academics in the 20th century.

Monday, August 13, 2018

Aethiopica (200-400 AD) by Heliodorus


Book Review
Aethiopica (200-400 AD)
by Heliodorus
Aethiopica (Wikipedia)

   Like many disciplines in the humanities, literature has gone through decades of "revisionism" led by scholars of the "isms," socialism, feminism, post-modernism.  Inevitably, this process would grow to include the narrative of the creation of the novel itself, since academic categorizing is a favorite target of all groups seeking to amend the status quo. The traditional explanation for the "creation" of the novel is that it happened in the 18th century, in England, and that it was preceded by several influencing traditions, notably the continental tradition of the "Romance," and the popular press of 16th and 17th century England.   The revisionist approach moves the horizon back thousands of years and across continents, making the case that the novel is a global phenomenon that includes important contributions from the near east and an entirely separate tradition in East Asia. 

  To me, this argument misses the point of the underlying argument locating the creation of the novel in 18th century England because, in my mind, it is a combination of writer and audience, and the AUDIENCE for novels could not exist in any serious way before the creation of the printing press and the impact that invention had on the availability and popularity of printed literature.  It's possible to read a book like Aethiopica and imagine an ancient audience, but when it comes to, how exactly, the books were created and disseminated it gets a little dodgy.  What was the literacy rate in a pre-printing press society, and how were books made to reach a mass audience?  Even a cursory  consideration of these factors would seem to indicate against the idea that the novel "existed" in Ancient Rome.

  Like almost all examples of ancient novel-like prose fiction, the story of Aethiopica involves a variation on the boy meets girl, girls is kidnapped by bandits or pirates, boy finds girl.   The expansion of Aethiopica into the political power politics of the ancient near east is noteworthy, especially since Greeks themselves feature onl peripherally, with the major contest being between rogue Egyptian bandits, an Ethiopian polity and the Persian Empire.    Written firmly in the Roman era, Aethiopica harkens back to time before Rome, and in that sens it is a historical novel.

Saturday, August 11, 2018

Oroonoko (1688) by Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn by Peter Lely ca. 1670.jpg
Aphra Behn, the first professional woman writer in England (17th century)

Book Review
Oroonoko (1688)
by Aphra Behn


  If it had been written in the era of the novel, Oroonoko would be too short to qualify.  It's more like a novella in terms of length.  Since it was written before the era of the novel, it is a short work of prose fiction.  Most important for the purpose of the 1001 Books project, Aphra Behn is the first woman writer to be included, in terms of chronology.   Behn is a patron saint of all women writers in England and "one of" the first women to earn a living from her writing, which she did, as a playwright and poet, in the 17th century, in and around London.

  Behn's reputation has skyrocketed in recent years- her presence in the original 1001 Books list as the sole woman writer prior to the 18th century.  Since it was published in 1688, there is an argument that Oroonoko is the first novel, but including Oroonoko extends the time line back all the way to Greece and Rome.  Aside from the gender of the author, Oroonoko is interesting because it tells the story of an African prince, kidnapped and brought to Surinam as a slave, where he rebels and is captured, and executed.

  The Elizabethan prose does the reader no favors, but at least Oroonoko is short- the American edition I checked out from the library had it as the first chapter in a collection of writing by Aphra Behn. 

Wednesday, August 08, 2018

Callirhoe (AD 200) by Chariton


Book Review
Callirhoe (AD 200)
by Chariton


   The question of "What is a novel?" typically excludes Greek literature, which is usually classified in terms of "epic" and "drama" and "tragedy,"  which reflects both form (theater, spoken word poem) and content different then what would become the novel in the 18th century.  Recent scholarship has pushed back upon the late 19th to mid 20th century idea of the novel being created in the 18th century, and sought to include a more diverse selection of materials from ancient Greece and Rome.

   The obvious limitation to this argument is a lack of source material, antique novels having not been high on the list of texts to preserve during centuries of disruption and chaos after the collapse of the western Roman Empire.   Callirhoe is basically the only such novel from its time period that we have (most of) maintained.  It does, indeed, push back against the idea that the novel didn't exist in antiquity.  It does appear much more likely that novels were read by the small literature audience of elites and educated peoples, and not maintained, and the gap of time between ancient Rome and the inventing of the printing press was more than sufficient to ensure the destruction of most texts from that time period.

    Callihroe is surprising readable, especially when compared to the oft stilted translations of Greek and Latin poetry.  It is unmistakably from a pre-Christian time and the characters seem clearly influenced by The Odyssey and The Iliad.  Large portions of Callirhoe take place in Babylon, and they give the reader a better idea of the extent to which the ancient West and Near East co-existed over the centuries.  Callirhoe is a historical novel- a Greek author writing during the Roman Empire about an earlier period of Greek history, before the Roman empire.   The story, about a young woman thought murdered by her young lover, then kidnapped by pirates who are trying to rob her grace-goods and is then sold into slavery, married to a Satrap of the Persian empire and then pursued by the Persian Emperor herself before being "rescued" by her original husband at the head of a rebelling Egyptian army, contains enough incident to satisfy any 20th century critic.

  

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) by Thomas Nashe


Book Review
The Unfortunate Traveller (1594)
by Thomas Nashe

  The Unfortunate Traveller belongs to the "pre-history" of the novel, and although scholars have recently attacked the idea of the novel being "invented" in the 18th century, the majority view is that the novel, as supposed to different kinds of narrative prose that pre-date the novel, was directly tied to the rise of the audience for a novel, and that this audience first began to exist in England in the early 18th century, part of a larger tide of print matter generated for a general audience.

  According to this argument, narrative published before the 18th century can't be a novel because there was no audience for a novel.  In other words, books like The Unfortunate Traveller, novel-like books published before the 18th century, were read by a small segment of the elite of Elizabethan England, and not widely disseminated to a general reading audience. 

  BUT- the 18th century writers who "created" the novel we know today had all read The Unfortunate Traveller and in this way you could argue that the novel was created by the 18th century equivalent of a critical audience, and then the books we actually still keep track of today were the books that invented the popular audience.

Friday, July 27, 2018

The Golden Ass (158 AD) by Apulieus


Book Review
The Golden Ass (158 AD)
by Apulieus

   Wikipedia calls The Golden Ass, "the only wholly surviving Roman novel."  It is about a man, Lucius, who narrates the book, who is turned into a donkey.  He is then sold, traded or stolen through a series of master-owners, some benign, others not benign.  The Golden Ass is rude, funny, profane and ridiculous, and gives the reader a sense of what Roman popular literary culture must have appreciated in their light reading material. It's obvious that The Golden Ass was written in an era when paganism is alive and well- Lucius describes sequences of peasants being driven into a frenzy based on a series of natural "omens," giving you a sense of how the sober submission of early Christians to one God must have obviated a host of harmful superstitions.

   I read the Kind edition of The Golden Ass- a terrible decision- Ebooks and Audiobooks are not as good for books that are written in pre-modern languages.  Basically, the closer you get to the present day, the better chance that an Ebook or Audiobook will "work."  Even though The Golden Ass is only a hundred something pages long it took me a month to get through it.

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

La Princesse de Clèves (1678) by Anonymous

Madame de La Fayette.jpg
Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette, purported author of La Princesse de Cleves.

Book Review
La Princesse de Clèves (1678)
 by Anonymous

   There are a slew of books from before the 1800's left in the 1001 Books project because I didn't read ANY of them, I just thought it would be too much like school.  That was back in 2008, and now, in 2018, that decision has come home to roost, and I found myself slogging through an Ebook of La Pcincesse de Cleves, generally regarded as the first French novel and first psychological novel.  Tell the truth, I got little to nothing out of it.  It's all very hard to follow, I would advise taking notes if you go here. 

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Show Review: Lonely Island @ The Rose Dinner Theater in Pasadena



Show Review:
Lonely Island
@ The Rose Dinner Theater in Pasadena

    When I received word that the Lonely Island would be playing a warm up show at a Pasadena Dinner Theater (The Rose: Where Music Meets the Soul (TM)) over Memorial Day Weekend, I leapt at the opportunity to attend.   I've driven or walked past this venue, formerly a Gelson's Grocery Store stuck in the bottom corner of a movie theater/restaurant/shopping complex in Pasadena, across from the convention center, twenty times in the past several years, and always wondered what a venue located in a grocery store would be like to experience.

   The answer is, perhaps predictably, "Laughably terrible."  To accommodate the legions(!) of excited Lonely Island fans the normally present dinner tables had been removed from the floor, leaving the lines of sight of a space not made for standing crowd viewing, and a hugely over crowded, non ADA accessible "VIP Platform," featuring luminaries like JB Smoove and failed sitcom star John Mullaney.  Adding to the moderately oppressive atmosphere was the omnipresent security staff, behaving like the artist performing was Chief Keef or Takeshi69 and not a joke-rap trio featuring three adults from the San Francisco Bay Area.

  I don't have any prejudices against joke-rap or novelty music in general.  If you take a look at the history of the Billboard pop chart, novelty numbers were charting number ones before rock and roll existed as a chart phenomenon.  Acts like Alvin and the Chipmunks and Sheb Wooley (Purple People Eater) have just as much to tell us about the history of recorded music in America as Elvis Presley or The Beatles, maybe more, since the novelty numbers preceded rock and roll.

  The upcoming Lonely Island appearance at a comedy festival in San Francisco, billed as their first live performance, had puzzled me, since I distinctly remember seeing them perform at the Festival Supreme in 2013.  Here is a review of that show from Spin.com.  At the time, Spin said, "Lonely Island snuck a tight mini-set inside Tenacious D’s climactic performance, which included the duo’s giant robot, the Metal, and an oversized alien."   After reviewing the poster for that edition of Festival Supreme, I see that Lonely Island was not billed.  The 2013 appearance was a "surprise" and unbilled, and so, in conclusion, I see why they are billing this performance as their first ever.

   Fans of Lonely Island are sure to love the show, which features bespoke animations for almost every song.  They handle the absence of the numerous guest singers using a variety of techniques.  Sometimes the accompanying visual simply displayed the missing artist.  Other times, one of the Lonely Islanders would take the place of the missing performer. For the Justin Timberlake triptych performance, Asa Taccone used a Justin Timberlake puppet- acquitting himself quite well on the puppetry. As befits their origin as a viral video phenomenon, the bespoke visuals were themselves an attraction of the live performance.  Considering the awful sight lines of The Rose Dinner Theater in Pasadena, watching the screen was more rewarding then watching the stage itself.

  The group itself was, as the saying goes, "tan, rested and ready."  I'm not at all clear at what they've been doing besides Andy Samberg starring on Brooklyn 99.  My understanding is that they have "a deal" with Fox, of the sort where one can sit around and not do anything.  Clearly, some of that time was spent making the videos for this performance, and I suppose puppetry lessons for Taccone.   Only one of the songs came from their succesful(?) movie Pop Star, with Samberg as movie protagonist Conor 4 Real.

 Much of the material reprised their greatest SNL hits, Jizz in My Pants, Lazy Sunday.  Less of the material drew from their non-SNL albums, of which, amazingly, they have two, plus the Pop Star sound track.  A highlight was a new song, about the "Bash Brothers," Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, which has seemingly been written for the San Francisco audience of their upcoming comedy festival.  In Pasadena, in front of a sea of Los Angeles based comedy nerds, the song only got intermittent laughs, but I was hooting.

  The end of the set, about an hour long, had a surprise guest, but I won't ruin the surprise here. The Rose Dinner Theater in Pasadena is a crazy place to have a show.  Wild. 

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Show Review: Margo Price & Tyler Childers @ The Ryman Auditorium w/ Jack White and Sturgill Simpson


Image result for margo price ryman
Margo Price and Sturgill Simpson at the Ryman Auditorium, in Nashville. 

Show Review: Margo Price & Tyler Childers
@ The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville Tennessee
 w/ Jack White and Sturgill Simpson

  The decline of show review on this blog is directly attributable to the fact that I'm usually going to shows as a plus one of someone who either manages or works for or with the manager of the headlining artist.   I now know that rare is the artist who doesn't keep track of their mentions on the internet, particularly when it's a long form/think piece type, even the writer is far from being popular or affiliated with a prominent news source.  There has also been a recent decline in the number of such articles- music blogs have been dead for almost as long as they were alive, and those that survived have morphed into Tumblr style post and link style sites that rarely bother to include critical writing.

  For example, I went to the Jack White show at the Mayan earlier this year, but I wouldn't write about it for fear that he would read the review and not like something about it- even something that was not intentionally negative, and it would get back to my boo.  That's bad form.   Margo Price I consider a friend.  I loudly take credit for being the conduit being Price and her current management team at Monotone on the basis that I saw the first posting on Spin.com about her debut record on Third Man Recordings (Jack White, managed by Monotone) and told my girlfriend, fan of the Stagecoach Festival and the first five seasons of Nashville, the television show.   She drew the attention of her boss, the rest is history.

  It's flimsy, sure, but fortunes are made on less in this town(Los Angeles), where providing an introduction is a way-of-life as specific as court etiquette in 18th century France.   My original thought is that Margo Price had the potential to be a country artist with an audience beyond the traditional country music audience.  At the time I heard of Margo, I had already seen Sturgill Simpson in Los Angeles and so I was far from surprised when the success of Margo played  a role in the description of a new movement of Outlaw Country/Americana artists.  Margo herself hates the label, "Outlaw Country."  She uses "Modern Traditional County" on her Facebook profile, but there is no denying the wave, led by Chris Stapelton at the very pinnacle, and followed by Sturgill, Jason Isbell, Margo, Tyler Childers, Nikki Lane and a host of others, many of whom have lengthy ties to the East Nashville neighborhood.

   For those and many other reasons, Margo Price's three night stand at the Ryman Auditorium, the hallowed "Mother Church" of County Music, and long time home of the Grand Ole Opry, was a special show.  I can't think of any other musical event that I've observed that has been so triumphant.  It certainly dwarfs any of the achievements of my Zoo Music days- with the possible exception of the Dirty Beaches Best New Music designation on Pitchfork.  It also surpasses any of the achievements of the bands that I followed but wasn't involved with- the Best Coasts and Wavves of that time period.   Midwest Farmer's Daughter was released on March 16th, 2016- before that moment, barely more than two years later she was selling out a multiple night engagement at the most hallowed venue in county music- which itself was thought to be improbable down to the moment the second show sold out.

  Night one featured guest spots from Lukas Nelson and Sturgill Simpson, night two featured Jack White.  Both nights featured Tyler Childers, who himself was making his first appearance at the Ryman Auditorium. Childers an amazing story- according to Ben Swank, the head of Third Man Records, his opening night reception was as raucous as any at the Ryman  for anyone, opener or headliner.  Childers has a large and enthusiastic fan base, even though it would be hard to know it from reading the national media press.  His most recent record, Purgatory, produced by Sturgill Simpson, had at least one genuine hit (White House Road) and a half dozen gems.  His half million monthly Spotify plays surpasses that of Price herself.

  The only thing missing from Childers is any kind of acknowledgment of  modern music celebrity culture, where artists are supposed to dress up and prance around the stage in an attempt to engage the audience.   None of that bullshit from Childers.   The Sturgill Simpson guest spot on night one was good but not great- as supposed to the Lukas Nelson duet- which sent chills down my spine.

  Night two was a more relaxed affair-  the crowd was more sedate, and more attentive.  Jack White and Margo did an excellent duet, again, chills, and raucous audience response, and over all the night two vibe was preferable to night one, in my mind.   Hanging back stage at the Ryman was an absolute treat- the only other time I'd been backstage there was literally on the tour, two years ago.  As the kids would say, "Great vibes."

  Truly, a triumphant episode for Margo Price, and surely a rebuttal to any who would claim that Margo Price is anything BUT a mainline country music star in the making, outlaw and americana tags be damned.


Monday, February 26, 2018

Under the Skin (2000) by Michel Faber

Image result for under the skin scarlett johansson nude
Scarlett Johansson did her first ever nude scene for the movie version of Under the Skin.  The movie was a gross simplification of the book.
Book Review
Under the Skin (2000)
by Michel Faber


   Author Michel Faber was born in the Netherlands, moved to Australia as a child and writes his fiction in English.  Under the Skin was his first novel, and it was followed, two years later by The Crimson Petal and the White, which was a smash hit.  Under the Skin got a movie version featuring Scarlett Johannson in the lead role, but the movie bombed, and that has hurt any claim for canonical status.   I've seen the film in bits and pieces over the years, 15 minutes on an airplane here, half an hour on the television there.  I think, unsurprisingly, the movie flattened out the book and in doing so reduced Under the Skin to a monster movie.

  Under the Skin is most emphatically not a horror genre exercise, although the story, about an alien brought to Earth in order to lure humans into a meat processing facility for export to the home planet, is horrific.  The aliens call themselves "human beings," and look something like dogs or foxes, in terms of facial features, being on all fours and being covered in fur. The protagonist has been surgically altered to look human, supplemented with daily full body shaving and huge coke bottle glasses to prevent humans from seeing the small size of her eyes.

  The best parts of Under the Skin involve descriptions of the planet where these aliens come from- dry- people living underground, manufacturing oxygen in giant pits of decaying vegetation.  The alien human hunter- called Isserley - who works by picking up male hitchhikers near the meat processing facility in rural Scotland, is privileged to be the only being from her planet that is free to move on Earth.  This experience is brought into focus when the wealthy scion of the owner of the food processing corporation shows up at the farm and starts asking questions similar to what an animal rights activist would say today about industrial farming techniques.  The visitor reveals that the people on Isserley's home planet think that humans, called vodesels by the aliens, are told that humanity are dumb animals, incapable of communication.

  Under the Skin lends itself to many different readings, whether centered on immigration, gender or class.  I think it works on all those levels, and despite the Scottish locale,  is as generically international as a book can be.

Blog Archive