Update...(and some Reading and Playing)

To update my faithful few readers, I do finally have climate control in my home, and not a moment too soon, as we're supposed to hit 100 degrees tomorrow. Now watch Brooklyn suffer a blackout like Astoria. My camera batteries are dead, so I can't take a picture, but my apartment is back to normal, and I spent about 3 hours cleaning it yesterday. Now, of course, I have a sore throat, just in time for my vacation. I just can't get a break lately...

In the midst of all my bellyaching, I have managed to get some Playing done, though I still have some trouble switching from G to C. Makes me nuts. I often end up pausing half a beat to get myself sorted out. But I'm getting better and I know the transition will be seamless eventually.

I've also been Reading. On my way back from the Frying Pan last week, I foolishly neglected to use the ladies' room before heading the four avenue-length blocks back to the train. When I got there, I realized there was no way I could make it all the way home without some relief and I also realized there was nowhere in the area I could take care of the situation. So I kept walking until I remembered there was a Barnes & Noble in Chelsea that might still be open. It was; disaster was averted (I was in serious pain at that point), and I was so grateful for the use of their facility that I bought Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames. This is a man seriously preoccupied with his bodily functions, so I figured it was a fitting choice for the situation. I'm almost done with it and will provide an analysis a little later this week.

Last night, there was a little further Reading as we once again dipped into Adventures in Editing by Charles Hanson Towne, whom I have covered here before. In the passage I read aloud, he described one Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, whose poetry he occasionally published in The Smart Set. He seemed to be condescendingly fond of her and damned her poetry with faint praise:

She believed, I feel certain, that she was an evangelist who spoke in rhyme to her immense audience. The Creator may not have given her a lute; but he had given her a tambourine, and from it she managed to extract a sort of divine music.

Ouch. He further painted her as a benign wacko with too many doilies and cats. I think I would have liked her.

Promoting my friends...

Wednesday night, I met a friend for drinks and dinner at The Frying Pan, a barge-turned-restaurant-and-bar docked at Chelsea Piers. The place is sort of slapped together with unmatched furniture and partially carpeted with astroturf, and the food and drinks are nothing special, but the setting is spectacular. My friend and I shared a light meal and enjoyed the sunset over the Hudson River while we caught up on gossip and accomplishments of the past few weeks. She was excited that she had finally launched her website, a sleek portfolio of her fashion, candid, and art photography. I checked it out the next day, and was truly impressed with what I saw, so am passing it along for my readers' enjoyment.

The Whining: The Finale?

In theory, workmen will show up at my apartment at 9 tomorrow morning to install my AC. This is why I'm sitting at home and watching Six Feet Under DVDs on a Friday. My exciting life. So, while I'm sitting here trying to breathe the cotton-candy air of my apartment, I've been cooling off mentally by doing last-minute research for our upcoming trip to Iceland (we're leaving a week from Sunday, woo!). We're going to chuck baby puffins off the cliffs of Heimaey, see geysers and glaciers and fjords, maybe ride some shaggy horses, and eat lots of smoked fish. I can't wait.

The Reading: Listening Enhancement

The other day the mail brought me a rare copy of the long out-of-print Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, the first edition (1983) of the smartest record guide ever written. The book focuses on punk, its mentors, and its protegees, generally a crystalization of the remarkable musical period from 1977-1982. There are short reviews of amazing-sounding bands that I'd never heard of--Crooks, Dark, DMZ, Dogs, Pearl Harbour, Nitecaps--and a section on anthologies, deleted from later editions, that makes me drool. The writing is top-notch, too, succinct and evocative but seldom glib.*

The awesome Trouser Press web site faithfully reprints every entry from all five Trouser Press record guides, so if you want to know a little bit about Craig Bevan & the Tourists, you're in luck. But I like having the original books, too, because I like reading the Trouser writers' early assessments of the teeny-tiny groups that would later become huge, bands like R.E.M., Husker Du, the Replacements, INXS. Unlike Dave Marsh's snotty early 1980s Rolling Stone guides (which obnoxiously and foolishly write off a lot of seminal bands, including Television, Pere Ubu, the Saints, and X), these pieces almost always prove prescient.

Along with "punk," "indie," and "alternative," "New Wave" has become a meaningless, co-opted term (as editor Ira Robbins noted even in the now 23-year-old introduction), but these open-minded writers really were in touch with what was then new--and is still now vital.

* (Ira Robbins on the Damned: "Getting a cogent critical perspective on their recorded oeuvre is like attempting to read the label on a spinning 45--possible, but elusive"; Jim Green on Colin Newman's A-Z: "The overall effect at times suggests being drugged and locked in a room with an inquisitor shouting questions that don't quite make sense.")

Still Whining...

In theory, my contractor is back from China and may actually do some work on my apartment in the next few days. In the meantime, in a craven bid for sympathy from those whom I have already bored with endless tales of my troubles, I am treating you to photos of what my formerly tidy, spare little living room has become. I'm not exaggerating about the intrusion of the machine.

The ranting: P.S. "Indie" is a really annoying abbreviation

I was just reading an article about iTunes' breakthrough with "indie" labels last month.

"We're thrilled to add three of Europe's largest indie labels to our iTunes Music Store in the U.K., France and Germany," Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said in a statement. "We welcome Beggars, Sanctuary and V2 to the iTunes family and plan to add many more independent labels soon."

What a bleeping joke. Indie relative to what? Lufthansa? Exxon?

I'm telling all of you, unsigned is the new indie.

More Whining: The Elephant in the Room

Okay, the heat has abated somewhat (though it's still too warm for my tastes), but now I still have the ginormous AC unit sitting in the middle of my living room, with my sofa sort of shoved into the kitchen and rug bunched up in the corner. This has been the case since last Thursday, and neither Mr. Henry nor his formerly-nice-but-I'm-starting-to-suspect-she's-evil secretary Fran has given me any indication of when my apartment will be restored to normal, or even when further messing-up is to begin. If I don't get an answer out of them by Thursday, I may auction the central unit off on eBay and get myself a window unit with the proceeds (against condo rules, but so is non-maintenance of the property).

The Listening and Playing: Simple Songs

This weekend, my coeditor was kind enough to give me a CD with twenty songs that use only those chords I already know (plus two new ones that I can pick up easily enough) so I can have some practice inspiration and a potential "final exam" song. The songs range from Yo La Tengo to CCR to Springsteen to the English Beat. There are three in the mix that I'm very seriously considering for my big performance at the end of August. I know I have a handful of musicians among my regular readers as well as some highly opinionated music nerds, so feel free to help me make a choice. So far, the front-runners are: "Drivin' on 9," by the Breeders (easiest to play and sing, fairly rock-n-roll); "Look at Miss Ohio," by Gillian Welch (a little harder to play, fun to sing); and "Passenger Side," by Wilco (hardest to play, fun to sing, most rock-n-roll).

Thoughts? Opinions? Alternate suggestions?

The Family: Visiting the Big Apple

Oy, busy weekend. My mom was in town to attend a writers' conference at the fabled Algonquin Hotel with my freshly retired dad in tow. He is the consummate tourist, excited to talk to every doorman, cabby, and oil-delivery man; poking his head into every open door to see what's happening inside; sampling every dish offered along the street; etc. We all enjoyed several fine meals, and Will was kind enough to give him a grand tour of Brooklyn while my mom and I were busy in Manhattan yesterday afternoon. I called at 3:00 to check their progress, at which point they were cooling their toes in the ocean after chasing each other around in Go Karts out on Coney Island. Later, we all met up at a Greek taverna after my mom and I had an adventure with weekend subway service interruptions in the bowels of Queens. We wound up with a quiet brunch earlier this afternoon in the Algonquin's lobby/dining room and a photo session with Matilda, the hotel's fancy-pants blue-point something-or-other cat, who sleeps on a miniature fainting couch by the front door. All in all, I think everyone had a nice time.

Now I'm back home, trying to tidy up my apartment around the 4 x 4-foot square A/C unit sitting in the middle of my living room and having George Costanza-like fantasies about telling off Mr. Henry and forcing him to give me a rent rebate. Neither of these things will happen, but I can be powerful in my own imagination, at least.

The Reading: Gift Subscriptions

For those of you who are wondering what to get me for Christmas, the fine folks at Gawker have assembled a list of some very interesting magazines offered through Amazon.com. Who wouldn't want to see Sheep! in their mailbox come the first of each month?

The Whining...

I haven't been this tired since grad school. For the past three weeks, during a terrible heat wave and just regular summer mugginess, I have been without air conditioning. I had considered it a perk of my apartment that it features central AC, and for a week or two, it worked wonderfully. And then it didn't. And now my trusty landlord, Henry Weinstein, owner and CEO of Canal Jean Co. (henceforth to be referred to as Mr. Henry, after our beloved crook from Bottle Rocket) has taken for-EVER to deal with it, and I can't sleep in the heat. I came home from dinner with a friend this evening to find my new AC unit sitting in the middle of my living room. Fat lot of good that does me. Mr. Henry himself is gracing my humble apartment tomorrow to take a look at the closet wall that will have to be torn out to accommodate this new appliance. When will actual installation take place? At this rate, sometime shortly after the first frost. Meanwhile, I'm fussing and fantasizing about withholding rent or something. But we all know my hands are tied.

Unrelated: I HATE SPAM COMMENTERS. I just spent 15 minutes clearing my site of your lame "Very usefull! One of my favourites!" comments. I don't know what kind of benefit you get from polluting my blog, but leave me alone. You are the online equivalent of cockroaches.

Update on the rant: I've turned on word verification for comments; apparently it's the only way to keep the spam away. I find this extra step annoying, but less so than reading those stupid messages.

The Playing: Update

I haven't written on my Playing progress in a while, but I've stayed active. Classes lately have been focusing more on technique than new material (we only learned one new chord this week), so I've been honing my rhythmic strumming and speeding up my chord changes. I'm still pretty slow with both, but Camp Counselor Kevin really pushed us tonight and now I feel a lot more confident. I have another challenge/assignment ahead of me to help spur my practice. Aside from the final "exam" of an in-class performance, I've been asked to accompany my coeditor to a Labor Day jam session with a bunch of his college friends in Oklahoma. Our fine work may even be recorded, so I need to get up to speed to avoid embarrassing him and myself. It seems pretty daunting now, but it's more than a month away, so I should be reasonably up to speed by then. I hope.

The Traveling: Weekend Getaway

So we're back to our beloved smelly NYC after a long weekend with family and friends on Nantucket. At various points during our stay, the crowd grew to 11 people and represented four full generations of the clan, but the house was generous enough to afford everyone who needed it a quiet corner for reading or napping. We punctuated our drive up with a brief detour to the Sea Swirl in Mystic, CT, for some yummy fried clams and our drive back down with a stop in attractively revitalized but strangely deserted Providence, RI. The ferry rides to and from provided some quiet time for practice in diagramming sentences. In between, we ate great fresh fish, dug holes in the sand, skipped rocks, body-surfed, and generally lounged around. We both managed to escape with only mild sunburns and a few bug bites.


Will and I tried out some of our brilliant kebab recipes: he concocted a skewer of pork, pears, sweet potatoes, and onions marinated in sherry, shallots, brown sugar, olive oil, and tarragon; I did one with sweet peppers, pineapple, onion, and halibut marinated in lime juice, garlic, basil, and olive oil. Both were big hits, served with a salad of spinach, pecans, craisins, and Roquefort cheese. The other big meal comprised grilled wild sea bass with roasted zucchini, eggplant, and new potatoes. We were treated to delicious appetizers of fresh clams (raw and Casino) harvested that day by our host. Our lovely hostess also made a wonderful Key lime meringue pie as a belated birthday "cake" for Will.

So, needless to say, we are well sated and rested enough to tide us over until our Big Trip in a few weeks (to be covered in future posts).

Notice

There won't be any further posting until next Monday, as the editorial staff of ADB trades the stale pee-pee smell of New York for the fresh sea breezes of Nantucket. We'll be back Monday, cursing the oppressiveness of the city.

The Watching: The Devil is in the Details

Last night, we finally caved to the hype and took in a screening of The Devil Wears Prada, the film based on the novel detailing Lauren Weisberger's brief tenure as assistant to Vogue editrix Anna Wintour. I may be the only female in America who hasn't read the book, and I don't really intend to. But the press on the film has been great, and I'm down for anything that features Meryl Streep, so I figured I'd take the plunge. And I'm really glad I did. Instead of a cheap-shot parody, it was a sharp and surprisingly respectful look at the ruthlessness it takes to produce the world's premier journal of aspirational luxury. Yes, Streep's Miranda Priestly (a thinly fictionalized Anna Wintour) is a tyrant, but I found myself cringing at each stare of icy hauteur and holding my breath as I braced for each softly delivered insult and demand. I vicariously wanted her approval as much as her beleaguered staff, not because of any liking or sympathy for her, but because she maintained the same impossible standard of perfection that she expected of the people around her. The big realization at the end was not that the world of fashion is trivial and silly, but that some people just aren't cut out to devote their every waking moment to the advancement of their careers.

Aside from the psychological tension, the film was a feast of eye candy: clothes, shoes (I still marvel at how all those girls could sprint around in their 4-inch Jimmy Choos, having suffered through a few evenings in them myself), bags, and jewelry. As other people have noted, the younger women were a little dowdy in their stiff Chanel and Prada (duh) finery, but I guess the costumer had to make the clothes recognizable to the wider audience. But that's a small quibble. It was definitely the best first-run film I've seen in a long time.

The Listening: Miracle Legion

From time to time, the lively commenters here at Always Double Back have opined about the state of Connecticut music. What gets them most excited is the inevitable question: What is the greatest Connecticut band of all time? Is it NRBQ? The Nutmegs? Or perhaps the Chambers Brothers, who appear to be from Mississippi and L.A., but whom I was told are from Stamford by a dude at a party once?

Well, I vote for New Haven's Miracle Legion anyway. Especially now that I just got a burn of their long out-of-print debut EP, The Backyard, in the mail (thanks to Rick from the Lost 45's, another good CT band). The six-song record, released in 1984 on Rough Trade, brought Miracle Legion flattering, if ultimately limiting, comparisons to R.E.M. and was the first step to one of those typically fleeting early 90s major-label deals (with Morgan Creek for 1992's Drenched).

Having heard the later stuff, what surprised me most about The Backyard is how fully realized the band's songwriting, energy, and sound already was in '84. This is great, jangly, melodic stuff, and to me sounds just right for the summer.

Side one of The Backyard is in this folder. Songs are "The Backyard," "Butterflies," and "Closer to the Wall."

The Listening: El Mariachi

The subways, whether you like it or not, are often New York's cheapest source of entertainment (aside from the streets, which are free). If you ride the trains often enough, you start seeing familiar faces among the performers and panhandlers on each line. The A/C/E often has some breakdancers, the J/M/Z has poets, the 2/3 sometimes has a one-armed harmonica player (for those of you who don't live here, these people perform on the trains, not on the subway platforms like in other cities).

I hopped on the uptown F during my lunch break today to run an errand and was rewarded by the sight of my favorite subway performers, whom I had seen several times before: two middle-aged Mexican men decked out in their cowboy best and armed with guitar and accordion, singing their hearts out. I enjoyed their music from Broadway/Lafayette until 14th Street, then tipped them and went on my way.

The Reading: Belly

Some time ago, Red Squirrel reviewed The Long Haul by Amanda Stern; we bought the book at a stoop sale, direct from the author, on Eighth Avenue in Park Slope. Ms. Stern was not the only literary light at that stoop, however. Sitting right next to her was Lisa Selin Davis, author of Belly (Little, Brown, 2005). We picked up a copy of her novel, too, and I read it.

Belly, Ms. Davis's first novel, tells the weeklong tale of one Belly O'Leary, a father of three grown daughters who returns home from a four-year gambling/racketeering stint in the slammer to find his native Saratoga Springs, NY, awash in Starbucksian "progress." The bar he owned is long gone, his trusted Republican machine has been run out of City Hall on a rail, he has a bum hip, his two grandsons treat him with unveiled contempt, and damned if he can find a job even at the new Wal-Mart (not that he really wants a job).

So Belly drinks. And drinks, and sleeps with a quickly dependent waitress, and drinks, and looks half-heartedly for his old mistress and partners in crime, and then decides to drink. And bang the waitress. And crash his daughter's car. And go get drunk. And no jolly drunk, he, nor a particularly reflective one, but like his daughters, who house him and nurse him cherubically while he acts just plain nasty, I did stand by him. Or was I just standing by Ms. Davis and her way with the pen?

Sure enough, Belly becomes a sweetie in the end after confronting some not-so-subtle family trauma (a dead daughter, melodramatically unnamed until page 220 of 273), but the transformation wasn't all too convincing. It happened very suddenly (p. 261, exactly), and with too much brackish water under the bridge for me to buy it. Meanwhile, I kept getting glimpses of another story, one that I respect Ms. Davis for choosing not to tell but that, at least for me, would have been more interesting than the relatively conventional family drama that unfolds: What about the gamblers? The shady Tammany Hall fat cats who disappeared? The people he once snorted all those lines with? There are hints, dreamlike allusions, and a brief, unsatisfying run-in with Loretta the Mistress Who Sold Him Out, but for the most part Davis creates a man but not his world. While that's surely the point, limiting Belly to the domestic sphere makes him seem small and leaves his mettle mostly untested.

Like I said, Belly is a first novel, right down to the approximately 1,546 ecstatic blurbs from Ms. Davis's presumed MFA professors and classmates that blanket its jacket and front matter. And while it is not quite as good as they say it is, it isn't bad. I'm curious what she's working on now; my hope is that it will be on the scale of Belly but with a few more risks taken, rather than the classic 600-page sophomore-novel sprawl. Belly made me hungry for some guts.

The Listening: Beirut

I bought Beirut's debut CD, Gulag Orkestar, over the weekend. From the liner notes it looks to be more or less the one-man band of a 19-year-old named Zach Condon, plus I've just learned that the CD is a major blog sensation. Yet try as I might to be disaffected, I have to admit it's affected me. Condon sure digs Neutral Milk Hotel, but don't we all. Lots of Eastern European-sounding horns, devil-may-care legato crooning, and martial percussion. But I'll cut the kid some slack for copping influences--he was only ten when In the Aeroplane over the Sea came out.

Then again, maybe he should lose half a star for making me feel old as dirt.

The very pretty "Scenic World" is in this folder. Right-click to download.

Oh, and in honor of July 4, that folder also features one of my favorite songs ever, "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," by another whippersnapper, the then-24-year-old Bruce.

The Eating: Root Beer Floats, Cheesesteaks, and Chopped Liver

Following our NYC art adventures, we decamped to Princeton for a change of scenery. Sunday found us a little aimless after a quick visit to a flea market and a few used bookstores, so we just drove around to see what was going on. Heading down one secondary highway toward Trenton, we found a true 1950s drive-in, complete with curbside tray service and specializing in floats made with Stewart's Root Beer, which suddenly sounded like (and was) the perfect treat on a hot afternoon.

We were still at a bit of a loss after that, so we kept driving in the same direction, through Trenton and toward the Pennsylvania state line. At that point, it was coming on to dinner time, so Will suggested we just keep going and find a good cheesesteak sandwich. In Philadelphia. On we went; we drove in circles around downtown Philly during a severe thunder-and-hailstorm, then finally asked a young man in a tattoo parlor if he knew where to find the steak stand that Will had visited several years before. Luckily, it was a famous one, and as the skies cleared, we found ourselves at Pat's King of Steaks with two rolls of meaty treats in hand. I ordered mine with provolone cheese, which was nice but a little bland. Will wisely ordered his the "classic" way, slathered with Cheese Whiz (vat of substance pictured above). I hate to admit it, but it really is much tastier that way. So I learned something (should have noticed that nobody else in line was ordering with provolone).

Monday we headed north to Hartford to visit some friends and their new baby, plus to drop off some instruments in New Haven to be repaired. We made a quick side trip to Rein's Deli in Vernon, CT, where my family used to stop for lunch on our trips to and from New Jersey when I was a kid. They still have corny New York-themed decor and punny signs all over, but they also serve up a mean chicken liver sandwich and tasty, buttery rugelach.

Today? I don't know. There was some talk about heading to a German beer garden in Queens for a cold one and a bratwurst sandwich before watching the fireworks. I had a good jog this morning, so I'm ready.

The Highbrow: Two Nights of Art

This has been an eventful long weekend so far (not quite over)--we started off with back-to-back art events. Friday night we met in Prospect Park for a picnic dinner of sandwiches from Dom's Italian grocery (sorry, no website, but it's a must-visit in Soho). As we were discussing our next move, a friend called to invite us to an art opening at a rooftop gallery in Dumbo. The art was terrible; I've seen better work at BFA exit shows. But the setting? Spectacular. We were out on a deck eleven stories up overlooking the East River and the entire Manhattan skyline. It was definitely worth walking through some bad art.

The following night we joined some other friends for the Brooklyn Art Museum's monthly Saturday night party. A huge crowd was dancing to a DJ's beats behind the building, and hundreds more were browsing the galleries. We were a little disappointed in the aesthetic offerings that night as well (the featured exhibition was faux graffiti on canvases), but again, the setting was great, as well as the atmosphere of a genial neighborhood party.