Hi-Ho

This little jewel of Panasonic advertising comes courtesy of Vic. Those zany Japanese!

np – Mission Of Burma / Catalog Sampler

The New York Trilogy

Okay, so The New York Trilogy. Ostensibly, it’s three individual detective stories. Only it’s not, not hardly at all. City Of Glass is about a writer who through a case of crossed wires and mistaken identity, becomes a private investigator looking into a plan to rebuild the Tower of Babel in New York City. Ghosts is about another private investigator named Blue who is hired by a man named White and assigned the task of watching a man named Black, day in day out, in his apartment on Orange St. The Locked Room is about a writer who becomes the executor of a vanished friend’s estate, including all his unpublished novels, plays and poems.

These stories share a common theme of obsession, identity and perception. In each story, the protagonist tries to understand the minds and motivations of their quarry, usually at great cost to themselves. The mystery isn’t in ‘what did he do and how did he do it’, but ‘who is he and why does he do it’. While each story stands up as its own entity, tied together (as they are in The Locked Room), they also exist as facets of the same story, intertwined in ways that I couldn’t explain even if I wanted to.

There’s so much going on in these stories on so many levels. It’s to Auster’s credit as a storyteller that they can be appreciated individually as fine works of fiction on the most basic narrative level, but it’s in the grander scheme of a unified whole that The New York Trilogy really impresses.

I liked this book. Recommended, but be prepared to invest some grey matter in this one.

np – Galaxie 500 / On Fire

So at first, this day was going, well, adequately but not great. Spent part of the afternoon sitting under my desk trying to work out how I was going to get this one particular function I had to work on working. Spent the rest of the afternoon trying to make it so… and by the end of the day, it worked! And then I hit refresh and got a stack of errors. It’s not always wrong for adults to weep. I think I know what I need to do now, though, and tomorrow I’ll give it a spin. And no, it doesn’t involve a crowbar.

But after work went far better. Went to Soundscapes to try and find the new TapeOp, which they did not have, or at least get prices on some Longwave, which they also did not have. Alas. I will either have to order it from MyMusic or just hope they have some for sale at the show in a few weeks. ‘But how is that better,’ you ask, ‘you didn’t find anything you were looking for!’ Just wait, gentle reader, it gets better.

On a lark I hop off the streetcar on my way back from Soundscapes to go to She Said Boom. Thought maybe I’d go see if they had any new Paul Auster stuff. Long story short, I walk out with his The Music Of Chance in hardcover, the new Iain Banks novel, Dead Air. Was a little disappointed that they’ve changed the cover design of his books – I did like the stark black-and-white embossed artwork of all the stuff I have, but the new artwork does not displease me. It’s actually very nice… it just doesn’t match the stuff I have. Yeah, I’m a little anal like that. Oh well.

But that’s not all. First thing I see when I walked in the store, on the shelf behind Mr. Proprietor’s head… The Galaxie 500 box set. Sonofabitch. I thought this one of those things I’d be searching for for ages and then end up having to buy off eBay for an arm and a leg. But no, there it was, calling me in with its siren song. It would be mine, oh yes, it would be mine. Reasonably priced, even! This is what we call ‘my night is made’. Well maybe it’ll get better…

Just so you don’t think my karmic balance is getting too out of whack, the discs are a little scuffed but hopefully will not affect play and I am no longer in first in the hockey pool (Damn you Rishi!). A small price to pay.

I also finished The New York Trilogy. I will save my impressions for a later entry… I still need to let it sink in. I will be starting All Families Are Psychotic next, but not right now I don’t think.

You know, it just occurred to me that this box set is supposed to include every note Dean, Damon and Naomi ever recorded but I have an mp3 of them covering the Sex Pistols’ ‘Submission’ that’s not on here. Just goes to show, I guess.

np – Galaxie 500 / The Uncollected Galaxie 500

Sometimes Fark’s headlines are better than the stories they’re linked to.

np – Bright Eyes / Lifted… Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground

Endsongs

Longwave is making up for the cancelled The Shining show with a free show at the ‘Shoe on Dec 3. They’re on first, at 9:45. Excellent.

If anyone’s looking for me that night… well three guesses where I’ll be.

np – The Jesus And Mary Chain / Munki