So The Road is pret­ty much a Pulitzer Prize win­ning, Oprah endorsed nov­el length ver­sion of “Wher­ev­er I May Roam,” that is, with­out all the lame band-on-the-run alco­holic non­sense. If you’re look­ing to read some­thing that takes Stein­beck­’s hope, Hes­se’s asceti­cism and Camus’ pesti­lence [or just the image of Sisy­phus], Ama­zon will prob­a­bly rec­om­mend this book to you.* Sure that may sound reduc­tion­ist, but com­par­ing it to Road War­rior just seemed to lame. And in the end there’s not enough gaso­line for that.

As I read along I could­n’t help but occa­sion­al­ly laugh at the mor­bid­i­ty. It’s just such a bru­tal book that those images, which to the char­ac­ters are for the most part banal real­i­ties, seem gra­tu­itous before long. It’s a ques­tion of quan­ti­ty over qual­i­ty of life and lit­tle more. Every­thing has burned. Every­thing. I scratched my head won­der­ing how the father had­n’t heard of nuclear win­ter, or if he con­tin­ued along because there was noth­ing else to do.

*[Actu­al­ly Ama­zon’s prob­a­bly going to rec­om­mend it even if you went in look­ing for Suite Fran­caise or the new Muraka­mi or what­ev­er because Oprah says so.]

…What lit­tle work remained was nev­er any fun. All that sum­mer no one took advan­tage of the city or the prox­im­i­ty of the lake for an aim­less stroll dur­ing a lunch hour because we were too rabid with spec­u­la­tion about how dire things had become and who would be the next to go. We could enjoy noth­ing but our own dull rumoring…It was a shrill, carp­ing, fren­zied time, and as poi­so­nous as an atmos­phere as any­one had ever known — and we want­ed noth­ing more than to stay in it forever.

Joshua Fer­ris — Then We Came to the End

If you’ve ever found your­self work­ing for a hap­less com­pa­ny in a down­turn, you’ll rec­og­nize these words, that feel­ing. Anx­i­ety to wake you up in the morn­ing and depres­sion to put you to bed at night. It’s a strange buzz that emp­ties out your soul and your head and you find your­self so sin­gu­lar­ly focused, so hope­less­ly myopic, that it’s nev­er clear that there’s a next move, much less the chance to make it.
Con­tin­ue read­ing →

I went first per­son at Sty­lus’ Agen­da. Fit­ting, because I attend­ed the Arcade Fire show in the first per­son too.

Lis­ten: The Nation­al — “Mis­tak­en for Strangers”

While my review of Arcade Fire’s per­for­mance Sat­ur­day night at the Tow­er The­ater will be show­ing up some­where on Sty­lus in the next few days, I thought I could write a few words about the Nation­al here. They’re got­ten a lit­tle U2-ier since I saw them close for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Khy­ber a cou­ple years ago, and that’s all for the good. Right now I’d say they’re my favorite embod­i­ment of New Earnest­ness in pop music. Since that time they’ve also got­ten the hang of arrang­ing the setlist so they don’t open with a sleepy, grav­el­ly track any­more. It’s fair to say that Box­er will be one of my favorite albums of the year [and I still regret not find­ing room for Alli­ga­tor in my year end list back in ’05.]

Psy­chic Para­mount. I can only sum­mon a holy wow every time I see them play out, which has been now 2 or 3 times [I’m devel­op­ing a Pazz ‘n’ Jop mythol­o­gy about the num­ber of times I’ve seen them, I guess.] Even through earplugs things get a lit­tle dizzy, but maybe that’s just the delay ped­al con­cate­na­tion that’s blow­ing my mind.

Zom­bi and Trans Am were both firsts for me. Some­how I missed the fin de siècle dot com pleas­antries of Thrill Jock­ey and the Gob­lin-esque synth rum­blings that Relapse have had on offer for a few years now. The for­mer was by choice, the lat­ter by acci­dent and now in the hazy pre-dawn of ’07, nei­ther seems to be what they were. Sure, Trans Am are still tight metal­lic slum­lords, but it’s just so rote. And now that actu­al met­al is back on the scene to the books and glass­es crowd, it’s not as high falutin’ as it once was either.

Zom­bi were a sor­ry dis­ap­point­ment in their cur­rent incar­na­tion. Too bad because I real­ly liked one of their records that we used to play at the video store when we were on a Gob­lin binge around Hal­loween and we’d decid­ed that it was­n’t exact­ly kosher to throw an impromp­tu Argen­to ret­ro­spec­tive on the store mon­i­tors with the sound on. I’m not say­ing we did­n’t ever do it any­way, but we were at least clear that it was­n’t kosher no mat­ter how edgy we were expect­ed to be. And seri­ous­ly, most of the edge came from Star­bucks even if cus­tomers liked to tell them­selves that movie store clerks are twitchy, impo­lite savants for whom self-right­eous­ness is their stock-in-trade. Now Fulci…