An Open Letter to Jonathan Franzen

Dear Jonathan Franzen,

                                       I would call you Sir, but you're somewhat of an abstraction to me. A concept, if you will. First, let me tell you that I'm a fan of your work and that I am not trying to blow smoke up your ass here. I have read all of your books, except for THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CITY and THE DISCOMFORT ZONE and thought they ranged from great to sublime. I would be one of the only "serious readers" I know, willing to compare your fiction favorably to the one of your recently deceased friend, David Foster Wallace. I think both of you are great, but I understand your ideas better and to some extent, understand and share your worries about Occidental society. Your writings influenced mine, but that's beside the point. I just wanted you to know that I'm on your side most of the time.

                   I'm writing you today, to address the comments you've made on the damaging nature of eBooks. I will quote you: "Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it's just not permanent enough" and "“I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change". Let me speak to you in barroom vernacular for a second. Man, what the fuck?

                  I'm not sure wether it's Lenin or another of those Russian leaders that said that philosophy is the priviledge of the well-fed*, but your passionate defense of physical books make you sounds like you haven't missed a meal or had trouble paying your bills in many years. Selling millions of copies of your books will do that to you. I know from reading your essay collection HOW TO BE ALONE that you're rather worried about the state of literature and reading today. Well, I think the "sense of permanency" is the last thing you should worry about then. eBooks are doing a lot more good than harm, both for readers and writers and the fact that you seem absolutely oblivious to this reality makes me wonder how long it's been since you have stepped out in "the territory" as Mark Twain said.

                  First of all, I know you will never have to worry about this, but do you know how many terrific writers are being weeded out of print edition for factors that have nothing to do with the quality of their writing? To make place for the James Patterson and Jodi Picoult** of this world, authors with more bold and original ideas are being pushed aside and receive form rejection letters in their mailbox everyday. For every Chad Harbach, there are 9999 nameless writers who will never make it because they're not commercial enough. The market Amazon created has its defaults, sure. But it also allowed many talented writers to reclaim their rightful place in the literary landscape. Writers like Vincent Zandri and Allan Guthrie have made good use of the Kindle market and are now back into print. Isn't it amazing?

                   I know what you're going to say. They are crime writers. I can see the disgust on your face when you say "genre" fiction. To this one, I can only answer "to each his own". But think like this. Genre fiction is more popular than literary in general. I know your books sell more than most genre authors, but you're an exception. Whenever something new in literature will happen, genre writers will run to it first. The competition is more fierce in their field and there are a lot more of them. So the Kindle market is not a "genre haven" or anything. At least, I don't think it is. I don't think it's different than the print market. Literary writers will slowly follow the more commercial minded ones and it's OK. I read literary fiction and I read crime also. Does it make me less of a "serious reader"?

                  Also, think about the reader that doesn't have too much financial ressources, a day job, kids and who still loves a good story. Not only the eReaders are financially viable, but they're also use as a platform for the rebirth of extinct species. Literary magazines, short story anthologies, freakin' novellas are coming back strong. Who would have thought? Passionate people like David Cranmer, editor of Beat to a Pulp, is using the eBook format to try and spark another pulp magazine era. Do you remember pulp magazines? They are relics of an era where MEN READ FICTION. Last week, I was standing behind a man at the grocery store, who read a Joe Lansdale collection. JOE LANSDALE! 

My point is, eBooks are helping the spread of quality writing better than the print industry right now. I will grant you that it's still the Far-West over there, but one survives by the quality of his writing and the readers are the only judges. They are also democratizing reading. eReaders make it cheaper than ever to read and due to the chaotic nature of its platform, a reader is most likely to find exactly what he wants in matter of themes and style, even if he doesn't know the name of any writers. People that just want "a good story" are more likely to find it on the Kindle Store than in a bookstore, served by a snobbish English student.

That said, I understand your technophobia. Social medias can be a murderer for the craft and sometimes I wish I didn't slip my finger between the cogs. But reading is reading and except for the Kindle Fire (which I don't approve of), everything there is to a Kindle is text. Stories to read. Your stories. My stories even. You have to step out there and face things to realize that technology isn't a monolithic monster that preys on your creativity. I'm sure a rational man like you can make the difference in between a Kindle and Facebook.

So, isn't "permanency" something a little silly to worry about? You're the flag-bearer for serious fiction writers, at the dawn of a literary revolution. Your word is important. Please, don't be a part of the problem, like that nincompoop Harold Bloom, who behaves like aesthetism has been raped every time WAR & PEACE hasn't been re-written. I don't think that print books and eBooks will ever compete until we, the savage humans, ransack the last forest on Earth, but eBooks is getting people interested in literature again. I dare to believe that it gives written fiction a new, fresher image.

Please, don't grow irrelevant. You're an important writer for me and I'd hate to see you miss the boat.

* I'm paraphrasing, I know. The integrity of the quote is not important here.

** By the way, don't worry. I know she badly wants to be considered on the same level as you, but I know better.

Book Review : Pearce Hansen - Street Raised (2006)

Country: USA

Genre: Crime

Pages: 216/542 kb

Buy the hardcover

Buy the eBook

"You wanted to see me," Speedy said, sawed-off pointing at the floor. He'd always felt it was rude to point a piece at a man in his own house unless you were getting ready to use it.

 Crime fiction doesn't always have to be dark. It can be gritty and blood-soaked without getting into the throes of depression and darkness within. STREET RAISED, by Pearce Hansen reads like a love letter more than the usual action-packed obituary that is noir. I understand why it is so. Where you come from and who you grew up with is a part of you. You can find poetry in the meanest, most dangerous streets if they are YOUR streets. STREET RAISED packs a lot of action and drama, but it's a lively portrait of the Oakland area. It's far from being a perfect novel, but when your characters have this unspeakable charm and your story feels strong and visceral enough, you can get away with almost anything. This bad boy will require a patient reader, but in the greater  scheme of things, it's a rewarding read. Pearce Hansen takes a lot of detours, but he always finds the highway.

The story of STREET RAISED has more to do with an epic poem than a modern crime novel. John "Speedy" Hancock is released from prison and hitchhikes his way to Oakland, to piece up his life together. He's looking for his little brother Willy, who has turned his life over to the demon of addiction and his friend Fat Bob who's now bouncing bars. The get-together plans are soon derailed when Mexican gangsters send two of their friends to their horrible death. Speedy and Bob then put the breaks to their cute feelings and start planning revenge. But you know, life doesn't let them wreck havoc without getting in the way. Speedy meets Carmel, a beautiful phone psychic and Officier Louis (my favorite character), the same man who put Speedy behind bars comes back in the rear view with an agenda of his own. That's just a few speed bumps Speedy and Bob run into, on their way to getting even.

Let's get it out of the way first, there is only one major issue that bothered me with STREET RAISED. There's really not much left to the reader to forge his own opinion of the characters. It's true especially regarding to Speedy. There's a lot (too much) of qualifiers written to make sure that we know how Speedy feels towards the situation and that those feelings are pure of heart. Pearce Hansen gets in the way of his character. It's not uncommon, great writers also suffered from this. John Updike for example. I didn't like it, I thought that Speedy's actions spoke loud enough for him most of the time. It's obvious that he's a good dude in a rough place. As much as this gets in the way, it doesn't deter too much from the overall beauty of STREET RAISED. The main attraction of the novel to me, was Pearce Hansen's magnificent portraits of a sprawling and chaotic Oakland. 

In Willy's mental movie, the people try to fight that modern miracle the Freeway, just as Berkeley had done so successfully. But the West Oaklanders aren't white professionals and academics safely ensconced behind their money up in the Hills - they're blue collar blacks living in the Flats, without the necessary ressources to practice Berkeley's brand of NIMBY-ism.

Certain places shape a certain type of people. Eskimos* are often fat because they grew up in a blistering cold for generations and their body adapted with a natural isolating cold. Warmer climates often have happier and more social people due to the kinder weather and the lack of urban development, leading to a proliferation of smaller communities.** STREET RAISED functions with the same logic. It's a hard place that shapes and breeds hard people, who can deal with anything life can throw at them. The Oakland of Pearce Hansen is a fascinating hive-mind mother that preys on its children to keep its cycle going. She's worth the read alone. I might have my issues with STREET RAISED, it's also a little derivative. There are chapters the novel could've existed without and it would have been tighter. But the good outweights the bad here. Nobody writes crime the way Pearce Hansen does. His unique, picaresque view of the American streets has strangely left me wanting more. 

There's a new novel out...

THREE STARS

* or Innus, to be politically correct

** I know this is generalizing and absolutely not scientific, but please don't flood me with comments and emails about this. You get the idea.

Led Zeppelin - Black Dog

I survived moving apartments. I'm posting live from in between two piles of boxes just to say hi, because I still have a mountain of things to do, including *ugh*...configuring the wireless network. In the meantime, I'll leave you with some audio sex from Led Zeppelin. BLACK DOG is one of those songs I would naughty-dance to every goddamn day of the week. I wouldn't be surprised that it would figure in some top ten of most used pole dancing songs of all time. Rock doesn't always mean hard, sometimes it can also mean sexy. In rare cases (like Led Zeppelin), it can mean both. Enjoy!

Led Zeppelin - BLACK DOG

Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing, gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way, watch your honey drip, can't keep away.


Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah. Ah yeah, ah yeah, ah, ah, ah.
I gotta roll, can't stand still, got a flaming heart, can't get my fill
Eyes that shine burning red, dreams of you all through my head.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah.

Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby, tell me that you'll do me now
Hey, baby, oh, baby, pretty baby, do me like you do me now
Didn't take too long 'fore I found out, what people mean my down and out.
Spent my money, took my car, started telling her friends she wants to be a star.
I don't know but I been told, a big-legged woman ain't got no soul.

All I ask for when I pray, steady rollin' woman gonna come my way.
Need a woman gonna hold my hand, won't tell me no lies, make me a happy man.
Ah ah Ah ah ah ah Ah ah ah ah Ah ah ah

Book Review : Jutta Profijt - Morgue Drawer Four (2009)

Country: Germany

Genre: Crime/Police Procedural

Pages: 231

"Sacha" Martin whispered.Of course he could have no way of knowing that I changed the first letter of my name from S to P ever since that schlocky TV show with that guy named Sascha on it, and so now I go by Pascha. Nothing to do with Turkish brothels. I was nice enough to explain this to him.

Until very recently, I didn't know who Jutta Profijt was. I didn't even know Germany had a crime fiction scene. Thanks to a nice publicity woman who is very on-the-ball about what she does, now I know and you will soon all know about this lady of crime fiction that deserves your attention for at least a few minutes. MORGUE DRAWER FOUR was short listed for the Friedrich Glauser Award for best crime novel in 2010 and reading it, one can understand why it would've struck a nerve with any jury. It's a funny and completely unconventional novel about themes that have been beaten to death, thanks to the invasion-of-Poland marketing plan that the CSI franchise have been pulling on us for the last eight years. But yeah, you heard me. MORGUE DRAWER FOUR is a fresh spin on things that makes me almost long for more police procedural fiction. The key word here being "almost".

It's a crime novel, but the beauty of it is that it's also a ghost story. Because the narrator Pascha is dead. He's been murdered or at least he think he has been. He fell from a high point while shitfaced drunk and remember being pushed. It's as unreliable as it gets for a testimony, but nonetheless he will convince the coroner Martin Gänsewein to take a look into the case. Most people would require a lot less than a ghost to do so. To give Pascha some credit, the investigation has been closed very quick and the circumstances of his death are questionable. Pascha was a car thief and during his last job, he found out that there was a body in the trunk of the car he was driving. After getting over the initial shock of being haunted by the ghost of one of his clients, Martin decides to give this case a shot, based on Pascha's allegation. Not the most rational move, I know but would you have done better in his place?

The weird thing about MORGUE DRAWER FOUR is that its main strengths also becomes its weaknesses at a some point. It's humor, for example. It's often rooted in Pascha's peculiar way of seeing life, which transpires a lot in his speech. While it's hilarious at first, the form of MORGUE DRAWER FOUR often gets in the way of Pascha and makes his best aspects more and more difficult to bear. The chapters are long and winding and Pascha is narrating many scenes. It gets excruciating to read, about a hundred pages in. I would've loved this sharp, fast paced speech in very short chapters. Forty-something pages narrated through his frantic vision get from funny to tiring quicker and quicker. It's too bad because Jutta Profijt really nailed the speech of a street youth. She has an ear for vernacular. Pascha speaks like a young thug would and it's an impressive feat considering that most crime protagonist talk like severely depressed philosophers.

What planet had I landed on? You drink tea when you're sick. I mean, really sick. Really suffering. Puking and the runs and all that. And the first thing you try is actually Coke, everyone knows that. But when the cholera or whatever causes such messy business has been sticking around for a while, then you switch to tea. In the face of death, and definitively not together with a chick on your couch before you get down to business.

Please, take my frustrations with a grain of salt here. MORGUE DRAWER FOUR was a fun read. It changes the pace from the ever-so-serious world of crime fiction. It's nice to read someone who has been doing some thinking outside the box. While it's been interesting, I know Jutta Profijt is releasing a sequel soon and I'm not sure MORGUE DRAWER FOUR convinced me to give it a shot. I don't know where Pascha and Martin could go from there without falling into the ridiculous. I know their relationship is ridiculous to begin with, but it has this over-the-top, not-so-subtle charm that the Hammer Production movies had. Solving Pascha's murder is something, but being a supernatural crime fighting team, I'm not so sure about that. But hey, by all means. Take a look at MORGUE DRAWER FOUR if you're aching for a change of pace in your reading. It's in a category of its own. It's enjoyable (and short), but I just don't think this is going to turn into a winning recipe.

THREE STARS

Lie To Me, The Postmortem

I like to think I have grown past my "watching-television-series-on-DVD-is-the-greatest-thing" stage. Because most of the time, it's true. I was swept away by THE WIRE, ran out of steam on DEXTER and MAD MEN, never really was into THE SOPRANOS and  am still on board with BREAKING BAD, but really, what else is there? Watching series is insanely time-consuming and one should stay away from it if he doesn't want to see life pass him by. But then, the move came up and Josie and I were left scrambling to find a way to mute the inner anguish that's often associated with such a bold life move. Then* LIE TO ME came and stole both of our souls.

Six weeks later, we emerged from 48-episodes coma with a smile and a lot to think about. LIE TO ME was anything but perfect, but I'll be damned if it didn't feature one of the most complex, dynamic and lovable characters of all-time. The series has been cancelled by FOX last Spring after running for three seasons. I can't say I'm surprised that it was, because it's a series that has been run into the fucking ground by an  absurdly long season two, but it was its potential, shining through its flaws, that made it such an enthralling experience. Let's take a closer look at what LIE TO ME did right and to what it did wrong.

Right - Dr. Cal Lightman. A violent nature, yet an intellectual. Oozing with libido and yet a responsible father. A successful business owner and yet a thug at heart. Confrontational and yet such a loving man. You get my point. Cal Lightman is one of the most beautifully flawed, conflicted and layered characters I was given the joy to watch/read in recent years. Writer Samuel Baum understand that conflict is about clashing details in one's personality and not necessarily about confrontation. Lightman is the star of the show and carries its interest on his shoulders. It also helps that he's brilliantly portrayed by Tim Roth.

Wrong - Eli Loker. Here's a character that never took off, so he was stored in the background as a borderline utilitarian role. The most painful parts is whenever he has the start of a storyline, only to see it die a stillborn in the following episode. He has a romance with Torres, which ends after one night. He's looking for another job, because he hates Lightman** but he never leaves. He never shuts up (presumably due to contractual issues. On TV, you're paid more if you have a talking part), so he's constantly handling the small potatoes and more technical aspects of the show. Too bad, because Brendan Hines is a capable actor.

Right - Episodic Structure. The show is based around the science of face reading. As much as Lightman is a great character, it wouldn't have been so unique without this quirk. A week-to-week episodic structure keeps things fresh and entertaining, as a continuous storyline would have steered the series towards the characters, which I don't think would have been such a good idea...

Wrong - Plot Holes. Many, many plot holes. Whatever didn't turn around Lightman, usually end up into a gaping one. In the first season, Torres' boyfriend is in coma at the last episode...only to disappear from the show without a trace. Mekhi Phifer has the character with the most interesting dynamic with Lightman and suddenly vanishes from the show after being shot. There's a one liner about him in the third season saying that he's got a desk job now because of Lightman and that he's very angry, but c'mon! Also, Lightman's wife disappear from the face of the Earth at some point.

Right - Untold romance. Tim Roth and Kelli Williams are nurturing this untold and unlived romance in between Lightman and his associate Gillian Foster. It's one of the best non-verbal display of love and attraction I have seen on screen in memory. They are two cute love birds, coming from very different worlds.

Wrong - Ignored romance. Ria Torres, played by the beautiful and talented Monica Raymund, had great potential as a character but got shelved alongside Loker. Perhaps the most frustrating evidence of that is that the writers passed beside the obvious potential romance with Mekhi Phifer's character Reynolds. They were made for each other, it was as clear as day, but nothing happened. Ugh.

If anything, LIE TO ME is a testament that a story can work with one strong enough character. The plot holes don't matter as much when you care about the people. I'm sad to see it go, but the best things are those that end at some point. Wait, did LIE TO ME have an ending? No. It ended on a stupid romantic cliffhanger and a prospective new character for a potential new season. It's as terrible as it gets. Maybe Fox took the right decision and pulled the plug before it would've got ridiculous. In any case, if you're aching for a new series to check out, give LIE TO ME a chance. It's the kind of series you can pick up at any time, so it won't wreck your life too much.

* Thank you, Netflix

** Honestly, it would've been a great way out for this character.

Movie Review : Escape from L.A. (1996)

Country:

USA

Recognizable Faces:

Kurt Russell
Steve Buscemi
Peter Fonda
Pam Grier
Bruce Campbell
Stacy Keach

Directed By:

John Carpenter

There is an archaic beauty to Snake Plissken franchise. There is no way such a movie would be sold to a major Hollywood studio nowadays, even less to an audience*. No, Snake is a relic of a long gone era where the entertainment industry still had the balls to propose movies that were different and most important, that didn't take themselves seriously at all. ESCAPE FROM L.A. is pulp fiction so over-the-top, it's worthy of the pages of Man's Life Magazine (a publication Occidental society misses dearly). There's a good chance that you've never seen anything like Snake Plissken's adventures. That's a good thing because unlike most post-apocalyptic science-fiction movies nowadays, it knows exactly what it's trying to offer. A world so over-the-top dystopian that it will make you smile and put Mad Max in therapy. I re-watched ESCAPE FROM L.A last week for the third time in fifteen years and you know what? It's ridiculously far fetched, the CGI is laughable, the setting is so implausible it makes my head hurt, but goddamit, it's a great pulp/sci-fi if I've ever seen/read one.

ESCAPE FROM L.A is eerily similar to 1981's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, but don't be fooled, it IS a sequel. Snake Plissken (Russell) just had a shit luck for getting caught in patterns. This time, he's getting caught by the army** and threatened with deportation to Los Angeles, where the criminals to the new "moral" America are getting deported. After the great earthquake of 2000, L.A. has physically detached from the U.S and now serves as a penitentiary colony. In order to regain his freedom, Snake has to actually GO to Los Angeles and retrieve a package that was stolen from his president by his own daughter, Utopia (A.J Langer). The package is in the hands of a dangerous Che Guevara wannabee named Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface), who plans to use it to invade the U.S. with other "third world countries", whatever third world means in this universe. Oh and Snake has to kill Utopia too. Because the president (Cliff Robertson) is a control freak who can't accept rebellion from anybody, not even his own kin. I know, it doesn't make much sense when said like that, but it's fucking awesome.

I've reviewed COLOMBIANA earlier this month and it one major similarity with ESCAPE FROM L.A. Both movies will fuck with your suspension of disbelief very hard. What makes ESCAPE FROM L.A very enjoyable where COLOMBIANA is not, is that it's not a movie that wants you to believe anything. It doesn't care if your disbelief is suspended or not in order to enjoy the story. The details that don't make any sense actually add to the wacky atmosphere and make the movie even more enjoyable. For example, the Los Angeles residents are banned for moral crimes, like "being Muslim in North Dakota" or being from a different ethnicity. Petty crimes, right? Yet, they turned L.A in an absolute war zone full of demented warlords in a little more than a decade. Or even more precise, when Snake is chasing Cuervo Jones' car on a stolen motorcycle, he tries to distance himself from the bodyguards by doing a wheelie. It doesn't make any sense, but who cares? It's badass.

In 1996, ESCAPE FROM L.A was probably at the cutting edge of the technology, but it beat father time as the CGI equivalent of the zipper-in-the-back monster movies of the fifties. It's made out of pure passion and it has the organic charm of a comic book. Kurt Russell is overplaying the badass archetype so bad, he's actually fun to watch. With a cast of characters with names such as Map-To-The-Stars Eddie, Carjack Malone and Cuervo Jones, it helps giving it even more of a charm. Don't expect it to revolutionize your view of dystopian science-fiction, because ESCAPE FROM L.A doesn't even pretend to do that. Watch it expecting some laughter and over-the-top action, like in a B movie from the eighties***. It's a story that has a fun and coherent madness to offer you. It's not great cinema, but it's a great work of art. Nostalgia has been kind to this one. It has a rightful place in your DVD/Blu-Ray collection alongside the likes of COBRA and COMMANDO.

SCORE: 85%

* I know there's been another Snake movie in 2010, but it wasn't the same thing. It was a straight-to-dvd knockoff. You can't have Snake Plissken without Kurt Russell, unless it's an animated feature with Russell voicing his trademark character.

** Again

*** In all fairness, it started as a B movie in the eighties. L.A just lives up to the spirit of its franchise very well. 

Dead End Follies Book Club - IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN

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BUY THE eBOOK

Welcome to the book club. This week, for our first discussion, we have a debut author: Leonard Fritz. I have reviewed (and greatly praised) his first novel IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN, last December. I had good reasons for that. Lenny Fritz doesn't play extactly in the classic investigation/heist/meth labs/revenge paradigms of crime fiction. No, instead he drags you, the reader, in a guided tour of the wrong end of Detroit. The great Charlie Stella has compared Fritz to Hubert Selby Jr., which is very accurate. IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN is about your tour guide Baby and the worst week of her life, but it's also about the city who's just having another week at work. If you don't feel compelled to read it already (shame on you), here are a few reasons why you should pay great attention to the work of this writer, who's I'm sure, bound to great success.

THREE REASONS TO READ: IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN

1) The wisdom-giver. He regularly interrupts Baby's adventures to dish out some of the most angry and inspired prose you will read. He's merely an interlude in between chapters, but he sets the tone of Fritz's setting. He tells you exactly how dark and dangerous the streets of Detroit can be, so you can panic and Baby can keep her endearing tainted innocence.

2) Leonard Fritz's comic book panels. Do you know any serious crime novels that have comic book panels and on top of it, make it work beautifully alongside the story. IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN does.

3) Baby's boys. Power, law and religion. They are the crutches of every weak soul, the most seducing concepts to somebody spiraling downward. They are all present in Leonard Fritz's novel and they are all lusting for Baby.

But maybe you've read IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN already. Good for you then. You've spotted the diamond in the mine. If you haven't yet, stop reading this post right here and go buy the novel immediately. But if you've read it, well...maybe we can discuss it a little bit. It's a fairly short work, but it has many interesting points.

THREE TOPICS ABOUT: IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN

1) The protagonists are absolutely blinded by their immediate needs, leaving Baby to herself with her problems. Do you think their general depression and apathy is economically based (poverty) or moral? That the downfall of the Judeo-Christian culture (especially the "I shall not want") has lead exactly to its opposite?

2) Who do you think is the real protagonist here? Baby or Detroit? Explain how so.

3) Do you think we're bound to see more multimedia novels like IN NINE KINDS OF PAIN and Jesus Angel Garcia's badbadbad? Why do you think this suddenly appeared in the landscape? Do you think they're bound to threaten the literary form? If so, how?

Book Review : R. Thomas Brown - Merciless Pact (2011)

Country: USA

Genre: Horror

Pages: 117 kb (eOriginal)

Buy It Here

"You didn't have to tell her you wanted to bend her over the crash cart and fuck her in the ass". Greg gritted his teeth at the loss of control. "Yeah, sorry about that."

The best stories of Edgar Allan Poe has this particularity that made them so haunting. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE USHER, for example, was the story of a terrible curse on the surface, but Poe gives the reader just enough cues to imply an horrible inter-generational incest story. Reading it, you're not sure which one is the most alarming explanation. R. Thomas Brown's novella MERCILESS PACT functions under the same story mechanics. It gives you the choice to let your imagination run amok or to rationalize what's going on and in both cases, the protagonist Greg's fate is horrible. It's a very bold release that channels inspiration from one of the masters of horror and successfully so. MERCILESS PACT tackles the difficult subject of not giving in to your urges, but rather becoming them. To a certain point, this was somewhat experimental.

Greg's a good guy. A simple guy who loves simple things like there are so many in Texas. He likes to drinks and to watch baseball. That sort of thing. One day, a friend breaks into his house and vomits on him and everything changes. One would argue that anybody's life would change if a friend vomited in your mouth, but in this case, PTSD is the least of Greg's worries. He starts losing control of himself. Urges and creeping up in his mind and body. First, it's irrepressible urges to have sex. That queers things up with the local barmaid and with his friend Doug, but they are just the symptoms of something buried a lot deeper. Greg's life is turning upside down as he starts having conversations with coyotes, who seem to know more than him about the nature of his ills. In the immortal words of Don Corleone, he's about to receive an offer he can't refuse.

"I guess things just look different at night", he said to the wildling across the way before the coyote skittered back and laughed as it vanished into the woods.

MERCILESS PACT chronicles the transformation of Greg into a beast. Where Brown hits that "Poe-esque" note is by always leaving a doubt whether his protagonist is really possessed by something otherworldly or is just really sick from...well, having a sick person vomiting into his mouth. One could be ticked off by it, but I thought it was a nice touch. Horror lies in the balance in between the unspeakable and the human perception of it. In MERCILESS PACT, it's playing in between Greg's perception and OUR perception of the events. So there are two layers of incertitude. For a novella, this is impressive.

One thing that bugged me a little (but who was inevitable) is the later parts where Greg becomes really, more of an animal than a human. That's where MERCILESS PACT becomes a little more experimental. There were not many ways to describe the devolution of a man through language, but I thought it would have been more convincing if the form would have been left out of the equation (it is after all, narrated in third person). Anyway, MERCILESS PACT is a unique and challenging horror novella. It doesn't pack no peek-a-boo scares, but goes deeper and scratches some fundamental human fears.Of course, it's a novella. It's something you read on a rainy afternoon, in a sitting or two. It will touch the right button and give you a good, quick scare.


THREE STARS

Pitch Black Noir

No song this week. Instead, here's a short documentary directed by Adam Wangler, that introduces you to the some of the main players of noir today, all gathered at a Noir At The Bar evening in St-Louis, Missouri. It's mainly narrated by Scott Phillips (THE ADJUSTMENT, THE ICE HARVEST, COTTONWOOD), but you will also meet the likes of Matthew McBride (Frank Sinatra In A Blender), Jed Ayres (A FUCKLOAD OF SCOTCH TAPE), Malachi Stone, without his Wal-Mart bag on his head and there's even footage of a reading by Anthony Neil Smith, one of my favorite writers. If you want to meet some of the greatest minds of today's noir, take eight minutes to watch this. It's a great piece of documentary.

If you're interested in reading some Smith, but don't want to spend any of your precious money, PSYCHOSOMATIC is free until the end of the day on the Kindle Store. Thanks to Malachi Stone who made the documentary available on his YouTube channel.

The Return of the Rating System

To rate or not to rate a book, is the Great Debate for bloggers. On one hand, it's very unfair to writers to rate their books on a rigid and arbitrary scale but on the other hand as a blogger, your word is your bond and if you want gain influence and popularity, you need a solid baseline for your tastes. My own rating system exploded after reading THE CRYING OF LOT 49 by Thomas Pynchon. While I didn't get much out of it, it would have been unfair to give it any low score because well...it didn't suck, I just didn't understand anything. 

Not rating a book as gives problems. I also review (well, really it's more of a blurb) books on social sites like Goodreads and Amazon, to help and promote the working writers (and warn-off against bad books too, to a certain extent). The scoring dynamic of those two sites is very peculiar. It's a political gesture, more than anything else. Like voting, for example. If you like a writer, you're almost forced to give him four or five stars, because if you give him anything lower, it's going to hurt his sales. The blog reviews are often influenced by that as I feel the need to justify what I've rated on Goodreads and Amazon. Meaning it's not objective.

But thanks to Lori, from The Next Best Book Blog, I think I have found the solution to this issue. A workable compromise, at least. Her rating system really is a recommendation scale. It doesn't speak of the quality of the material in the book, but on the effect it had on the reviewer. Since I have a fairly good idea of who I am and what my tastes are, I find most books I read enjoyable, but the books that are game changers to me are fairly rare. Lori's system reflects that and that's why the new Dead End Follies rating system for books will heavily borrow from hers (don't worry, she gave me her blessing beforehand).

Dead End Follies Rating System for Books

One Star - Not Recommended

Two Stars - Recommended to Adventurous Readers only. You might want to buy that book in a shopping spree, but it's a toss up as to whether you'll like it or not. If I rate Two Stars, there's a good chance I didn't like it, but I recognize the quality of the writing.

Three Stars - Recommended to Fans of the Genre. Enjoyable read overall, won't turn anybody to this kind of writing, but will take its rightful place in your book collection.

Four Stars - Strongly Recommended. This is the type of book you want to look out for, if you want to try a new genre or if you're bored with everything that's done in this field. If this book was a wine bottle, it would be in my cellar.

Five Stars - Personally Recommended. As a reader, I'm always longing for a certain type of book. This type in particular that affects me physically as I read it. It's the can't-stop-reading, this-is-the-best-thing-ever kind of book. By giving a book Five Stars, I'm almost certain you will enjoy it as much as I did.


As you can see, three stars will be a positive review and a book will have to stand out to get four and be exceptional to have a five stars review. Only three books I've read in the last two years have got the proverbial five stars. Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD and Anthony Neil Smith's HOGDOGGIN' and CHOKE ON YOUR LIES. Three out of a hundred and fifty-something books. There were maybe twenty books worthy of four stars. Those two rates are reserved for the most gorgeous, gripping books there are. Three stars isn't a bad review at all. It means your book was good, highly enjoyable even, but that it was missing the ingredients of greatness. It's normal. You can't hit a home run every time you walk up to the plate.

That said, I will keep rating books ridiculously high on Goodreads and Amazon, because as I said earlier, it's a political gesture to do so. If I like a writer, I want to contribute to his good name and sites like these two don't leave space for anything else than bluntness. Four and Five Stars reviews are used as a shopping barometer and even some bloggers use it as a review baseline*. Dead End Follies will be where I discuss a book in depth and give you my accurate recommendation on it.

* Some bloggers demand a certain number of four and five stars reviews for taking an eBook into consideration, which I think is stupid.

Book Review : Jack Kerouac - On The Road (1957)

Country: USA

Genre: Literary/Coming-Of-Age

Pages: 307

A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going  the opposite direction in this too-big world.

I read ON THE ROAD for the first time in french and almost by accident. I had this class called "Cinema and Other Arts" and I decided at the last minute to make my last paper a comparative study of post-war road narratives in between ON THE ROAD and the movie EASY RIDER. I had a C for that paper, which is downright insulting, so despite having fond memories of ON THE ROAD, I left it aside and tried not to think about it too much. But then came Sarah' Back To The Classics 2012 Challenge, where I had to re-read a classic I liked. So I decided to give Old Kerouac another shot. Unsurprisingly enough, it's still very good and accessible. Depending on how much historical perspective you want to put in your reading, it would be or culturally important or highly enjoyable. This is to me, the definition of a classic. Something that everybody can read and appreciate given the time and effort of a thorough read.

The novel is separated in five parts, which represent narrator Sal Paradise's "life on the road". Each part describe a different road trip and stages of Sal's relationship with his friend Dean Moriarty he met at the very beginning of the book. Throughout the novel, both Sal and Dean are affected by the people they meet on the road, change and their relationship also change. Dean is carefree, fun, irresponsible and represents a world of opportunities for Sal at the beginning of the novel, but as Sal jumps into Dean's world and meets Marylou, Camille, Inez and the people in Dean's little world, he will slowly start realizing that it doesn't matter how fast you live, you can never outrun life. The two friends are living the dream of a carefree young age on the road, but as their adventures come to an end and the dream fades out, you're left with what's real about their lives.

I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was - I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. 

 I'm no expert on the Beats. I will gladly admit that ON THE ROAD is the only Beats book I've ever read. Now, I know that this is largely autobiographical and most characters in the novel are the alter ego to a real life person. Dean Moriarity is supposed to be Neal Cassady, Old Bull Lee would be William Burrroughs and the hilariously named Carlo Marx would stand for Allan Ginsberg. That I understand, but purely as a novel, I think ON THE ROAD has something universal to say about the importance of traveling as a means of self-exploration. Hence the timelessness of the novel. If you don't know who you are, the best mirror you can find to identify yourself is the others. Go see how people live, how differently things are done from place to place. The more you will see, the more precisely you will think of yourself. That, I think is the message of ON THE ROAD.

This is both a beautiful and sad novel, because there is the distinctive feeling of conclusion. It's the complete chapter of Sal's life that closes with his incapacity to go on with this lifestyle, because he has moved on to something else. The last hundred pages are particularly heartbreaking as Sal gets physically sick and emotionally morose. Unlike Dean, Sal didn't have anything to run away from (or not much, really it's debatable) and the road will end up getting to him. If ON THE ROAD successfully passed the test of time and was so influential (FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS would probably have never been written without it), it's because it laid a baseline for thinking outside the conventions of the American way of life. It's a well-lived story of wild youth and rebellion. Hopefully, with the film adaptation that's supposed to come out in 2012, ON THE ROAD will live on to inspire another generation of young people.

Classic Re-Read

All Things Kindle

Yesterday morning, I had nothing planned for today's post. Since I didn't have anything good to say, I was thinking about pimping someone else's work. But I wanted to talk about my new acquired (November) Kindle, also. I love this thing. Maybe a little too much, even. I have been swarmed with requests for eBooks reviews for the last two months and have worked myself an impressive reading queue. I was hesitating to close the eBook review panel for the last two weeks, but in a very Freudian gesture, I have went  into a mild Kindle shopping spree, yesterday. That convinced me I should put this madness to a halt.

So if you click on my review policy link, you will find out I'm closed to Kindle review until April. I have taken engagement with several writers to review their work and I will apply myself to that for the next two months.  So unless we're already friends, don't bother sending me your book until next April. But on the bright side of things, I have something to talk about this morning. Yesterday, I have bought three fiction and two non-fiction books on the Kindle store. Here's what I came up with (for the price of two paperbacks in store).

FICTION

Malachi Stone - Wicked King Dick

This guy's the biggest enigma to me. He wears a Wal-Mart bag on his head, he's signed in one of the most reputable agencies and yet I only found his work on the Kindle Store. He recently covered the first video diary by Casey Anthony and put this on YouTube, resulting in one of the creepiest things on the web right now.This oozes a distant smell of genius. I'm about to find out and if this is as good as I think it is, I'll get the word out on this Stone guy. 

Victor Gischler - The Deputy

I missed my chance to get this one for free, like an idiot. After my friend Heath Lowrance warmly recommended it, I knew the wait was over. Heath has impeccable taste in pulp fiction and I don't know, something sounds right about THE DEPUTY. The fact that it all happens over one night, the setting and the fact that I've already read Gischler and liked it. I have a very good feeling about this. 

Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

I'm sitting on the fence about Zeltserman, but I think the idea of this book is brilliant. Outsourcing is an issue that touches most office jobs and making a crime novel about it is the most original thing since...fuck, I don't know. I'm not the only one who sees the genius in this. The book has been optioned for a movie and the shooting would be impending. I'm gonna be that guy in the theater who has READ THE BOOK BEFORE. Plus he will be the first writer with a name in the letter "Z" that I'll review for this site, so that's pretty cool too.

NON-FICTION

 Noah Lukeman - A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation

I'm in the mood to read some writing advice. The writing is going well, so anything is welcome to augment the momentum. I've read Lukeman's THE FIRST FIVE PAGES already and thought it was brilliant. The man is a reputable agent and explains his stance on the "What you shouldn't do", "What you should do" and "Why I threw your manuscript to the garbage and mailed you a form rejection". The man is smart, down to earth and has something genuine to say about writing. Plus, you know. Punctuation. I'm sure there are a few things to say about this.

John Gardner - The Art Of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

I always prefer advice from well-known writers because it comes from real problems they had while practicing the craft and since they are well-known, they are more likely to have had found proper solution to those issues. They deal in the practical rather than the theoretical. I know it's ironic because writing a book about it is making it theoretical, but c'mon. It comes from experience rather than a textbook. I know everybody has their own way to make things work, but if I can take one good thing from it, it will be worth the read.

Movie Review : Until The Light Takes Us (2008)

Country:

USA

Recognizable Faces:

Varg Vikernes
Fenriz
Frost
Hellhammer

Directed By:

Aaron Aites
Audrey Ewell

I've been a black metal fan for many years of my life. The main reason for that, is that it's by far one of the most artistically extreme musical genres. There are all sorts of crazy stories and urban legends tied to the movement. Antisemitism, psychological issues, pirates* and countless stories of extreme violence (including murders) made for a demented and spectacular folklore. For the last two or three years, my taste for black metal has considerably dwindled. I'm still listening to the likes of Mayhem, Darkthrone and Anaal Nathrakh, as well as a little Dimmu Borgir from time to time, but the genre lost its appeal to me in general. I picked up UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US after a discussion I had with Shotgun Honey's editor and writer extraordinaire Kent Gowran, curious to see how the black metal paradigm would hold up to a few years of perspective. It's still a very rich and compelling universe and while somebody most experienced with this music would get the flaws in the arguments, UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US does a very good job at presenting the father figures of the genre under the most haunting light.

The documentary follows mainly Darkthrone's Fenriz and the infamous Varg Vikernes, who murdered Mayhem's founding member and black metal pioneer Euronymous**. Fenriz doesn't say anything substantial, except deploring the current state of black metal. "I wish it didn't become a trend" would be his main statement throughout the film. I was ticked off by it, but somebody pointed to me that Fenriz looked like a huge music nerd and looking at his statements this way, it makes sense. The most interesting sequence that featured Fenriz was a press phone call he gave, where he's asked question that makes him lose his patience. Questions related to the raw aesthetics of the band. It's really important in the perspective of this movie, because this question of aesthetics and musical dogma ties everything together. Varg Vikernes, who's interviewed from his prison, while looking absolutely off his rocker (as usual), had much more interesting and controversial statements to make.

Vikernes explains how his early recordings with Burzum*** was a rebellion against the current song structure and recording methods in the industry. It's really ironic, because what was first motivated by a desire for difference has turned into a dogma in black metal. It's one of the most difficult crowd to please and there's a school of thought within the genre that doesn't accept anything but unconventional song structures and the most low-fi production possible****.  Another interesting segment with Vikernes is HIS side of the story in the church burnings and the Euronymous murders. I must have heard these stories about a hundred times, but never for Vikernes' mouth. The climate of fear and paranoia that Euronymous worked so hard to create, in order to maintain his persona, will have gotten the better of him. He was saying a lot of things, but apparently he didn't do much. It's still unclear as why Vikernes killed him, but I think it's fair to assume he was pushed to the edge from living in this dark and threatening atmosphere all the time.

There are other legendary figures of black metal featured in UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US. Frost from Satyricon, who's participating in a piece of performance art in regards to an exhibit from a black metal influences visual artist (I can't remember his name, sorry). It's a shorter appearance, but it's very poetic how he's presented as a lost angel, in a world of darkness. I'm not big on performance art, but I thought what Frost did was really cool and not overly symbolic and cryptic like most performance art today. Hellhammer from Mayhem also makes an appearance, but it's more embarrassing than anything. I was ashamed of liking his music whenever he opened his mouth. He said things like: "I really honor Faust (another folkloric black metal figure) for killing that fucking faggot in Lillehammer"*****, which I thought he should have kept for himself. There's a huge history of intolerance in black metal, but to my knowledge it never was what Mayhem was all about. UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US was a good documentary, but it wasn't great and it introduced very little new data about black metal folklore. It's a neatly wrapped presentation, that's all. An accurate portrait of the founding fathers of black metal culture. 


SCORE: 72%


* This statement is to take with a grain of salt, please. 

** Here's the full story. Interestingly enough, despite the spectacular line-up changes, Mayhem has always remained able to produce some of the most interesting and unique music in the genre. To me, they are the face of black metal. 


*** Burzum is Vikernes' one-man-band, who has been pretty much at the origin of the black metal sound. His material is legendary, yet still polarizing almost two decades later. Vikernes got out of jail a few years ago and Burzum has released two albums since.


**** In an effort to sound as crappy as possible, some bands really outdid themselves and great stories were born. I think it was a Danish band who recorded on a boat. A Canadian band also apparently recorded in the forest, outside in one take. That's hardcore.


***** Bard "Faust" Eithun killed a homosexual man in Lillehammer and got a 14 years sentence. Like Vikernes though, he got released and he's been doing music ever since.

The Existential Trial of Moving Out

Every five years or so, I move from an apartment to another. It's a grueling process every fucking time, but every move seems to be worse than the precedent. I'll be heading up a dozen blocks north of where I am now in two weeks and as you might have imagined, Josie and I have been living around boxes, bundled newspaper and to-do lists for a few weeks, now. Nobody likes moving, but a fascinating (and very depressing) aspect of it, is that cleaning up your crap puts your life in perspective like nothing else.

I threw an astronomical number of things to the garbage. Things I used to love at one point in my life, which made me wonder who the fuck was I, all these years ago? I threw away:

• Computer games I have never really played. Games like M.A.X (Mechanized Assault and Exploration), which I had paid 3,99$ at a game store in Quebec City during my teenage years. It's a broken fucking game. It doesn't WORK. Back then, I bought any games if it was cheaper than ten dollars. What kind of thinking was that? Same thing for the cereal box video games. I bought the cereals to get the games (mostly digitalized board games like Monopoly or Sorry!) and I barely played the games. Oh and I didn't like the cereal either. Cheerios are overrated.

•  I sold 94 books (as I previously said on Twitter). I'm not sure why I kept for so long books that teachers twisted my arm into liking. I'm sorry Ousmane Sembene, you paint a very colorful portrait of your people, but I don't understand your struggle. Maybe it's the translation or maybe I should've been there. I'm sorry, but somebody else will give you a better shelf life than me, I hope. Meanwhile, I'm making more place for bleak and violent novels on my shelves. I feel like I'm abandoning a puppy at the SPA, but I'm sure it'll pass.

• Things I didn't know I had. A container full of winter clothing for girls, a weird curtain made out of wooden beads. A fucking Nickelback CD. I had a Nickelback CD gathering dust in my locker and I don't know how it got there. It's like a vagrant have been living in my unused things for five years. That or I have a multiple personality disorder and my second personality is an Siberian transvestite with a really bad taste in music.

• DVDs I bought when VHS were going out of business and DVDs were the cool thing to have. DEATH TO SMOOCHY, goddamit. I have a DVD of DEATH TO SMOOCHY. I'm ashamed of myself. When was I into Nickelback and bad movies?  I wanted to crawl under a rock when I saw that. I counted that I had 37 DVDs that I was completely bonkers to buy. I think I just wanted to have a collection. But I have a DVD collection now, without all this garbage. The worst part is that I don't have the Quebec Cinema Office sticker on them, so I can't sell them. They will find the sidewalk and a new owner as soon as the temperature will go

You get the point. It's like twilight zone to me. When I'll wake up in my new place on January 29th, I won't just feel the disorientation of waking up in a different place (because this is a radically different apartment. Better, in my opinion, but different), I'll feel like being a different person altogether. All these things I collected and I was so secluded in my little world that I thought I was really cool for collecting them. Not. I spent a lot of time I usually spend writing at packing up stuff, filling up paperwork, buying new things, making phone calls and cleaning things up, but in two weeks it's gonna be all good. 

Because the new place is rad. There's a backyard in there that would make Francis Scott Fitzgerald jealous and most importantly I will have a writing office with nothing but a table, a computer and a lot of books. The lighting in there is also pretty badass. It will be the first time I have my own space to write. Especially at night. I am stoked to move there. But getting there is an epic journey in itself.

Book Review : Pearce Hansen - Gun Sex (2011)

Country: USA

Genre: Crime

Pages: 215 kb (eOriginal)

Buy It Here

Dad had loomed over my life like an evil moon since I was a small boy.

I'm a sucker for unique and original things. My friends all think I'm deranged for preferring Monica Raymund to Kim Kardashian, but here's the thinking behind that. I prefer a girl that's beautiful in her own way and who looks like nobody else I know, rather than a patchwork of plastic surgeries. I know it's a shoddy metaphor, but it's the best way I can describe the work of Pearce Hansen. He's a guy who does his own thing. He writes with the manic passion of a 19th century author. In some stories, I could see glimpses of Alexandre Dumas' tattered heroes, walking the dangerous streets of America. GUN SEX is old school literature, like the ghost of another era that haunts our streets. While not all the stories hit the right notes, when Hansen does get the words right, you're in for some of the most peculiar and seducing fiction.

I have this theory about reading, that every writer has a core. A reason why they write, that directs their stories into a particular direction. It's not always evident where Pearce Hansen is going while reading GUN SEX, but it is there. He does show his core in the Speedy and Reseda stories. There are four of them. GIRL CRAZY, I WAS A PSYCHIC FRIEND (NO REALLY, I WAS), THE DAY HE RAISED and CARNY LOVE. These stories are all tied to his subsequent novel STREET RAISED and the beauty of those is the world that Pearce Hansen created. This Picaresque vision of America where freedom is a double edged blade, where trouble is always riding coattails to pleasure. You have to be strong and fearless to survive in Pearce Hansen's world.

I've been in enough hospitals and emergency rooms to know most people find it preferable not to be there. Pain and fear seem to hang in the air like a cloud, almost overwhelming the reek of medicine - I always imagine illness glued to the walls by the industrial paint, or hovering invisible in the air waiting for prey. There's usually blood too, but I haven't let that bother me much in a long time.

My favorite story in the collection was THE DAY HE RAISED, which is also the first chapter of STREET RAISED, where Speedy is released from jail into the gloomy streets of the neighborhood. It's a surreal vision that somehow reminded me the stories of Lovecraft and yet this is a realistic story. I would go as far as calling THE DAY HE RAISED masterful. Not all the stories are, though. The horror stories (most of them are at the beginning) don't quite fit the bill in GUN SEX and except for one (THE STORM GIANTS). I thought they weren't on par with the crime stories. Kudos for Pearce Hansen for writing outside of his comfort zone, but horror is not his thing. This unique blend of crime and classic adventure fiction is. Hansen is most comfortable when he's most unique and different.

There are other stories worth mention here. TOM RIPLEY: A SPECTRE PROFILE, while not being serious, was a nice wink to Patricia Highsmith and shows a very good understanding or the character. PARAPLEGIC KILLER CHIMP is a very cool bizarro piece that will leave you scarred for a little while. GREATER THAN THE SUM also, while being hard to categorize, is quite the charmer. Pearce Hansen is a writer that does things his own way and GUN SEX reflects just that. His voice is unique and while it won't please everybody, I thought his classic literature approach to crime fiction was a fresh way to look at the genre. I liked GUN SEX, but it didn't sold me to Pearce Hansen completely. If anything though, it hinted that STREET RAISED might just do that. It is next in line in my Kindle queue and it's looking at me with dirty eyes right now. Should you check out GUN SEX? Absolutely. If you need a change of pace, a unique voice. It's only 99 cents and it has some scorching stories for you.

Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross & Karen O - Immigrant Song

Not everybody has been crazy about the idea of an American remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (David Fincher or not), but everybody's been going crazy over this cover of Led Zeppelin's IMMIGRANT SONG by the Reznor/Ross duo, featuring vocals by Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Reznor is really reinventing himself with this soundtrack gig. His music is highly visual. Here it is for you, to kick start your Sunday morning. Notice how I left the "Ahs" and the "Ohs" out of the lyrics.

Oh and here's a real life Jean-Claude Van Damme moment that happened yesterday, to complement your enjoyment of this song.

Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Karen O - IMMIGRANT SONG

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
to fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop
And rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite of all your losing.


 

Needle Magazine and Other News

Look at this baby. It's the work of publicity professional, author extraordinaire and Needle's creative director John Hornor Jacobs. Under the list of featured writers, third from the bottom, who's name do you see? That's right, mine! I submitted my story ORDO AD CHAO to Needle last summer and after going through editing I am proud to finally feature in one of the most badass and reputable crime fiction magazines AND in print, on top of that. Those guys are legit. I'm not sure when this hits the shelves, but expect to find a link for purchase on this site.

 Oh yeah and...

....check THIS out! Finally, after two or three years of searching the world for this novel, I got my hands on it. To illustrate how difficult it is to find DOG SOLDIERS, this is a LIBRARY BOOK, with a plastic reinforcement on the cover and code tags on the spine. How insane is that? I first thought this was a stolen book, exchanged by a crackhead for crack money, but apparently it's that libraries in the U.S have a policy to sell books that have spent more than a year unchecked. That explains how some books get lost in the world. 

Anyway, big big BIG thank you to writer and Dead End Follies reader Linda Rodriguez, who helped me get my hands on it and also big thanks to her friend for pointing me out to Alibris to find a copy. I also picked up a copy of THE CONTORTIONIST'S HANDBOOK for my reading challenge. Friend of Linda, I'm sorry I don't remember your name, but you're cool. Thank you!

Book Review : Chuck Klosterman - IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas (2006)

Country: USA

Genre: Non-Fiction/Essays

Pages: 398

Britney's secret garden will not be seen this afternoon, or at least not seen by me. All her pictures are ultimately shot behind a fifteen-foot-high opaque partition, and nary a heterosexual man is allowed behind its wall. Apparently the reason I am here is to be reminded that the essence of Birtney Spears' rawest sexuality is something I will never seen even though I know it's there. This is why I am a metaphor for America and this is also why Britney Spears is a metaphor for the American Dream.

          It's a minor tragedy in the American cultural landscape that Chuck Klosterman is considered a literary eccentricity. Really, I don't know why his books aren't ferociously discussed on national television, chic intellectual cafes and internet message boards is beyond me. Here's a guy who takes REAL pop culture (not abstract concepts) and deconstructs it for you to understand with a classy but straightforward approach. Writers like Klosterman are literally a physical link in between Academia and the normal world, something most people have given up on. IV: A DECADE OF CURIOUS PEOPLE AND DANGEROUS IDEAS is more of a greatest hits rather than a book of new material, but I'd say it's Klosterman in a tip-top shape. More mature, serious, focused and a little bit darker (oh yeah, I went there). It's a little scattered, but I'm not going to complain about a four hundred pages greatest hits.

         The book is separated in three sections: Things That Are True (Portraits and whatnot), Things That Might Be True (essays, mostly short ones he wrote for Esquire) and Something That Isn't True At All (a semi-autobiographical novella). The portraits section starts off with a roar, with Britney Spears and Bono. While Klosterman does his journalist job at making the personality of his subject transpire through his piece, he adds his trademark subjective remarks and this is what made these articles take a life of their own. You see that 1) he's an honest guy and 2) he has a rather big pair of balls. While most journalist would have droned through an interview with Britney Spears out of pure respect for her superstar status, Klosterman questioned her about "the concept of the wet-hot virgin" that she was marketed on. The answers she gives reveal a darker side of Britney that I had never seen before in interview. 

        Not all the Things That Are True pieces are good, I thought the articles on Disneyland's goth day and the celebrated rock cruise one were too observational and a little flat and some others like DEBRIEFING AGENT ZERO, on NBA's official madman Gilbert Arenas were great but extremely short. Most pieces are worth a read. The portraits of Radiohead and Wilco's singer Jeff Tweedy are done in a  super respectful way and I thought it was really cool to see Klosterman interview bands he had a genuine interest for. That leads us to the Things That Might Be True section, which was considerably shorter, but had some nice surprises.

I refuse to discuss abortion with anyone who is pro-life or pro-choice; I refuse to discuss affirmative action with any unemployed white guy or any unemployed black guy. All the world's stupidest people are either zealots of atheists. If you want to truly deduce how intelligent someone is, just ask this person how they feel about any issue that doesn't have an answer; the most certainty they express, the less sense they have. This is because certainty only comes from dogma.

       Boom. I have often criticized Klosterman's ironic stance in reviews and discussions in the past, but it's almost absent from the Things That Might Be True section. Most of his essays are from an column he had in Esquire, where he tackled general pop culture issues and in most of them he shows a relentless passion and yes, even a darker side. The quote is from a piece he wrote on the Olympics and the hypocrisy of partisanship of something you don't care about (he gives for example Women's 3000 M race), just because the athletes compete under your national banner. Klosterman, a long time sports enthusiast, explains there what partisanship means to him and one has to realize it's a deep relationship*. NOT GUILTY, where he slams the concept of guilty pleasure is also an absolute delight to read.

       The novella at the end is a puzzling piece, not only because it's short, but because it's fast paced, manic and nothing much happens. There's not much material to talk about, except that you should expect me to review DOWNTOWN OWL, his first full novel, sooner than later and this novella has something to do about this decision.

       Pop Culture might not be important for you. Maybe it's just something that is, like water for fishes **.  To me, it's something alive, that constantly changes and evolves, but that keeps trying to sell things to me. So, I find it important to remain aware and critical about it. If Pop Culture would be a river, Chuck Klosterman would be that biologist that gauges the pollution levels. IV: A DECADE OF CURIOUS PEOPLE AND DANGEROUS IDEAS is particularly satisfying, because Klosterman left his overbearing hipster irony at the door while writing it***.  It's also a good place to start with him, because he's at his most presentable. Writing for magazines will do that to you, you will remain polite, objective and professional. Klosterman does all that while keeping his inquisitive edge. IV: A DECADE OF CURIOUS PEOPLE AND DANGEROUS IDEAS is my favorite book of his, so far.

* While I understand that, this piece might offend some people. In both case, it's polarizing.

** Oh yeah, I went there. Again

*** He's still funny, but it's not judgmental.

The Radiohead Experiment

Rock N' Roll is my favorite music. Since I do not play any instrument, the important factors for me when I listen to a song are 1) enjoyment 2)the possible ways I can make this song a metaphor for my life*  and 3)Coherence. I find the technical aspect of music irrelevant since it's not something I seek to understand and I find there are ways to re-invent yourself without getting gradually more complicated. Nirvana for example, have released IN UTERO, because NEVERMIND made their genre mainstream, but when it was released it was everything but mainstream to begin with. So they found a sound that was coherent with their musical philosophy, while being as far as possible as you would expect.

These three criteria make it very difficult for me to enjoy Radiohead. I am unsure why some rock critics call them "the most important band since The Beatles". I've never seen footage of frenzied women at a Radiohead concert. I have stopped hearing their songs on the radio after OK COMPUTER. I fail to see the movement they created like The Beatles did when they turned to psychedelic drugs. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place. That's why I feel like I'm missing something here. That I'm not trying hard enough. So, in an attempt to overcome my cynicism and hop on the bandwagon, I force fed myself three Radiohead albums during a day, trying to understand what it is that I missed. The three albums are OK COMPUTER, KID A and HAIL TO THE THIEF, arguably the three most talked about albums of the band. Notice that I selected albums that came after THE BENDS, when they started getting weird (and "important"). I don't have anything against THE BENDS. I actually like the record.

OK Computer (1997)

All right, I recognize this. This is still rock. Fuck, some of those songs are worse than grinding nails on a chalkboard. LET DOWN or THE TOURIST for example. Ugh. This makes me realize that most of my beef with Radiohead is because of this album of depressed music for depressed people. Even then, it's way too docile for me to listen when I'm depressed. I have to admit some songs were a nice surprise. CLIMBING UP THE WALLS for example wasn't bad at all and NO SURPRISES is holding up well as a baseline for Radiohead's legacy. I can't like this album though, because there is a direct link in between OK COMPUTER and the existence of Coldplay. I would have probably said the same thing about The Smiths if I was born ten years earlier.

Kid A (2000)

This is...unsettling. Chuck Klosterman described Radiohead's music as pre-apocalyptic math rock and this is....pretty much that. A lot of electronic noise here. I am surprised that it leaves me that cold, because I like this kind of sonority. I am a Throbbing Gristle fan, so I should find a little place in my head for the sound of KID A, but I don't. It just leaves me cold. I can't discern any tangible feeling except maybe numbness. BUT, I have to give something to KID A. It has my favorite Radiohead song since JUST**. It's a song called OPTIMISTIC. It's a really good song and I have no idea what it's doing on this album. I understand the feelings on this song. I'm not surprised it received more airtime than any other songs on this album, including the single IDIOTEQUE.

Hail To The Thief (2003)

This is a little more intelligible than KID A, and yet it is a lot more chaotic. This is moved by a strong desire to experiment. The song structure is all jumbled up, not unlike free jazz. While there wasn't any songs I openly disliked, there was nothing I went crazy over either. Thom Yorke cited Thomas Pynchon as an influence for writing this album and it makes sense because I don't understand much about both. It's conceptually very heavy and I don't have the capacity to decode the subtext, to listen to the music, appreciate the shifts in tempo and rock out all at once. HAIL TO THE THIEF makes me feel simple minded, but it doesn't make me want to worship Thom Yorke or Johnny Greenwood. It's just slightly frustrating, which is the way I feel when I listen to intellectual prog rock.

Conclusion: I understand Radiohead a little better. What they have been doing over the six years where they produced those three albums*** is to constantly work at trumping expectations. Whenever one of their albums had tremendous success, they started working on something that was completely different without being the total opposite. It takes balls to do this, I have to admit. What bugs me is that I can't find any coherence, anything "Radiohead-like" in their sound from album to album. I can, from PABLO HONEY to OK COMPUTER, but after that, zilch. 

It's especially the case for HAIL TO THE THIEF. I understand better why I'm not crazy about them also. They operate in a paradigm I don't care about. They represent a generation of musicians with degrees in music that have this quasi-scientific dedication to exploring the craft. My tastes are too primitive or should I say not evolved enough? I grew up on radio, MTV and music that fit patterns. What I like in music are patterns. Musical patterns, artistic vision and evolution within a frame on thought. Radiohead aren't necessarily bad, they're just not doing that. This might also explain why most of the music I listen to is from before 2000. Has this experiment brought me anything? Yes. Next time Radiohead plays, I might not run out of the room.

* See Motörhead - Killed By Death, which fills out the three requirements. 

** Back when you know, they were a rock band.


*** I'm aware that I skipped AMNESIAC, thank you.