Sun, 21 April: Weekly Review 7

One of the many reasons I like working in libraries is because I’m always having book or literary encounters. For example, I helped a patron out today whose name was Sinjun. How many of you literature lovers know that reference? Well, it’s from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Sinjun’s the missionary character Jane encounters later in the book, and who tries to get her to join her in the arduous task of being a missionary in hot India. Thankfully, the spirits of nature, or something supernatural, intervene and she is instead reunited with Rochester. Knowing all this, who would name their child Sinjun? I ask you! I re-read the book a year ago (actually, it was an audio book, brilliantly read by Thandiwe Newton) to get me up to speed for another related book, Jane Eyre Laid Bare by Eve Sinclair. This was a juicy soft-porn bodice-ripper of a book that focused mainly on the Thornfield Hall and Rochester chapters that make up the heart of the story. There was some mention of Jane’s time in Lowood, the girls school, and you can imagine what went on there in this version of the story. All in all, it was fun, but strange reading about Jane masturbating and all that. Just how Sinclair handles the whole ‘woman in the attic’ scenario has to be seen to be believed. Interesting how quick we went from the wholesomeness of Marilla to the sordidness of Jane Eyre Laid Bare, hey?

It’s handy knowing something about Jane Eyre, because the book is one of those cultural touchstones that always seem to come up in all kinds of places. Like, The Bangles. Remember them? Walk Like An Egyptian and all that? Their most well-known singer, Susanna Hoffs, wrote a novel called This Bird Has Flown, and there are Eyre references all through it. Have to say, although I really wanted to like it, I was disappointed by the book. I thought the Jane Eyre references were a bit half-baked, and the main character was not likeable. I’m really sorry Suzanne…

One final trainspotter note about the Bangles. I had tickets to see them around 1990, but they broke up before they came to Australia. Then around 2005, they did tour, minus bassist Michael Steele, and I finally got to see them. I thought their comeback album of the time, Doll Revolution (with Michael Steele), was really good.

Had a listen to more of the Beach Boys‘ Smile. I’m slowly getting a sense of the differences between this version and Brian’s version of 2004. I think his version of Child Is Father Of the Man is better. The Boys’ vocals, especially the ‘child’ chant is more like a trial run to Brian’s version, where the vocals are more melodic and better arranged. I also prefer his Cabinessence. The ‘lron horse’ section sounds clearer, whereas the BB’s version is a little grating on the ears. Brian’s solo take on Good Vibrations is great, but really nothing can beat that original version by the Beach Boys. I’m really liking the ‘cantina’ section of Heroes and Villains. ‘You’re under arrest!‘ Is Margarita a woman or a drink? Probably both. And which version of Surf’s Up? Gee, that’s a tough one. Maybe it would be an interesting idea to do an A/B analysis of each song, if I can be bothered to be so trainspottery. And maybe when I’ve decided what I think are the best versions of each song I’ll make a compilation of those versions. Bit of Brian here, bit of Beach Boys there. The possibilities are endless. But no matter which version you listen to, it’s an amazing album. With its modular, cut-up techniques where songs bleed into one another, I think there’s also an argument to be made that Smile was a precursor, if not direct influence on, side two of the Beatles‘ Abbey Road. Just a thought.

Watched some more episodes of that anime, By the Grace of the Gods season two. I’m still enjoying its gentle approach to story-telling where all conflicts are resolved and seemingly everyone becomes friends. Very Japanese. But the show does manage to manufacture some conflict. We’ve had a rampaging razorback pig, which Ryoma quickly dispatches and his friends subsequently cut up and cook and eat. No animal sentimentality there! And in the most recent episode I watched there were some ‘bad’ trees that Ryoma and friends were tasked with fighting, cutting down and collecting for building materials. You could tell they were bad trees from their frowny faces and their branches that made threatening movements. There was even a boss tree controlling the others which was revealed, once it was ‘killed’, to be hoarding some magic crystals – the key to its magical strength. I don’t think I’ve seen a good tree fight since, well, Lord of the Rings and Treebeard and the Ents.

I finished that anime series, By the Grace of the Gods season two. It was a pleasant little Iyashikei, ending with main character Ryoma taking part in a village festival and feeling accepted by the townsfolk, not unlike the cultural festivals that often close out high school animes. It was a little strange that it ended there, as Ryoma had made some enigmatic comments throughout the show that he was planning on going back to the forest where he began, and it was a prospect that filled him with some trepidation. Maybe they’ll give us that storyline if season three gets made. So too Ryoma’s relationship with the Gods who appear in the show from time to time. There were some new ones this season, and Ryoma’s interactions with them were some of the more interesting parts of the show. But they were underused, their intentions vague, so maybe we’ll also have to wait for season three to find out more about them. I guess after all that sweetness and goodness I feel properly ‘healed’. But now it’s time to get fucked up again!

Speaking of which…I cancelled my Optus membership today. So now my arse is out in the wind with no phone number or internet coverage (I’m tethering this off my brother’s internet atm). I’m moving to Aldimobile, who are offering a better deal, including credit rollover, but it will take a couple of days to be finalised and get my SIM card. I had to call up Optus to cancel the membership, and because the operator had a heavy foreign accent and my hearing’s not good, it didn’t go well. I had to ask the guy to repeat his words many times, and in the end just gave up and said yes or hmm to everything. One of those hmms must have been when he asked if I wanted my service canceled straight away. I didn’t, I needed some time to set things up with Aldi; but it was not to be, because I hmmmed. Typically, the bastards had the nerve to offer me a half price deal if I stayed with them, but I rejected it. They were clearly happy to price gouge me this long, so they deserve no loyalty from me. This screed was not meant as an ad for Aldimobile, by the way (they were recommended by my mate Josh), but I guess that’s what it’s become. I didn’t mean it to be, really!

At work in the library today I was tasked with the job of going through a list of our Large Print titles for what’s called stock rotation. Basically that means moving books and other items that our records show have not been borrowed very much in one library and sending them to other libraries that don’t have those items. This is a way of giving those items a second chance at life. Kind of nice, don’t you think? Poor little neglected bookie wookies. For some reason this particular library had a lot of Large Print Romance books, which tend to have some wonderfully lurid titles and covers to go with them: Unwrapped By Her Italian Boss, Risking Her Heart On the Trauma Doc, The King’s Bride By Arrangement, Tempted By the Tycoon’s Proposal, His Scandalous Christmas Princess, Claimed In the Italian’s Castle. The list goes on, but you get the gist. The titles are very specific about what they cover, with certain themes and sub-genres being popular, such as ‘the Italian’, ‘the Tycoon’ or ‘the Highlander’. The women in these books are either bonking swarthy hunks or wealthy hunks, or preferably both. There’s a market for these niche titles, which contain trigger words that lure their readers in, depending on what they want, in a sliding scale from sweet to soft porn. And of course it applies to most demographics. I wrote about a thing called Harem Lit recently, which is aimed at certain men, for example. So what are my trigger words when it comes to book titles? There’s a lot, but the ones that come to mind at the moment are Zen and Steampunk. If I see that in the title, or the blurb, I’m already half-way in. And I suppose the words Quantum and Radio must be in there too…

On this same day and in this same library I was shelving books in the fiction area and saw one titled Quantum Radio by A.G. Riddle. People, it triggered me. The cover was an illustration of a man and woman running towards a portal of some kind. I read the blurb about a CERN quantum physicist called Tyson (nice shoutout to Neil Degrasse) making a breakthrough discovery in matter transferal (possibly) and multi-universe communication. That’s the sort of science fiction theme I love. It immediately conjured memories of reading Carl Sagan‘s Contact, and Gregory Benford‘s Cosm, and even my own Eye of the Timegate, which has a similar theme. So I borrowed it and read the first 100 pages tonight. It had been a while since I’d sunk my teeth into a good scifi novel. I’ve been reading a lot of short story collections or non fiction lately. The last one was The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner (great book), and that was last year.

But once I got into Quantum Radio I was disappointed. It was more a thriller with some science fiction trappings than what I would call a true science fiction novel. It was more Dan Brown than Gregory Benford. In other words, it was what I call a plotboiler. The book opens with Tyson announcing his discovery to a room full of colleagues, who are skeptical. Then, before you know it, he’s almost killed in an explosion set off by some dark enemy, and he’s on the run and we’re off into Plotland. I mean, it was an okay book, what I read of it. It ticks all the boxes you expect in a modern thriller: protagonist in peril, check; duplicitous love interest, check; mysterious world-changing plot device/mcguffin, check; mainstream meat and potatoes writing style, double check. But the author of a true science fiction novel would have reveled in the protagonist’s discovery. There would have been chapters devoted to the lead up to this discovery early on. We the readers would thrill to the science, the mystery of this discovery. But Riddle does not seem to be interested in this. To be fair, I did only read the first 100 pages of a 500 page novel, so I may have missed this. But ultimately, the thing that made me put it down was the thought that, by reading this inferior faux scifi book I just grabbed off a library shelf, I was betraying all those other classic science fiction novels I have in my own book collection that I haven’t even bloody read yet. So, to the books patiently sitting on my shelves waiting to be read, I’m sorry, guys. I let you down. I promise I’ll make it up to you!

After the false start that was my attempt at reading that book Quantum Radio, I’ve returned to the fold of my book collection and started reading one called All the Colours of Darkness, by Lloyd Biggle Jr. This was actually a fairly recent op shop purchase, an old scifi from 1964 with a wonderful Bruce Pennington cover. I couldn’t resist it. It’s actually about matter transferal and the complications that arise from that.

Finished off the night with some Youtubes. The main one was the latest 2wice Date episode, which featured Twice members Chaeyoung and Jihyo (JiChaeng) talking and having a meal at a strange ‘darkness’ cafe. For the first half of the episode they were actually sitting in the dark, eating their meal and occasionally playing with a lie detector device they were provided with. This allowed for a confession that Chaeyoung, who is the second youngest member, is still a little uncomfortable around Jihyo, who is the group’s leader, and with whom she still uses formal language with. It was only a modest reveal, nothing to get excited about, but we Onces live by these details. One nice moment was when they touched each others faces in the dark. Soon, the lights were turned on and the ‘date’ reached its conclusion with each member reading the letters they had written to each other in the dark (yes, in the dark!). Both members have recently been revealed to have boyfriends, but I guess it would’ve been too much to ask for them to talk about them, or the ‘controversy’ around how it got reported. Next week should be the final 2wice Date, which will feature Sana and the return of one other member. Odds seem to favour it being Jeongyeon. We’ll see.

I had a listen to side two of Carl Wilson‘s first solo album. Side one had sounded kind of tough, but sure enough, side two began with a couple of ballads. The first one, Hurry Love, is really good. Was it the single? The more uptempo third track, The Grammy, has some intriguing lyrics, basically lampooning the award. Carl attended the award in 1976 as a presenter, with his brothers. Maybe they were his impressions of that. But the lyrics are by Myrna Smith, the wife of Carl’s then manager, Jerry Schilling. I’m looking forward to getting into this album some more. I also listened to the first half of the Beach Boys‘ Smile album. I need time to listen to the rest and gather my thoughts on that one.

Listened to Carl Wilson‘s solo album again. I’m still liking that tough-sounding side one, and the songs Hurry Love and The Grammy from side two. I think the others will yield as I listen to it more. Carl was a class act all the way. Then I listened to half of Perfume’s Game, for something different. I’ve gotta say, this album is really kicking my arse real good. Nakata’s beats and melodies are splendid, and I really like his way with repetition in his arrangements. There’s a part in the first song, Polyrhythm, where the music and vocals repeat exactly for about five bars, and when I first heard it I thought the cd had got stuck, but no, it was intentional. The man is a wizard. The ladies, Kashiyuka, A-Chan and Nocchi, sing like birds, sometimes electronically processed birds, but birds nonetheless.

While listening to these albums I actually rearranged my scifi book shelves. They’re those annoying shelves that are two books deep, so that half of your books get hidden behind the front half. I didn’t like that, so I took the ones behind out from where they were and spread them out over another set of book shelves I have. I took the ones that were on those shelves, mainly some crime and contemporary, and put them where the science fiction ones had been – that is, the half that had been hidden. Then I had to rearrange the scifis so they were all in alphabetical order. I like to sit in that room and contemplate my books, while I’m listening to tunes. Now I can sit there and see all my scifis to-be-read, and I will be satisfied. I know, I’m weird.

Last night’s Rage was being programmed by the singer from Wheatus, Brendan B Brown – remember them, Teenage Dirtbag? So there was a lot of grunge, post-grunge and indie rock on display. I didn’t watch it live, of course, I PVR’d it and watched it this morning. Or at least some of it. I have a habit of reading the playlists for the weekend on Rage’s excellent ABC webpage and deciding what or if I want to watch. I was interested in the clips for Fountains of Wayne‘s Radiation Vibe and Wet Leg‘s Chaise Longue, both excellent songs. The Wayne clip featured a girl with weird pointy hair and a dude who looked and acted like Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone. The band were sitting on a couch with one boot each nailed to the floor, while the other free foot tapped to the beat of the song. The nailing was apparently the work of the girl with the weird pointy hair. The visuals were strange, but nothing detracts from the sublimely tunefulness of that song: a much better song than their well-known novelty hit Stacey’s Mom. Wet Leg are more recent, the song being one of my favourites from last year. I like the way the video contrasts its slightly suggestive lyrics (“would you like someone to butter your muffin?”) with what looks like an Amish frolic in the fields. The comments for the video on Youtube are worth reading, some are hilarious, surreal and spot on. My favourite is, “This is what would happen when your favorite vinyl collection starts its own band”. Another comment was, “Extra points awarded for not including an actual chaise-lounge in the video, despite mentioning it about 50 times”.

I worked on one of my No Man’s Sky hybrid machinimas today. This was the official second episode, where my spawn travels from Planet Mina to Jeongyeon’s World via the stargate. I seem to be adding things as I go, hopefully making it more interesting. First I added the commentary text, now I’m including a music soundtrack (some Twice songs) and integrating some images of the Twice members where I can. I’ve mixed the music in such a way that it sounds like it’s coming from my spawn’s helmet, a tiny ambient sound mixed in with the game’s own music and sound effects. The idea is he is listening to the music on his helmet radio whilst exploring worlds, which is definitely something I would be doing. I’ve decided I’m going to use only the more chilled Twice tracks, not the more uptempo or well known singles. At this stage I’m not really sure what I’m doing, I just know I’m enjoying the process. I plan to continue to add things as I go. Stay tuned.

I listened to a couple of podcasts recommended to me by my mate Lui, who spends much of his free time these days listening to political podcasts. They were a couple of episodes of Who Screwed Millennials by the Guardian Podcasts. The first episode was a general taster of the subject, featuring comment from Malcolm Harris, Lenore Taylor and Yanis Yaroufakis. The main theme was that Boomers were not the ones who ‘screwed’ Millennials, they were merely the beneficiaries of a short-lived enlightened economic program that has since been scaled back drastically. The second episode looked at home ownership and the housing spiral that priced Millennials out of the market, largely due to policies developed and implemented by John Howard and Peter Costello. This second episode was particularly good, taking us step by step through decades of housing policies, starting with Menzies and ending with Howard and his push to bury Capital Gains Tax. I won’t go into the details, but it’s worth hearing about, especially for Millennials. And there’s more to come, as the series goes for five episodes. Later ones look at Education and the job market.

A nice book came across my desk today at work. It was Marilla of Green Gables: A Novel, by Sarah McCoy. I am a big fan of the Anne of Green Gables books by original author L.M. Montgomery. Anne is like the female version of Huckleberry Finn transposed to Prince Edward Island in Canada. And I believe Mark Twain was also a fan of the book. I love Anne and the series so much that I even wrote a goofy song about her back in the day. It’s about time her guardian, Marilla Cuthbert, got a story all her own. If anyone deserves it, it is her – and also her stoic brother, Matthew. I assume he will be in it too. I will read the book with pleasure some time in the future. In the excellent Kevin Sullivan tv series of the books, Marilla was played by the actress Colleen Dewhurst. Not long after the show was aired I saw Dewhurst in a production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in Covent Gardens, London. It was splendid. I love Chekhov’s major plays.

Today I happened to be working near a shop that does multi-media transfers, including camcorder, cine film, audio reels and good old VHS to DVD. It’s the sort of thing I would like to do as a job, and in fact I did apply there for a job once. So anyway, I took in a VHS I have to be transferred to DVD. It’s a thing I do sometimes. I find old VHS tapes that interest me, and that as far as I know don’t have a dvd release, and I buy them (usually very cheap), and I have them transferred (usually not very cheap). The last time I was here I got my copy of Justin Hayward Live at Capistrano transferred, and the time before that it was an old Beach Boys doco. This time it was a documentary about Girl Groups, the Story of a Sound. I love Sixties girl groups, especially the Shangri Las. Can’t wait to have a look at this.

I tried reading that essay in the British Weird book by Mary Butts called ‘Ghosties and Ghoulies, Uses of the Supernatural In English Fiction’, but I couldn’t finish it. The writer’s style was too florid, too verbose for my liking, and she took too long to get to the point. It happens sometimes, when you encounter an author whose style just doesn’t sit well with you. You tend to see it straight away, their thinking processes seem to be different to yours, and there’s no connection. When that happens I find it’s always better to just accept the incompatibility and call it quits, rather than fumble on and waste your time. I’m really sorry, Mary, this was my failure.

A girl came into the library today asking for a lotto ticket. I was a bit surprised. What made her think we were a newsagents? She said there was a sign out by the entrance advertising Lotto, so she thought this was the place. I put her straight, that she had entered a library and directed her to the nearby newsagents. After that I just had to check outside to see if it was true, and sure enough, there was the sign advertising Tattslotto and Powerball right near the entrance. A colleague said yes, it has been there for a while and it does confuse some people who, like the girl, come in asking for a ticket. We were both amused by that, but it got me thinking. In a way, coming into the library is a bit like winning the lottery – at least, to my mind it is. You come in and you get free books, magazines, audiobooks, cds and dvds, plus computer and internet use all with free membership. And there are thirteen other libraries in this system that you can borrow from, so your benefits are exponential. There are no odds or probabilities to be considered either, it’s a sure thing. The next person who comes in asking for Lotto, I’ll give them that spiel! “Yes, come in, you’re in the right place. You’ve won the lottery!”

A corner of the cover was slightly dog-eared. That’s the only reason I noticed it, a children’s picture book called The More Monster Book sitting in the picture book section. I was looking for slightly worn books to go onto our ‘grubby’ list. (To be discarded. Yes, we throw out books, we’re a library. Deal with it.) So, sometimes I’ll be shelving, or sorting, or selecting for discards, not paying attention to the contents of these things, when a book will want to make itself known to me. This was the case with The More Monster Book. I flicked through it to see what this More Monster was, and it turned out it was Capitalism! A giant mechanised pig that forced all the little pigs on the island to work and which endlessly consumed things. Then one little pig asked why it was like this, and she rebelled and discovered the More Monster was just a machine that could be controlled if the little pigs worked together. I borrowed it and took it home. It was a fun, subversive read, and it definitely belongs in our library. See, you don’t need the illusory and selfish quick fix of Lotto. Why not work towards making a good life for yourself and others?

Since I was working in the same library as yesterday, I was able to pick up my VHS to DVD transfer from the shop nearby during lunch. The man there, called Steve, handed over a little showbag of goodies that included my original VHS, the DVD transfer in its own DVD case, some business cards and flyers, and a pack of microwave popcorn. Cute. I took it home and scanned and printed up a copy of the original video cover and slipped it in the DVD case. The program is a documentary about Girl Groups of the Sixties, based on a book of the same title by Alan Betrock. The track list is a who’s who of great girl groups and songs, but there’s one glaring omission I noticed. No Crystals. The closest we get to them is Darlene Love doing He’s a Rebel. I guess there were some copyright problems with getting some Crystals clips. Never mind. I’m looking forward to watching it, which at this stage will be tomorrow.

I finally got to settle down at home and watch that Girl Groups dvd I had transferred yesterday. For what it was, the picture and sound quality weren’t bad (which is not always the case with these transfers), so I was happy about that. The documentary itself was made up of the usual series of talking heads interspersed with clips of the groups performing their songs. One of the great things about the 60s girl groups is they had some of the best songwriters working for them. Leiber and Stoller, Goffin and King, Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector were all featured, with Greenwich and Leiber and Stoller talking at length. Some of the clips were amazing. The Shangri-Las exuding cool doing Give Him a Great Big Kiss, Martha and the Vandellas doing Dancing In the Street, with Martha delivering a fantastic live vocal. Mari Wilson outing herself as the ‘sexy one’ in the Supremes (yes, you were, Mari!). Some mention was made, particularly by Darlene Love, of how Phil Spector owned the names of all his groups and was cavalier about who sang on their records. Thus, Darlene sang He’s a Rebel with her group the Blossoms, though it was credited to the Crystals. Ronnie Spector gave a good precis of her caged life with Phil, who everyone seemed to regard with suspicion – though most agreed he was also a ‘genius’. It’s a fascinating story, and all too briefly told. I was a bit annoyed that The Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack was only played over the end credits and we didn’t get to see them performing it. But, all in all, it was a good little doco, and a worthwhile project. Now I think I’ll cut up all the music clips and put them in my music video collection…

I finally bought my tickets for Pearl Jam today. Yay! They were for General Admission and they were the same price as everywhere in the stadium – AUD$222. I suppose it’s Pearl Jam’s attempt at being fair. Not sure if the people in the back row seats would agree, but I like it. It’s certainly one way to beat the scalpers. They’re putting on two shows, and the one I’m going to will be a Monday. I don’t know if Pearl Jam in 2024 can fill two shows at this Marvel stadium – it holds 50,000 people. Twice didn’t manage it with just the one show last October (though McCartney did). But there’s still a lot of time – it’s in November – so maybe they will by then. This will be a dream come true, can’t wait. And there’s the new album, Dark Matter, to get into in the meantime.

I spent much of the day finishing the reboot of my Planet Jeongyeon to Planet Chaeyoung No Man’s Sky machinima. That meant adding a text commentary, some background music and a couple of insert images of Chaeyoung. I checked out the end result up on Youtube on my large screen tv and it looked pretty good. Still not sure what I’m doing, but I got my first Like on Youtube today for the previous video in the series. I don’t know who they were, but Bless You for the Likey!