My Snowman's Ann-i-ver-sa-ry

Yesterday was the first birthday of Little By Little.... He's just adorable. Seems like only yesterday he was learning to sit up straight, taking those first coltish steps, saying his first word ("recoupment," if memory serves). And now he's one. It's been a busy year. He's been released three times, in three different packages by three different labels; he's been downloaded over 150,000 times; and he's basically all paid for. His birth is being commemorated by two excellent filmmakers whose work will soon be visible in the places that show music videos.

Which is more than I can say for his difficult older sibling, King James Version, who also had a birthday yesterday. He's now six years old and we still can't find him anywhere (except in the sleazier corners of the damn internet). I give him some slack, because he was a difficult pregnancy (15 months or so), but when I look at him now, all I see are the forceps scars.

Still, I love him like you always love the thing that causes you the most misery.

We never talk about our eldest.

What Happens to a Meme Deferred?

No one tagged me, but how could I let that stop me? Cut and pasted from dear Ann Powers.

A book that changed my life: Sound and Sense (back-up: Grendel by John Gardner)

A book I've read more than once: The White Album by Joan Didion (back-up: Money by Martin Amis)

A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: I guess you’d be a sucker not to take something huge, and I guess you’d maybe be more of a sucker to take something that you identify too closely with the misery of real life. If there were a complete collected works of Charles Dickens, I would take that—but I would have to make sure that the print was big enough for my increasingly functionless eyes to make sense of. Failing that, I liked the Bullfinch’s Mythology answer by Ms. AP. You want to believe you’d take a collected Shakespeare, but it would be a little oppressive after a while. Norton Anthology? Definitely fiction. Definitely big.

A book that made me laugh: The last time I read Portnoy’s Complaint (in a thatch-roof hut on a tiny island in the South Pacific) I laughed so hard it scared the lizards away and made the Aussies wonder if perhaps I had a few ‘roos loose in the top paddock.

A book that made me cry: Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction (both stories, different reasons)

A book that I wish had been written: My Effortless Brilliance, by Sean Nelson.

A book I wish had never been written: I don’t care. How can you wish a book un-written? So harsh. I mean, The Bible, because of all the terrible things people have done because of it (like, uh, believing it), but then, you could also basically wipe away 75% of all Western culture with it. Maybe Illusions by Richard Bach? But only because of all the theater girls I loved in high school who made me pretend to read it. The Celestine Prophecy (a/k/a The Philistine Heresy)? For Common Things by Jedediah Purdy (what a d-bag!)?

A book I've been meaning to read: Everything by Don DeLillo. I tried to read White Noise and thought it was awful, like a Stanley Kramer movie or something—relevant to its time, maybe, but painful now. Then I read Running Dog and thought it was great. So now I reckon I’ll try Libra.

I'm currently reading: Patrimony by Philip Roth, Libra by Don DeLillo

A Book I Wish I'd Written: I feel that way about every book. And every song. And every film. To the extent that when I don’t like something, I even feel relieved, like, well, it’s probably ok that I didn’t write that, even though it’s reprehensible that I’m not writing, even now. The feeling is more like “I wish I were capable of having written that.” Most recently, most palpably: The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem.

Two Additional Words:

Scritti Politti!

I know, right? I may just be believing some hype, but just lately I'm having a very hard time not listening to this:



I don't know how I feel about the voice, but the melodies and words and textures are fantastic. And there's something really irresistible about the narrative arc of a band that starts as fake Gang of Four, then becomes fake white plastic soul, and now re-emerges as this bizarre lo-fi Beach Boys harmonics plus literate pop dialectics. Comme c'est beezarre, non? I'm going to need to investigate. (But not before I finish listening to Gene Wilder reading his own autobiography.) How exciting!

In other news, I only barely remember them from the '80s. I definitely remember the band name, which seemed silly even then, but "Perfect Way" rings only the faintest top-40-radio-station-on-the-school-bus-ride-to-Colina-and/or-Westlake bell when I listen now. I do remember seeing stacks and stacks of the tape of Cupid and Psyche '85 when my friends Ken and Howard took me to K-Mart for the first time, in 1987, which was sort of like when Jeff made me eat SPAM for the first time in 1995: unpleasant. "PW" does sound exactly like the '80s, however, in that weird, airless, hyperprecise, robots-could-have-and-probably-did-play-most-of-the-sounds-you-hear-on-this way. Still, catchy.

Finally, re: Christgau getting fired by the Village Voice (because you need to know how I feel): I keep meaning to think it's really awful and sad, because he really is one of the titans (his review of Brighten the Corners of all Pavement records, returns to me all the time), and there isn't much good, smart writing in the alt-weeklies of the world... But it feels more like a great band getting dropped by a major label. Can anyone lay legitimate claim to being surprised?

(And with that, Creeper Lagoon pops up on the iPod.)

The Trouble with Classicists

So, I was just sitting around, crying (which I find I do all the time now), and listening to this amazing record, which was one of the first truly interesting/out there/"alternative" late-'80s/early '90s (I think it was 1990; it was certainly right near the end of high school) I ever bought and really identified with. And anyway, though the VU remain unimpeachable, and always an intense, amazing source of pleasure, I'm not really sure how I feel about all those Lou solo records I was so painfully, powerfully attached to 10-12 years ago (have you made it all the way through Berlin lately? That record used to blow my mind), and there are probably only three or four Cale solo things I've ever been able to get into in any serious way (and by things I mean songs, not records--part of this is based on the embarrassment of seeing him playing live, not once but twice). Still, Songs For Drella seems like the best of both of these guys. The heavy narrative keeps Lou focused, while the stripped down aesthetic puts Cale's best instrumental instincts on display. The piano work is astounding. Unlike the VU reunion from 92 or whenever it was, this project finds them keeping each other honest. Making music about Andy Warhol, who never really holds my interest in real life, forces them to reckon just how much their entire careers were founded on one charlatan's pop art whim 25 years prior. Reed is so good here, so obviously vulnerable and feeling, but sharp and cold, too. He slips in and out of Andy's voice and his own narration with such purpose and grace, alternately scolding, apologizing to/for, celebrating, and fondly remembering his old sissy svengali. "I Believe" starts off as a screed against Valerie Solanas ("I believe life's serious enough for retribution... I believe I would've pulled the switch on her myself"), but becomes a lament for his own failure to come to his friend's aid at a time of real need ("Andy said, 'I think I died. Why didn't you come to see me?'"); the final refrain—"visit me/ visit me/ visit me/ why didn't you visit me"—is brutal, but perfect. I love how this record sounds like the good things about the '80s. It belongs in the capsule with Spalding Gray, David Lynch, and Spy Magazine, and all those other things I don't remember. It's very white dress shirt with the top button buttoned. I like that, though.