Hey, I could be misremembering where I read this, but I'm pretty sure it was on eMusers. I sort of think it was BadThoughts who posted it. But someone had a friend who had written a book about a professional advisor to evil overlords or maybe it was James Bond bad guy types, and the story is about how the bad guys keep ignoring his advice and, I assume, wacky shenanigans occur.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I haven't found the post in my forum searches. It's possible it wasn't on this forum or maybe when we had the back-and-forth between .net and .org, maybe we lost some posts... but I figure google simply isn't indexing this site as well as it could. But even going through all the posts on this discussion thread didn't reveal anything. Anyways, I was reading a description of a book recently and it reminded me of that forum post and it got me thinking I'd like to check it out.
A better use of google keywords may have found me the book I was thinking of. Maybe. Not sure.
Does "How to Succeed in Evil" by Patrick E. McLean sound familiar to anyone here?
I am greatly enjoying this book. Dylan takes a song are deconstructs it, re-tells the story in his dark apocalyptic style. It's the same story, but everything is different. Then maybe talks about the artist for a page. Or goes off on a Dylan-esque tangent.
Enjoying this so far. Informative, very readable, very interesting in places. Sometimes quite funny. Good insights into the man and his music (which I was slow to warm to a few years back but find more addictive with every passing listen).
This was my intro to Mathews. I enjoyed the book a lot. Pretty sure I
would've gotten more out of it were I more familiar with Mathews and
the Oulipo movement. [VAGUE REFERENCES TO FOLLOW SO AS NOT TO STRAY INTO
SPOILER TERRITORY] What little I have picked up has me thinking I (more
or less) understand the final two passages (narrator vs E.R. and the
map).
At some point, perhaps around a third of the way in, I
realized that I had never questioned what the narrator was in for, nor
any other specific details about the narrator, including (in regards to
the injury present at the outset of the story) whether the narrator had
it coming to them. In fact, my (initial) uncertainty if this was
occurring during WW2 or post-WW2, plus my uncertainty about the
narrator's origins and reason for imprisonment, plus a specific design
ornament upon their "escape car" had me thinking the narrator was going
to be revealed as something quite different.
The writing style
appealed to me greatly. Much in that way a chaotic avant-garde
performance might possess a narrative flow that sweeps the listener
breezily along, I experienced much the same with Mathew's writing
style. I've added "The Conversions" to my Goodreads account as a "want
to read" so I know to look for it when I'm next at the bookstore.
Having (cursorily) scanned his bibliography, I'm not sure there's much
there I'm going to be interested in... but, if The Conversions floats my
boat, I'm sure I'll find a "next" to read. That's typically how it
works.
Enjoying this so far. Informative, very readable, very interesting in places. Sometimes quite funny. Good insights into the man and his music (which I was slow to warm to a few years back but find more addictive with every passing listen).
I'm hesitant to read this. I generally prefer not to know much about the details of my artists' lives, plus Watson seems a bit dull on the writing side of things. I'm concerned this might be a bit like some of these jazz documentaries on Netflix that basically read like a Wikipedia entry and everyone says kind flattering things. I'm not a big fan of checking out books from the library, but I may see if I can get a hold of this one, and then if it turns out I like it, then go purchase it after the fact. Being that Frisell is one of my three favorite musicians (any/all genres), it's gonna be difficult for me to resist the gravitational pull of the one.
Enjoying this so far. Informative, very readable, very interesting in places. Sometimes quite funny. Good insights into the man and his music (which I was slow to warm to a few years back but find more addictive with every passing listen).
I'm hesitant to read this. I generally prefer not to know much about the details of my artists' lives, plus Watson seems a bit dull on the writing side of things. I'm concerned this might be a bit like some of these jazz documentaries on Netflix that basically read like a Wikipedia entry and everyone says kind flattering things. I'm not a big fan of checking out books from the library, but I may see if I can get a hold of this one, and then if it turns out I like it, then go purchase it after the fact. Being that Frisell is one of my three favorite musicians (any/all genres), it's gonna be difficult for me to resist the gravitational pull of the one.
There are definitely some of those moments of flattering comments and collections of things other people said about Frisell at various stages. I have not found it too obtrusive but YMMV. And the writing is, yes, perhaps not the most poetic, and a few chapters around where I am up to start to turn into catalogues of "then he made this album with those people and it wasn't as good a that album he made with those other people" - not sure how this could entirely be avoided given the scale of his catalogue. But on the whole it seems well paced and along the way it has filled out my understanding of who Frisell is and added to my appreciation of his music, with a few insightful moments that I found really helpful. Watson seems to have had good access to Frisell so there is value in hearing what Frisell himself has to say about various episodes (his wedding is hilarious) and about his music. And there are interspersed chapters where he does a Frisell listening session with some other prominent musician and gets them to talk about what they hear in Frisell - those have been mixed but sometimes interesting - if nothing else they gave me a bit of a sense of the context of reception for some earlier recordings.
Mario Vargas Llosa - "Who Killed Palomino Molero?"
Murder mystery that takes place in the port city of Talara, Peru. Breezy, quick read. The equivalent of a two-hour Law & Order special (circa seasons 1-7 aka the good episodes). Translated by Alfred Mac Adam- obviously, I can't compare the translation to the original, but I liked how it read out, and the tone definitely captured the murder mystery theme. Not sure if there are other translations out there.
@jonahpwll You are quoted prominently towards the end of the Frisell biography.
What?! Dear god, what was it? Like, did I use words in good ways and stuff or was it gooey fanboy talk? Oh god, or worse, was it when I was pretty critical about some of his later-period nostalgia recordings? Did they spell my name correctly?
@jonahpwll You are cited as the most trenchant example of critique of his nostalgia recordings, quoting your line about Frisell having to run future recording decisions past you. ….found it:
Perhaps the most vociferous of all was ardent Frisell enthusiast, prolific blogger and Bandcamp reviewer Dave Sumner, who, in a post provocatively titled ‘From now on all Bill Frisell decisions get run past me first’, roundly dismissed When You a wish Upon a Star. ‘I don’t want forgettable music, especially not from Frisell,’ he wrote. ‘I want a return to the days when a new Frisell recording was a reason to celebrate, because it meant the potential for something brand spanking new that the world has never before heard.’
I have to say I agree with you about that album. But there are also several interesting spots in the book where Watson puts those kinds of criticisms directly to Frisell and he gives some interesting answers that seem to revolve around a slightly bemused insistence that he has always gone where the music was calling him, a disagreement with the world at large about what counts as safe, and a lack of being beholden to who likes it.
I finished the book, and while I think some criticisms I have seen on Goodreads that it’s kind of gushing and not always penetrating have some validity, I greatly enjoyed it, and it did improve my sense of Frisell and his music I think. One thing I disagree with in one review I read: someone wrote that having all the interludes where current musicians listen to and say why they like Frisell was pointless and tedious. As a non-musician, I found it consistently interesting to see how musicians process his music and what they are hearing in it.
@Germanprof LOL well, I guess my quote is a non-starter as a conversation topic were I ever to run into Frisell somewhere. I do appreciate that they included the tag of "ardent Frisell enthusiast," because I'll fight to the death on the hill that I'm the biggest Frisell fan there is and ever was, and my criticisms in that article came from a place of love. I'll need to re-read it, but my instant reaction is that I was pretty damn happy with how I wrote that column. It was, ironically, one of maybe four(?) columns on my blog that was explicitly critical. I think maybe two were directed toward new Frisell recordings, one toward a Bobby Hutcherson recording, and a tepidly critical review of a Matt Ulery release (I believe I called that one "too beautiful."). Gotta admit, just reading my column title does give me a real chuckle.
If I ever start the BITW blog back up, there's a good chance I move toward that kind of format... longer thought pieces on certain albums.
I like reading long pieces on single albums that dive deeper. I also like reading pieces about older albums, because one problem with a lot of blog reviews of new releases is that they lack distance and depth. They either tell you more about the reviewer's tastes than the album or they write as if every release is lovely.
Decent read. Similar in style to the Miles Davis/Quincy Troupe collaboration, though the Hawes-Asher tome isn't as expansive nor in depth as "Miles." There's a lot of focus on his heroin addiction, even more than his music, but considering how much of his life was spent as an addict and how it derailed much of that life, this isn't necessarily inappropriate nor unexpected. The narrative's pacing was good. At no point did the story become a drag. Hawes is presented in raw form, flaws and virtues, both. The book does an admirable job of bringing the reader into the scenes of the story, doesn't make it feel like a detached retrospective. It would've been nice had they been able to sprinkle old photos throughout. The book doesn't suffer in their absence, but just something that came to mind after I finished it up. It's possible they wanted to but just couldn't dig any up.
First time reading this. Had sort of an odd reaction to it, and I'm not certain I don't have this same reaction to all of Vonnegut's books (with the exception of Slaughter House Five and, perhaps, Cat's Cradle)... in that I'm enjoying the story and writing style right from the start, then slowly start to feel the flow of the story decelerate to a pacing I wouldn't say I find unpleasant but also not quite up to how the book opened up with, but then Vonnegut slowly builds that pacing back up to where it never quite attains it's opening pace but ends, all the same, on kind of a sublime note. It's something where, at any point in the story, my reaction to the book is, yeah, I'm enjoying this, sure... and then shortly as I arrive at the conclusion and immediately after I've finished it up and set the book down, I'm feeling hell yes that was wonderful.
I don't feel like I made much sense with any of that, but I'm trying to sort through some of my feelings on this and writing it down is one of my best methods for kickstarting the analytical process.
Mostly I chose this title was because, well, one, I was just kind of in the mood for a Vonnegut novel (his style is quite singular and sometimes I'm in the mood for it), but also because I knew he used a science fiction backdrop for this story, and the new story I've got bouncing around in my head, also, would have a science fiction backdrop and I was curious to see how he handled that element in something that, truly, is not a science fiction story.
Also, hooray for this new edition's larger size book and larger sized print. I'm getting old and my eyesight has been for shit since I was a toddler anyways. But boooooo for the shitty book cover images in the entire reissues series. It's so basic as to almost be nonexistent, and it takes on that gross cartoonish style that so many book covers have these days.
...boooooo for the shitty book cover images in the entire reissues series. It's so basic as to almost be nonexistent, and it takes on that gross cartoonish style that so many book covers have these days.
Vonnegut book cover "art" has always been terrible, though, even going back to the Dell Publishing days in the 60s and 70s. If you want decent paperback book covers, you have to stick with the Philip K. Dick.
Speaking of which, a good example of how bad it is would be this cover of Cat's Cradle from the SF Masterworks series. The designers couldn't even be bothered to change the author name from "Dick" to "Vonnegut" when they copy-pasted the blurb quote.
I chortled recently reading about a US novelist whose novel was published in a UK edition and somebody at the UK publisher apparently used search and replace to change all the American English terms to their British equivalents, resulting in a reference (that made it into print) to a building and it’s occutrousers. (https://twitter.com/AprilynnePike).
Comments
The two of them pretty much agree with each other:
Ralf was the most difficult one of the group.
Ok, that didn't work as well as I hoped from my phone. "How music works", David Byrne
I can see that. Similarly, I described his style as "sorta factual, but opinionated" to someone.
What?! Dear god, what was it? Like, did I use words in good ways and stuff or was it gooey fanboy talk? Oh god, or worse, was it when I was pretty critical about some of his later-period nostalgia recordings? Did they spell my name correctly?
….found it:
I finished the book, and while I think some criticisms I have seen on Goodreads that it’s kind of gushing and not always penetrating have some validity, I greatly enjoyed it, and it did improve my sense of Frisell and his music I think. One thing I disagree with in one review I read: someone wrote that having all the interludes where current musicians listen to and say why they like Frisell was pointless and tedious. As a non-musician, I found it consistently interesting to see how musicians process his music and what they are hearing in it.