Dads will always set you straight. HA!

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In a story, where an environmentally aware son (not young, but still a son) is “borrowing” his dad’s welding equipment to weld shut the pipes of a company dumping into a waterway.

‘They’re pouring emission straight into the water down there, from two pipes hanging out over the bank.’

He tests the chisel, nodding slowly as he works out what I want his welding gear for. ‘They’re pouring human shit straight into the ocean, too,’ he says, pinning me with a glance, ‘but I haven’t noticed you welding your arse shut.’

-Cate Kennedy “Direct Action” (collected in “Dark Roots”)

Short Stories: “Dark Roots” by Cate Kennedy

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Very intense little stories. Succinct but centered around the moment of conflict. Very in medias res. People caught by surprise, sometimes by their own actions. Questioning themselves, questioning you, what would you do. People in unconventional situations. All different points of view: men, women, old, young.

Really good. (And very fast read. BIG print, less than 200 pgs.)

I must not have read the blurb beforehand though because I was somewhere in the middle when I thought “This girl MUST be Australian.” Yeah, dork, says so right on the back cover. Doh.

Albums: Sometimes you’re UP and sometimes DOWN

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Upbeat music that is making me happy:

The Kills “Midnight Boom” – I don’t know if you can call this punk (in this day and age) but it certainly has punk sensibilities to my mind. Digital and dirty and demanding. Lots of beats. While there is humor in some of the lyrics, this isn’t a fun and games album, they’re kickin’ it. I love the male/female back and forth vocals (as you should know I do already, from say this or this or this). I want you to be crazy because you’re boring baby when you’re straight.

The Fratellis “Here We Stand” – Yay! These guys are so much fun! I loved their last album and loved their crazy high-energy but super (ridiculously) early in the day set at Lollapalooza (they so brought it ) and this album is a solid continuation of them doing their thing. Woot! Dear world’s biggest Beatles fan Ms. Shrinking Smartgrrrl, I think you would like this.

Low-key music that was making me too sad to listen to it:

Shearwater “Rook” – Along the lines of Fleet Foxes or Sea Wolf, musically, (or a combination of them with Band of Horses), but somehow the mood and the tones were just so, so, so sad, I actually had to fast forward past it…Only to arrive at:

Jakob Dylan “Seeing Things” – I tend to like The Wallflowers more than most critics, maybe because they’re just sort of “straight up” rock with no pop or alternative pretensions and also because I do not spend all my time comparing children to their parents (Boh-Ring!), but this album was just bringing me down, man. Sad and slow, with very melancholy lyrics. Not the sensibility of The Wallflowers at all, which is fine, it is a solo album afterall; but it felt almost dirge-like. I had to say goodbye for the day and fast forward past it as well! Maybe when I am in a different mood, I will try again.

Album: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin “Pershing”

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So when I wrote my April album reviews (in June, of course,when everyone was writing reviews of albums they bought in April, ha ha ha ha), I had only listened to this album once, maybe not even all the way through.

Um, hello, what was I thinking? It’s upbeat and lots of fun and some of it’s really pretty and it turns out for a slow-ass not really running when she’s “running” runner like me, it’s the perfect running music! Not so insistently rhythmic that you find yourself running to its beat, but peppy enough to keep you going.

I *love* especially “Heers” which reminds me of what Josh Rouse sounds like live (but not what he sounds like on his albums, which are much, let’s say, calmer).

I’m 90% sure I bought this based on a review on Andrew Taylor Recommends although I am far too lazy to go looking for it right now. I don’t know the dude but I am totally into his “random posts about everything” type of site and I will mention that he recently reviewed some Cinnamon Buns icecream that I am dying to try, and he has also done some Mt. Dew taste tests and you know how I feel about the Dew. Don’t you? Do you know how JenG. feels about the Dew? Or AmandaJean? Oh, the Dew.

DadReaction: The Strangers

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Sooooo scary/good. A real psychological terror/thriller. Really well done.

Classic “things that go bump in the night”. NOT a gorefest.

Dad to you, random reader who can handle scary movies and maybe even thinks they’re fun: Go see it! Totally worth it!

Dad to me, scaredy freakshow, especially if she sees them a) alone or b) at night or c) any other time: Do.Not.Go.See.This.Movie. Do.Not.

Books Stephanie recommended

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Another reminder to self post: I keep forgetting to buy these two and I can’t keep carrying around this email I sent myself…

The Genius, by Jesse Kellerman (also mentioned here)

To the Power of Three, by Laura Lippman (also mentioned here)

Book I keep reading about.

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Netherland by Joseph O’Neill. Called “possibly the most impressive post-9/11 novel yet” somewhere that I copied & printed out and then promptly forgot wherefrom. Looked at it in the bookstore but couldn’t decide…

Who writes the ads for Spike TV?

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A couple weeks ago I was watching a crapload of CSI reruns so I basically had at least three hours of SpikeTV on every day and they were promoting their big week-end showings of Star Wars.

The ads really cracked me up.

I can’t remember, was this one said in a Yoda voice?: Being a bad guy isn’t bad. There is much to be learned.

Han and Leia: If your sister hangs out with your friends, eventually one of them is going to hook up with her.

Too funny!

Fiction: Lush Life, by Richard Price

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A bday present from Carla who must’ve seen me mention it here. 😉

Price does such a good job of sucking you into each character’s point of view. I kept changing who I was rooting for / who I thought was guilty / who deserved a serious smackdown. He is also just brilliant at maintaining the main plotline while also delving into all the little conflicts going on in the substories around it. Every character, every story, every little grouping of people is fully fleshed out and palpably human.

And the dialogue? Holy crap, no wonder they make this guy’s books into movies. The dialogue is just spot-on in every scene.

Combine this great book with Minty’s recent Coney Island and Mermaid Parade photos and I was missing NYC something fierce for a week there.

Fiction: Life Class, by Pat Barker

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I really, really canNOT understand the reviews for this book: all of which seem to compare it unfavorably to her earlier Regeneration trilogy and some of which I just find ludicrous (“Tellingly, many critics mentioned as their favorite character one with little more than a walk-on—the real-life artist, teacher, and surgeon Henry Tonks, whom they hope to see more of in a sequel“. What? NO.).

I didn’t think the first half of the book was “slow” as so many have said / I thought the first half was about a bunch of very unhappy people, some of whom are actually happier when the war comes (second half) because it gives their life some direction they hadn’t seemed to be able to find before it. Life does move slower when you’re unhappy, don’t you know.

I loved the descriptions of the art in this book; I could *almost* see the paintings in my mind and I really wish most of them existed. (Similar to how I felt about the paintings in Siri Hustvedt’s “What I Loved”.)

I found it moving and insightful and while it does continue to crack me up that so many contemporary British writers are often to be found writing about WWI and II (because there just haven’t been any conflicts in the world since then, right?) in a way you don’t find quite as often on this side of the pond, I think Pat Barker is (and continues to be) one of the best.