THE CANDY HOUSE by Jennifer Egan

I reserved yesterday afternoon.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/03/29/jennifer-egan-candy-house-book-review/

GIRL IN ICE by Erica Ferencik

Reserved it last night.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/books/review/11-new-books-we-recommend-this-week.html

BRIGHT BURNING THINGS by Lisa Harding

I think I read about this novel in The New York Times. Sounded mildly interesting: about an alcoholic actress. When I picked it up at the library, I saw that it's part of Jenna Bush's book club, which was a huge turnoff because I'm not a fan of her war criminal father.

While reading Bright Burning Things, I recalled the Danish film Applause and Nancy Tucker's debut novel, The First Day of Spring, which I'll buy when it comes out in paperback — looking forward to rereading it one day.

I returned Bright Burning Things after reading 50 pages.

CIVILIZATIONS by Laurent Binet

I persevered through the first 100 pages of this novel before returning it to the library. The premise was enticing (alternate history where South America invades Europe), but the execution was lacking; however, the section with Christopher Columbus' diary entries was entertaining. Maybe I would've finished Civilizations if I did what I do mostly with mystery novels: note first reference of a character, so I can go back to that page number as a refresher when that character pops up later. I dunno, life's too short to slog though boring alt-history; I'd rather read gripping nonfiction.

Montreal B&B

I wanted to document this: place I stayed in Montreal in August 2010 and a few year before . . . maybe November 2007? It was above Casa del Popolo on Saint Laurent Boulevard in the city's Le Plateau-Mont-Royalin section. Loved it! 

R.E.M.'s CHRONIC TOWN

I picked up this EP after Annie Zaleski mentioned it in passing her book on Duran Duran's Rio. Several years ago I picked up every R.E.M. album on CD, up to Out of Time (later I downloaded "Everybody Hurts" from Amazon). Can't believe I never heard of this EP before.

Chronic Town is OK. The version of "Gardening at Night" on Eponymous is better than the one here. I like "1,000,000" with the tom-toms, especially at the end of the song.

I'm going to keep all five tracks of Chronic Town on my iPod. While I doubt I'll listen to it in one sitting, it'll be nice when a song from it pops up on my shuffle. Long live 1982!

Quip #16

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste." That's what I think when someone brags they have an MBA.

Quip #15

The few. The proud. The mask-wearers.

Quip #14

Assholes in Hollywood.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD by Quentin Tarantino

Glad I bought this novelization. Nice exercise in creative writing. It was a little long at 400 pages — at least 50 pages could've been edited down, maybe even 100. I gave 3.5 stars out of 5 over at my LibraryThing account.

I liked how it wasn't just a fleshing out of the screenplay; instead it complements the film. Pretty cool how the ending of the movie pops up around page 100. Plus I enjoyed how it's hinted at how Dalton's (Leonardo DiCaprio's) life turned out after the end credits, in the '70s. And I liked how Tarantino removed ambiguity over the death of Booth's (Brad Pitt's) wife.

While reading Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I recalled Jane Hamsher's Killer Instinct memoir of producing Natural Born Killers, which Tarantino wrote the original screenplay. She said he was overrated and just cut/paste parts from old B movies into his movies. A little cruel but there's some truth to that. For example, the TV show that Dalton guest-stars on, Lancer, actually happened and Tarantino "borrowed" the plot of the pilot. Although it was cool how in the novel he had a couple chapters written like a Wild West yarn, in the vein of Max Brand.

All that said, the ending of the book is great! Much better than the ending of the movie (almost a deus ex machina with its tonal shift). The book's ending is quite uplifting with Dalton and his fellow actor Fraser practicing their lines over the phone before the next day's shoot.

Gotta hand it to Tarantino. His novel is better than when Wes Craven and David Cronenberg took stabs at the art form.

SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel

I reserved it.

https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/books/2022/03/20/spring-books-viola-davis-janelle-monae-molly-shannon/7043530001/

Hoodoo Gurus: CHARIOT OF THE GODS

I was originally going to keep 6 or 7 of the 14 tracks on the Hoodoo Gurus' first album in over 10 years:

• "Early Opener"
• "Get Out of Dodge"
• "Equinox"
• "I Came from Your Future"
• "Don't Try to Save My Soul" (maybe remove this track)
• "Got to Get You Out of My Life"

But now I'm thinking about keeping all of the songs 'cause "Hang with the Girls" is in my head and I like the beginning of "World of Pain". I dunno, at first I thought the album sounded more like their side project, Persian Rugs, than a Gurus album (more straight up '60s than modern rock tinged with that Beatles decade). I guess going in, I was thinking about their previous album, 2010's Purity of Essence — I was so hungry for new songs by them, similar to when Metric's Fantasies came out, that I wasn't objective. Hmm, maybe I'm being too close-minded. After all, they're probably all in their 60s. This might be the last album they ever put out.

Quip #13

I find your ambition appalling.

RIO by Annie Zaleski

What a fun read! Like the official INXS biography, which now I wished I hadn't given away before my two-year jaunt in California, I devoured Duran Duran's Rio in "record" time. At about 140 pages, I read it in under 36 hours over the weekend.

One cool thing about the book is that I heard about R.E.M.'s Chronic Town for the first time, so I bought it off of Amazon. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but looking forward to it.

While reading Rio, I created a Duran instro's playlist (not sure if I'm gonna keep it):

• "Planet Earth (night version" [[first 3 minutes and 26 seconds]]
• "Faith in This Colour"
• "Tiger Tiger (Ian Little Remix)"
• Arcadia's "Rose Arcana" [[5-and-a-half-minute version]]
• Arcadia's "The Flame Game (Yo Homeboy Mix)"
• John Taylor's "Jazz"
• Arcadia's "Say the Word"
• Andy Taylor's "Angel Eyes"
• Andy Taylor's "French Guitar"
• "Flute Interlude"
• "Interlude One"
• "Throb"

Anyway, Zaleski is very good writer. Some of her turn of phrases that sing on the printed page:

. . . Roxy Music's rakish art-pop drama, Bowie's glammy decadence, Chic's throbbing grooves, the lacquered glamour of post-punks Japan, the electronic innovations of both Kraftwerk and early Human League . . . (Chapter 3, "Why Rio Matters", p. 47)

Accordingly, the album possesses colourful bookends: the rainbow-hued bacchanalia of "Rio" beckons listeners into the album, and the enigmatic, dusky-hymn "The Chauffeur" eases them out. (Chapter 3, p.48)

With the clinking sound effects, majestic percussion and Voltaire reference, "Last Chance on the Stairway" puts listeners in the shoes of someone out of their element in a fancy club; "New Religion" is a pause for inward reflection; the buoyant "My Own Way" exemplifies a giddy night out full of possibility; "Hungry Like the Wolf" captures the pulse-pounding feeling of magnetic attraction. (Chapter 3, p. 55)

However, later in the book I took offense over the jibe "the moody rockers the Fixx". I'm a fan of that band, and I think their Beautiful Friction is a million times better than anything Duran has issued post-Notorious.

Nonetheless, props to Zaleski for mentioning that the Rio videos reek of colonialism:

It's clear that everyone involved in the Duran Duran Sri Lanka shoot approached the filming with good intentions and deep respect. That said, in current times, certain aspects of the trip and the resulting music videos wouldn't necessarily be perceived the way they were back in 1982. Contemporary pop culture especially has a more evolved understanding of colonialism and exoticism. Today, artists who choose to film music videos in faraway relative to Europe and the United States, especially white artists who are an ethnic minority in these countries, are often criticized. Even back then, in fact, the "Hungry Like the Wolf" clip received both praise and critique: although The Tampa Tribune in 1982 described the video as "lushly produced," a 1983 Austin-American Statesman column deemed it "racist and sexist." (Chapter 4, "Duran Duran: Video Pioneers", p. 88)

I gave the book 4.5 stars out of 5 at LibraryThing. It was a nice stroll down memory lane. Reminded me of how much great company their records were as I grew up lonely in the conservative '80s, with countless classmates calling Duran "fags".

This was the first book I read in the 33⅓ series. I wishlisted the one on Jawbreaker's 24-Hour Revenge Therapy. Weird how they don't have one on a Cure album . . . then again, Robert Smith helmed several masterpieces (17 Seconds, Pornography, Head on the Door, Disintegration, etc.).

SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT by Kim Newman

I had to give up on this novel after 200 pages. While I'm familiar with 1930's pop culture, I'm not obsessed with it, as apparently the author is. Could have been a half-decent novel with the concept of Boris Karloff and Raymond Chandler solving a supernatural case, but Newman isn't up to the task. There was one interlude, which was supposed to resemble a Black Mask short story, but it felt like filler to me; and the part where Chandler and Karloff visit an asylum then get stuck inside struck me as absurd. Never mind that why didn't their wives and families wonder why they were missing for a week? And the mad movie mogul finances those Frankenstein-like experiments but the law turns a blind eye . . . really?

The book did remind me of the 1990's movie Gods and Monsters, about the last days of Frankenstein director James Whale. I was reading Whale's Wikipedia page and it mentioned the "Karloff cult", which Newman is certainly a member of.

On the plus side, Something More Than Night got me thinking of Chandler's The Big Sleep and Robert B. Parker's Poodle Springs (Chandler's last book that the Spenser author finished). Think I'll reread those two mystery novels.

Smoke Or Fire's THIS SINKING SHIP

Yikes, talk about a sophomore slump. Real drop in quality from Above the City. I wonder if part of it is because Fat Mike didn't produce This Sinking Ship. Though, after reading the lyrics last night, I think the songwriting wasn't just up to snuff, with at least a third of the tunes being about the boredom of touring, and half of the album's songs reeking of self-absorption. That said, I'm keeping three tracks:  "This Sinking Ship", "Irish Handcuffs", and "Life Imitating Art".

I already bought Smoke Or Fire's last two releases on Fat Wreck Chords, Prehistoric Knife Fight and The Speakeasy. I listened to the two tracks on the former Sunday night and liked what I heard (it was to promote the latter). I have a feeling The Speakeasy is going to be a comeback of sorts before they called it quits.

THE PATIENT'S SECRET by Loreth Anne White

I reserved at my library.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/88659-pw-picks-books-of-the-week-march-7-2022.html

ROAD OF BONES by Christopher Golden

Silly reader, modern horror is not entertaining. When will I learn to stop picking up horror novels? Can't believe I used to love the genre in the '80s. I give this novel 2.5 stars outta 5. A little better than Paul Tremblay's Survivor Song, though not much.

Part of the reason I didn't enjoy Road of Bones is because I started reading it at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hard to read about fictional horror when real life is much more heart-breaking.

I'm not a fan of reality television, so the hero of the novel, a failed producer, already had two strikes against him. Also, Bruce Springsteen's music was featured prominently . . . not a fan.

On the plus side, great cover to the hardcover edition, and it's a quick read at under 250 pages, which is why I powered through and finished it. And the novel gave me an excuse to play in the background bis' Low Level (especially "Check My Bones"), Carpenter Brut's TRILOGY, the Poltergeist TV show soundtrack, and the Descent movie score.

Shelleyan Orphan

I was listening to The Cure playing in Philadelphia in 1989 (I'm pretty sure I was at that show in August, though they did return a month later) and I saw somewhere online that Shelleyan Orphan was the opener. I purchased from Apple, because Amazon doesn't sell it, the album they promoted on that tour, Century Flower. An interesting listen. Fascinating to hear what Robert Smith loved at that time. It reminds me of folky, psychedelic music of the late 80s inspired by the 60s, like The Triffids.

At the moment I'm keeping 5 of the 10 tracks: "Shatter", "Timeblind", "Century Flower", the instrumental "Amanita Muscaria", and "A Few Small Hours". I may remove the title track from my iTunes; I dunno, I like how it ends with the notes on a horn instrument (maybe a clarinet?) but the rest of the song doesn't catch my ear.

Glad I picked up Century Flower, however, I won't be buying anything else by them — sort of like most authors I read.