Thursday, June 22, 2006

A girl and her Docs meet a girl and her guitar

"Both Hands"
Ani DiFranco
circa 1998

Until the annual talent show, I didn't even know that Lisa K. played guitar, but she was more than just marching band piccolo.

She played Ani DiFranco's "Both Hands," and I think that was it. It could have been very good or very bad; I don't remember much except needing to have that song to listen to it over and over and over. Until then, I didn't know music could be like that -- raw and painful and strong.

I bought my first Ani DiFranco CD at the Borders next to Peace A Pizza (ravioli available as a topping, my friend) and Hope's Cookies. Because it was there or whatever the '90s version of FYE was called. I thought Borders was more likely to have it. And they did have it, plus 97 other Ani DiFranco albums.

And I played it and played it and played it (even the spoken word parts). And when Little Plastic Castle came out, I bought it and played it and played it and played it -- along with the other albums I'd bought along the way. I was going to listen to Ani forever and ever and ever.

In college, though, we lost touch a bit. Oh sure, I'd put her on a mix every once in a while, but I didn't hear her every day, and I was certainly skipping the spoken word tracks.

Recently, though, we got reacquainted when I listened to Nick Hornby's Songbook. "You Had Time" might be my "Both Hands" of this decade.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Things really were wrong in the '70s

Rabbit is Rich
John Updike
1981

Harry Angstrom's son is almost as old as Harry was in the first Rabbit book. And that means lots of conflict.

It reminds me of this play a student and teacher wrote for my high school's one-act play festival. It was called Oelvis Oedipus. Young Elvis kills old Elvis, etc. (This followed the success of the previous year's Kung Fu Hamlet, which really was much better.)

In this case, young Elvis does not kill old Elvis, but he'd probably like to. Harry's been far from a perfect father -- maybe he hasn't even been a good father -- but it's hard to understand what Nelson's real beef is.

The daquiris are largely absent in the third book. Harry drinks lots of beer, and gin and tonics, and some brandy, wine and champagne (at a wedding). They get a mention, though, when the Angstroms go to the Caribbean with two other couples. Mostly, though, even there, they all drink pina coladas.

Speaking of the Caribbean, the couples all go down there and then decide to get in a little key-party-style action. Because, you know, it's vacation and it's the '70s, so why wouldn't I sleep with my friend's wife?

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Pink drinks

Rabbit Redux
John Updike
1971

Ten years have passed since Rabbit, Run, and Rabbit drinks more. After work he an his dad usually get drinks. Rabbit always orders a daquiri, then another.

Later in the book, a co-worker he's met at a bar (a "negro" bar, my friends -- this is the end of the '60s) tells him it's a lady drink and has him order a whiskey sour. He is also observed drinking beer as the daquiries seem to taper off.

If a man wants to have a drink with some fruit in it, then a man should have a drink with some fruit in it. But two daquiries a day at the same bar almost every day? This is the kind of man Harry Angstrom is.

At the beginning of Rabbit, Run, he doesn't drink at all. He starts with the daquiries at dinner one night, ordering what the women at the table order. Life happens to him. He moves along till he's jolted out of routine.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Rabbit, take one

Rabbit, Run
John Updike
1960

Because of his disappointing stories published in the past few years in magazines, I'd forgotten that John Updike was so good. (If I knew I could get thousands of dollars for a story, I'd probably publish lots of stuff not up to my usual John Updike standards, too.)

Rabbit, Run is maybe the original quarter-life crisis story -- back when you weren't having a quarter-life crisis but were instead simply maintaining a sense of entitlement.

Rabbit is 26, and he married "late" at 23. His 26 seems somehow both so much older and so much younger than my forthcoming 26. He's married. He has a kid and one on the way. But he lives in his hometown and hasn't gotten a start on a career, and there is no college buffer between him and high school. He goes from high school basketball star to family man (sort of) with what seems like nothing in between.

Harry Angstrom is a man haltingly starting on his way in life, and it's hard not see a little something of my own uncertainties in this mid-20th-century adult.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

It seemed like a good idea at the time

It's finally time in my reading career to tackle John Updike's Rabbit books.

Not counting the first 175 pages of Rabbit, Run, my Updike reading comprises In the Beauty of the Lilies (a poor man's version of the Rabbit books), some short stories found in various anthologies and some boring short stories published in The New Yorker and Atlantic.

But, collected under one title, these four novels might be the great American novel. I must wait no longer!

Collected under one title, these for novels are also heavy.

Robert Angstrom, as published by Everyman's Library in 1995, is 1,516 pages. But it just seemed simpler to check out one book instead of four -- especially because the four books weren't all on the shelf individually and I wasn't sure which order to go in anyway. (Checking the copyright would have been so hard.)

Simpler maybe, but it is making reading physically taxing.

So here I am, straining the limits of my bag and my shoulder, all in the name of good fiction.

... And it was all a dream

The Club Dumas
Arturo Pervez-Reverte
1993

I think this is Arturo Pervez-Reverte's best-known book (at least it was the first one I'd heard of), but it gets bogged down in all the theory and history of Alexander Dumas and The Three Musketeers. Pervez-Reverte seems almost giddy on those subjects.

It reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, with it's main character thrown into an alternate world, though not so literally in the case of The Club Dumas.

I spent 300-plus pages getting sucked in (despite my annoyances), only to be disappointed at the end. The reveal was a cop-out.

The Club Dumas and Pervez-Reverte's later Queen of the South have a lot in common: They're both thrillers without being dumb about it, and they both have a main character who's essentially going it alone. But Queen of the South was ultimately more rewarding.