Ramsayings

Remember when you used to evaluate prospective friends by the books they read, the movies they watched and the music they listened to? Feels like a long time ago, right?

Less than 10 years ago I would still scurry to bookstores and record shops, or spend beyond my means on DVD sales online. Then that suddenly stopped.

Now, as I try to make sense of my home without being overrun by my toddler’s toys, I find myself wishing I’d made better use of the library. Where’d all this stuff come from? When did I ever think I’d read all the books I bought on whims, or watch all the DVDs I hoarded. Let’s not even talk about the music that accreted in my apartments over the years.

Since things started going digital in one form or other I’ve been reluctant to go all in. For those of us who’ve had physical media all our lives, a hard copy is a reassuring thing. Now I wish I’d taken the plunge sooner.

This is all to say I’m purging vast swaths of my cultural collections. If you’re someone who still likes these things, be in touch. You get dibs.

When I was growing up, I always dreamt of working at a record store. Whether I was in Kutztown, NYC or Philly, I’d always drop off an application and say a prayer for a few hours a week at a cool shop, mostly to subsidize my record habit.

Now those gigs, along with similar ones at book and movie rental shops, are disappearing. What’s a geeky kid to do for those jobs we take on summer break, or those we take after, say, getting out of grad school?

Sure, you can always sign on at a temp staffing firm, but where’s the fun in that? I know plenty of people who’d sooner take a job that paid less at a cool shop. What those gigs don’t have in pay, they make up in prestige. How can one do underemployment in style these days?

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!)