Kensington Blues

I think I speak for everyone when I say that Geeta’s take on Brian Eno’s Another Green World for the 33 1/3 series was hotly anticipated. I can think of few titles in the series that generated as much excitement from the time her pitch was accepted to publication. Those who waited will be richly rewarded by her insightful look into Eno and his approach to recording his landmark album, Another Green World.

Geeta avoids the landmines that surround a work like this. She brought her A game when it came to researching this book, digging up cool quotes and getting great input from the people who helped Eno make this record. She doesn’t fetishize Eno’s genius; rather, she investigates his methods to demystify the way in which Eno made the album. For anyone who’s been intimidated by Brian Eno as a monolith, this is a great way to get into his work, and the book offers a glimpse into his approach to his later ambient works that makes them much more accessible.

For a book series that can be pretty hit or miss, Geeta’s take on Another Green World sets the bar high for other authors who want to dissect an album they love. Congratulations, Geeta! It was well worth the wait.

Buy it from Amazon for just $7.88!

I finally finished reading The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (TKATVGPS) Andy Miller’s contribution to the 33 1/3 books series. It’s not a long book, but it took a minute for me to actually get into it, even though the Kinks are probably my favorite band of all time, and this album is of particular importance to me. Why? Well, like many of the books in the series, it’s not exactly the smoothest read.

The book’s structure is strange. It first tells the story of how the album is made and the various stumbling blocks that the Kinks — or rather Ray Davies — ran into along the way. That’s the sort of story I’m interested in reading and it was an engaging one. However, once that story ends, it begins again, this time as a painstaking account of each song that was written and recorded during this period, along with some speculation about why it had or hadn’t appeared on the final version of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. It doesn’t sound as bad when I write it here, but trust me, reading the same story told two different ways smacked of a witness perjuring himself on the stand.

Such is the reputation of the 33 1/3 books series. Every author approaches his or her book differently, and even the most adventuresome  music fans approach the series with trepidation. These are beloved albums after all.

Now comes word that the series itself has hit a snag due to the current state of the economy. I’m not sure anyone would be surprised considering how both the music and publishing industries have fared lately. I just hope that Geeta Dayal’s Another Green World book sees the light of day. (Of course I’m rooting for Christopher Weingarten‘s It Takes a Nation of Millions book, too, but that’s in the more distant future.) As author Douglas Wolk once (infamously) wrote of 33 1/3, “the series that more people want to write than to read!” I guess that makes the 33 1/3 series the Velvet Underground and Nico of microniche music books!

This item caught my eye over at Bookslut last Friday as I whittled away at my feed reader. As I checked out io9′s plea to Hollywood, it underlined how much I need to start reading comics again. But there’s more to it than that. If you’re one of the poor souls following me on Good Reads, you know I’ve been working on David Hadju’s latest book, The Ten Cent Plague, forever. It’s been a fascinating read, but an interrupted one. The upshot? I want to read comics like never before!

A little background: I’ve never been a comic book reader. A lot of that I’ll chalk up to timing. Being born in 1977 to parents in then very rural Berks Co., Pennsylvania, meant not having access to a lot of things cultural (read: cool.) It also meant not being exposed to such-like until later in life. My friend Ben Warfield handed me a few comics during high school, memorably the Martha Washington series and V for Vendetta, both of which I consumed hastily when I should’ve been reading stuff like Ethan Frome. I haven’t read much since then, other than falling in love with American Splendor a few years ago when the movie came out, just like everyone else.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I plan on tracking down some of io9′s suggestions, starting with Heavy Liquid, which is conveniently being reissued at the end of September. Treat their list like a primer. I’m also reaching out to folks who I know are into comics (Toby and Douglas, you’re my only hopes. Send links!)

But what would a blog post be without a serious qualifier? Here it comes: I’ll issue the caveat that it’s pretty obvious that I’m not going to end up devoting myself to comics (maybe I’m wrong?), but I’d love to be exposed to some cool, new stuff. If anyone has suggestions, or is as curious and in the dark as I am on this stuff, feel free to hit up the comments!

(P.S. I’m trying to figure out how I want to format titles on Blackmail Is My Life. Tell me if you prefer all caps to what I’ve been doing. You can also let me know if you think the font is easy to read, or if changes should be made. Thanks!)

If there’s something Philadelphia’s really missing, it’s a bookstore like the Strand. What makes the Strand great is the same thing that used to make some record stores great: promos. We need something like this. I thought Philadelphia Book Company might be the answer, but it isn’t yet.

When I wandered into the warehouse on Frankford, it looked promising. There are book displays in the center of the space surrounded by metal bookshelves stacked high with who knows what. It seemed like the answer to my prayers. Who knew that uwishunu would lead me astray?

But it’s not really uwishunu’s fault, at least not entirely. It’s the Philadelphia Book Company’s website, which is essentially a massive affiliate funnel for Amazon. What happened was I had searched a few titles–right now I’m looking to pick up David Carr’s memoir, Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise, George Lewis’ book about A.A.C.M., and Mark’s friend’s book about tribute bands–and they all appeared in the search results! Little did I know I’d overlooked the note that states that any book not found in their inventory returns Amazon search results. Bummer.

Philadelphia’s literary Shangri-La remains a myth, at least for now. I hold out hope that some daring entrepreneur will open a used bookstore that’s more than a garbage heap for books, but with the way things are going for the publishing industry, it’s probably only a matter of time before review copies become a thing of the past, and that independent bookstores, which are already struggling to survive, quietly slip off, too.