Housekeeping (1980)

I thought this strange and beautiful novel by Marilynne Robinson worked really well, a kind of coming-of-age story of a girl raised first by her grandmother, then by two great-aunts (briefly), and finally by her Aunt Sylvie, her mother’s sister. The setting is Idaho or western Montana, probably in the 1950s. The narrator is Ruthie Stone, writing from memory about her girlhood many years later as an adult. Her grandfather died in a spectacular train accident. Later her mother committed suicide. Ruthie is with her younger sister Lucille for many years, but eventually Lucille runs away, leaving Ruthie with Sylvie. Sylvie is a loner and a natural transient, often sleeping with her clothes and shoes on, ready to depart at short notice. She can’t keep house and spends many days by herself disappearing into the woods. The title is less a reference to cleaning and more about what it takes to keep a roof over one’s head. This thing about spending whole days in the woods runs in the family apparently, as Ruthie and Lucille spend much of one school year doing it too. Eventually Lucille decides to go straight and runs away, making her home with a schoolteacher. That leaves Ruthie with Sylvie and the court system which is coming for them. Ruthie, it turns out, might well be the transient type herself. Her voice is straightforward yet lyrical. She makes the Idaho / Montana landscape alien and a little weird. This is not a typical western by any means—largely, perhaps, because there are no men except on the furthest margins—but the landscape alone makes it a western. No horses or Indians, but a mountainous land, western weather patterns, and of course trains and maybe Mormons. The language can lapse into dense passages of description and discussions of memory and perception. It’s odd but never particularly feels unlikely. I had a hard time feeling like I could get a handle on Sylvie, but I always liked her. Ruthie had her misgivings—and Lucille too, obviously—but in the end she comes to love Sylvie, fiercely, even as she enters a lifetime of estrangement from Lucille. Strange and wonderful, Housekeeping is a short and utterly fine little novel.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

Kinda Kinks (1965)

The ever-amorphous state of mid-‘60s British Invasion LPs applies to the Kinks too. There are UK and US versions of Kinda Kinks, their second UK album, as well as at least two deluxe package editions that are equally close to essential. It seems likely, by the way their discography goes, that the Kinks were also bound like the Beatles and many others to an industry convention that frowned on releasing a single and then including it on the next album, whereas it was somehow OK to release singles from an album. Another significant factor is that EPs sold well in the UK but did not in the US. Because of these and other factors, and even though UK and US Kinks releases were identical as of late 1965 with The Kink Kontroversy, there are strange gaps all over their catalog. Songs like “All Day and All of the Night,” “Who’ll Be the Next in Line,” and “I’m Not Like Everybody Else” don’t have proper album homes now except on the CD deluxe package editions that started arriving in the ‘90s. In many ways the best version of Kinda Kinks is now found there. I know at least two on my streaming service, one of 53 minutes with 23 songs, and another of 80 minutes with 35 songs. I prefer the shorter one—many of the extra dozen on the 80-minute edition are redundancies, alternate versions, more b-sides (experiments that don’t always come off but usually have at least one interesting point), and/or are associated with live recordings and/or radio interviews (admittedly charming). Both playlists kick off with the 12 songs from the original UK release, which includes “Naggin’ Woman” and “Tired of Waiting for You,” neither of which are on the US version. It’s somewhat amazing when you consider “Tired” was one of their biggest hits in the US, #6 in early 1965. But that song instead wound up on a US-only release, Kinks-Size, where “All Day and All of the Night” also landed (admittedly a pretty good album!).

The nine songs on Kinda Kinks shared by the UK and US versions are as good as anything on the first album, notably in their lively jolting mode of ecstatic racket typified by “You Really Got Me.” With perspective, we can see it was rock ‘n’ roll transmogrifying into rock in front of our eyes and as early as 1964. But that’s not all the Kinks were up to. Elements of skiffle and music hall show up here as well and the songwriting is often ingenious, musical, distinct in style from song to song, and infectious. I may finally be tired after all these years of singing along with “Tired of Waiting for You,” but it remains an irresistible singalong even in my latter-day zombie variations. There’s more ecstatic racket in the cover of “Dancin’ in the Street,” which is exciting and surprisingly not that far off the Motown original by Martha & the Vandellas. Convincing tender exercises show up here as well, such as “Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl.” To cap it off, there’s “Something Better Beginning,” with its delicate baroque air and dense lyrical shadings: “Is this the start of another heart breaker / Or something better beginning / Something better beginning / Something better beginning.” I could do without the bawling “Naggin” Woman,” but even the stripped-down concentrated original UK 27-minute version of Kinda Kinks is quite enjoyable, standing up to close scrutiny and daily play, a pretty darned good album of itself. But there’s more, as they say on the late-nite shows, much much more.

Bell Notes, “I’ve Had It” (1958)

[listen up!]

I was listening to Vol. 2 of the Ace label’s excellent Golden Age of American Rock ‘n’ Roll: Hot 100 Hits From 1954-1963 when the Bell Notes’ one and only hit, which reached #6 in February 1959, leapt out and reminded me vividly of the early-‘80s cowpunk act Rank and File and specifically their theme song “Rank and File.” It seems likely this could be settled in a court of law because “Rank and File” sounds more like “I’ve Had It” than “My Sweet Lord” sounds like “He’s So Fine.” Just sayin’. The greater and more obvious influence on the Long Island act Bell Notes is the Everly Brothers, in both their close harmonies and in the sense in their songs of ineffective peevishness, miffed by the way things are going. In “Bird Dog,” “Problems,” “Walk Right Back,” “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” they have reason to feel short-changed and that there’s nothing they can do about it. Just so, the singer of this song has “had it,” an expression, “I’ve had it,” usually spoken by people who are likely to keep having it and know it. Exasperation as real as it gets, in a way. As for the cowpunk lift, I would not call it exactly theft on the part of Rank and File, just a pronounced family resemblance between songs, or maybe a kind of homage or salute (though it’s unlikely many in 1982 remembered the Bell Notes, who I have to keep fighting myself not to think of as the Bell Tones). Rank and File’s version, if you want to call it that, is twice as long and all rocked up heavy on a big drumkit and twangy electric guitar, with all-new lyrics. You can imagine what the “la-la-la-la” singing Bell Notes might have to say about it. It’s right there in the title of their only hit.

“Field Biology of the Wee Fairies” (2018)

This story by Naomi Kritzer is highly enjoyable, a canny mashup of girl power and “faerie” tale. To be clear, Kritzer spells it fairy, but still. In the world of this story—which is also 1962 US—adolescent girls are expected to catch a fairy and get a wish. It’s an adolescent rite of passage. The wishes are generally on the order of being more pretty. Our main character, Amelia, is a smart young girl whose skills and aptitude for science and math are frustrated by the profound sexism of the time. She is working on a science project, probably the best of anyone else’s in the school, yet she can’t get into the school Science Club because she’s a girl. The fairy thing is real in this story, though not what it appears, as the teeny creatures are wily, with their own agenda. They let themselves be caught because the touch of a human makes it possible for them to read the future. They grant a wish they know will come true, but there are other benefits in it for them. Amelia suspects some of this, and so, when a fairy appears to her and starts flitting around to be caught, her scientific instincts kick in. She captures it in a jar without touching it and then interviews it for information. What she learns enables her to triumph over the Science Club. It’s all stitched together well. As more of a girl power story it bears a light hand with the fairy stuff. The story is obviously as skeptical as Amelia—and yet fairies are real (in this story). I am undereducated on fairy lore myself, which I understand extends back far into antiquity, so I don’t know how ignorant I may sound when I talk about a Susanna Clarke model. This story anyway struck me as more of what I encountered in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, as these fairies are small and charming, but quite intelligent, with strange and great powers, and not necessarily on our side. I like the way Amelia can break down her fairy and get some straight talk from it. She’s remarkably clearheaded for a juvenile in the first place, but at the end she definitely has the look of someone who is going to go far in this world. It’s such a happy ending it’s irresistible even as the story’s strands are brought off nicely on many levels.

The Long List Anthology, Vol. 5: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List, ed. David Steffen
Read / listen to story.

United States of Trance (2001)

I’ve always been a little confused about how to think of albums like this. The major credit goes to a DJ—in this case the prolific Christopher Lawrence—who produces and/or remixes tracks by different artists. Contributing artists get so little credit that I was momentarily uncertain which were artist names and which were track names. On Lawrence’s Wikipedia page, United States of Trance is categorized with “DJ Compilations” (as opposed to “Albums,” “Singles & EPs,” or “Remixes”). OK, that sounds good. I somewhat crudely perhaps classify the genre with these exercises as “techno” at large. But hold up now, “trance” has its own meaning, which is fairly specific (again Wikipedia): “... typically characterized by a tempo between 120 and 150 beats per minute (BPM), repeating melodic phrases and a musical form that distinctly builds tension and elements throughout a track often culminating in 1 to 2 ‘peaks’ or ‘drops.’” Yes, all right, good to know. Moving on: “Although trance is a genre of its own, it liberally incorporates influences from other musical styles such as techno, house, chill-out, classical music, tech house, ambient and film scores.” A lot of styles in that list I would call “techno” and be done with it—I can’t shave hairs that fine. I have my suspicions that making such distinctions requires doses of stimulant drugs, which I imagine also go excellently with a set like this one here, beguilingly lurching and percolating and driving forward for nearly 74 minutes. I will note that the 12 tracks by 12 different artists (including one by Lawrence) are all largely instrumentals, with some occasional whispering or non-word vocalizations. They are largely matters of simple musical figures with unexpected tones and complex rhythms. They are thrilling and dull as your mood may dictate. Per the definition above, each track does indeed have its peaks and/or drops, although that does not exactly apply to the album as a whole, which chugs along in its established parameters modulating groove and finally goes out unbowed at the end, like a brass band parade disappearing down the street. You wouldn’t necessarily know it’s 12 artists. It’s less a collection of songs and more a collection of dramatic musical moments. What’s more, the album tracks seamlessly—that is, playing it on shuffle produces awkward and abrupt transitions from track to track. It’s not the same. Lawrence intends it to be listened to as sequenced. For me it is music that too often wants to recede into the background. It’s hard to stay focused. Another word might be boring, but I would not go that far. United States of Trance is more like an environment that you visit, as a kind of tourist. You may not absorb it all, but you come away with distinct memories and experiences.

Six Degrees of Separation (1993)

USA, 112 minutes

Director: Fred Schepisi

Writer: John Guare

Photography: Ian Baker

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Editor: Peter Honess

Cast: Stockard Channing, Will Smith, Donald Sutherland, Ian McKellen, Mary Beth Hurt, Bruce Davison, Heather Graham, Anthony Michael Hall, Eric Thal, Richard Mason, J.J. Abrams, Kitty Carlisle

Six Degrees of Separation is one degree of separation from a 1990 stage play of the same name, based on a real-life con man, which approximately sums up most of the problems here. Well, except for the conceit of a high concept that never quite comes off. Google AI summarizes: “Six Degrees of Separation is the theory that everyone on Earth is connected by a chain of no more than five other people (six acquaintance links).... [It may be] illustrated by the ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ game, where any actor can be linked to Bacon in six or fewer roles.”

The funny thing (funny dumbass, not funny ha ha) is that this idea has little to do with anything going on in this picture, beyond something that one major character is fascinated by in a daydreamy sort of way. That is the unbearably named Ouisa, pronounced “wee-zuh,” short for Louisa (Stockard Channing). Donald Sutherland plays her husband Flan. They are rich New Yorkers living off Central Park. Sutherland is excellent, as he always was, but he can’t save this mess. Will Smith plays Paul, who says he is the son of Sidney Poitier. That claimed connection might have something to do with the six degrees. I don’t know. I never figured it out. I did notice that Will Smith did not slap anyone in this picture.

“A Place to Stay” (1998)

[spoilers] I was impressed by this longish vampire story by Michael Marshall Smith. It deliberately applies a patina of confusion to a story of a man’s semi-lost evening with a woman he meets and wants to find again. It’s set in New Orleans, the French Quarter in all its touristy glory. The man works in the software development industry and is there for a convention and the excuse to party and blow off steam. These elements are perfect, in 1998, for a night of hard drinking and carousing. Eventually our first-person narrator blacks out. He wakes in the 4 a.m. hour in a bar that is cleaning up after closing. He remembers parts of the night, and parts come back to him as he retraces his steps trying to put it together. He thinks he remembers where the woman told him she works, a retailer of high-end kitchen goods. He finds the place, the next day, and enters, but instead of a store he finds himself in the bar from the night before, and it’s no longer day but night. Smith’s transitions as he switches back and forth between these realities can be jarring, and confusing, but they use my favorite of all the vampire powers, otherwise way too underutilized for my taste, which is the ability to cloud minds. Whatever your theory, by this point of the story the mystery is engaged. It’s hard to guess what might be coming next, specifically, but we’re starting to get the drift. There’s a decidedly modern tinge to it in the affluent, hedonistic, youthful software development world. The woman our guy searches for asked him at one point whether he believes in vampires. Decidedly, contemptuously, he does not. That’s really our only clue, beyond that I was reading the story in a fantasy/horror anthology. Nothing seems vampirish at all about her. Things reach a crescendo of confusion as our guy goes switching in and out of the night before and recovers more information about his missing time. It’s all nicely done with enough misdirection to fool me until the reveal only in the very last sentence. One thing I find interesting about vampire stories is that the lore is so wide-ranging—about mirrors and daylight and counting and all of it—that even if you know it’s a vampire story it’s hard to know how it’s going to play out. This story is obviously dependent on their ability to becloud minds, which I had forgotten as a possibility while reading the story. Smith springs it on us as an unfurling, horrific, endless nightmare, with romance and pleasure ultimately stripped away.

The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Twelfth Annual Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
Story not available online.

Jody Reynolds, “Endless Sleep” (1958)

[listen up!]

[content warnings] One more out here on the morbid tip. Jody Reynolds was a one-hit wonder rockabilly artist, born in Denver and reared in Oklahoma. “Endless Sleep” reached #5 in 1958, his only appearance in the top 40. But the follow-up, “Fire of Love,” which peaked at #66, was later covered by both MC-5 and the Gun Club. The label Demon liked “Endless Sleep” enough to record it, but insisted on adding the happy-ending last verse as well as tacking on the name Dolores Nance to the songwriting credit; apparently they thought the tune would do better as the product of a songwriting team. OK, maybe. The story here is literally dark from the start, opening: “The night was black, rain fallin’ down.” In profoundly mournful tones, the singer tells us he’s quarreled with his girlfriend and doesn’t know where she went. He follows her footsteps to the shore of the sea (Reynolds wrote the song in San Diego and performed it that night). She’s gone, “forevermore.” Gasp! Suicide! Then the singer thinks he hears the sea speaking to him, albeit in a kind of awkward way to make the lines rhyme, saying, “I took your baby from you away.” But we’re not done yet. Comes the voice of his beloved: “Come join me baby in my endless sleep.” Suicide-murder! Lord! “Come join me baby in my endless sleep.” It’s high, keening, remorseless tragedy, but thanks to the honchos at the perhaps ironically named Demon label all’s well that ends well. The singer rescues his babe. The “angry” sea gives it up. “You took your baby from me away.” But I don’t believe it. One or both are moldering at the bottom of the sea even as we speak. I’m sure of it.

Babygirl (2024)

OK, fair enough, this cheesy erotic BDSM fantasy thriller is hotter than a pistol, sexy as hell, and a pleasure to enjoy exactly that way. You’ll have to ignore or somehow put out of mind your better angels and the movie’s many ancient views of women and men and sex and power. It seems to believe, with so many, that the powerful—especially the powerful women—secretly yearn to be dominated. This seems unlikely when you think about it, given their behavior otherwise (cf., adventures on Epstein Island, or the movie Salo). But it’s popular to think so, much like imagining the powerful will end up burning in hell. But who’s really thinking about anything like that when a movie like this is going on? Nicole Kidman is Romy, a high-flying CEO specializing in warehouse robotics and married to a successful theater director, Jacob (Antonio Banderas). Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness) is Samuel, an intern with a ton of poise and self-possession and a natural dominator. He takes control of Romy sexually and seems to be attempting to take over her life at large. He’s a little scary. Romy struggles with herself but keeps doing whatever he tells her to do. Turning up the sex charge is the kind of thing Kidman has done before and she’s good at it: To Die For, Birthday Girl, and most notably Eyes Wide Shut, among others. Indeed, in many ways Babygirl feels like an intentional reprise or shoutout to Eyes Wide Shut. Though this story takes place over weeks, months, or even years, for example, it is always Christmas in Romy’s living room, with a fully trimmed-up and lighted tree in the corner. The previous feature by director and writer Halina Reijn, the horror show Bodies Bodies Bodies, had some interesting ideas but was too cluttered and strangely focused to really work. She shows a lot of development in Babygirl, but the real stroke, of course, is the casting. Kidman is perfect and has a surprising amount of chemistry with Dickinson, who’s much younger and generally inexperienced than she is in real life too. Romy is the designated bottom here, but Kidman is the star of the show all the way in a tremendous performance. Dickinson, however, can keep up with her, and that has a lot to do with what makes Babygirl work at such exceedingly high levels. You might have qualms about it later regarding gender roles and such, but first you should enjoy the ride.

Young Marble Giants’ Colossal Youth (2017)

One more entry from the 33-1/3 series of fancy little books from Bloomsbury Publishing devoted to specific albums. This one is by Michael Blair and Joe Bucciero, taking on the strangely beautiful and only album by Young Marble Giants, the Welsh minimalist trio who were briefly darlings in postpunk circles. It answered lots of my questions about the band and the album, including at least one I thought had no answer. First, both “young marble giants” and “colossal youth” are references to ancient Greek sculptures from circa 500 BCE called “kouroi,” depicting larger-than-life-size nude adolescent boys and girls. The statues can be as high as 10 feet. One of the Moxham brothers, Stuart or Philip, found a book about them and was fascinated. The third principal, singer Alison Statton, worked as a dental technician during the band’s heyday and is now a chiropractor. The answer I thought I’d never get is that Pedro Costa’s 2006 Portuguese movie Colossal Youth is indeed related to the album somehow. Released as Juventude em Marcha ("Youth on the March"), Costa, the picture’s director, writer, and co-cinematographer, specifically requested that releases in English-speaking countries bear the title Colossal Youth, harking to the album. Unfortunately, while this book is heavily footnoted, no source is given on this point, and little explanation of Costa’s reason. In fact, Blair and Bocciero seem mystified about it themselves, though convinced of the connection. I’ll take them at their word. This book reminded me of Geeta Dayal’s fine treatment in this series of Brian Eno’s Another Green World. It largely eschews personal anecdotes of their history with the album, replacing it with a lot of probing and erudite discussion of its purpose and sources. Colossal Youth really is a lovely and special album and I was grateful just for being sent back to it again. I like the way Blair and Bucciero cast the net wide to place this album culturally. Susan Sontag is mentioned a lot, as are Greil Marcus and Simon Reynolds. Usual suspects all, but Blair and Bucciero make use of them judiciously. This is a surprisingly rare thing in this series—a text that is a worthy companion to the album, enlightening and informative.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.