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How quick new songs become old. Nine years already since this record came out! Hard to believe. I wish I could roll back time to 1997. But whatever the year, it's true that I can still find amazing magic in these notes, these strained guitars and ambiguous lyrics. I still put on my headphones and it seems like I'm somewhere else - living another life.

"I can't get that sound you make out of my head. I can't even figure out what's making it. no one else around even seems to be noticing. it's only small enough for me."

I'm kind of excited about the new Built to Spill record coming out next month, even though it couldn't possibly be half this good - half as good as what has passed. But that's the way it always goes, isn't it? 10:15 AM >>> 0 comments

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Ian McEwan's Saturday provides a thoughtful day long peek into the life of a neurosurgeon in his late 40s during the February 2003 lead up to the beginning of the Iraq War. He is deeply devoted to his wife and two grown children - his son a blues guitarist and his daughter about to have her first poetry book published. His father-in-law, already a successful poet, but drunken, aging and difficult is coming to town. While his mother, committed to an old folks home, is lost deep into her own world of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. The book is filled with so many complicated and convincing details it reads like an autobiography, though clearly it isn't. It's obviously a well researched book, and if it has one key weakness, it's that McEwan seems slightly too eager to overstuff the book with sometimes excessively boring detail, as if to prove he has done his homework. Particularly early in the book, it seems like he spends too much time covering the operating procedures of the previous week, as Perowne thinks over them again in his mind, staring out his bedroom window, unable to sleep. Exactly when a book should be working to draw the reader in to the story, this overly detailed meditation came close to forcing me to give up, lost in a torrent of uninteresting surgical data. In a way, McEwan's endless accumulation of detail, and stream of consciousness tangental wandering reminds one of Nicholson Baker's occasionally mind-numbingly fussy writing techniques. In Saturday though, I think McEwan is somewhat more successful, partially because he's also considerable more ambitous - and generally more interesting, more thoughtful and more human. Although the book is short, less then three hundred pages, it manages to tackle many of the concerns of being alive and major problems plaguing the world today. What family means, the rise of Islamic terrorism post 9/11, growing old, medical care, drug use, street crime, employment, music, art, etc. It's most particularly concerned with the United States led war against Iraq. The push to war. The indecision of - war is obviously bad, but getting rid of Saddam Hussein, a brutal dictator, would probably be a good thing, but perhaps what might happen after could be worse (though it could be better too). These questions about the case of United States vs. Iraq, to some extent, still haven't been answered three bloody years later. It's that the book's major and minor concerns aren't yet dated that's one of the books key surprises. We're still caught in these issues - and will be for a long time yet. One of the main values of Saturday is in providing a chance for us to continue to think on this shit, which we probably should be spending more time thinking about and trying to grasp more comprehensively (while trying not to get too obsessed about things we can do nothing about). I ended up finding this thoughtful book surprising moving. 10:43 AM >>> 2 comments

The number of books I’d like to read that I’ve never read before seems to be endless. It’s impossible to even make a dent in the pile. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is another one of those thousands of books I wish I’d read long ago. An essential book for those hoping to at least get some kind of a grasp on the best of English literature. Originally published in 1847, it’s the perfect example of an epic story, one woman’s story, that is still plenty capable of moving us today - playing equally in the fields of emotions and ideas. Most importantly, it’s just a frightfully good yarn. The major characters are memorably rendered, especially Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. The more haunted aspects of the story were perhaps the parts I loved best. The spiritual aspect, and I think the subtle way it showed religion can be used to control people for the bad as well as the good, was particularly interesting, even if it may have been unintentional. The prose is alive, modern and often dazzling. And the conclusion is remarkable satisfying. This is one of those great, long books that one can get lost in - a book that can move into your dreams. 6:30 PM >>> 1 comments

Lately I’ve been more than a little burned out on movies - preferring to spend my time reading endlessly in my stacked to the moon to be read pile or listening to the baroque music of Bach or Rameau. Living where I live, it’s perhaps too easy to become revolted by the star system and worse than bland box-office fare, empty March chatter re: Oscar and other related or tangential bullshit associated with leaving the apartment for coffee / breakfast in the morning (shoulda stayed home). Re-watching movies like Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher can help to break the impasse. Utterly brilliant, and completely the opposite of this town’s oppressive but pathetic box office fare, films like this easily renew one’s faith in this bastard and possibly hopelessly compromised medium. Challenging, disgusting, artful and mesmerizing, La Pianist paints a complex Hieronymus Bosch-like portrait of humanity, that disturbs while renewing our faith in the medium of film’s worth - that forces (pleasurably / painfully) this viewer to acknowledge again - cinema is not completely without merit after all. Of course, this in no Hollywood film - and all I can add is, thank God for that. 11:49 PM >>> 0 comments

Len Jenkin’s N Judah was a bit of a disappointment. Basically it was one of those books I was attracted to simply because of the title. Named after the rail line I used to ride out to my first room in San Francisco 1992, I really couldn’t resist. A lot of the action also takes place in New Orleans, a city I’ve never lived in, but so far have spent more time in than any other city I’ve never lived in, except for New York. The New Orleans, that I guess has vanished. Unfortunately for the book, Jenkin’s New Orleans recalls the New Orleans of Confederacy of Dunces, a book I wasn’t super into, however a book that outshines N Judah in every way, but particularly in its depiction of New Orleans.

A San Francisco woman finds out that her son, who she hasn’t talked to in at least five years, has died in a hit and run accident in New Orleans. She doesn’t have the money to fly out to the funeral, but an old friend shows up from out of town, sells his car and they use the proceeds to fly out for the funeral after all. While in New Orleans they try to find out the truth of what had become of the woman’s son. They meet a variety of eccentric types, whose stories don’t really fit together. Somebody is lying, or maybe everybody is lying. The truth is elusive. The novel takes on more and more of the feel of a failed pitch for a Hollywood movie, which is part of the problem. As the “mystery” slowly reveals itself, one thinks - shit I’ve seen this before in a hundred bad movies, Saturday afternoon. N Judah never transcends that feeling, that Jenkin might have actually written this book only after failing to sell the treatment to Hollywood. One wonders why they would have passed, since the book reads just like the perfectly acceptable middle of the road picture they’ve been cranking out for decades. I’m surprised to see this book was released by Green Integer - generally an interesting publisher. 12:01 PM >>> 0 comments

Wow - what a great book! Today, after just finishing, it seems like the best contemporary novel I’ve yet to read. It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s intense, funny and sometimes really sad, yet most importantly, always utterly captivating. Originally published in 2001, Jonathan Coe’s The Rotters’ Club is a lot more than just another coming of age novel that the cover makes it look like. Set in the heart of the seventies, in Birmingham, England, the story circles around a small group of friends in a boy’s school, their siblings and parents. Sometimes I thought it was one of the book’s weaknesses that there were so many characters, as occasionally I became confused who was who or exactly how again they were related to whoever, but really it doesn’t matter. By diffusing his stories focus, Coe is able to present a more compelling portrait of those times - a more communal portrait. It’s a gambit that works. The portrait is amazing rich. Not only of Birmingham, not only of school kids growing up somewhat sheltered, but their parent’s relationship struggles and adventures, and job situations in something of a factory town and changing world. The Rotters’ Club is also an ode to the power of storytelling, and demonstrates again - how the novel remains the most successful tool for capturing time in a compelling, comprehensive and personal manner. Now - the sequel. 9:36 AM >>> 1 comments

Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Price of Salt, from 1952, does a great job of capturing the era - in particular, it’s a sympathetic portrayal of an somewhat innocent / naive / young nineteen year-old, New York girl, working in a department store as Christmas help, while dreaming of starting her career in set design off-Broadway, who isn’t in love with the boy who loves her and ends up falling in love with a somewhat older woman who is going through a painful divorce. This was only Highsmith’s second novel (she wrote over twenty) and occasionally it does feel like she’s trying a little too hard - the prose is amazingly careful observed, but perhaps now and then slightly forced. But the major characters are well realized, and feel very much like real people. And I think the book does a really great job of capturing the confusing feelings of falling madly in love, of dreaming about mixing your life into another persons, while never really being able to be sure what’s going through that other person’s mind (maybe they’re just playing with you? etc). The later half of the book takes place out on the road, and again, does a wonderful job of capturing that feeling of driving driving and driving across America, small towns and endless highways of unlimited possibility. And the possibility to find out who you really are, what kind of life you want to lead. 9:03 PM >>> 0 comments

Originally published in 1939, Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys is an amazing, little book. Actually the first of her books I’ve read, and I was really into it - more than any book I’ve read recently, and recently I’ve been reading a lot of really good books. The prose is twisty, introverted and stunningly bleak. It’s sort of an interior monologue of an aging, drunken, slightly mad woman, staying in a modest Paris hotel for two weeks - as she wanders through the streets, through some bars and through a couple of men - while her mind seems to be trying to sort out her own past, failed relationship & one dead baby. Mostly though, the book is a lot of drinking (and not much eating). In that sense, it reminded me a bit of a sort of proto-Bukowski. Perhaps a little more weepy, but who doesn’t like a book about a woman constantly staring at herself in a bar bathroom mirrors and breaking into tears? Really, the book is amazingly honest and powerful, and I’ve never read another that was quite like it. Courageously depressing. 6:15 PM >>> 0 comments

Nancy Mitford’s biography of Madame de Pompadour from 1953 is chatty, gossipy and entertaining, but most importantly it provides an interesting introduction to the court of Louis XV. Madame de Pompadour was one of the King of France’s many mistresses, but seemingly the most important - and they lived and apparently worked together throughout the mid-1700’s for almost twenty years (she died at just forty). This was not a great period - especially during the seven year war that engulfed Europe and led to the deaths of more that one million people. Of course, for the most part, life in court seems very detached, mostly caught up in a bizarre world of manners and regulations, with plenty of lavish parties, dances, hunts, meals, house building and late nights of gambling vast fortunes. It was also a period of a horrible rate of infant mortality - in fact, it seems like every few pages of the book another baby or child dies, there’s another miscarriage, or another mother dies giving birth - really quite a death toll on that front alone. Thankfully that’s one area where civilization has made some progress. And of course now everybody can, to some extent, be their own king and / or queen. Occasionally a weird bias comes through in Mitford’s tale, an opinion expressed that seems a little zongo, but at the same time, these personal asides help to give the book a little more zest. A little bias can be a good thing, instead of your usual, dry attempt to please all readers, that can too often bleed the life out of a biography or historical work. 7:22 PM >>> 0 comments

Patrick Hamilton’s well written novel from 1941, Hangover Square, is set in London (and Brighton) on the eve of WWII (the novel ends the day after Germany invades Poland), but focuses on a group of professional drinkers. In particular it’s a tale of a slightly dim man’s obsession with a beautiful, slightly cruel, self-involved woman, who dreams of making it into the theater world. This slightly dim man also has a bad case of the schizophrenia. While one half of his personality is gentle and hopelessly foolishly in love - the other half, supposedly his slow side, seems to realize the truth of his situation, but unfortunately sees murder as his only way out. Hamilton’s prose does a great job of rendering the thoughts of his main character, which circle repetitively around the same subjects - trying to make sense of his life and his difficult split personality. Occasionally this repetition can get a bit tiresome, and the main character’s dimness can become somewhat frustrating - nonetheless - both of these minor annoyances are probably essential to effectively convey the main character’s inner world. The book’s greatest pleasure though is its wonderful evocation of the drinker’s milieu. I mean, who the hell could resist a book called Hangover Square? 10:03 AM >>> 0 comments

It seems like we’re finally starting to get some nice Kenji Mizoguchi films out on DVD with English subtitles. Two more thanks to a new R2 PAL set from Film Sans Frontieres (and supposedly two more on the way shortly). I’ve just watched The Crucified Lovers and am happy to report that the quality of the transfer is very good. More importantly - the film is very good, and it was one of the, unfortunately, many of Mizoguchi’s movies I’d never seen before. From 1954, it’s a period picture set in the 17th century - apparently a heavily regulated era in Japanese history in which the state and following the rules was all that counted. From the title, one could guess - this isn’t going to be a happy picture. The somewhat complicated story involves a highly important printer with a mean streak, his wife and her eventual involvement with their best worker. Why they fall in love, I don’t know - but fall they do - into that deep crazy love. And eventually they find themselves on the run. Loving each other too much even to commit double suicide (the honorable solution!), sadly, due to the insane laws of the time - an even worse fate, of course, awaits them upon capture. Really, the picture has a sort of a fable feeling to it. A beautiful, doomed fantasy, shot in crisply shadowed black and white. The scenes in the busy printer’s shop, full of motion, work especially well - as characters move about with much purpose - and the flurry of activity is perfectly captured. The later scenes, with the lovers on the run, burn with intensity - the emotion on display and lack of simple freedom is heartbreaking. I’d definitely put The Crucified Lovers in the top rank of Mizoguchi films I’ve now had the pleasure to see. 9:44 PM >>> 0 comments