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| 0143138596
| 9780143138594
| 0143138596
| 3.74
| 1,451
| Oct 29, 2024
| Oct 29, 2024
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really liked it
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I’ve always found poetry to be a very therapeutic artform. With poetry we transport emotions into language that is shifted, stretched, pushed to exper
I’ve always found poetry to be a very therapeutic artform. With poetry we transport emotions into language that is shifted, stretched, pushed to experimental heights that bend linguistics to demonstrate the possibilities within. Also, �writing is a way to remember and also a way to forget, to let go,� writes singer-songwriter turned poet Marina Diamandis in her debut collection, To Eat the World, a collection that demonstrates how she uses poetry to �alchemize pain� and share the healing with others. The Welsh musician, already known for delivers a collection full of hard-hitting emotions and visceral explorations of depression, fame, loneliness, and transformation in search of authenticity that feels heartfelt and earnest and not simply a celebrity using their fame to publish a book. Which is often an apprehension I have with collections like this, though I was unaware of her music until midway through reading this and now have plenty of songs to check out. Confronting patriarchal oppressions, human emotion in a digital age, and the expectations hoisted onto those in the public eye, Marina approaches her themes �half enraptured / half in love / half in awe // and so afraid� for a rather moving collection of poems where even if the experimentality sometimes feels arbitrary and more for vibes than elucidation, the vivacity shines through into poetic profundity. "Depression is anger turned inward" Terrifying screams surprisingly cut from my own vocal cords begin to reverberate Like an Al version of how it would sound if I were actually, genuinely deeply enraged I am rageful I have my reasons but it doesn't scare me anymore Because I know rage is not forever It passes It has purpose and to deny it is to keep it alive Marina has a long history of making language hum along to the currents of the heart and Eat the World demonstrates a dexterity with language to push beyond the formulas of music and into more abstractual examinations with poetry. Teeming with metaphors for metamorphosis, she discusses the dark side of fame, the burdens of expectations, and the perpetual awareness of patriarchal dismissal and objectifications that have her run ragged through a life of public perception where, as in the title poem, its �approve approve approve / try try try / grind grind grind / to be / heard, seen / valued, understood / by men / with no knowledge / of real womanhood.� The poem Butterflies discusses the subjugation of women in a commentary on how she she laughs easily because �it comes from / complying / not wanting to cause discomfort to others,� addressing the ways girls are taught they must be genteel, gracious, and generous, always accommodating others (especially men) at their out expense. �Fuck others,� she finally states, �why do I have to bear / the weight of the discomfort?� The balance between upholding public image and being true to one’s self are felt strongly, as is the balance between inner darkness and the desire to hold on to the tiny beauties of life. Is death really worse Than eternal loneliness? Is the danger of damage Better than its absence? The speakers of these poems often gaze into the traps of toxic patterns and self-defeating behaviors. She discusses how all the tiny hurts of life, described as �a million tiny knives� in the poem of the same title, are �crisscrossing softly over time� to amalgamate into one large, existential agony. It can be quite a dark collection at times, though transformation and growing metaphorical wings to fly above it becomes the urgent message running through the collection. Butterflies and cocoons are common imagery here and the collection bears two poems with those as titles as well. There are a lot of visual elements to accompany the imagery, from collage art and textual experimentations with forms that add some life to the page. While there are moments where the spatial structures elevate the message—such as words printed as devolving into a spiral while discussing tasks spiraling into overwhelming chaos—often they feel more of a gimmick to enact fun vibes that feel overwrought. I’m reminded a bit of Max Porter’s weaker moments, but it also is eye catching and I’m sure with more work over time she could make these really sing. �i thought if i ate the world i would finally be full i would never be hungry again i was wrong of course i was this isn’t a movie this is real life a ragged jagged pill of a life� There is a lovely introduction that gives readers, and long-time fans of Marina’s music, an insight into her creative process. Which does involve tripping on mushrooms so thats cool: �One hot summer night, after taking psilocybin, my mind began to write intricate, strange stories drawn from memories old and recent. At first I thought they were songs, so I tried to box them into their usual structures, but they refused to obey. They seemed to want to expand and unfurl into their own shapes, so I put them aside and laid them to rest. A few weeks later, I realized that they were poems, not songs, and from that moment onward, my love for this new medium was born. I had found a new way to confess, process, and play with the past.� I enjoy her discussion on how she realized these were not songs but found ways to use them and that her poetry also isn’t just unused songs blended up with some formatting flair to call poetry which has been done before by others too. This is an earnest and honest break from her usual style and I think it is really cool she found how much poetry works for her. Sure, there are moments where one might call it longer-form Rupi Kaur inspired, which is a bummer that Kaur often gets used as a sort of criticism when I still stand behind the idea that she was attempting to make accessible poetry with a heavy dose of social critiques that would welcome newcomers into the genre and I think thats cool even if it isn’t my favorite to read. But also Marina is doing some great work here and the end of her introduction really touched me: �I hope this book brings solace to those who need it. Sometimes, it can feel like no one in the world feels the same way that you do. But the truth is, many of us experience the same challenges, just at different times in life. Connection is never far away. Words are portals that lead us into new worlds of resonance, wisdom, and healing. I hope this book can be a friend to you as it has been for me.� From musician to poet, Marina Diamandis has some really great work here that addresses fame, transformation, and struggling with emotions, all done with a rather well-crafted social consciousness that makes for an engaging and empowering read. I enjoy seeing how these poems worked well as a therapeutic act for her and that she emphasizes one of poetry’s greatest gifts: being able to address the hardships of an individual or singular level while delivering it in a universality that others can read, enjoy, empathize with and, hopefully, in turn heal as well. Eat the World is a fun debut collection. 3.5/5 E-motion Why is it hard to accept emotions? Why do we twist them into shapes they are not? They only re-form the shape in which they're born when we're not looking. Why deny, resist and list them instead of letting them rest inside our bodies What am I scared of? That I'll die of discomfort or that they'll last forever? 20 seconds. Apparently that's how long it takes for an emotion to be felt ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 21, 2025
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Apr 21, 2025
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Apr 21, 2025
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Hardcover
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| 0762489413
| 9780762489411
| 0762489413
| 4.23
| 141
| unknown
| Dec 03, 2024
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really liked it
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If I see a new Taylor Swift fan book come into the library, you best believe I am snagging it and reading it. Because we all need some tiny joys in li
If I see a new Taylor Swift fan book come into the library, you best believe I am snagging it and reading it. Because we all need some tiny joys in life. Long Live: The Definitive Guide to the Folklore and Fandom of Taylor Swift by Nicole Pomarico was a lovely little dose of joy indeed. A heartfelt tribute to a beloved star that reads like a love letter to the fandom as Nicole details through Swift’s career from a fan’s eye view of awaiting album news, getting excited about teasers and combing through lyrics, Long Live is a wonderful tribute to Swift and the community that supports her. With cute art and an in-depth overview of Swift’s Eras complete with defining characteristics such as a page for “how to dress� for the aesthetics of each Era (this is clearly a product of the Eras Tour), biographical information about Swift (and her cats), and more, this is cute and fun but also quite informative about all the behind-the-scenes aspects of the music process. Sure, maybe a bit of a coffee-table money grab BUT it’s also just a lovely little book and would make an amazing gift for the Swift fan in your life (which could include you, you should gift yourself one). Yay kitties! This is a nice, accessible overview that won’t quite hit an academic level of Swift lore and information, but it also doesn’t intend to be and is quite lovely for what it is. I really appreciated how this is very fan-centric and very much emphasizes and highlights the connections between fans and Swift. Fans will likely find themselves in this, particularly Pomarico’s rather heartfelt stories about her own love for the music. This was just a great little dose of joy and fun to flip through and read. Plus the cover is amazing. Just read it, it’s fun. 4/5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 07, 2025
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Apr 07, 2025
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Apr 07, 2025
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Hardcover
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| 006327034X
| 9780063270343
| B0CRQGRP8G
| 3.96
| 228
| unknown
| Oct 01, 2024
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really liked it
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�You gotta fight and fight and fight for your legacy� —MC Sha-Rock �They usually shoot the innovator,� musician and artist Joni Mitchell quips in an int �You gotta fight and fight and fight for your legacy� —MC Sha-Rock �They usually shoot the innovator,� musician and artist Joni Mitchell quips in an interview with NPR. While reading a book on Van Gogh, she found herself relating to his frustration, noting that in the world of painters �innovation and originality has always been a criteria,� but in the commercial music industry �copycat-ism is rewarded.� Heralding generations of women who dared to be innovators of sound is How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR. This well designed coffee-table-esque hardcover full of interviews, photos, essays and more arrives in print as an extension to NPR’s which has been working towards greater recognition of women artists since it was created in 2017. Spanning 5 decades of NPR’s coverage on women, trans women, and nonbinary influential artists, this is a treasure trove of insights, first-hand accounts, and heartfelt examination of the music that dared to be itself in a world of copycats and patriarchal barriers. It covers such an eclectic variety of musicians, from the ones you’d expect to find here to many I was previously unfamiliar with and have been building an massive playlist of songs to hear and artists to investigate. It’s like the coolest compilation album but in essay and interview format while still pushing you off to spin the records. �This book inaugurates a new phase in our ongoing mission of infusing canon-making with life,� writes NPR’s Ann Powers in the introduction, �and…imagining music history as a huge continuing conversation rather than as something solid, like a monument.� Edited by Alison Fensterstock, How Women Made Music is a wonderful read just overflowing with great songs and information. You’ll want to spend plenty of time with it. �I see a connection between all the arts, a song, a poem, a sculpture…it just uplights your spirit. I think that’s the best of art, it does that—its an affirmation of your life in your spirit. It’s just real.� —Laura Nyro Structured like a mix-tape, this book aims for �more space, more voices, more stories,� and certainly achieves that. We have Nina Simone discussing how she �has an edge,�, Tori Amos describing her love for pianos stemming from a belief �its very much a warm, living breathing woman to me, it’s very female. She’s my best friend,� Lucinda Williams on her influences in the writings of Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, Mavis Staples on music as activism where �if it’s something bad, we want to sing a song to try to fix it,� Kate Bush on music and voice as �a continual experiment,� Rickie Lee Jones talking about song interpretation, Sheryl Crow on sharing your story, Etta James on wanting to sing �real stuff,� and so much more. It’s a really wonderful book. It is, perhaps almost too much and even with its loose structure sometimes feels like jumping from place to place, but all in all it is a great read. �I was playing with convention and sexuality and trying to see what the boundaries were. I was kind of trying to work it our in my own head, but trying to understand why men and women were perceived differently and treated differently.� ⲹDzԲԲ The book also takes a look at the barriers faced by women and trans artists in the industry. Gender discrimination, misogyny and racism comes up often and many artists discuss how it is a very hostile industry to women that takes a huge toll on mental health. There is also a lot or ageism and underrepresentation that makes many feel alone, particularly when the actions of women artists tend to be judge far more harshly than men. And while �disability visibility within the music world continues to increase,� there are still a lot of set-backs and women tend to be judged far more for their appearance and health than the men in music. Lady Gaga, for instance, discusses how people refused to believe her that fibromyalgia was real,� and Lizzo has a short piece on body shaming that happens to women in the industry. �We’re trying our best so the pipeline needs to be developed. This starts way back with the record companies, radio. I can shout as loud as I like but we need to get everyone on board.� Objectification and sexual harassment makes for a large barrier as well with a 2021 study showing . How Women Made Music does a great job of highlighting these issues to help push for better efforts in accessibility and equity in the music industry. A cool book with a lot of information How Women Made Music is a music lovers dream of a coffee table book. I’ve found this to be quite fascinating and is certainly a book I’ll turn to again and again. 4/5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 04, 2025
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Mar 04, 2025
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Mar 04, 2025
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Kindle Edition
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| 1683694740
| 9781683694748
| 1683694740
| 3.83
| 759
| Nov 26, 2024
| Nov 26, 2024
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really liked it
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I have to give credit where credit is due. I thought this was going to be a cheesy money grab but upon reading it I’m actually rather impressed and th
I have to give credit where credit is due. I thought this was going to be a cheesy money grab but upon reading it I’m actually rather impressed and think this is earnestly really cool. Since the Eras Tour (which was amazing, I’m still in awe) there’s been a flood of unlicensed Swift lore books but I couldn’t resist the cover of Taylor Swift By the Book from Rachel Feder and Tiffany Tatreau—it’s a shiny toy with a price you know that I bought it—and turns out it is actually quite fun with an impressive collection of references. Also the art is cool. Rachel Feder is a lit professor and it shows. It does move between entertainment and academic pretty strongly at times, but it is always accessible. It is pretty broad and I can see those with a more academic desire feeling left wanting but I think the casual fan who comes for some Swift lore and wants an entry point into literature will actually be pointed in great directions and learn a lot. I spend my days working in a library so I just want to point people towards cool literature and learning in a fun way so I really appreciated this. But I'm also a huge Taylor Swift fan and I think this does a cool job of nudging the ways fans have developed elaborate theories and threaded themes from her songs together. I grew up on Radiohead hiding all sorts of secret things to discover and sure, there wasn't the internet so people had to figure it out on their own (like what song is played backwards in Like Spinning Plates and how the backing vocals only say "in rainbows" at the exact moment of the golden ratio on that album) but I think Swift (and likely more her PR team) have done a cool job of utilizing the internet to foster this and create a community around it. For better or for worse. Anyways, onto the review. The book goes song by song through her albums to show which lines are allusions to literary works, or which are good for explaining literary devices, or which are just a good excuse to talk about a novel or things like how a daisy means “secret loyalty� in the Victorian language of flowers. It’s pretty well crafted. It divides the albums by eras like the Bildungsroman Era, Fairy Tale Era, Modernist Era, Gothic Era and puts Tortured Poets in the Postmodernist Era which sounds cheesy but they do a really good job of explaining the literary qualities of each complete with a lot of cool biographical details on writers from each. Now i assumed this would be full of a lot of the same “here’s famous poets and writers� that you get in any coffee table type book that makes for lazy gift giving ideas but I thought this dug deep into some really cool one. It helps I opened it directly to the entry on my girl Edna St. Vincent Millay as one of the “tortured poets� but she is among others like Richard Siken, Sappho, Christina Rossetti, and my favorite person to hate (but also kind of love): Lord Byron (I wrote extensively on how much of an intense piece of shit he was HERE but like, his verse slaps). It’s pretty great. The reading lists for each album are also very cool and aren’t m the obvious choices you would assume. For Swift’s album Red, for instance, they recommend Virginia Woolf's Orlando, The Autobiography of Red by my current obsession--Anne Carson--and Natalie Díaz's poetry collection Postcolonial Love Poem. Folklore gets The Last Man by Mary Shelley, Reputation gets poetry by Lord Byron (of course!),and Chen Chen (great pick) and The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, and then Carmilla shows up for Midnights along with Dinner on Monster Island: Essays by Tania De Rozario. It’s just pretty cool. Not to mention the book has some really great other reading recommendations along the way. I was impressed, honestly. Another aspect I really liked about this book is that the authors teach literary devices like hyperbole, archetype, anaphora, or metonym among others, but it also teaches some rather esoteric ones like metatextuality, zeugma,or antimetabole. They get into ideas on how to do ‘close reading� of texts or how Swift makes use of “Modernist cynicism� in some songs and for every reference there is at least one to three paragraphs explaining the artist or novel. It is pretty well done and makes for an earnestly eclectic and informative book, especially for what i assume the target age range is. I also like how it teaches the idea of motifs by making playlists of Taylor Swift songs to match a motif from different novels. But it also goes into how Swift has, over the course of her album, garnered her own collection of favorite motifs like ghosts, star alignment, marriage, etc. They go through each album’s common themes and how The Great Gatsby, Alice in Wonderland, Shakespeare and the Greek myths often show up in each album. There’s also a lot of great lyrical analysis. All together this book was rather impressive and I’ve been really enjoying it. Would recommend! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 26, 2025
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Feb 26, 2025
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Feb 26, 2025
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Hardcover
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| 0743244583
| 9780743244589
| 0743244583
| 3.98
| 59,704
| Nov 12, 2004
| Oct 03, 2005
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really liked it
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“I want to be Bob Dylan when I grow up� - Me at 14 “I want to be Bob Dylan when I grow up� - Me as an adult “I want to be Bob Dylan when I grow up� - M “I want to be Bob Dylan when I grow up� - Me at 14 “I want to be Bob Dylan when I grow up� - Me as an adult “I want to be Bob Dylan when I grow up� - Me doing Library story time: Alas, I am not Bob Dylan but �sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on,� and I’m glad I’m me and can geek out over some Bob Dylan. Besides, even the dude from The Counting Crows so at least I'm in good company. I remember being a freshman in college when Bob Dylan Chronicles Vol 1 first came out. I was eagerly anticipating it and ran out to Borders Books & Music (RIP) in Ann Arbor to grab a copy day one and ditched class to start reading it. Like Bob Dylan described reading Bound for Glory, the autobiography of his hero, , �I went though it from cover to cover like a hurricane. Totally focused on every word, and the book sang out to me like the radio.� I’d heard all the legends and lore of the great musician who inspired me to start playing music at an early age, but I’d rarely encountered Dylan’s own thoughts on his work and his story. Of course, like most of my heroes at the time (cough cough Roberto Bolaño), Dylan does a lot of self-mythologizing. �I didn’t know what age of history we were in nor what the truth of it was. Nobody bothered with that,� he writes, �If you told the truth, that was all well and good and it you told the untruth, well, that’s still well and good.� And still good it is. He creates a literary portrait of himself that, sure, maybe its what some call a lie but it speaks to this idea of creativity where the truth is beside the point when we come for a story. And with this book, Dylan tells us one hell of a story about himself. �Don't ask me nothin' about nothin' I just might tell you the truth � � Sifting through Chronicles Vol 1 is a fun deep dive through Dylan’s frankness about his own career and creativity. The singer songwriter started his career with a slew of massive hits he would quickly tire of playing and jumped into a full-band electric sound at notoriously upset folks. �It was like carrying a package of heavy rotting meat,� he says about his early hits, �I couldn't understand where they came from.� But Dylan always does Dylan and it is cool to read him talk about it seeing as I had never really read many interviews with him. I’ve always enjoyed that Dylan avoids such things and despite having accepted the Nobel medal from the Swedish academy at an event with no press (thank you to BJ for the correction here!) he rarely acknowledges the award in public (I have recently learned the notion of him not acknowledging it at all is a myth to add to the Dylan persona legend, which makes sense but I'm glad to learn the truth behind it too). There was once even rumor that Bob Dylan was reclusive author Thomas Pynchon due to them both being friends of Richard Fariña (who was Pynchon’s roommate in college). Pynchon was supposed to be the best man at Fariña’s wedding to Mimi Baez, the sister of Joan Baez who was at the time romantically entangled with Dylan though nobody saw Pynchon and nobody had ever seen Pynchon and Dylan in the same place–including at Fariña’s funeral. That Fariña also read the early drafts of both Pynchon’s V. and Dylan’s Tarantula also added to the rumor under claims both novels were rather inscrutable. Pynchon also notoriously didn't show up to collect his National Book Awards for Gravity's Rainbow, so put that in your Nobel win conspiracy theory pipe and smoke it I guess? �All I'd ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.� In a , Dylan was asked if he was the jester from Don McLeans’s song and replied �A jester? Sure�� and I thought here it is, he’s gonna acknowledge it, he’s gonna say would a Jester win the Nobel Prize, but NO, Dylan said � Sure, the jester writes songs like ‘Masters of War� � some jester. I have to think he’s talking about somebody else. Ask him.� And that’s why I continue to love him. He’s always been about doing whatever he wanted to be true to his music however that fit in the moment. �All the money you made / Will never buy back your soul� he sings in Masters of War and while Dylan has raked in more money than I can ever imagine, he’s always come across as the music coming first. As he writes in the book: �Songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality. Some different republic, some liberated republic... whatever the case, it wasn't that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambition to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick. It was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk with.� Dylan spends a lot of the book trying to convince you he is unremarkable on the coolness factor with an eclectic taste that he is uninterested in cultivating for any sense of being hip or esoteric. Dylan is just Dylan. He likes reading military history, hes into polka, and stresses about being in �the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion.� At all times, Dylan is the Dylan you’ve come to expect. From When Bob Met Woody: The Story of the Young Bob Dylan by Gary Golio When the Scorsese documentary of Dylan, , came out the year after this book, my college friends and I turned it into a drinking game where every time Dylan said something that made no sense or made you say “what the fuck, Dylan?�--Drink. The same can be done with this book. �Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all.� Drink �Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want.� Drink �There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.� DRINK Its fun and then you should totally put some albums on and jam along! �I really was never any more than what I was -a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze.� I’ve long loved me some Bob Dylan and this is a great way to get into the head of the musical genius. Also you should just watch the 2003 film he wrote and stars in, because it might not be great but it is great fun. 4/5 Dylan performing with my other favorite: Neil Young ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 18, 2025
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Feb 18, 2025
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Feb 18, 2025
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Paperback
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| 1636281664
| 9781636281667
| 1636281664
| 3.65
| 182
| unknown
| Aug 20, 2024
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really liked it
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�But, man, there’s no boundary line to art� � Poetry and jazz have always had an abstract affinity in my mind. With words like notes on a �But, man, there’s no boundary line to art� � Poetry and jazz have always had an abstract affinity in my mind. With words like notes on a scale, both mediums experiment with form and tone, winding their way through ideas to arrive where the journey towards meaning is �Jazz is rhythm and meaning,� said artist and much the same can be said about poetry. Inspired by the Preludes of and the piano solos of American jazz artist comes Percival Everett’s Sonnets For a Missing Key, a collection of experimental sonnets that �seek to question timbre and tone� as the book states, going on to add �that's bullshit. They are just sonnets.� Such playfulness marks this collection where �the story is told with symbols� as it taps out rhythms of words in expressions on language, art, and simply surviving another day in this world. Experimental yet never overly elusive, this is a delightful and brief selection that shows Everett can awe in any voice he sets his heart on and makes for a musically marvelous read. B� Major Joy cannot be ignored, Though almost illogical Left confuses right Confuses left with Simplicity? What meaning Is definitive? There is no confession here, But song, sing, song Like an indecisive bird That has made up its mind. Percival Everett has such a sardonic wit that is endlessly charming and engaging. He refers to himself as �pathologically ironic,� a fitting joke for anyone who has read his demeanor in interviews dodging questions and providing deep insights without ever taking himself too seriously. While better known for his novels—his 2024 novel James was recently the recipient of the National Book Award—Everett has also published several volumes of poetry. �I might have published a couple of volumes of poetry, but � I’m using my cowboy accent here � I ain’t no poet,� he quipped in an , �I write poetry to prove I can’t write poetry.� Yet, for all his insistence he is not a poet, Everett can craft a fine verse that has a playful uniqueness to it that captures his signature voice in poetic form just as well as his novelistic prose. Such as E� Minor where he writes: Pour this garden into a glass, while explaining to me the difference between a creek and a stream, an ocean and a sea, a lie and a confession of love. Each poem takes its title from a different note and, like a jazz song, it winds through moments of morose minor keys into more jubilant verse that ricochettes around the page. If you think of the words as notes in a song, you can hear the way it bounces like jazz. In jazz �it's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play,� as the quote commonly attributed to goes, and Everett embraces the gaps between words and poetic enjambment in a way that feels very much like jazz improvisation. It uses language akin to how found that jazz �was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important� than a robust structure. Everett’s words bounce back and forth, cycling around like the end of a song full of repetition and wordplay until you can hear lines like �Last words always sound like / last words always sound like last / words always sound like this� wind through a closing crescendo. It’s pretty fun. �The shapes fall away from the core, the thing becomes a thing.� It is through the abstract that Everett probes for meaning and shows that this search for meaning is what, inevitably, grants meaning to life. In his poems its �the meaning pointing to� rather than directly addressing. And much of the collection looks at language itself. In F Major, Everett more or less instructs us how to read his own collection: What is received is scaffolding, is a lattice of bone and boards and screws and posts that give our feet places to square, our fingers lips to grasp, but nowhere to lean our backs. One can understand this much like the loose structure of the words, more scaffolding than anything, but one in which he has the freedom to let words loose like doves to fly towards meaning. It is for us to participate with him climbing language like this scaffolding. We climbed at the language, the idea that one climbs down. With a little practice, you said, we could, if we wanted, fall up. We see language as �little tongues piled on top of anxious silence,� much like chairs piled up against a door to brace it. And we are there to pile the chairs along with him. Everett references dancers at several moments, dancers moving to the rhythm of music, trading places and swirling together. Take a look: C� Minor 1. These dancers transpose. There is no other way to stay in step. The dancers sign their names in time, with time. They are dancers after all, after all 2. is said and done, after all is leapt and bounded, unbounded and taken for granted like a mule that always pulls, always takes his pack. 3. These dancers, all twisted up, without meaning to fold this way and that on this moving surface These dancers: we love them, we hate them, watch as the tie rhythm to key to motion to dawn and dusk. One can think of the dancers as the reader, the “you� addressed in the poem, the speaker of the poem, and Everett himself as the writer and throughout the collection we all dance together, sometimes trading places, everyone being both the creator, the created and the reader. It’s a rather powerful effect. �In the trampled meadow of our poverty, some of us can find no clover at all.� Though not all is abstract analysis of language and rhythm through the concepts around jazz. Everett probes more weighted topics around life, death, God (a rather indifferent God who �signs to us� but it is more like �a gang sign from a gang with no members�), maturation and simply getting by in the world. �A sad and great evil is among us,� he writes in E� Major: A blank and gray history is between us, folding like a map with countries that no longer exist, that no longer have governments, but only confused people once citizens There is always such power in his prose and here, with poetic intent, he winds his way into our hearts with rollicking rhythms and minor key emotion. Sonnets For a Missing Key won’t be for everyone, but it is an impressive collection and shows Everett at an experimental venture that satisfies in fresh ways. A lovely little collection from a master of literature. 3.5/5 �The fable is so slowly revealed, the shadow of it persistent, if unconnected, like theorems proved by intuition, like intuitions justified by experience.� dz C� Major ...more |
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Feb 11, 2025
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| 1734537795
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| Oct 24, 2023
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really liked it
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The first time I heard Bob Dylan I felt the melody spiral from the speakers and dive straight into my heart, wrapping it in guitar chords and forever
The first time I heard Bob Dylan I felt the melody spiral from the speakers and dive straight into my heart, wrapping it in guitar chords and forever enrapturing me with his music. Being shown Neil Young right alongside discovering Dylan, I immediately had my mother buy me a guitar and have been playing since I was 12 years old, always with a harmonica around my neck to be like my early hero. I cannot overstate the grip his first few albums had on me at an impressionable age or how much I just absorbed into my personality as a teen. And so, having long looked at Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine on the shelves at the bookstore where I work, I finally had to break down and get it and let me tell you: worth every penny. This thing is a massive tome full of photos (many never before printed), Dylan’s original manuscripts and endless essays from a wonderfully wide variety of writers on a musician that, even if you don’t like him, you have to admit was incredibly influential to modern music history. �Some people say that I am a poet,� Dylan wrote in the notes on the back of his album Bringing It All Back Home, and there is certainly poetry in his words and influences. Beyond musicians like his hero Woody Gutherie, Dylan has a lot of interesting background in poets like Dylan Thomasdz whom he nicked his stage name in place of Zimmerman—or even Ovid, signing lines from the old poet like �every nook and cranny has its tears� on the song . It would be his poetic sensibilities that eventually lead to him being named the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature—the only musician to ever be awarded—an honor for which he gave zero fucks and has never even acknowledged. Which is the most Bob Dylan thing ever, lets be honest. It also pissed a lot of people off, not unlike his landmark album Highway 61 Revisited which shifted to an electric sound that rather notoriously upset a lot of people as is covered in the book—and penning classic hits like his landmark album Highway 61 Revisited. Moving to an electric sound—that rather notoriously upset a lot of people as is covered in the book Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties(you can hear the crowd booing in this ). Still, what made Bob Dylan so special �was his words,� as (of Crosby, Stills & Nash) once said of him, �that’s what Bob stunned the world with. Up until then we had ‘oooh, baby� and ‘I love you, baby.� Bob changed the map. He gave us really, really good words.� This book offers a glimpse into Dylan’s own notebooks and song lyric ideas, which is really cool to see. The whole thing is mostly a curio full of rare ephemera, but a rather well put together one that is undeniably really cool and really awesome to have. The book goes from his early beginnings through to his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways. There are great essays on albums like Time Out of Mind which was full of songs Dylan referred to as �the dread realities of life,� his double album Blonde on Blonde, which Dylan called �the closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind,� the time he played at the March of Washington and the song (�I wanted to write a big song in a simple way�) and much, much more. It is a fun book, a collectors item for sure, but one you’ll want to flip through and read, not just display on your shelf. But then again I love Dylan so I may be biased but this was well worth it. ...more |
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| Apr 14, 2024
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really liked it
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�Unburdened from the plotlines that used to structure each album cycle, she could finally just sing to her narrator’s one true love: the listener.� Adm �Unburdened from the plotlines that used to structure each album cycle, she could finally just sing to her narrator’s one true love: the listener.� Admittedly, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour was one of the most impressive spectacles I have ever experienced. Multiple hours of music and theatrics in a sold out stadium full of an audience for whom fandom has taken on a whole new level of idolization…like her or hate her one cannot deny that Taylor Swift has become a cultural icon of sorts in the United States. Fan Fiction: A Satire is a rather loving investigation into Swift from the incredible Tavi Gevinson released as a free zine (you can find it ). Across three parts, from a look at the elements of nostalgia and framing of memory that drives the emotional resonance in Swift’s music to Gevinson’s own experiences with the pop-star followed by a satirical exchange of emails, this is a fun and insightful read that is certainly a must for any Swiftie but also a rather interesting music and icon critique for anyone even remotely interested. As a fan of both Gevinson and Swift, I couldn’t resist checking this out and quite enjoyed the look into Swift’s lyrical framing in a way one might look at the cultural impact of great works of literature, using ideas by people such as Roland Barthes or Virginia Woolf. Sure, it gets VERY deep in fandom and celebration, but I doubt few would read this without expecting (or even wanting) that, and is rather metaficitonal several layers deep, but this was an enjoyable little read. �She is also showing us a way forward through our own nostalgia, zooming out from individual heartbreaks to the real arc.� I really appreciated the way Gevinson looks at how Swift’s songs take experiences that are sung as highly personal but make them universally felt. The framing around ideas of memory is what sells it, Gevinson explains.�Her memory becomes our big-budget fanfiction,� she writes, making Swift the narrator a stand-in for the listener and making her not only a musician but the �ultimate� protagonist. Gevinson looks at how the teenage search for identity also makes Swift an ideal person to fall deep into a fandom for because of the ways her songs tend to nudge teenage heartbreak and so seeing her live was like �a slow dance at ghost prom: Swift, myself, and all the other heartbroken teens� living in her lyrics. Not that these lyrics are always real experiences, something she has been judged harshly on despite it being common for musicians to sing fictionalized experiences. Gevinson shows its a long tradition of doing �what Dylan and Springsteen did, draw on the culture’s armchair nostalgia and let it seem lived-in.� And it really sells. She points out the delicious irony in songs like All Too Well when Swift describes a certain relationship as �rare� and the Swifties on the Eras Tour reveal �the relationship was not unique. Other people could relate to its story. Find solace in it.� That song in particular is meaningful in a way because when Swift sings �the idea you had of me--who was she?� one can deduce that the man she was dating �was the first to dehumanize-by-idealizing� and the relationship was her living in his fantasy, but for the fans they are also idealizing her and forcing her to live in their fantasies. 'I actually think the internet has turned all of us into perpetual teenagers—defined by what we like, very tribalist, irrationally ascribing morality to taste because IDENTITY!!!!!!' There is also an aspect on the criticisms of Swift that reveal a hint of patriarchal gatekeeping. 'And why not be glad that a woman’s inner life means this much to this many people for the first time ever? Because I’ve monetized it like everyone else on earth?' Gevinson examines how what is "smart business" for some is cutthroat coming from Swift. She also nudges ideas on power imbalance and how when Swift was still a teen girl the burden of scandal was always placed upon her instead of acknowledging her as a target in a society that likes to sexualize young girls and then hold their own sexualization against them. Hence much of Reputation or songs like Blank Check where she plays with the public perception of her as some crazy young woman. She nods to Britney Spears which reminds me of Tavi Gevinson's INCREDIBLE article on Spears that serves as a cultural criticism of society for giving young women the illusion of holding the power and sexualizing them only to hold it against them and disparage them for it without considering that these teen stars never did have the power. You can read it , and I highly recommend it. A quick read, but quite fun for the fans and Gevinson delivers plenty of crisp social commentary as always. I really enjoyed 'my smug little “culture critic� attempt at talking about some aspects of Taylor’s music that I think get overlooked' and the email segments where we read Swift as a cultural critic of her own work in context of a society that judges women harshly and how criticisms of her can often be made as individual but have a universal sting that treats teen girls as hysterical and women as conniving. I think Leigh Stein says it best in her about this zine when comparing the level of metafiction and satire or autofiction present here to Nabokov's Pale Fire. 'If Pale Fire was “a trap to catch reviewers,�' she writes, 'then Fan Fiction is a trap for the Swifties who work as full-time cryptographers.' With Gevinson as our Kinbote 'using the genre of fiction as insurance' in her critiques of Swift, there is certainly a lot to pour over, google, and consider here and it is certainly worth the effort with a payoff of fun. ...more |
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Unknown Binding
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| 1943735042
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| 4.51
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| Jul 19, 2016
| Jul 19, 2016
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really liked it
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�In this version, Everyone we love is still alive.� A great song sticks in the mind, it’s melody pulling memory along behind it. Do you have any favori �In this version, Everyone we love is still alive.� A great song sticks in the mind, it’s melody pulling memory along behind it. Do you have any favorite songs like that—the songs that transport you back to the time and place when you first loved it? Songs that taste of autumn rain, choruses that crash into your mind like waves on a now faraway beach beside a former love or lost friend? Moving to the rhythm of music and aglow in bittersweet nostalgia comes the poetry of Hanif Abdurraqib in The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, a powerful collection chronicling a coming-of-age amidst jukeboxes, crumbling neighborhoods paved over by gentrification, crushes, concerts, �basketball courts & the older brothers / who never found their way back home.� Through narrative poetry full of linguistic acrobatics that bounce across the page like song lyrics and pluck the heartstrings of readers like a guitar amped for stadium rock, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much is a moving and unforgettable read. We, the war generation. The only way we know how to bury our dead is with blood, or sweat, or sex or anything pouring from wet skin to signify we were here, and the wooden floor of a basement belonging to an old house on Neil Avenue makes as good a burial ground as any says the small boom box now playing DJ in the center of this room, and the Whitney CD inside, pouring out of the speakers just loudly enough to let everyone in this room get a small taste of Whitney alive and young� dz At the House Party Where We Found Out Whitney Houston was Dead Hanif Abdurraqib is best known for his riveting essays that wind through research and narratives to deliver a message amalgamated through the emotional resonance of various anecdotes but the same power and poetic storytelling is found succinct and soulful within his poetry. The Crown Ain’t Worth Much finds reflections on music ricocheting against memories and intimate personal investigations of an upbringing in a place where �everyone who lives there misses someone they thought would live forever.� Death and loss are around every corner like the lyrical rhymes balancing the moments of joy and tenderness in each poem as �people have to mourn the shatter of anything that they can look into and see how alive they still are.� These are poems that dive deep into �what it is to grow up poor,� to repeatedly face a new death in the neighborhood, or �the destruction of all things too beautiful to endure an untouched life.� These poems are an elegy to his upbringing in Columbus, Ohio, to the friends and family there, to the desires to leave it all behind and why music is such a necessary escape thinking �maybe if we stack all of the speakers in this town as high as we can and begin to go up,we can escape even this.� Though it is also an elegy to those who were never given the chance to escape. �in the winter danny lost track of time shooting free throws & we had to bury all of the parts of him that the night had left, still brimming with bullets & then none of the black boys got new basketballs for christmas� While these poems are awash in grief and sorrow, there is also a rather infectious humor and warmth to them as well. We have poems in defense of the word “moist,� jokes on aging out of parties and into NPR, memories of writing misheard lyrics �on the wall of places where people emptied themselves of everything they challenged their insides to own.� There is also a lovely litany of music references, with Nick Drake, Jay-Z, Elliott Smith, Fall Out Boy,Taking Back Sunday, Kanye West, A Tribe Called Quest and more harmonizing along with personal reflections. He is at his best when the songs touch him in ways that spark personal revelations or trigger memories of concerts or parties that inspired deep reflection. A Halloween party, for instance makes him realize: �I am becoming more and more like my father every day, the way we both swing into the darkness like it is our birthright, the way we both crave the moon and the breeze dancing�� Family is always around each poem and he makes us consider how we look in their eyes. �I wonder if this is how our parents see us now,� he muses, �promising gifts birthed & pulled from a loving shell only to grow into another disaster uninvited & spreading itself along the streets with a slow crawl.� But family extends beyond blood and even friendship into a general community here. There is a brilliant series of poems, Dispatches from the Black Barbershop where the voice of Tony the Barber chronicles the decline of the neighborhood and the gentrification that follows. But always brilliant as well are his poem titles which half the time could be poems themselves. In Defense of that Winter Where I listened to the First Taking Back Sunday Album Every Day Until the Snow Peeled Itself Back from the Grass and I Found My College Sweatshirt Again There is a warm creativity reverberating through these poems, such as one titled as a draft of wedding vows created as an erasure poem from Virginia Woolf’s suicide note to Leonard Woolf, where we find him �doing what seems…will give me the greatest possible happiness�� reversing death into a declaration of love with: �What I want to say is You…have…saved me. � Everything has gone from me� � But the certainty of your goodness.� There is a real tenderness to many of these poems. I love the moments of early crushes, the vulnerability of saying �I just learned how to make room under my tongue for the name of someone who loves me,� or moments that touch memories of childhood like stepping out into the snow where �I watch the skyline huddle and shiver / like I was seeing it from my mother’s backseat for / the first time.� It is such lovely imagery and each poem contrasts the dark with the light, the heaviness with lightness, the death with life. I walked home in three sweaters and two pairs of pants, shivering in the darkness asking myself how long it would be before I could finally peel back all of those layers and become a new, unbreakable device. Harrowing, haunting, humorous and deeply human, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much is a fabulous collection of poetry. Hanif Abdurraqib blends musings on Blackness, memory, music, misery and more into each gorgeously crafted poem that is sure to strum each emotional chord in your heart. An incredible writer, an incredible poet, and an incredible collection of poems. 4.5/5 ...more |
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| Mar 30, 2018
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really liked it
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�Storytelling is nothing but a rewriting of the past in the eternal present.� Every thursday for the last six years there is an older woman, mostly hom �Storytelling is nothing but a rewriting of the past in the eternal present.� Every thursday for the last six years there is an older woman, mostly homebound, who calls the bookstore to chat books with me. She’s a really cool person and each Thursday we go over what we are currently reading, what books she’s looking for me to order, anything interesting going on in her life, but she also tends to direct me towards learning some really fascinating things. The other week she had me look up information about Austrian composer, author and socialite , of whom I was previously ignorant of, and I was fascinated to read about her rather culturally significant social circles. As my customer/friend was hoping to read a novel about her, I did some digging and found this, Alma Mahler by Sasho Dimoski, translated into the English by Paul Filev as part of ’s Macedonian literature series. A big fan of Dalkey, I asked if I could quickly read it before we had it delivered to her–something we do at the bookstore for a few people with mobility issues (I used to do a weekly bike ride to the assisted living complex on the other side of downtown like a little book fairy and deliver books)--and was rather pleased to find how much power and heart was poetically folded into the provocative prose of this brief novella. Surveying the emotional resonance of her marriage to composer in the moments leading up to his death in 1911, the story puts us in Alma’s perspective as she is �hampered by life’s disappointments� and must ask herself �was it all worth it?� A brief but moving story that confronts memory, love and a life lived in the shadow of another, Alma Mather is a touching little book that captures the importance of storytelling. �I was your shadow. Alma Mahler, the failed composer. Alma Mahler. Your devoted shadow. Your wife, lover, the mother of your dead child, your governess, cook, nurse. Both your feeling of dread and your sense of security. I, Alma Mahler. With countless broken smiles, with dull eyes, and various masks. A mask for every feeling. For every habitual folly.� In his —hearing it was what sparked my friend’s interest in Alma—comedian Tom Lehrer refers to her obituary as �the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read.� A complex, occasionally problematic, but lasting legacy of a life with multiple husbands, affairs, and famous social circles, Alma Mahler is a fascinating figure. Having always felt in the shadow of Gustav, who discouraged her work in musical composition while diving into his own, Sasho Dimoski frames the novel as an investigation of love in the face of disappointments and �an unhappy consequence of time.� Mahler tells us �I wanted much, but always I was satisfied with little,� and presents a figure who lives her life for the sake of others, but almost never herself. �I’ve become a big diary,� she says, �in which are inscribed the lives and desires of all those I have loved, with whom I spent my life.� Most important of those are Gustav. �I will rescue from oblivion all of those little things that are known only to us. I will archive your soul, maintain it. As if it were the most precious thing that life has brought me.� There is a rather touching sentiment of preserving a life through the act of storytelling, to ensure his life and her place in it are not lost to the great sweep of time. To ensure the moments that matter to us aren’t snuffed out in the darkness of eternity. �How many times did we look at the sky and count the stars, naming them with all the terms of our endearment? How many timed did I see your pupils dilate, your hands shake, reaching for that invisible force from which we both drew our lives? That’s why we will go on forever. And that’s why there exists this fear of forgetting. Because of all the stars and dreams within them.� In a brief afterword note, Sasho Dimoski writes abut how �love that, in and of itself, is sufficient basis for living. Love in an instant that lasts an eternity,� and Alma seems to tell this story, flourished in grand expressions of love and memory, in order to convince us and herself that it was a life worth living. Though the image doesn’t always hold and we feel the sadness and frustrations seep in too. �[Music] was killing you. Many people give birth to great things when they kill something within themselves,� she laments, �you were giving birth to music while becoming dead to me.� There are the losses of friends, the deaths he embeds into his music, and all the ways they disappoint each other. �Thats how much you hurt me, Gustav. As much as all the loves that have ever been and ever will be,� she says and there is a sense that the hurt is also a reminder of love, because without having felt love one cannot feel such hurt. �Musical notation is an expression of eternal love.� Short but sweet and sublimely written, Sasho Dimoski’s Alma Mahler is an interesting and emotional look at the life and relationship of this historical figure. It makes for a powerful look at storytelling as a way to preserve the past and moments we hold most dear. 3.5/5 �All stories come to an end, one way or another. No story remains open-ended. That’s why people tell stories: so that their hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows may be preserved for future generations. Life is nothing if you don’t leave behind your story in the best way possible.� ...more |
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Aug 15, 2024
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| B0DM265VYT
| 3.89
| 1,978
| Mar 25, 2020
| Mar 25, 2020
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really liked it
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**insert punk guitar riff "Kicking ass Being gay Saving the world From Y2K! YEA!"** I’m going to just assume those are lyrics from Volcano Girls in the del **insert punk guitar riff "Kicking ass Being gay Saving the world From Y2K! YEA!"** I’m going to just assume those are lyrics from Volcano Girls in the delightful second volume to Heavy Vinyl where our teen vigilantes are now rocking ears when they aren’t punching faces. This series is a bit silly but it’s also high energy, adorably sapphic and so much fun. The crew is back as the 90s are barreling to a close and everyone is concerned about Y2K while assured that computer programmers have got it covered. Yet computers are crashing and maybe those burned cds aren’t as safe like everyone’s mom was worried about? This volume is a lot of fun, really making the period piece element work for the story better than in the first. I especially liked the element of slow dial-up issues when trying to buy concert tickets. This issue however lacks some of the romantic tension and all-around joy of the original that makes it feel a tad sophomore-slump. Not that it’s bad, and there’s plenty of new dynamics: Chris and Maggie are so cute together but dating is full of anxiety, D might have romance on the horizon with a girl possibly even more hip that her, Logan is leaving town and more…because now they have a battle of the bands to win. And a lot of asses to kick. The artwork continues to be amazing and possibly even stronger in this volume. I particularly like how well it captures action and big montage moments. Honestly, even if this is a bit lacking in story compared to the first one, it’s still just awesome to look at. I love Heavy Vinyl and I hope Carly Usdin makes good on the promise at the end for a third volume. These characters are so fun to read about and I just want Chris and Maggie to be adorably in love forever. And make sweet music. Heavy Vinyl: Y2K-O is a lovely continuation of a thrilling graphic novel series. 3.5/5 ...more |
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Jun 16, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 1534398627
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| 4.08
| 112
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| Jun 04, 2024
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really liked it
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�It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play,� Jazz icon Miles Davis once said about the distinction between good and bad music. It’s t
�It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play,� Jazz icon Miles Davis once said about the distinction between good and bad music. It’s the silence between the notes that matter just as much and in Deep Cuts a rocking graphic novel compendium of jazz tales, we are treated to the notes we don’t hear or see in the music: the notes of life off the stage as well as on it. Writers Kyle Higgins and Joe Clark are joined by an impressive line-up of visual artists to tell six stories of musicians ranging from 1917 New Orleans to a global tour in the late 70s where each tale is as varied as the eye-popping visuals. It’s like a graphic novel as an album that reaches in multiple directions yet still has a unifying central theme that all the notes orbit around. And sure, someone once said �writing about music is like dancing about architecture,� (the quote has been attributed to everyone from Miles Davis and Frank Zappa to Steve Martin and George Carlin but the actual origins are unknown), the combination of words and art here really drive home some wonderful stories that go beyond the music. So plug in, turn up the volume, and get ready for a wild ride with Deep Cuts. Starving artists, youngsters looking for their first gig, long-time artists still looking for their big break, musicians who’ve given up the life, experimental artists, musicians on a downward spiral and more all populate the pages of the six stories in Deep Cuts. The tales move from New Orleans to Chicago in the days leading up to , Kansas City in 1940, New York in 1956, LA in 1968 and then again in 1977, each with their own unique artistic style but all with a deep love of jazz and the people who move it or are moved by it. Included in this visual line-up are Danilo Beyruth, Helena Masellis, Diego Greco, Ramón Pérez, Juni Ba and Toby Cypress, with Igor Monti having provided the cover art for each individual issue as they were being released. [image] I really loved this and while, admittedly, some of the stories are better than others a lot of them hit hard. The first story would have made an excellent short story in just prose but the visuals really bring it to life. And I can’t help but love all the various representations of the bands playing and how, despite moving across many years and into the era of electric instruments, there is still this central idea of jazz where you look at them and know “this is a jazz band� 1917 1968 1977 ”Jazz is dead.�? God, maybe. Jazz? No. There is a real playfulness here too. We have stories of a journalist trying to recover from a bender getting lost in the world of jazz and art and flailing to comprehend their intentions, a woman determined to write the greatest jazz song ever in order to save her play, musicians on the wrong side of the law, or musicians struggling with band dynamics and nervous about going solo. The art matches these stories quite effectively, and I was particularly charmed by the story of the young girl who, hooked on detective comics, begins to tail her father thinking there must be some dark secret why he left the music world and settled down. It’s a rather heartwarming tale set during the Christmas season and the interplay of reality and her comic-book-imagery imagination is delightful: The fourth story is done as a noir and the style of the art with the many interrelated frames and the use of colors in that one is incredible too: All in all, this is just a really fun and fascinating book that is perfect for music lovers, though anyone could really enjoy it. It did make me want to pick up my instruments the moment I’d set down the book though too. So follow the beat across the 20th century with Deep Cuts, a heartfelt and warm collection that is an astonishingly lovely variety of art and storytelling that captures the human spirit in its quest to make art. This collection could be enjoyed by anyone too, and while there is a bit of adult content its pretty tame and could be read by both teens and adults. So get in the groove with Deep Cuts. 4/5 ...more |
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| 9781684151417
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| 3.96
| 7,108
| Apr 10, 2018
| Apr 24, 2018
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really liked it
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Sapphic book lovers: plug in and turn the dial all the way up because this a hit! Welcome to Vinyl Destination, the coolest vinyl shop in 1998 where t Sapphic book lovers: plug in and turn the dial all the way up because this a hit! Welcome to Vinyl Destination, the coolest vinyl shop in 1998 where teen girl Chris has just landed her first job. Awkward but determined to be cool, she’s blissfully immersed in a land of amazing music and hip women coworkers, especially Maggie who is �literally the cutest.� But something is amiss and this new girl suspects her coworkers are up to something when they send her home after close� Author Carly Usdin blends the love of music with the fight for justice in Heavy Vinyl, a rocking good time of a graphic novel with wonderful artwork from Nina Vakueva and Irene Flores. When bands start going missing, its up to a gang of tough teens to save the day and..oh wait, yea, I should probably mention that this record shop is just a front for a music loving gang who love to punch up at the patriarchy and stand up for justice. This is such a fun graphic novel full of action, music, queer romance and features a lovely inclusive cast of characters. Chris is suddenly ushered into this new world of post-close crime fighting and will have to keep her confidence up to keep up—made all the more difficult when D., her “arch enemy� (D’s words), is resentful of her being included in the group. But when the singer of the hardcore band that is supposed to play their shop disappears right before a new album release and her bandmates seem pre-programmed with polished, interview friendly marketing replies to any question, it’s going to take all of them to crack the case. Chris is so much fun to follow as we are treated to the chaotic anxiety running through her head, made all the more high-strung when she cannot stop thinking about Maggie who is always so sweet to her and can really land a kick. I enjoy how well this captures the adorableness of Chris and Maggie very blatantly having mutual crushes on each other but the accuracy of teenage anxiety that makes Chris scared maybe Maggie isn’t into her or even girls at all. Aww you adorable little crime fighting dorks, just kick the bad guys ass and kiss already. But for real, this is super fun and…okay the plot is a bit ridiculous involving mind control record labels with a plot to take any social justice messages out of music but its also a pretty timely evil villain idea as book censorship is rampant and queer stories or marginalized identities are often the primary targets. Is it all kind of dumb? Maybe. But is it super cute and fun? ABSOLUTELY. This is a joyous ride full of music and mayhem and I had a blast. Extra special shoutout to my assistant director who recommended this to me today when we were supposed to be talking about library programming. Heavy Vinyl is a blast. � ...more |
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not set
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not set
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Jun 07, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0593566718
| 9780593566718
| 0593566718
| 4.65
| 4,085
| unknown
| May 02, 2023
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it was amazing
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Essential reading. [image] Read it to your cats too, they’ll love it. Mine did. [image] |
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Mar 26, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1524798622
| 9781524798628
| 1524798622
| 4.20
| 1,724,905
| Mar 05, 2019
| Mar 05, 2019
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really liked it
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If you haven’t belted out while crying and driving HAVE YOU EVER TRULY LIVED / LOVED / LOST?!? This book hits that same vibe. �Music ca If you haven’t belted out while crying and driving HAVE YOU EVER TRULY LIVED / LOVED / LOST?!? This book hits that same vibe. �Music can dig, you know? It can take a shovel to your chest and just start digging until it hits something.� Music is an art you experience with your whole body. A good rhythm can surge through you and get you dancing, the four right chords can make you cry, lyrics can inspire and become a lifelong favorite quote, shared love of a song can become a great bonding experience especially when you sing along together. It is such a powerful form of expression and experience it is no wonder Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote �without music, life would be a mistake.� Behind our favorite songs is a whole industry or artists on instruments or behind mixing boards working with business men and personality handlers to make these albums happen and bring them to our ears and often the stories of a band can be as fascinating as the stories that they sing. Daisy Jones & the Six is such a story of people coming together to create art and coming apart over addictions and betrayals, a 70s band that reads as so plausible you’d swear you heard their music if you didn’t know it was a fictional story from Taylor Jenkins Reid. Told as a series of interviews getting perspectives from not only the band members and their families but also the producers, sound engineers, and various staffers they met along their road to rock’n’roll, the novel brilliantly recreates the experience of watching on of those VH1 Behind the Music episodes. The story itself may be a fiction, but the way it is told becomes a rather fascinating investigation and criticism on the culture around the music scene at the time, highlighting toxic elements such as the misogyny, addictions and other bad behaviors but also the social conditions that lead to—and encouraged—such behaviors, as well as an insightful dive into the way we mythologize fame and the music industry itself. Through the story of a band and the interpersonal frictions and romances that propelled and inevitably derailed them, Daisy Jones & The Six is a fun and fascinating look at the music industry and the American culture that danced to its beat. �We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get much more obviously broken and more classically beautiful than Daisy Jones.� I was highly recommended by goodreads friend and expert book recommender, Luh, to check this out as an audiobook and I would certainly encourage anyone else to do the same. Having a full cast really helps lean into the interview format with the cast sounding like some washed up rock stars but also the way they laugh at their own jokes and instill emotion into their narrations elevates this in such a way that I wonder if this is the ideal format. According to Taylor Jenkins Reid, the story of Daisy Jones and her eventual collaboration with The Six was inspired by sing “Landslide� and readers will certainly see influence from in this book. So much so, in fact, that upon watching the tv adaptation, Stevie Nicks herself that it made her feel �like a ghost watching my own story.� Here we have the stories of Daisy and Billy who came into stardom in their own ways that led to their paths uniting for the sake of music. Offstage they have a lot of personal issues but onstage they have an incredible chemistry that only enhances their music. �I sounded like a cool new pair of jeans wand Billy sounded like a pair you’ve worn for years,� Daisy comments. It is a tumultuous relationship, one that threatens to shatter the already frail relationship Billy is trying to have with his wife and sobriety and from the moment they meet we can tell Daisy will be a catalyst for chaos in his life when she sings his lyrical statements of certainty as questions instead. �The truth often lies, unclaimed, in the middle.� Though this isn’t just a story of two big personalities who become tidal waves that rock each other’s lives but a story about a whole band that is trying to pull together and weather the storms of their iconic figures misbehaviors. The way it recreates rock biographies and interviews is expertly crafted, with variations on the stories revealing disagreements or misunderstandings (or often used as dramatic irony for some good jokes), and the various personalities are well written. I particularly enjoyed how well this was able to balance an ensemble cast with each member getting a pretty adequate amount of attention and voice. Having heard a lot about this book and seen how often it appears on lists like “romance� or “beach reads,� I was happy to see that the romance is actually a narrative element upheld by a larger plot that reacts to their storylines and it made me think about how often people infantilize the idea of “womens fiction� to be mere love stories and not a larger commentary on culture. Because what really stands out here, to me at least, are the ways Reid addresses the culture of rock and roll and what that said about American culture in general. I wondered at times if this exact story had been written by a man and not a woman associated with popular novels often read by younger women, we likely would have heard it discussed as a contender for the Pulitzer Prize, because it truly is a pretty cutting investigation into Americana and the culture of entertainment industries. But this commonly happens when a woman has a big book and people will rally to say it “actually isn’t that good,� or that if a woman writes a well-regarded literary novel that it . This seems especially prevalent when it is a woman author of color, such as the against the popularity of Zadie Smith. Or, as Florence Welch sings in the song (a favorite for sure) �you can that rock and roll is dead, but is that just because it has not been resurrected in your image?� Industries that had been allowed to be dominated by men tend to resist allowing women the same stardom afforded to men, and how much of claims of less talent are just an excuse to deny women space? �I was just supposed to be the inspiration for some man’s great idea. Well fuck that.� Which is interesting because that infantilization of women artists is rather present in the novel itself. Daisy finds her early efforts either taken by men with no credit or completely dismissed in order to have her sing what the men in the industry want. Even when she has a decent enough record on her own, it isn’t until she has the already-established men of The Six (and Karen!) behind her that she really propels into stardom. Sure, the duet with Billy helps but fuck Billy. And for the most part people only want her on stage for her looks to accompany the “serious� artists and she has no interest in being an accessory. �I am not going to sit around sweating my ass off just so men can feel more comfortable. It’s not my responsibility to not turn them on. It’s their responsibility to not be an asshole.� Though this theme does bleed into another that the music industry is itself a business. Sure Daisy has raw talent, but as Teddy points out, none of her songs are actually finished. Yes there is the element that a woman isn’t given the same opportunities or trust to get a record that men are, but there is also the hard truth that music is an art and a business that takes a lot of work to perfect. More on that in a moment because even when Daisy proves herself it seems that she is only appreciated in context with Billy. And as wonderful and actually really intense the scene of Billy getting Daisy to record his song is, its also a reminder that Billy had to more or less break Daisy down emotionally to make her his muse for his art. And honestly, muse culture is gross and history is full of artists abusing their muses and then everyone overlooking the abuse because of the art it inspired. Take Picasso for instance. But also the gatekeeping around women in the arts is something that we still struggle with today and Daisy’s story helps illuminate that. �I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else's muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of fucking story.� We do a lot of mythologizing about artistic industries and music is one of those that stands out the most. Musicians are storytellers themselves and there is always that question if the speaker of the song is truly the singer, a fictionalized version of an experience of the singer, or complete fiction. Fanbases love to dig into this, look at the online culture around Taylor Swift looking for deeper meanings and secret messages in her songs and constructing entire theories about her life from them. There is a great line from Graham however: �Back then I thought music was just about music. But music is never about music. If it was, we’d be writing songs about guitars. But we don’t, we write songs about women.� The music industry is not just about music, its about the personality, its about the sexuality, its about the romance, its about the things that make you feel, its about storytelling. And this is all behind a large layer of mythologizing and storytelling itself that are orchestrated by an industry taking all the raw talent and molding it into something that will sell. In the film —a personal favorite of mine—Oscar Issac’s folksinger says �you're not supposed to let your practice shit out. It ruins the mystique.� We love the image of art being this raw talent and untainted beauty as if your favorite song is a rose that grew from the concrete. But in actuality it is a highly calculated look that a LOT of people orchestrate to give that impression. Any art really, even the best raw talented writers have editors. Books are edited, publishers make changes, often the author has little say in some aspects. At the end of the day we have to remember books and albums are a product. And this book does a good job of showing that. This isn’t to say that I’m into the fact that art industries are a business (I’m not a very yay profit person to be honest, I mean, I work at a library), just that it becomes its own sort of storytelling in the guise of marketing and I think this book does a good job at looking at this sort of storytelling beneath the storytelling. We see how truth gets subverted and stylized to shape an image, such as Billy killing the story about his stint in rehab to have an article focus on the supposed hatred of him and Daisy off-stage, which only heightens people’s interest in seeing them. Ultimately, we can look at the product of a band and all the mythologizing around it as a sort of art itself. As on said, �Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.� A band is a sculpture in a way too. � It’s an album about the push and full of stability and instability. It’s about the struggle that I live almost every day to not do something stupid. Is it about love? Yeah, of course it is. But that’s because it’s easy to disguise almost anything as a love song.� In his book How Fiction Works, critic James Wood (the book critic from The New Yorker not the guy who voiced Hades) writes �Good fiction is not just a mirror of reality, but a lens through which we can see reality more clearly.� FIction can unpack reality, take out all the things hiding underneath the mythologizing or expose the toxic elements we are often coached by society to overlook. What Reid chooses to leave in or what to leave out in the constructing of a band narrative says a lot and a major theme is the way the culture around music leads to a lot of abuse. Right off the bat someone mentions that, while they don’t agree with it, a lot of rockstars slept with underaged girls and thats �just the way it was� (the fact that the book is told in retrospect allows for some subtle moments of people distancing themselves from events in the past at a few points). People knew it was happening and nobody did anything, it was just normalized. The rampant drug abuse is not only normalized but encouraged with Daisy commenting that she was able to have �any narcotic anytime I needed and no one was stopping me.� Drugs kept the musicians awake, kept them partying, kept them fun, but it ruined a lot of lives. �Well this is how dark the world can be,� one of the Dunn brothers mentions upon seeing their own estranged father with a barely legal girl, but its all a toxic masculinity people just accepted. We see how these elements and ideas around rock culture encouraged members to fall down dark holes. Billy especially. Though understanding does not mean condoning and Billy is sort of a shit, but we also see how easily it was to get pulled in that direction. Daisy too and the way people clung to her fame. When the #MeToo movement started up and a lot of musicians began to be accused, people (mostly men) were taken aback and often offended—it was such a cultural norm that to be confronted with the truth that it was abuse shattered not only an image of the music icon but the idea of rock and roll itself and how that harbored horrific abuse (and the gatekeeping talked about earlier). �I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it's not faith, right?� At its heart, this is a story about love as well as music. There are a lot of types of love represented here, love for your bandmates, for your family, for yourself, as well as romantic love. While I didn’t particularly enjoy the Billy/Daisy love plot beyond the tension and that they were both sort of just awful, it also felt very true to life and how people are pushed by the image of themselves and struggle with how to hold that in their personal lives. �All I will say is that you show up for your friends on their hardest days. And you hold their hand through the roughest parts. Life is about who is holding your hand and, I think, whose hand you commit to holding.� once said that �music is the soundtrack of your life.� And what Daisy Jones & the Six does well is show the life behind the music and through a really well orchestrated reenactment of the sort of behind-the-music “rockumentaries� that have always captivated fans. It all ends up with a pretty nice twist on the “why� this interview series is taking place and I feel a big takeaway is that the truth is often hiding in all the variations of memory, or framing of truth, that those who experienced it will tell you. It’s well crafted and speaks to a larger insight into the culture of 70s rock in a way that reminds us that artists are like everyone else, susceptible to bad behavior, struggles, poor decision making, laughter, love, and heartbreak. I really appreciated the addition of song lyrics at the end. This was a fun read, well, fun listen as I highly recommend doing the audiobook, and reminded me how much I love music. So, what would be the songs that make up the soundtrack of your life? 4/5 �When you think of me, I hope it ruins rock 'n' roll.� ...more |
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Jan 21, 2024
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Jan 27, 2024
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Jan 21, 2024
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Hardcover
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| 1787740234
| 9781787740235
| 1787740234
| 4.10
| 78
| unknown
| Aug 22, 2023
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really liked it
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I’ll never forget when I first heard Gil Scott-Heron. A buddy of mine played me one night late into a porch drink
I’ll never forget when I first heard Gil Scott-Heron. A buddy of mine played me one night late into a porch drinking session and I knew I had to give this guy’s catalog a good listen. Which is a familiar story for many, such as Thomas Mauceri—author of this incredible graphic memoir In Search of Gil Scott-Heron—who first heard that song in college during the frustrations over the Florida recounts in the Gore/Bush election in 2000. Seb Piquet, who’s gorgeous artwork brings this book to life, delivers that moment perfectly: This memoir will appeal to both long time fans of the artist as well as newcomers who will certainly want to give him a listen after, particularly as Mauceri breaks up the narrative with lovely inserts going into detail about key songs (either his favorites or ones relevant to that point in the story) such as , , and more. He was an incredible artist, often called the ‘godfather of rap� (though he found that reductive and preferred to be a ‘bluesologist�) and inspired generations of musicians (we see Kanye West that he’d written as a tribute to the legend) his is a sad tale that chases the history of Scott-Heron and how it intertwines with Thomas Mauceri’s own life as he spends years trying to finally connect with Scott-Heron for a documentary only to discover he has passed on the day they are supposed to meet. Which is where this memoir begins. A loving tribute to a cherished artist as well as a meditation on place, race, and history unfolding, In Search of Gil Scott-Heron is a heartfelt and gorgeous graphic memoir. This is just as much the story of Thomas Mauceri as it is the history of Gil Scott-Heron, which some readers might be surprised about, but the intertwining of tales really works here. Especially in place of the documentary he was never able to create. We begin with Mauceri coming from France to study in the US, having to leave after 9/11, and returning time and time again for projects, always hoping to connect with Gil in order to do a documentary about him. He wanted to show how much the city and the whole of Black history from the Civil Rights to the present comes alive in his music as much as those elements helped create his music. Piquet’s illustrations of the various places in Harlem and New York really capture this, and there are also some really powerful scenes about political events such as the election of Barack Obama in 2004 while Mauceri was in New York. And while he never meets Gil, we do meet a lot of people important to his life, such as of . It is a really great narrative that tells the lives of both men and captures how much your inspiring artists leave a mark on your life. Scott-Heron’s words seem reflective of theAudre Lorde poem, that ends: when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.� I found In Search of Gil Scott-Heron to be a rather moving and interesting read that, despite not being what I expected, ended up being something really cool and dynamic. I love seeing how much an artist can impact someone and I really liked the way it tied in modern US political history with this story. I remember all these events as well (though I was about a decade younger) so it was a fascinating framing for revisiting them. Do yourself a massive favor and put on some Gil Scott-Heron and raise a toast to the amazing artist now gone, and check this book out if you can! � ...more |
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Aug 30, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0374313016
| 9780374313012
| 0374313016
| 4.06
| 3,257
| May 30, 2023
| May 30, 2023
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it was amazing
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Before they were queer icons and famous musicians pumping out hits, Tegan and Sara Quinn had to endure the teenage experiences of growing up, navigati
Before they were queer icons and famous musicians pumping out hits, Tegan and Sara Quinn had to endure the teenage experiences of growing up, navigating difficult friendships and crushes, and learning how to become a band. Middle School is a fantastic and moving graphic novel of a slightly fictionalized version on their 7th grade experience growing up in Canada, a book I knew I had to have as soon as I saw the great artistic prodigy, Tillie Walden was providing the artwork (On A Sunbeam remains an all-time favorite graphic novel for me). We watch the twins face learning a new school and new friendships (while trying to keep their best-friend in the loop), adapting to the changes of puberty, and entering the tumultuous emotions of first crushes, but a chance discovery of their mom’s boyfriend’s old guitar might change their lives forever and give them an outlet for their feelings. Fans of the duo will enjoy this look into their early years though strangers to the music will find this to be just as heartfelt and endearing. Gorgeously illustrated and handling topics with humor and sensitivity, Middle School is an absolute delight that effectively captures the pre-teen vibes and might even inspire you to grab a guitar. So and let's talk about this lovely book. First performance Just based on the band and artist I knew I was going to love this, but the message on finding your friends and who you are hit especially well for me. When the album dropped in 2013, I had just started a part time job at a Barnes and Noble in a city I didn’t know and far from any friends I’d ever had after basically fleeing working a factory job I hated (okay so I might have tried to start a union at my Uncle’s factory. I’d say we don’t talk about this but nobody from that part of the fam even talks to me since then so it’s cool). Heartthrob and the first Lorde album happened to be the only two in-store-play albums we had at the time so it got a lot of play, which was great because I fell in love with it and I remember making a joke with a coworker about how whenever Closer came on we’d instinctively start shelving faster like it was some 80s workout video. So you know you are doing well enough as the new person if the cool employee with a Libertines tattoo doesn’t hate you, and a lot of old memories associated with really enjoying all the Tegan and Sara albums came back reading this (like my oldest seeing them as a first concert). So reading a book with that connection about finding friends and fitting in way nice as most of my friends 10 years later I people I met working at Barnes and now 3 of us share an office together working the library (and yes we have a union here) so that’s a happy ending. But back to this book because it really is quite lovely and—as expected—Tillie Walden’s artwork is phenomenal. I mean: Tillie Walden superfan right here Sara and Tegan are identical twins, so to help the reader keep them apart Tegan is often represented with the color blue while Sara through the color red. There are quite a lot of characters here which can be tough to keep straight sometimes but Walden switches up their hair enough to keep them in order. The story is rather episodic while having overarching elements such as Sara crushing on one friend while Tegan is navigating trying to be best friend’s with Noa despite Noa’s other best friend being a total bully and downer (this is packed with middle school drama!), but it all flows quite well and has a good comfortable pace that makes it feel like you are reading a full year of growth without ever feeling like it drags. I also enjoyed that, despite being their graphic memoir, the story is pushed to take place in the present as it will resonate more with middle or high school readers. Texting is very central to the communication in the book yet it does still retain a sort of “timeless� pre-teen feel that anyone will empathize with. Teenage Tegan and Sara performing I really enjoyed getting bits about the twins forming a band as well, here named Gunk (instead of Plunk, which was their actual first band name). We see how songwriting becomes a way to express complex emotions in a productive way and how quickly the twins take to putting effort in the music (also the difficulty of balancing art with school work). For those looking for more, Tegan and Sara released a memoir in 2019, High School, that tells the “true� story, and their 2019 album is a reworking of many of the songs they wrote as teenagers and are alluded to in this book. Even if you’ve never heard of this group (would recommend checking them out) you can get just as much out of the book as anyone else. It is quite a moving and familiar story and I just loved it. Walden does such an excellent job with the artwork, the story is really endearing, and everything about it just works. Also this would be a perfect way to kickstart Pride Month starting this week! 4.5/5 ...more |
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May 30, 2023
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May 30, 2023
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Jan 26, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 0826428991
| 9780826428998
| 0826428991
| 4.07
| 2,176
| Jan 01, 2008
| Apr 15, 2008
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really liked it
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�It was like a S.W.A.T. team kicking out windows inside my head.� We all have that one album we knew intimately in our teenage years. The one album you �It was like a S.W.A.T. team kicking out windows inside my head.� We all have that one album we knew intimately in our teenage years. The one album you knew every word, wrestled with every lyric. The one album you could hear even the notes deep in the mix inside your mind when you thought of it in silence. For me that album was Neil Young’s , an album that sent me on a lifelong journey of guitar playing and harmonica blowing, but for teenage Roger locked away from all he loves in a mental health facility in 1985, that album was Black Sabbath’s . Who is the master of your reality musician John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats asks in his novella, Master of Reality. Who controls what you think and do? Who decides what is real? Raging against the nurses and doctors and feeling hopeless without access to his tape collection, Robert pens his thoughts on his treatment and favorite music in the journal he is made to keep. Darnielle creates an nuanced and layered story that is part music criticism and part introspective mourning for a lost adolescence and spins it out in a way that really speaks to the sore spots inside us all. The magic of this story is the way it focuses on the way the music makes Roger feel, being more a catalog of emotional resonance even when band biography comes up. It’s about what Black Sabbath meant to him. Swinging hard, yet peppered with humor and infused with a deep empathy for those who struggle through this world, Master of Reality is an engaging novella that fans and even complete strangers to the band—such as myself—will find to be a moving meditation on the power of music to heal and give hope. Black Sabbath While I’ve never been a music biography reader, I’ve always been curious about the where the submission call was to write about your favorite album in a literary way. I was thrilled to finally read one when this became our bookclub read for December, even more so as I am a big fan of John Darnielle’s band, . I’ve seen them several times and their lyrics often speak to me. I’ve avoided his novels, worried if I didn’t like them enough it would spoil that magical spell his songwriting has had over me, but I was pleased to say this only made me appreciate him more. As a former nurse on a psychiatric wing in a hospital, Darnielle writes from the heart and dedicates this book �to all the children to who I ever provided care, in the earnest hope that your later lives have brought you the joy, love, and freedom that was always yours by right.� It makes me pause and consider that the Gary (�fucking Gary�) to whom Roger is writing—and raging against—may in fact be party Darnielle himself, conflicted over having been a player in a mental health system he critiques. Either way, the emotions feel authentic and hit hard here. �I don’t do sports, but with Ozzy I feel like I understand the concept of the home team crowd.� For Roger, Black Sabbath and Ozzy speak to him in a way where �it’s like, I know that dude,� and because �only Black Sabbath sounds like exactly what my friends and I might have done if we’d had the equipment.� Darnielle certainly empathizes, having recorded his early tapes after his shift, mostly solo, wanting the equipment for a full band and fuller sound. But this also approaches the way musical idols in our youths are often people we want to be like, or feel like they would hang out with us. He acknowledges that even Ozzy wasn’t the character he played on record and stage, and considers �how important it can be to really be free to pretend.� He sees Ozzy as someone like him, troubled but wanting so badly to keep going and make something of himself. �That’s why Black Sabbath are special. They aren’t rags to riches. They are just rags. All they have is themselves, but that’s turned out to be enough.� We all hope that we can be enough. What works so well is they way the story focuses on the feelings bestowed by music, the experience of it all. Darnielle captures his own message that �it’s not emotions but the aftereffects of them, or a memory of them, or imagining what it might be like to really let them out.� Interestingly, at one point he pairs the phrase that Roger �lost control� with his outburst being a way to �assert some kind of control,� and in a way this reflects the loud, chaotic music: it is a highly choreographed chaos of sounds and letting out the emotions is how the musicians and listeners find a way to feel in control of them. I enjoy how he doesn’t put the music all on a pedestal, criticizing Ozzy’s voice at times, admitting his lyrics �sounds like he’s saying his piece before he really thought it through,� and even admitting he dislikes 3 songs on the album. It’s all really heartfelt and honest, and it really works and is infectiously in awe of the band. I’ve never been a fan, and even appreciating these songs in a new light won’t make it enter frequent rotation of listening, but even so this book really took hold of me. �The real message the hidden message is that we are the ones who are making better days.� The hospital is written as a threatening place that is more about restraint than aid. Roger knows his music helps him. The music �pulled me gently out of real life and transported me somewhere else, which was what I felt like I needed most in the world.� Without it, he spirals. The second half of the novella, written 10 years later in diary entries sent to Gary again (�fuck you, Gary� reflects on the irony that his music was looked down upon because of the dark themes and imagery. The hospital pushed religious overtones in everything and Roger writes incredulously �Ozzy was one of you guys! He was on your side the whole time, but you wouldn’t even listen to him to find out!� It’s a rather beautiful dive into the lyrics, which he sees as redemption, giving oneself to Jesus, finding hope in the darkness: �Peace, peace, peace, happiness, happiness, happiness. That was the message that Master of Reality came to spread�.But some of us who are desperate to find this message end up finding it in places where the tones are really dark and the images are explosive and scary, and when we say that we found the secret of love in some sticky lightless place, we get punished. Which ends up happening a lot of times, because we keep digging around in the places where we know love is…we learn not to mind getting punished if we can just keep what we found on the way to the punishment.� It is a tragic tale, one where the punished come to only find purpose through punishment, only feeling alive through pain when they so badly want to feel joy. There is a solidarity with people who feel that way here, all set against the backdrop of 1980s State Institutions that seem to swallow young souls up forever in a maw of darkness kept hidden from the world. �So I felt sad for you,� Roger writes to Gary, �because you haven’t ever stood in the shadow of a volcano and lived to tell about it.� His hardships have made him stronger and able to appreciate the life he has left to live, bearing scars that show the harsh journey to be where he is in the second half writing in 1995. �I’m 26, but I’m not ready for m 16-year-old self to be dead.� The aspects of grief and mourning in this novel are gripping. Roger mourns the lost years of adolescence, stuck inside a State Institution until he finally turns 18 and is thrown out to fend for himself without many resources. By reading his old diary and listening to music, he is trying to recapture that 16 year old emotion but finds it eludes him. �Maybe that younger person died when he became this older person, and now when I’m feeling his emotions and sharing his rage, I’m really just mourning his death.� Music is a shortcut to dredging up old memories and feelings. With some songs I can taste the air and weather of the day it first meant something to me. It is a eulogy to time now gone, and Darnielle captures this in introspective tragedy through Roger laying his past self to rest, buried inside him with a funeral dirge of metal guitars fuzzing alongside the hard rhythm of a drum. �So we look up to Black Sabbath—to what we remember of them, in my case. Even after we’re grown up, we do. Always.� Short but powerful, John Darnielle’s Black Sabbath excels at capturing the feeling of a favorite band. Wedding music criticism to a harrowing story of surviving your own mental health and a system that doesn’t seem to be helping, this is a stirring novella that will have you getting out your headphones and revisiting the songs that speak loudest to you. Music can heal and comfort, it can excite you and make you dream big, and often I find it is the closest thing to a magic spell we get in this world. Darnielle understands this, and his depiction of it will rock the stadium of your heart. 3.75/5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 22, 2022
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Dec 22, 2022
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Dec 22, 2022
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Paperback
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| 1603094989
| 9781603094986
| 1603094989
| 4.67
| 7,694
| Sep 2020
| Nov 02, 2021
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it was amazing
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�But� how can someone be happy while trying to be someone else? You end up being a secondary character in your own life.� Uh, holy shit. I’m typing thi �But� how can someone be happy while trying to be someone else? You end up being a secondary character in your own life.� Uh, holy shit. I’m typing this during the “I’m not crying, you’re crying� moments immediately upon finishing Ballad for Sophie, a graphic novel about the life of a fictional famous pianist superstar. Beginning in a small village in 1933 France, young, wealthy Julien Dubois first hears François Samson, the impoverished son of a janitor, perform piano in a competition and their brief meeting kicks off a sweeping, emotional epic as their lives are irrevocably intertwined. Told as a series of interviews to a young journalist as Julien, now a recluse, is dying from cancer, this is a visually stunning tale of of jealousy, war, fame, shame and—of course—music. Written by Filipe Melo, gorgeously illustrated by Juan Cavia with background art by Juan Cruz Rodriguez, and translated from the Portuguese by Gabriela Soares, the writer and illustrators backgrounds in cinematography and directing are evident as reading this feels as close to viewing a big budget blockbuster film in a theater. It relies on a lot of musician bio-pic tropes, though being couched in the familiar also allowed it to extract an incredible amount of emotion. It gave me chills at times, pulled the heartstrings like it was conducting an orchestra, had a few good laughs, but what resonates most is the tenderness amidst it all. This truly felt like a historical fiction film epic. The story follows Julien, though he insists to the journalist that he does not want to be the subject of her article, as he traces the path of his life, always living with an aware that François Samson is somewhere out there. And making music he believes is impossibly good. When his mother bribes the judges to allow Julien to win despite François being the clear victor, it sets up a jealousy where Julien just wants to beat him honestly. While their lives go in different directions, Julien always has François at the back of his mind like an itch he cannot scratch. Even as an old, weed smoking, former musician who hasn’t touched a piano in years, he still listens to François every day. François (left) and Julien at two different, fateful meetings This book gives the scenes a moment to breathe, taking place over many decades and keeping a steady and engaging pace. We watch a young Julien living on the streets and bonding with the other unhoused people during the war, and then using his mother’s connections to give up his self-hood and identity to become Eric Bonjour, a multi-million record selling artist. But does fame satisfy a true artist when they are merely a puppet on the strings of corporate record labels? The book does tend towards a lot of clichés, such as Julien diving into ye ole spiral of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll, the affair, the abusive producer (who is drawn as a big evil goat because that is how Julien remembers him), and the twist ending, though it also is part of what makes it seem like such a big Hollywood-style narrative. The familiar territory embeds it into the whole cannon of music films, making it a cozy place to nestle within and harmonize with the emotions the art and writing is able to extract. Also it gives the artist the opportunity to do a few pretty impressive drug scenes: But most importantly, it makes your impression of Julien a roller coaster of emotion, which, obviously, the journalist is also experiencing. After the life of the streets scenes full of camaraderie, we watch Julien discover �suddenly, in this story, the villain…was me.� Melo’s biggest achievement is creating flawed characters that, even in their darkest moments, we can still empathize with. Is there a redemption arc coming, we must ask ourselves, and why does Julien seem so content in his dying days? There are also some extremely touching moments in this book, and Melo does well by creating moments that are somehow both tender and dark or upsetting at the same time. Don’t say “aww� too soon on this one� Ballad for Sophie took hold of me and I could not put it down. This is a big, epic tale and I love the framing of how, despite Julien being the center of the story, he is the secondary character for much of the tale with the mystery of François always on slow burn. Someone else is always making anything happen for him too, and must learn to embrace himself and find his own sense of self-agency. It’s a moving story with extraordinary artwork that helps make everything resonate and it seems only a matter of time before this is picked up for a miniseries or film. It’s also one of the few times I’ve found a graphic novel to have a lot of really quotable lines. You’ll laugh, cringe and cry at this one, and even the pretty glaring moments of cliche are more or less excusable in the context of the full effect. Ballad for Sophie is a hit for sure. 4.5/5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 12, 2022
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Nov 12, 2022
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Nov 12, 2022
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Paperback
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| B0DV2FW52C
| 4.29
| 78
| Apr 20, 2021
| Apr 20, 2021
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it was amazing
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So I was just thrilled to discover that Tillie Walden did a brief biography graphic novel of Marie Ulven, the musician better known to the world as Gi
So I was just thrilled to discover that Tillie Walden did a brief biography graphic novel of Marie Ulven, the musician better known to the world as Girl in Red. Which is amazing because that is a highly specific mash-up of a graphic novelist I am currently amazed with and a band I am also currently listening to nonstop. It is really brief (you can read the whole 5 page piece ) but gives a great backstory to how Marie came to be a pop-culture icon. Asking "do you listen to Girl in Red?" became popularized on TikTok as a way to subtly ask if someone was a lesbian, which is really cool. The final part of this brief ebook covers the history of that and examines how through music written to help understand herself, reach out to others and give her voice into the world, it became a way for people to find others like themselves and be part of a larger community. The art here is amazing, as always, with Walden using the scroll-down layout to create beautiful art that occasionally morphes as you scroll instead of strictly using frames. Her work is becoming more fluid and dynamic and her color choices always create a dreamy tone. It is also a really cool look at the inspiration behind some songs on the new album. Would recommend for fans or those looking for a new amazing band, so I'll leave you with my favorite track off the new album: . ...more |
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Aug 02, 2021
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s.penkevich
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music
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| 3.74
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really liked it
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Apr 21, 2025
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Apr 21, 2025
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| 4.23
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really liked it
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Apr 07, 2025
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Apr 07, 2025
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| 3.96
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really liked it
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Mar 04, 2025
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Mar 04, 2025
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| 3.83
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really liked it
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Feb 26, 2025
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Feb 26, 2025
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| 3.98
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really liked it
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Feb 18, 2025
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Feb 18, 2025
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| 3.65
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really liked it
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Feb 11, 2025
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Feb 11, 2025
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| 4.64
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really liked it
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Feb 04, 2025
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Feb 04, 2025
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| 4.31
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really liked it
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not set
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Dec 15, 2024
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| 4.51
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really liked it
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not set
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Oct 24, 2024
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| 3.44
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really liked it
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Aug 17, 2024
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Aug 15, 2024
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| 3.89
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really liked it
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not set
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Jun 16, 2024
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| 4.08
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really liked it
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not set
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Jun 15, 2024
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| 3.96
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really liked it
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not set
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Jun 07, 2024
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| 4.65
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it was amazing
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not set
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Mar 26, 2024
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| 4.20
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really liked it
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Jan 27, 2024
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Jan 21, 2024
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| 4.10
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really liked it
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not set
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Aug 30, 2023
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| 4.06
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it was amazing
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May 30, 2023
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Jan 26, 2023
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| 4.07
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really liked it
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Dec 22, 2022
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Dec 22, 2022
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| 4.67
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it was amazing
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Nov 12, 2022
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Nov 12, 2022
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| 4.29
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it was amazing
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not set
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Aug 02, 2021
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