Central Park

I wanted to find the lake in Central Park before the summer was over. I never go up that far in the park but it's very nice up there.

Book Review - Emma by Jane Austen

Emma by Jane Austen

My rating: 2 of 5 starsI know that Jane Austen’s books are important snapshots of a particular time and place but this really just read like a long soap opera to me- and didn’t pick up until the end. I didn’t find Emma very likeable but something I did like about it was the importance it put on social interactions. It made me feel as though the times when I think an interaction is awkward or strained; I’m not just making it up in my head. People have really been condescending and slighting each other or waiting for something to blow over for more than a hundred years. I was particularly unhappy with Emma when she sent her friend away for two weeks so that it wouldn’t be uncomfortable when she started dating the man her friend expressed interest in. Selfish! But the point is that people still behave this way. Of course, I was also thinking about Clueless the whole time I read it to make it more bearable. Not my cup of tea.
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Jarvis Cocker Music Hall of Williamsburg 7-30-09

Sleek and chic, even while bearded and fully clad in tan and brown, Jarvis Cocker's still got the moves. He played The Music Hall of Williamsburg, which he endearingly remembered was once The North Six, on Thursday night to a packed room. As would be expected of the former Pulp frontman, Jarvis was sassy, overconfident, and full of choreography that he was more than happy to teach the audience. 

I don't think I've seen a performer more interactive with his audience. After waltzing out onto the stage, he lifted his palms to expose the eyeballs that had been drawn on for the purpose of telling him specific audience member's names. He called out Peter, Natasha, Stacy, etc. before belting out his newest single 'Angela.' Other songs included 'Fat Children,' 'Big Julie' and 'Don't Let Him Waste Your Time' and all in between song banter cleverly led into the next song. At one point someone tried to imitate this, in what was a possible request by calling out "What about the common people?" to which Jarvis replied, "It's available on CD." and "Of course I think it's a good song. I wouldn't have written it otherwise."

In other random acts of kindness toward the audience, Jarvis pulled a bunch of grapes out of his pocket and began throwing them into open, awaiting mouths as well as handing his water and beer down into the crowd with instructions that they be shared.

Opener Little Joy was also fantastic in a style contrasting to and much more laid back than Jarvis'. Their nomad European feel, French lyrics, and scruffy faced members momentarily made me want to run as far away from New York as possible. I enjoyed most the songs sung by the soulful Binki Shaprio. If you gave her a haircut and a mini-skirt, she'd fit comfortably into a brit pop band.

It was a great night, but I must say that before the show it was terrible being sent upstairs from the bar only to be met by large closed doors. Everyone had to crowd into a small room for what was likely 30 minutes before the doors opened and we were allowed to stampede toward the stage.

My review of Snoop

Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Not great. The author definitely makes some interesting points about human behavior. He talks about the ways in which we manufacture an image for ourselves but also the ways in which we cannot hide who we really are underneath. He never came to any real conclusions though about snooping but rather made the point (over and over again) that there is no guidebook to follow and you really have to look at all the possibilities of through a person's stuff, as well as their behavior which I think is impossible to do when just looking through a stranger's room, which seemed to be his method. Even when he talked about specific snooping jobs that he'd had, he didn't seem to find anything conclusive out about the individuals.

This would have be better as an article. I felt like he was repeating himself in order to fill the pages and it was a bit sluggish getting to the end. Not recommended.

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Parts 1 and 2 of 2666

2666: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Some briefs thoughts on Parts 1 and 2 of 2666 by Roberto Bolano

Recently, I was invited into a book club by some friends from work. The last book we read was the intimidatingly long 2666 by the late Roberto Bolano. What I know about Bolano is limited to these facts: He was Chilean. He really preferred writing poetry but began writing novels in order to support his family. He died in 2003 at the age of 50 and intended for each part to be published separately because he thought that it would support his children longer.

His final masterpiece (which I say because I think that is what he meant for it to be) is quite lengthy but separated into 3 books and 5 parts makes the read less of a daunting task. The parts are written with different voices and I like to think that the translation precisely captures that of Bolano since it read like the storytelling of a cold and distant yet ominous European man for four out of five parts. Part 5: The Part About Archimboldi had a lighter, more rhythmic tone. Part 4 was the longest and darkest but also the most clinical in its descriptions of the murder cases. It engaged me fully nonetheless.

Parts 1 and 2 are about people who obsess over specific writers. What Archimboldi wrote is inconsequential to us, the readers, but obviously it was life changing for the critics; life changing enough to lead them to search to search out the seventy year old German who went into hiding many years prior. In Part 1, the characters of the four critics appeared to be empty and emotionless. Although the Italian and Frenchman made themselves vulnerable by sleeping with the British woman, any feelings of love that they had for her felt insincere and were not revealed until the end of their part. The pair seemed to be okay with the situation (sharing a lover) until the end when they finally ask her to choose between them.

Books; writing, reading and publishing them; are a major, major theme of 2666. The stories do not actually take place within the publishing and academic worlds but dance more around them, exposing the habits, loves, and mental illnesses of those who live and work in these fields. A freethinking and lackadaisical approach to the European, academic life is apparent in the first part. The critics travel around the world for conferences mostly and then to Santa Teresa in search of Archimbaldi. Although their travel is often purposeful, they do it as though they are aimless-nomads and intercontinental wanderers. What struck me was that once in Santa Teresa they did not seem to be all too concerned with actually finding Archimboldi. The Frenchman just existed in the town. After some brief detective work he stopped searching, although he was still following the words of the writer and continued to reread his works in the hot sun of desert.

He and the other three critics were not trying to be successful writers in their own right. They were critics. They read and wrote about another people’s work. They should not have dedicated their energy to figuring out what another believed and stopped there. Rather, it would have served them better to find their own meaning by taking several sources, seeing which fit them best and then integrating that into their own personal belief systems. But they were followers – not living as creative, fluid beings. This stagnation lead to them become angry, making them dangerous, physical threats to a society that they were not trying to understand and live in peaceably. They lack meaning because Archimboldi cannot truly give it to themThey are worshiping someone else, someone else’s work like it is their religion. They are empty; searching outside of themselves and not coming up with any answers.

In Part 2, Amalfitano has his heart broken by his crazy wife who is trying to run away with a poet who has been committed to a mental institution. She visits him and insists that they once met at a party and had sex while other people watched. She is unsuccessful in running away with him and so wanders, sleeping around, and living off the charity of strangers. (This is similar to the critics trail of searching, giving up, and then aimless wandering.) Back home, Amalfitano goes a bit crazy himself. He performs an experiment by hanging a geometry book on a string outside of his apartment to see if it is changed or affected by the natural forces. In addition, he begins hearing (and talking to) a voice, which says it belongs to his grandfather or father. Even though he knows these experiences to be wildly absurd, he pursues them in his quest for his own personal truth. He does not listen to convention or blindly follow someone else and that is why Part 2 was my favorite.

The critics became obsessed with Archimboldi just as Amalfitano’s wife was obsessed with the mentally ill poet because of what they represented. They want to connect their identity and beliefs to the words written by others. They wanted to live the ideas in the books; the conclusions that that the writers came to after years of their own searching and writing. Instead of searching for the meaning, they searched for the writer, the artist, the creator. (Is Bolano saying that we should not search for our creator, but rather for our own meaning; the creation that we are capable of?)

Another theme in the first two parts is art. My favorite part of Part 1 is when the dead publisher’s wife talks at a dinner party about an artist. She said that his work made her laugh while it made her friend cry. The point being that people have different perspectives about a single piece of art and often opposing opinions of the meaning. Who is right? Who is wrong? Well, obviously no one is wrong. It is a lesson learned in grade school but often lost as we grow up. As adults seek their truth, they quickly close themselves off from other possible realities in order to have something to believe in; a belief to guide them when their sense of self, chosen occupation or religion fails to do so. Artwork is not created to teach a specific idea or to educate but is meant rather to express something or to bring a topic to light to get people form an opinion about something they may never have though about otherwise. Maybe this is what Bolano intended for his novels. Maybe he didn’t want to state his opinion on our culture’s obsession with fame or on the murders of Mexico but just to bring them up as they are to make us aware. This is certainly what he meant for the writings of the mentally ill poet and for Archimboldi’s stories but the critics and Amalfitano’s wife failed to form their own opinions and took the words as final truth.

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The Complete Persepolis

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Excellent! Even though I’d seen the movie and the book does not play “Eye of the Tiger” when you reach the part where Marjane starts going to the gym, it was worth the read. Marjane’s experience as a girl growing up during a complicated and deceitful revolution, seeing relatives and friends paying the price of war with their limbs and their lives is worth delving into this story for a second time. I felt that I learned more from the book because it went deeper into the explanations of the religious upheavals of the 80’s and 90’s in Iran. I also really enjoyed reading about how Marjane and her friends had to alter their behaviors while still finding ways to express their inner personal sense of freedom. Because Marjane spends her real coming of age years in Austria, she is able to be a guide to outsiders while explaining the complications of what was happening in her culture, her family, and her government. I highly recommend The Complete Persepolis.


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My new favorite band

My new favorite band is The Last Shadow Puppets.

They are Arctic's Monkeys' Alex Turner and The Rascals' Miles Kane looking like a couple of young Paul McCartney's and playing epic songs in minor keys. My favorite song on their 2008 album The Age of the Understatement is Separate and Ever Deadly. There is no video for that one so I will post this.

Quote

YouTube - The Last Shadow Puppets "The Age Of The Understatement"