I recently picked up Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles. Again. I couldn't get past the first twenty pages when I started it a few years ago. This time was tough, too; I had just finished Journey to the End of the Night, which was punchy and mean. Schulz is positively flowery by comparison. One passage has inspired me to read on, though; it involves the narrator's father giving a lecture on the creative impulse. Here are a few choice lines:
"We are not concerned," he said, "with long-winded creations, with long-term beings. Our creatures will not be heroes of romances in many volumes. Their roles will be short, concise; their characters - without a background. Sometimes, for one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort to bring them to life. We openly admit: we shall not insist either on durability or solidity of workmanship; our creations will be temporary, to serve for a single occasion. ... The Demiurge was in love with consummate, superb, and complicated materials; we shall give priority to trash. We are simply entranced and enchanted by the cheapness, shabbiness, and inferiority of material. ... Demiurge, that great master and artist, made matter invisible, made it disappear under the surface of life. We, on the contrary, love its creaking, its resistance, its clumsiness. We like to see behind each gesture, behind each move, its inertia, its heavy effort, its bearlike awkwardness."
ERICH VON KNEIP: Roy Orbison grandiosity and David Lynch mystery played by a miniature jazz orchestra.
CAT HAIR ENSEMBLE: Some of the old club-footed waltzes, some re-arrangements of a couple rarely-played numbers, and one new tune that I'll probably murder. Seat of the pants, friends.
In addition, I will be spinning some CDs at the beginning and end of the evening, as well as between all the bands. I got my hands on some Turkish garage rock, some weird old German cabaret, and a bunch of Soviet jazz, so we may just have a rockin' international dance party on our hands.
21 and over, please. Bands start at 9:00 PM. There is probably a modest cover (under $10). Street parking is plentiful.
I tend to mumble, so in case you were curious, here are the lyrics to one of the songs on our profile.
This Year I'm Using a Knife
I sat at my window and wasted A perfectly good Saturday I'm not even sure I like coffee But I drank a whole pot anyway I think that the winter is coming But the seasons out here are so flat I think that I woke up this morning But no one can verify that
I'm here in my little subcompact The car's off and I'm still alive It seems that I've gotten home safely But I don't remember the drive And then there's a realization That brings on a couple of tears Honestly, I don't remember Much from the last several years
The holiday season's upon us And the wolves all line up at the door I still need to clean out the toilet Before I can open the store At home I can fear for my future But here I must fear for my life Last year, I killed them with kindness This year, I'm using a knife
(If anyone knows where to find P. Ramlee recordings here in the U.S., please let me know. I found a guy in the U.K. who has some, but with the dollar in the crapper at the moment, I can't afford to pay twenty or thirty pounds plus shipping for a single CD.)
And here's Chinese singer and movie star Zhou Xuan singing one of her most famous songs:
(Magic Band alum Gary Lucas does a really nice version of this song on his album The Edge of Heaven.)
The history of the whole Chinese pop tradition is pretty interesting. American trumpeter Buck Clayton, who would go on to play with Count Basie, Lester Young, and Billie Holiday, went to Shanghai in the early '30s and ended up hanging out with a Chinese songwriter named Li Jinhui. Li took aspects of the American jazz and big band sounds he learned from Clayton and applied them to the songs he was writing in Chinese. The result was, in my opinion, one of the cooler Eastern/Western musical fusions.
Here are couple from Finland:
And here's my main man, Leonid Utesov.
Man, I'm still surprised by all the cool stuff there is to dig up out there in the world. Humanity, don't you ever stop being awesome, you hear? Love ya. (P.S.: YouTube, you ain't so bad yourself.)
Hubba hubba! A dreamy antique store special. Great action, padded back, mute. (Insert sexist joke here). Tight bellows, loud voice, and only a couple of slightly dodgy reeds. Sorry, wheezy clacky black Moreschi; you've been replaced.
I just found a website that reprinted, in its entirety, Kurt Vonnegut's short story "The Big Space Fuck". It was originally published in Harlan Ellison's sci-fi anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. It's kind of like a Vonnegut b-side. And just as I think Dead Letter Office is REM's best album, I also think "The Big Space Fuck" is one of Vonnegut's best stories. It's like sneaking into the kitchen at the tail end of your parent's party and getting to hear dirty jokes from a half-drunk relative or family friend that you've always thought was super cool.
Read it here. It's short and fun. Whoever keyed the whole story in made a few typos, but don't let that distract you. Let me know what you think.
I just dug up this lil' treasure at a local antique shop:
As the cover says, it's "A DO NOT OVEREAT NURSERY PICTURE BOOK" called The Life and Death of Rich Mrs. Duck. This cautionary tale told in verse concerns an obese duck who eats until she's dizzy, sends for a doctor, and then...well, read for yourself:
(SPOILER ALERT!)
"But the Doctor at once, without much ado, Commenced blistering and bleeding, with an emetic or two; And, just as he though his patient looked better, She gave a roll of the eyes and a terrible flutter, Then fell on her back, and then on her side, Gave an awful loud quack - a struggle - and died."
Oh, snap!
When she's buried by her "friends", they give her a tombstone that reads, "Here lies Mrs. Duck, the greedy old glutton."
Double snap!
Friends, I think we've found the book that will end childhood obesity once and for all.
