Emily Haines - "Help, I'm Alive"

Emily Haines is a new discovery of mine. I love her voice - sweet and edgy - and the poetry of her lyrics. I recently came across this little interview on her escape to Buenos Aires, and thought I'd share:

Do You Ever Crave Books?

I locked myself out of my house for a few hours the other day and randomly picked up a used copy of "The Golden Compass" at the store to pass the time until more responsible people (with keys) happened by. I hadn't read the series in a few years and had forgotten about it until a customer came in looking for them. A little young adult fantasy seemed like just the thing to make an otherwise irritating afternoon go by.

Fastforward to that night. I was back in my house (thankfully) and couldn't seem to put the book down. I mean, it's a good book and all, but there was some...some...force that just compelled me to keep reading. 

The problem, you see, was that I only had the first book in the series.

By the time I finished it around midnight, I was craving the second book so bad I could hardly fall asleep. What's a girl to do? This girl went directly to the library the next morning and checked out the other two books in the series. Which are now being read at an only slightly less frantic pace.

This ever happen to you?

Nibbles: Edgar Sawtelle, Beirut, and more...

I'm catching up on a backlog of reading and music-listening today, so lots of little nibbles for you!

First off a report on Finding Beauty in a Broken World. The report mainly consists of the confession that I have not yet finished it. I got to the section on Rwanda, and then I wrote this post, and then...I just never picked it up again. Sigh...I really hate not finishing books, but my  hand just keeps passing over this one... Have you finished the book? Is it worth finishing? 

Next up, Beirut's new double album, March of the Zapotec and Realpeople Holland. I'm undecided how I feel about this album. I really like their previous few albums, particularly Gulag Orkestar, but this one...it's different. First off, both albums are very short. As in, less than 15 minutes each short. Or at least it feels that way. I'll just be getting into it, starting to groove (in so far as I actually "groove"), and then the album is over. It makes me cranky. 

Secondly, the two albums feel very disjointed. The first is Beirut's take on the music of the Zapotec people and was influenced by Zach Condon's recent trip to Mexico. The songs on this album are a shift away from the Beirut we know from previous albums, but (in my mind) represent an interesting change of pace. The second album...the second album. It's also interesting, but it sounds a bit like music you might expect to find in a hot European night club. It's not bad, just very...unexpected.

I find myself playing these albums again and again at the store. I wouldn't say that I like them, exactly, but there's definitely something that keeps drawing me back. Have you listened to this album(s) yet? What do you think about them?

I just tore through all 575 pages of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. Given that it contained two of my most un-favorite literary themes, tales of woe from the midwest and epic-ness, I wasn't expecting to get past the first chapter. I like it when a book surprises!

It's hard to sum up what makes this book so special in just a few sentences (I'll hopefully get a full review out sometime soon). With threads of magical realism and scenes that read like poetry, it's not like any other story you've heard elsewhere. If it were told by any less gifted author, I bet the whole premise of the story would sound contrived and insubstantial. As it was, the book was beautiful and engaging, and its climactic ending scene felt utterly inevitable. I want to immediately start reading it again. Definitely recommended.

Let's see...what else?

Hold Time by M Ward came out a few weeks ago and is a great album. It's very in keeping with his previous work - dreamy and lovely. It still manages to sound fresh, though. I like it and play it in the evenings when I want to decompress from a long day.

Neko Case's new album Middle Cyclone is also recently out and it's fantastic. She's such a unique musician and singer as it is, but you can really see her pushing herself in this new album. It's a good one to play while cooking dinner or getting ready to go out.

Oh, and I almost forgot about Santogold! This album came out a while back, but has definitely stayed in my heavy rotation. It has a little bit of everything - from R&B-esque songs to forays into electronic mixing (not to mention an appropriately disturbing album cover). It's a bit dark and edgy - definitely keeps you on your toes. I love it and feel like I hear something new in it every time I play the CD.

Finally, if you're a fan of Dave McKean, I want to point you toward an excellent interview with him that was recently posted over on Seven Impossible Things. (Click on the link to go to the interview. The interview itself starts about halfway down the page.) As if I didn't already have enough respect for this man.

One (ok, Two) Trends in Fiction...To Which We're Ready to Wave Goodbye

Things happen in trends. Skinny jeans, sweet-voiced British singers, foie gras - point is, it's natural. It doesn't necessarily mean that the folks at the beginning of the trend were geniuses or that those at the end are unoriginal (necessarily).

But one thing that all trends have in common is that eventually have to go, if only so that they can come back again in 15 years when it becomes retro-cool. And here's one I'm ready ready to usher on its way:

Novels set in small town America.

I came into the store this morning and saw Chuck Klosterman's new novel, Downtown Owl. Here is the first line of the dust jacket description: "Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there." Sigh. I want to like this book, I even want to read this book, but I was doomed the second I read that line and realized that this was another novel about the private struggles of small town American folk. There's probably a twist that makes it vaguely different from The Corrections by Jonathon Franzen or Empire Falls by Richard Russo, but I'm afraid I still can't over the gut feeling that I've read the novel before I've started it.

Well-written or otherwise, these "small town, blue-collar, Nowhere, USA" novels are  inevitably the same. They're usually about middle-aged people who are struggling to understand where their dreams went and who are living out their lives in emotional isolation without realizing the connections lying just beneath the surface. Want to know why these novels are basically all the same? I'm pretty sure it's because small blue-collar towns are basically all the same. I know this because I grew up in small blue-collar towns and I recognize myself in every one of these books.

Small towns deserve their heroic novels, too. But really, I think we've had enough for the moment, don't you?

While we're on the subject, here's another trend that I think could take a breather:

Epic novels that span entire lifetimes, and also sometimes generations! 

These are the novels that aren't satisfied with presenting a small, pivotal slice of someone's life with a few flashbacks or flashforwards thrown in for context. Instead they show the whole gritty thing from start to finish. This way, by the end of the novel we can't help but agree that "Yes. Yes! This really is the only way things could have happened!" And hopefully we've also learned something about ourselves in the process. (Cue music, aaaand fade out!)

The epic novel has had a good run. This trend gave us great works like Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Nasland. Many epic novels are quite masterful - if only because it takes an author of particular skill and strength of character to see the project through to completion. 

But here's the thing. These epic novels also require readers with particular strength of character. Starting one of these novels takes a real commitment. You're promising to see it through, to remember all the characters and their personal dramas, and to not lose track of the decade or the continent. I have no problem tackling one or two of these novels a year. It's like eating a bran muffin for breakfast after a few weeks of frosted maple-nut scones. Good for the system.

But lately, it's gotten to be too much. My backpack is heavy. My "Books To Read" shelf is sagging. I look at these doorstops and my gaze drifts over to the copy of Twilight a friend loaned me last week. All I'm asking is for these authors - these great, wonderful, brilliant, award-winning authors - to just get together and agree on some sort of time-table. Please?

And P.S. - A little shout-out to Louise Erdrich. She's got the right idea. Notice how each of her novels tells a little bit of the story? How her body of work as a whole becomes her epic tale? So nice. So bite-sized. I love you, Ms. Erdrich.

On a final note...

If you're an author with a half-finished epic novel about small town America sitting next to your keyboard as you read this, take heart. Finish your novel. Put it in the bottom of your filing cabinet. And then set yourself an Outlook reminder to go off in 15 years reminding you to find an agent for your manuscript. You'll be at the top of the NYTimes list within the week, I promise.

(Image: Dzian-Dzian via Flickr Creative Common)

Crooners: What's in a Name?

Perhaps you can help settle something for me. See, my fiance and I are in a heated debate over what, exactly, defines a crooner. Yes. Laugh all you want, but this is a Serious Argument. Evidence has been presented. Positions have been stated. Resolution is not in sight.

For me, this is a broad category. Basically, if you sing, if it feels like you're singing right to me, and if it feels like you're wooing me with your eyes (whether you're across the room or on my iPod), then you're a crooner. You can be a Serious Crooner, a la Ben Harper or Frank Sinatra. Or you can be an Ironic Crooner, a la Robert Goulet or even John Legend (both are a matter of perspective, sure, but you can't watch this clip and tell me there isn't some Ironic Crooning going on).

My boy, S., on the other hand, only believes in the Serious Crooner. He wants to hear the crooning and really feel it, you know? He enjoys a good ironic croon from time to time, but considers that a different and as-yet-unnamed category of singing. He can get pretty torn up about Lounge Against the Machine, actually. It's kind of funny to watch.

So where do you stand? Is there room in this crazy world for two types of crooner? What do you think makes a crooner?

(Image: Evy Moon via Flickr Creative Common)

Snaps and Glogg, Anyone?

This really has nothing to do with anything, except that a customer came in the store this morning and told us about a Swedish Christmas party she was going to later today where they would be serving a Swedish beverage called "Glogg." It sounded so wonderful and fantastical (it's pronounced "glug," after all) that we just had to know more.

According to that Resource of Resources, the Internet, glogg is a Scandanavian version of mulled wine, but with a little more...er...punch. The wine is spiked with "snaps," or aquavit - though apparently you can just dispense with the wine part and knock the snaps back by itself if that's the way the evening goes.

I'd say this is a good drink to have with a good book beside a good fire, but I have a feeling that the words would be swimming before your eyes before too long. No, this is a socializing drink, to be sure. Maybe we need to do an R&M holiday party just to justify some glogg consuption.

Here's one of the recipes we found, courtesy of Scandanavian Travel and About.com (we love that "inexpensive" is one of the criteria for the liquor):

Glogg

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 bottle of red wine

0.5 Liter inexpensive brandy or vodka

10 cardamom pods

1 cinnamon stick (broken down0

1/2 orange peel (dried or fresh)

1/2 lbs sugar (regular or lumps)

Optional additions: 5 cloves, 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup almonds, 5 dried figs

Preparation:

Heat the wine and brandy, spices, fruit, and nuts in a pot (and any optional additions you might like.)

Be careful not to boil the mixture. Just let it simmer for approximately 45 minutes. Then, strain through a cloth to remove all additions.

Serve your Glogg hot over lumped sugar (or with regular sugar)

Optional: You can also serve the Glogg with raisons or almonds. If you'd like the drink to be stronger, use more brandy.

This Glogg recipe makes approximately 1.5 liter (close to 1/2 gallon)

Thank goodness for the internet, eh?