Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.
I’m cutting down drastically on my ebook purchases this month (and last), but I found some gems still. Also, I came to the local library sale and found some great things…
Indie Author Spotlight
the
Under the Radar
Charon’s Quest: An Underworld Saga Novel (The Underworld Saga) Eva Pohler
Foreign Agent by Matthew Rapaport
Alexander’s Song by Paul F. Olson.
The Wind by Dorothy Scarborough, 1.99
House You Cannot Reach by Tom Daley.
Stay with Me, Wisconsin by JoAnneh Nagler. (Author website and online writing). 99 cents. 11 sensual and modern-day short stories about love, loss, sex, devotion and desire. Nagler is a multidisciplinary artist who has written practical ebooks about how to be an artist, how to be debt-free and how to have a happy marriage. (hey, if she can manage to do all 3 of these things, that’s impressive as it is). The practical ebooks are low-priced too.
Lives of the Egression by J.D. Crawford.
I bought two novellas by N. Ireland poet and storyteller Leilanie Stewart — The Blue Man: A haunted friendship across the decades (Belfast Ghosts) and The Buddha’s Bone: A dark psychological journey to find light. I wrote a review of her excellent poetry title Redundancy of Tautology (I wrote, “Here are some small quirky personal poems about mundane things and the natural world. Metaphysical in subject matter (and gosh, a lot of fleshy corpses!), most of the poems are casual, light-hearted and conversational.) Stewart runs an author blog about self-publishing and other topics.
Also, I went trolling for some free and low cost poetry.
Blonde with Fingers: Poems of Love and Joy with Art Photography of Original Necklaces by Mike Smetzer
1989, The Number by Kevin Coval, Nate Marshall
Humming the Blues by Cass Dalglish
Iron Murmurs, Snow Does Sigh: The Second Chapbook by S. Seong, containing 30 poems. (Chapbooks 2) by Seth Seong
Under the Sycamore by Dave Malone
Simple Weight by Tania Runyan
Storytelling in Cambodia by Willa Schneberg
Blink and It’s Gone
Poems 1962-2012 (Los Angeles Times Book Award: Poetry) by Nobel-winning Louise Glück. 650 pages for 2.99
Library Purchases/Printed books
I found some great stuff at library book sales recently:
Bitter Fruit Achmat Dangor 2007
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains Nicholas Carr 2020
Odysseus Abroad: A novel Amit Chaudhuri 2015
Oh William!: A Novel Elizabeth Strout 2021
Fludd Hilary Mantel 2005
Disgruntled: A Novel Asali Solomon 2016
Snow Orhan Pamuk 2005
The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World David Eagleman 2018
J.C. Oates on the 5 motives for writing literature. This is a profound and important reflection on literature, but it ignores one motive — pleasure and play. Perhaps Oates thinks that this can be wrapped up in aesthetics, but it’s more complicated than that.
Robert J. Nagle (who founded Personville Press) takes a selfie near a road sign at the main intersection of Personville, Texas. The small town, which was founded in 1854, never had a population of more than 2000 people, dwindling to less than 100 in recent years. “Personville” was also a name for a fictional town in Dashiell Hammmett’s 1929 novel, Red Harvest. Nagle is standing at the intersection of State highways 164 and 39, 12 miles southeast of Groesbeck in southeastern Limestone County. Nagle named his ebook publishing company long before he even visited the town, and this selfie photo is the result of the single hour Nagle actually spent there.
Personville Press Deals
I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords. The prices listed here are the non-discounted price on Amazon. Check the links to see if they are discounted at the moment (it happens often).
Interview with the Sphinx. By Jack Matthews. ($1.50). Hyperintellectual Tom Stoppard-like play which reads like a novel about a strange interview with the ancient Sphinx character. Freud and Florence Nightingale show up too. I loved this play and even produced an audio version of it which you can buy for $2 on payhip (mp3/m4a) but the script reads well too. The audio book is available from most audiobook streaming services like |Audible $6 | Apple $3 | Google Play $3 |
A Worker’s Writebookby Jack Matthews . $2.25 Matthews distributed a photocopied version of this writing guide to his Ohio U. creative writing students over the decades.
Three Times Time Story Sampler by Jack Matthews (Always Free!) US Amazon customers can sometimes get it for free, but to make things easier, you can down these files directly without having to register: Epub, Mobi.
“War, whatever synonym you call it, is the last, dirtiest, vile thing, unworthy of the title of a man,” Gorinov said. “I thought that Russia exhausted its limit on wars back in the 20th century. However, our present is Bucha, Irpin, and Hostomel. Do these names mean something to you? You, the accusers – take an interest and do not say later that you did not know anything,”
1ST GILDA RADNER INTERVIEW: This delightful 1983 interview brings 2 hilarious people together. Here Radner talks about her new comedy book and she calls (on the show) the real person who inspired her Emily Litella character on SNL. (here’s the classic Violins on Television editorial).
80s CAMPY COMEDY CLASSIC ON YOUTUBE: I couldn’t find it on the other streaming networks, but was delighted to watch the full movie on youtube. Despite being a commercial flop, this movie is a LOT funnier than I remembered, it looks great and I really enjoyed Julie Brown who wrote the script and sang the crazy songs. Here’s a random musical number from the movie.
MORE FLOODING IN GALVESTON: “High tides could flood Galveston streets as many as 210 days a year by 2050, compared with as many as 17 days in 2022,…The expected number of high-tide flood days in Galveston’s is nearly the worst of any coastal spot in the country because this region suffers from land that’s sinking in addition to sea levels that are rising.”
AMAZING PODCAST EPISODE! The late Gilbert Godfried had a great 90 minute interview with the amazing and versatile Marilu Henner (my celebrity crush). We hear inside scoops about Taxi, Noises Off and Cannonball Run 2 (terrible movie, she said, but a jillion movie stars in it guaranteed that the shooting was fun at least). Learn her hot takes on Burt Reynolds (“lot better actor than people realize”), Danny Devito (“he exudes more sex appeal than Robert Redford”). We also learn why the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon was a very special day for her. Plus there is singing, etc., etc., (Here’s that trailer to Cannonball Ball 2).
HUMOR WITH SALMAN RUSHDIE AND LARRY DAVID. I’m still horrified about yesterday’s attack on Rushdie. As it happens, Rushdie was supposed to visit my writing workshop at Johns Hopkins in 1989 during his American book tour and was canceled because of the fatwa. Rushdie had managed pretty well over the decades (all things considering). He’s written a lot of respected books and stayed pretty visible (even making this cameo a few years ago in CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM)
Rushdie used to be married to the distinguished novelist Marianne Wiggins (who even went into hiding with him for a few years despite the decline of their marriage). I’d enjoyed her John Dollar novel and recently bought 2 of her ebooks. Can’t wait to read.
MIND-BOGGLING FACT: Although Texas (30 million) has about the same population as Australia (26 million) , Australia is about 11 times bigger than than Texas (7,741,220 sq km vs. 678,000 sq km for Texas). By comparison, Texas is 1.2x the size of Ukraine even though Ukraine’s population is 40 million). Texas is 1.9 the size of Germany (even though Germany’s population is 84 million).
Lately I’ve been fascinated by these interviews with young people on Moscow streets. The pair behind 1420 are clever and absolutely fearless; they are inventing a new kind of “street journalism” which remains slippery even in a society which tries to regulate journalism and self-expression. These quick interviews not only reveal the nihilism of Russia’s younger generation, but also the variety of ways that ordinary citizens make their peace with a bad political climate.
I guess I dislike the fact that this person donated so much to the Republican Party where it will only accelerate political spending on both sides. I just can’t understand why an extremely wealthy person wouldn’t find a better cause to spend money on: a scholarship program for students, a foundation for medical research, a cultural exchange program, United Way, etc. In comparison, spending such a huge amount on a political cause seems petty and almost self-serving.
2 NETFLIX RECOMMENDATIONS: Mo is a trilingual Houston-based dramedy about a young Kuwaiti immigrant and his family waiting on his green card (and dating a Mexican woman at the same time). This 30 minute show has lots of laughs and tears and Houston references. EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO is a Korean series about an autistic prodigy woman who works for a leading law firm. The 1 hour episodes provide lots of opportunity for humor and social commentary, plus lots of legal twists and gratuitous mentions of whales (the protagonist has a thing for them). Every episodes has a Eureka moment where the woman magically figures out what is at the crux of the case. Unlike American courtroom shows, these cases are really, really complicated, and it’s impossible to guess what the final outcome will be. Both shows are great!
QUOTE OF THE DAY: ““Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev gave us 30 years of sunlight. Unfortunately, this time has passed, and there is no more sun, only darkness. But I am deeply grateful to him for these 30 years.” (20 year old student Maxim, about Gorbachev)
ACTING CHOPS: Here’s a fun interview with Julia Garner, the actress from OZARK and INVENTING ANNA (both on Netflix). To my surprise, I really enjoyed INVENTING ANNA — a nice social satire about the fake social heiress — great script and moments of cringey hilarity — and yes, Julia Garner was terrific! Another interview where Dana Carvey (another master impersonator) asks Julia to recite the lines of one character in the other actor’s voice. (starts at 4:50).
NICE MEATY INTERVIEW: (18 minutes) Satirist Andy Borowitz offers some fresh (and serious) political analysis — our basic problem is politicians who don’t read anything and lack any sort of intellectual curiosity.
Wow, I was really late creating my music column, so this one will cover 2 months. I was busy spending my remaining emusic credit. It’s funny. I keep resolving to cancel my membership or to suspend it indefinitely. Then when I am close to canceling, I keep finding some incredible musicians.
Lately I’ve been grabbing some albums from Opus Records which are listed in the 100 Greatest Slovak Albums of all time. I generally enjoy this album if only because of its vintage sound.
Articles and Interviews
stuff
Emusic Purchases
Flames to Ashes by Elissa Pernu. 4.99, 13 tracks, 41 minutes. Great slow traditional sounding country songs by Australian singer Pernu and songwriter Bill Chambers. Lots of soothing harmonies and harmonica! (She also sings with a group Woven Hearts). It’s so great to listen to Pernu’s voice — especially in ballads like “One I Miss.” Even in songs like Oceans’ Wide where she lets loose some nice notes in the refrain, it blends very well with the light arrangements. This is real gem of an album!
Soliloquy for Lilith by Nurse with Wound. 145 minutes, 8 tracks, 6.49. Ambient stuff
Taking Shape by Ohm Square. Groovy-nerdy and fast-paced Czech pop band with a retro sound. Lots of synthesizer and just strange but beautiful notes sung in harmony. Compare to The Octopus Project, Hooverphonic or Komeda . The songs definitely grows on you, but I still don’t know what I’ve just experienced. The vocals are crazy; check out Animated (with furiously fast sax and electric guitar) where the woman practically is scatting the lyrics. Every song is different and fun.
In search of Sunrise 3 Panama by Tiesto. 4.99, 200 minutes. I love these old trance mixes, and I’ve collected most of the ISOS series.
Rewashed – Series One. Compilation of Mole Listening Pearls label. 4.99, 120 minutes
Siap Melayang by Young De Brock. 3.49 36 minutes. Indonesian hard rock. Surprisingly hard and fast and fun.
Albums by Marika Gombitová: Dievča do dažďa (1979 debut, most famous). Early album by this high-pitched Slovak pop star.
Zelena posta by Pavol Hammel & Marian Varga. 43 minutes, 6.49 . Top rated 1972 album by two legends in Slovak music.
Zlomky poznania by Miroslav Zbirka, 45 minutes, 13 tracks. 6.49
s/t by Los Flakos. Delightfully weird and peppy Mexican pop. 3.99
Dunyo by Nilufar Usmonova. (Uzbekistan) 51 minutes for 3.99. More pop songs by Uzbek superstar. The melodies are conventional Turk-influenced tracks, but her singing is always beautiful.
Terraplane by Scott Ainslee (USA). 16 tracks, 50 minutes, 6.99
Portraits by Louise Burns (Canada) . 47 minutes, 10 tracks. Slow and lovely songs that seem almost like psychedelic easy listening pop. Understated, minimal synth and arrangements, led along by Burns’ expressive voice. Compare to Nichole Atkins, Polly Scattergood, Sean Colvin.
Curiche by Newen Afrobeat. (CHILE), 2.99, 48 minutes.
Mister Mellow by Washed Out (USA). 5.49 for 29 minutes.
Carried Away by Jessica Lee, (CAN) 4.99 for 11 tracks, 37 minutes.
Wild Things by Ladyhawke (USA). 6.59 for 11 tracks, 37 minutes.
Various live concerts in Poland: (mostly from 2010 or so). They all have the same title: Najmniejszy Koncert Świata. Here’s Tomek Lipinski & Tilt. (Tilt is one of the first Polish rock bands), and Hey, and Voo Voo
PORTISHEAD NOSTALGIA. I heard several songs by this group on a mix tape I played all the time in Albania in 1995. Loved their music, but it never occurred to me to check their performances on Youtube. Here’s a terrific live performance. BTW, a “Glory Box” is an Australian idiom for a “hope chest” — a box filled with various household items and given to young married women.
BJORK “DEBUT” ….WITH HARPSICHORD!?? (and Gamelan, citar, etc.). I always loved the electro-dance “Debut” album which burst upon the scene in 1993. Just an hour ago I discovered the unplugged live version of this same album — full of minimalist — even anachronistic music arrangements. Some songs have the same pulsating energy (Violently Happy) while others like the soulful COME TO ME sound a lot smaller in scale. Bjork’s amazing voice comes through regardless; also I guess it becomes dull when you sing a song in a single way.
SINGING BY THE SHAGGS’ MEN! By now you have probably heard the story of the all girls’ band, THE SHAGGS, who were forced by their father to produce a music album even though they had crappy instruments, barely knew a thing about music and played songs for their iconic PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD album in a primitivist and almost otherwordly way. You probably already know that this original album reached a certain level of fame and notoriety and yes, even respect from music critics. BUT did you know that they did a second compilation album consisting of cover songs and this crazy song sung by the the girl’s father and brother. No joking — this song is kinda brilliant and psychotic — it sounds like a novelty song from the early rock era. It definitely sounds like musical talent runs in the family.
RAP SONG…WITH THE BEACH BOYS!? I was surprised and delighted to hear this 1987 mashup song Wipeout with the actual Beach Boys. In 1987 I was still in my “classical music” phase, so there’s absolutely no chance I would have heard that song when it was released.
Freegal and Library CDs
Bruce Cockburn: Stealing Fire and Nothing but a Burning Light
Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.
Wow, July was a big book-buying month. August will definitely be a minor burp in comparison. Also, I’ve been busy writing my Robert Hillyer introduction. Update: Well, I’m buying several more ebooks this month as well (sigh).
Rant: How to Ruin the Poetry of one of America’s greatest poets.
I was really shocked to realize this, but do you know that Amazon still does not carry a decent ebook of the poetry by Robert Frost.
Let me elaborate.
First, Robert Frost was a long-lived poet who published many books over his lifetime. Quite a number of his poems were published before 1925, which means that Project Gutenberg carries it. But Frost published about 15 additional poetry books after that (although it is true that some were compilations).
The best edition is Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Actually I bought this paperback book in the 1980s!
But the digitization of this ebook is terrible! Apparently the ebook just scanned the ebook and arranged the images sidewise — presuming that you would read them in landscape mode on your tablet. This particular ebook is a ghastly 85 MB file. For frame of reference, when I produce novel ebooks, they usually are 2-5 MB. Most poetry ebooks are 1 or 2 MB, maybe up to 10 MB if you are including images.
There are several other editions of poetry for sale. Mostly they are of early works (still very fine!) which are already available from Project Gutenberg (PG). News flash — PG ebooks are the best; they are the gold standard in ebooks! Ebook fans also know that Canada’s PG (called fadedpage.com) often contain more recent books because their public domain rules differ from that of the US. The fadedpage.com page for Robert Frost includes poetry books from the 1920s and 1930s as well.
Indie Author Spotlight
the
Under the Radar
When Lions Roar by Karen Gruber
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. Early and most successful novel by this author.
Thousand Miles from Nowhere by John Gregory Brown. Teacher flees the Katrina hurricane in New Orelans and has to piece together his life. Brown wrote a book Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery
Writer’s Legal GPS: Guide to navigating the legal landscape of publishing by Matt Knight. Knight runs the helpful Sidebar Saturdays group blog about IP law and publishing. Indispensable, and the 2020 book collects the best of the blog’s writings. A lot of the blog is of the “better see a lawyer” kind of advice and I think the fair use coverage is skimpy and not current. Other than that, this guide covers a ton of topics, including some that I had never really pondered before. I expect to learn a lot from this volume.
Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes by Nathan H. Lents (author website).
Mine Alone by Ari Nemsira. Marriage, sex and infidelity.
Blink and It’s Gone
I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away. by Bill Bryson. 1.99
Library Purchases/Printed books
How to Make Your Advertising Make Money by John Caples. Apparently Caples ran an advertising agency and was very famous for the ad copy he wrote. Although an ebook is available, an important part of the book consists of reprints of ads, so I bought the print book. (Update: The reprinted ads don’t look particularly good in the print book — they might even be more readable as an ebook
Even This I Get to Experience by Norman Lear. I am in awe of Norman Lear, and I’d love to read a memoir of how he got started. (I heard an interview with Lear on Gilbert Gottfried’s podcast where he talked about it at length).
Creative Commons/Freebies
Lately I’ve been browsing through poetry books in the early 20th century. What pleasures. You can browse them by looking at the “year in poetry” pages on Wikipedia. See for example 1914 in poetry.
I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords.
Interview with the Sphinx. By Jack Matthews. ($1.50). Hyperintellectual Tom Stoppard-like play which reads like a novel about a strange interview with the ancient Sphinx character. Freud and Florence Nightingale show up too. I loved this play and even produced an audio version of it which you can buy for $2 on payhip (mp3/m4a) but the script reads well too. The audio book is available from most audiobook streaming services like |Audible $6 | Apple $3 | Google Play $3 |
A Worker’s Writebookby Jack Matthews . $2.25 Matthews distributed a photocopied version of this writing guide to his Ohio U. creative writing students over the decades.
Three Times Time Story Sampler by Jack Matthews (Always Free!) US Amazon customers can sometimes get it for free, but to make things easier, you can down these files directly without having to register: Epub, Mobi.
On this July 4 (an American holiday), I admit that my thoughts go often to Ukraine and the terrible events happening there. This is not even my country, but on any given moment my emotions alternate between anger/disgust/horror/pride/sympathy/admiration/optimism/amazement/detachment/gloom/hope. It’s a good thing that the American government is helping with economic and military aid, but it is late and probably not enough (I hope that this generosity can continue after peace finally comes).
From an article about US vets volunteering to train Ukrainians: (PAYWALL) “They are destroying whole cities, killing civilians indiscriminately. If that’s not escalation, what is? I don’t see this so much as being like the years before Vietnam. To me, it’s more like the years before World War II. People are going to wonder, looking back, why we didn’t do more sooner?”
Watched Season 4 of Ozark (without watching previous seasons). What a bore.
QUOTE: “They have all their heavy technology right up on the border. Every night at 11:00 pm, they just start pounding the city. They don’t even aim anymore; they don’t care who or what gets hit. It’s just a boring job for them,” my friend explains. He’s calm, but only because the panic and worry have already passed for him. No one can remember what life was like before this. My brother and his wife nod in agreement. My friend goes off on a tangent. We’re all taking in the view before us, looking at the city, and doing our mental calculations. “(Memories of living on the battlefront of Kharkiv, Ukraine by Maryna Prykhodko).
I don’t know how it turned up in my feed, but Jimmy Kimmel had a hilarious 2018 interview with Stormy Daniels about Trump. Amazingly, she reports that in one of their encounters, Hilary Clinton had telephoned Trump about something (this was 2006). Says one article summarizing the book, “Then, to make it crazier, Hillary Clinton called…He had a whole conversation about the race, repeatedly mentioning ‘our plan’… Even while he was on the phone with Hillary, his attention kept going back to the sharks,” (of Shark Week). “
MARVIN ZINDLER SPEAKS! Everyone in Houston knows about Zindler, a colorful TV personality and consumer advocate who helped hapless customers who were ripped off by businesses. His most famous claim to fame was closing down the Chicken Ranch brothel (and inspiring a Broadway musical –and movie — about it). Here’s a great 16 minute interview right after the movie came out. Everyone laughed about Zindler’s catchphrases (“SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINE”) but he did a lot of good for the community and seemed in this interview to be a fairly humble man.
MUSK AND TWITTER: “Whatever the outcome, it will be a test of what really matters in billionaire business in 2022. In one corner, there are laws and contracts and old-school conventions about the way negotiations work—most notably, the concept that when someone signs papers agreeing to do something, they have to do it or pay a penalty. In the other corner is complete and total bullshit, wielded by a bullshitter who is attempting to worm his way to a preferred outcome on the strength of being not just the richest person in the world, but also the most annoying. It is a heavyweight bout between how business is done by most people and how it is done by one person. We are all about to locate the outer limit of what hucksterism can achieve.
PLEASE CALL IT TERRORISM: “The deep, unanswerable question is whether war crime is even the correct term for what happened in Serhiivka (UKRAINE). In truth, the war in Ukraine now has a different nature than most of the wars we have seen this century. In the eastern part of the country, soldiers on both sides fight for territory on either side of a discernible front line. But elsewhere in Ukraine, something else is happening, something that looks less like war and more like multiple acts of terrorism…. If terrorism is defined as an intimidation campaign using violence, then the bombing of Serhiivka was terrorism. So was the June 27 bombing of Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, when another Kh-22 anti-ship missile hit a shopping mall, killing at least 20 people. Terrorism could also describe the repeated use of cluster munitions in residential areas of Kharkiv, bombs that splinter into hundreds of fragments, causing death and injury, leaving traces across playgrounds and courtyards. Terrorism is also a good word for the July 10 attack on Chasiv Yar, where multiple rockets struck a five-story apartment building and emergency services spent many hours digging residents out of the rubble. Russia is not pursuing traditional war aims in any of these places…. But if the bombing campaign is not part of a “war,” as we normally understand it, that doesn’t mean it has no purpose. On the contrary, it seeks to achieve several goals. One of them may be to persuade people to leave, to become refugees, to become a burden and perhaps a political problem for Ukraine’s neighbors. Clearly the bombs are also meant to impoverish Ukrainians, to prevent them from rebuilding, to weaken their state, to persuade their compatriots who are abroad not to come home. Who wants to return to a country that features on the evening news every few nights, as another bomb falls on another apartment building or shopping mall? Who will invest in a place of smashed rooftops and broken glass? Sowing such doubts is a classic goal of terrorism too. ” (ANNE APPLEBAUM)
QUOTE: “Russia is facing a systemic manpower issue, and they are using multiple ad-hoc methods to fill in the gaps with volunteers, mercenaries, prison battalions, and personnel from other parts of the government like the national guard,. It results in minimally trained soldiers and presumable lack of cohesion at the unit level.” (DARA MASSICOT, Policy Researcher, Rand Corporation)
CPCs are a unique and disconcerting hybrid of anti-choice activism, religious propagandism, and pseudo-medical practice. Their modes of operation are fundamentally unethical and undermine the respect to human life that they claim to protect. Currently, the government faces significant barriers to implementing regulation of CPCs. The overall protected status of CPCs exists in stark contrast to that of abortion clinics. As states across the country threaten to severely restrict, and in some cases eliminate, access to abortion, efforts to limit the influence of CPCs will become increasingly vital. Initiatives to promote transparency and protect people seeking unbiased medical care from deception by CPCs will require creative solutions. On a grassroots level, healthcare providers and pro-choice organizations need to remain knowledgeable about CPC operations within their communities and serve as reliable sources of information for patients. Structurally, in addition to pushing for greater oversight of these organizations, Americans should demand increased accountability from search engines and social media outlets regarding advertising of CPCs and the medical accuracy of their online content. There also needs to be widespread social and political support of public health policies that create legitimate, safe access to medical and financial resources that are currently offered under threat of coercion by CPCs. While reproductive rights advocates continue to demand responsible, appropriate action from local and national governing bodies, increasing patient awareness and education about these centers will hopefully protect anyone capable of pregnancy from erosion of their reproductive freedoms by CPCs.
This 30 minute interview takes a look at all the major acting roles of John Lithgow. (my fave actor) I loved him in Third Rock from the Sun, but am pleasantly surprised at how many movies he did in the 1980s and 1990s which I never have seen. (He was good in the underrated movie, 2010: The Year We Make Contact )
In addition to Netflix, full episodes of COMMUNITY are starting to be available on Youtube. Here’s the second episode — about the insane spanish teacher Senor Chang (played by Ken Jeong). I love this series to death.
NETFLIX SITCOM RECOMMENDATION: “The Upshaws” is a hilarious 30 minute sitcom/dramedy about the ups and downs of a workclass family with a complicated history; Bennie the car mechanic dad had a child with another woman; the aunt (played by Wanda Sykes) complains about Bennie but has to bail the family out during crises. Kim Fields plays the ambitious level-headed mother who has to manage all the chaos. This is a lovely show with great characters and outstanding actors. To “keep it real,” the show has a fair amount of profanity and R-rated humor and a lot of story development and unusual plot twists. We sped through two seasons — alas, Season 3 will arrive next summer. Made especially for Netflix with brilliant writing, this is now one of my favorite Netflix-only shows.
Mary Ann — SEQUEL?! A year or so before she died, Gilligan’s Island star Dawn Wells did some short comedy sketches with Terry Ray recreating her iconic character. This playlist contains 3 sketches totaling 15 minutes. These are amateur productions, but still lots of fun…
I just finished appearing on a guest podcast to discuss two albums Pistola de Plástico by the Chilean punk-pop group Los Ex and Lupon by the Portland group Y La Bamba. Both were great albums, and I’ve been following the Los Ex lead singer Colombina Parra for a while.
Articles and Interviews
stuff
Emusic Purchases
Light by Tessie. 5 tracks, 99 cents. Nice solo work by Tessie Spoljaric-Woodgate, lead singer of the INTIMATE STRANGER band from Chile (also great). Not as pop, but more like Mazzy Star (and the last two songs were absolutely beautiful). Nice lowkey EP, in slow ambient shoegazing style
African Prayers by Amine Mesnaoui & Labelle (bc), 2.99, Moroccan piano compositions, with all sorts of percussive accompaniment.
Gondrong Kribo Bersaudara by Gribs. Indonesian glam rock. Conventional and predictable, but still a nice listen.
Saz Ile Modern Oyun Havaları by Kadir Seker. 3.99, 56 minutes. Intense and fast-paced Turkish instrumentals which sound like bellydance music a little.
Young and Old by Tennis, 4.49 for 33 minutes. 2012 album Early album by Denver pop duo and husband and wife (and still going strong). Crap, looks like their albums are already on freegal.
Recently I’ve grown sentimental about some musical pieces for children written by Carl Orff for pedagogical purposes. My high school girlfriend Susan Engelhardt gave me two classical music cassettes for my birthday: Haydyn‘s Mass in the Time of War (an extraordinarily beautiful piece) and Orff’s Musik für Kinder (which included the lovely Gassenhauer). I was probably a senior in high school and knew Carmina Burina very well (maybe I even had a cassette of it), but the Orff music for children caught me off-guard. It was so inventive and unconventional and yet sophisticated. I didn’t learn until later that these pieces were invented mainly for pedagogical reasons. No matter! (Gassenhauer is the first piece on the youtube clip, and it is justly famous). There’s a great note on the youtube vid:
it should be mentioned that the ‘Street Song’ album was pretty much entirely arranged/composed by Gunild Keetman, not Orff, including ‘Gassenhauer’,the sole exception being the collaboration ‘Unsquare Dance’. The credits on the 6 CD release ‘Musica Poetica’ by RCA/BMG from 1994 confirm this-she was the percussion/instrumental genius while Orff’s contributions tended to lean more towards vocal/choral works. Unfortunately Keetman rarely gets the credit she deserves-for example her name has been airbrushed from the original album cover shown in this video and on some releases, not mentioned at all.
The Haydn mass in the time of war was not as lugubrious as I expected it to be. It was a simple classical mass — more Bach than Beethoven, but the last part, the Agnus Dei has a nice adagio which ends with a dirge-like trumpet and drums. Actually though the last dona nobis pacem ends quickly on a simple and glorious note. (Here’s a great Neville Marriner version).
Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.
LITERARY TIP: If you’re looking up a book or author, try searching Youtube for the author’s name. You’d be surprised at how many video clips will turn up for even the most obscure writers (except for me, ha, ha; the only search results are for Robert Nagle the real estate lawyer or Robert Nagle the trumpet player). But I’ll be posting more book-related stuff on Youtube over the next few years.
Smashwords July Ebook Sale
The whole month of July Smashwords will be featuring discounted ebooks. It’s somewhat hard to find the good stuff, but I’ve got you covered.
Overall, no big discoveries or must read authors during this SW sale, but I took a chance on a lot of indie authors — mostly from outside USA.
Discounted to 99 cents, my ebook buddy David Rothman has a global techno-thriller which I even wrote a blurb for. (Drone Child). I described it as a “A fast-paced Horatio Algerian rags-to-riches story set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A teenage supergeek runs away to the capital city…with dreams of a better, safer life–and instead ends up working under duress for gun-worshipping racketeers… Lots of incidents and dangerous escapes.” Here’s the author website and a longish interview with rothman . Rothman is a semi-retired fellow living in Virginia, but he’s taken an interest in the social and political changes occurring in the Congo region.
David Blixt is now publishing his novels on Smashwords — a very good thing (although I bought most of them on Amazon already). He’s good at writing about Shakespeare and various historical periods. All his works are worth reading/buying, but let me recommend in particular Her Majesty’s Will and What Girls are Good for. (both selling for about a dollar).
Chloe After Dark by Elsa Joseph. 2.99 UK author about a radio host at a steamy erotic radio station.
Fairleigh Parker by Timothy Provenzano. With a hard-bitten realism inspired by mid-20th century masters such as Raymond Carver and David Goodis, Fairleigh Parker captures lives at the margins of respectable society without sentimentality.
Call me strange, but I picked up 3 anthologies of the year’s best lesbian speculative fiction for 99 cents each (here, here, here). Each annual edition is edited by a different person.
House with a Blue Door by Nick Wisseman. (free) Upbeat story about a man working at a group home for mentally handicapped patients.
Witness 2017-2020 by Hilton Obenzinger (Author website) . 99 cents (Poetry). Here’s a 30 minute reading on Youtube. He’s a prolific experimental Jewish author and academic. “Hilton Obenzinger is an American original. His lost histories are acts of legerdemain and cunning–mixing truth and imagination in ways rarely see before.” –Paul Auster This poetry offers lots of ephemeral observations about COVID, Trump, current events.
Summer Stance by Lorn MacIntyre. Odd coming of age work that mixes Gaelic language and culture with a modern story.
Big Book of Cowboy Poetry by Stan Paregien Sr. (Author profile). Light-hearted verse, most with a story attached to them. Professional storyteller from California.
Two sci fi series free this month: Don’t Drink the Water (time travel series, free this month) and After the Cull. By Simon Cutting (Australia)
Updating My Cloud Reader
Oh, my, I have discovered that I have accidentally forgotten to transfer many Smashwords purchases over to the Kindle Cloud. I’m talking about potentially 100+ ebooks. I’m guessing that most of them were uploaded instead to Google Play Books, but now that the Kindle supports native epub uploads, why not put it on the Kindle cloud as well?
Indie Author Spotlight
the
Under the Radar
Elephant of Belfast by S. Kirk Walsh. Somewhat whimsical-sounding story of a zookeeper/animal caretaker who takes care of an elephant during the German blitz of Belfast during WW2. The premise is certainly delicious. Here’s a 10 minute youtube interview. The author lives in Austin TX. Here’s the author website and links to other writing.
Geometry of Love by Jessica Levine. I’ve been tempted by this book for a long time, but finally relented when I saw that the author wrote her dissertation on Henry James and Edith Wharton. (Author web page and other writings).
At the end of the storm by Maureen Pasch. Successful woman gets screwed by unfaithful husband who leaves her. She has to pick up the pieces and help her daughter in the process.
No Names to be Given by Julia Brewer Daily. (Author book site). Story about 3 women who run away from their abusive boyfriends and have to give away their first born children for adoption. Ah, she lives in Fredericksburg, TX which is in central Texas. (Here’s a zoom interview and other interviews on podcasts).
Rising Up: Book One in the Tranquility Series by Tanya Ross . This book won the California Indie Author award last year.
Paradise: A Novel by Elena Castedo. (wiki page) 1.99 1989 National Book Award finalist and bestseller about growing up in South America. Described as “ingenious social satire” of the “arrogance, folly, injustice, and debauchery” among Spain’s privileged class
The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene by Simon L. Lewis, Mark A. Maslin
Pistoleer: A novel of John Wesley Hardin by James Carlos Blake . Texas novelist Clay Reynolds raved about the writing and historical accuracy of this Texas novel.
Library Purchases/Printed books
Writing Life Stories by novelist Bill Roorbach. This how-to book on memoir writing struck me as useful. Far more interesting was that I had never heard of Roorbach, and he has written many fiction works I’d never heard of. I’ll be buying a few.
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. A fine book surveying people’s productivity techniques. I thought I already bought this one, but I found a hard copy at the library.
Giant Book of IQ Puzzles by David Bodycombe. As a kid I used to devour these puzzle books even when the puzzles themselves were ridiculously hard.
Autobiography of a Corpse (New York Review Books Classics) by Sigizmun Krzhizhanovsky. Borgesian story collection by early 20th century Ukrainian/Russian author, considered Kafkaesque. Update: Apparently several other volumes have come out, with another one due this year!
Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, edited by Maria Tatar. I totally freaked out when I saw this oversized hardback book at the library a few years ago. New translation, heavily annotated, with gorgeous illustrations, and my favorite author. Unfortunately the price even for used copies has been prohibitive. I snagged it for $10 — and with a 10$ coupon, got it for free!
Golden Days (California Fiction) by Carolyn See
A Plea for Eros: Essays by Siri Hustvedt. Adding to my collection, this book seems to be more personal than the other books by her.
Monarchy of Fear: Philosopher looks at our political crisis by Martha Nussbaum . It is such a pleasure to read anything by Nussbaum.
Several works by Bill Roorbach: Into Woods: Essays, Remedy for Love, Girl of the Lake, Life among Giants.
Silk by Alessandro Baricco . Apparently an erotic fiction classic.
Two collections by Paul Metcalf: Paul Metcalf: Collected Works, 1956-1976 and Paul Metcalf: Collected Works, Volume III, 1987-1997 He’s an experimental writer of the Guy Davenport/William Gass ilk. Here’s a Paris Review profile and Brad Bigelow of Neglectedbooks is apparently a huge fan. (oh, and a wikipedia page)
Stories of Frank Sargeson. Well-regarded New Zealand author (I bought a collection of book reviews by him a while back). His stories haven’t really been available in the States.
Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon Wood. I’ve heard great things about this tome, and I had been waiting for its price to fall.
Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves by Eric Kandel.
Creative Commons/Freebies
(To do: mention my PG edits!)
I rarely purchase ebooks for over $5, but I made an exception for a book I once downloaded for free but cannot find — Machine of Death, which sells DRM-free on Gumroad for 5.99 . Honestly I didn’t finish the anthology yet — and I listened to some of the stories on audio (audiobook on sale here) but the premise is delicious, and the ebook is beautifully illustrated.
Here’s the delicious book description:
The machine had been invented a few years ago: a machine that could tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you were going to die. No dates, no details. Just a slip of paper with a few words spelling out your ultimate fate — at once all-too specific and maddeningly vague.
A top ten Amazon Customer Favorite in Science Fiction & Fantasy for 2010, Machine of Death is an anthology of original stories bound together by a central premise. From the humorous to the adventurous to the mind-bending to the touching, the writers explore what the world would be like if a blood test could predict your death.
But don’t think for a moment this is a book entirely composed of stories about people meeting their ironic dooms. There is some of that, of course. But more than that, this is a genre-hopping collection of tales about people who have learned more about themselves then perhaps they should have, and how that knowledge affects their relationships, their perception of the world, and how they feel about themselves.
I actually thought of the book when trying to come up with ebooks that my 15 year old niece would actually want to read (she dislikes reading but is into art stuff). I look forward to reading the rest of the stories very soon. By the way, I noticed that Ryan North of Dinosaur comic is a contributor as well as editor.
Literary Articles and Essays
Jessica Levine on whether it’s necessary to write fiction with sex. In her book Geometry of Love, she came close to excising the sex scenes out of embarrassment, but had to be coaxed by her editor to leave them in. Writing about sex can be revealing (she concludes): valuable tool for charting human experience and experimenting with the ways in which language can record it. Her examples of sex in literature definitely have a lot of sexual predation (Tess, Tropic of Cancer, Native Son, Kite Runner, etc) but probably by now female authors have changed that.
Egad! 2 months after buying 5 used copies of bks by Siri Hustvedt at bargain prices ($3-6), her publisher finally discounted her back catalog to more reasonable prices. I REALLY try to buy books in a way that supports the author, but when ebook prices are high, everyone loses!
Here are some small quirky personal poems about mundane things and the natural world. Metaphysical in subject matter (and gosh, a lot of fleshy corpses!), most of the poems are casual, light-hearted and conversational. There is not a lot of specificity to a time or place — aside from an occasional mythological reference and unexpected phrases (iPad, the “Pamela Anderson of matter” etc.) I like how sometimes the poem starts out normally and then takes a jarring turn or twist — often through a rude or offcolor remark. Although these poems seem both free-spirited and free-versed, some of the poems use diction, rhythm and witty word repetition very well (Atrophy, Devilry of Spastic Colon, Wasp Waist, Live Wire, Earth Wire) and skillfully hyperbole (Crater). Generally these poems are accessible and flow well, though there are several images and phrases I haven’t quite figured out — (“existence detaches twice or thrice?” — there’s profundity here, but I’m still scratching my head….) Quite a few poems operate at several layers, and I really enjoy the widening (or narrowing) of perspective by the time you reach the poem’s end.
Some of the poems contemplate random objects — the bath bomb, a shed, a wasp which is bopped dead by a poetry journal, knives in the sink, an appliance inspection sticker, a bike helmet, bugs in coke cans. These poems are a lot of fun — and I bet they are great when recited aloud before others. Be warned that there’s a fair amount of self-aware/self-referential poems about poetry and the poet (Mellifluous Inclinations, Bland Tasteless Junk)– fortunately not enough to spoil the reader’s appetite (also, they are finely done).
Sometimes a remark at the end of a poem can undermine the poem as a whole. In Perception of Truth, the poem crafts some beautiful imagery as a series of WHAT IFS — only to finish by saying “What does it really matter? Why do we even care?” I don’t know; it seems inappropriate to close a poem in such a glib but banal way. Other poems like A LEAF AT A TIME or BLACK MOTH FLUTTERING contemplate the natural world and finish more serenely.
One complaint about formatting. I read the ebook and it does not have a table of contents — a publisher’s mistake. The publisher should have included a Logical Table of Contents for the Kindle edition. As a result, it is impossible to browse through poems by title — maybe that was done on purpose to hide the titles?
Overall, it’s a fun collection of easy-to-read, mostly metaphysical poems, with my favorite being LIVE WIRE, EARTH WIRE
Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc
I just finished editing a video interview with author Harvey Havel. Hey, it’s the first video interview I’ve ever done (Still getting the hang of it). I plan to make some vids of myself soon.
Horray! I now have another monthly category of microposts for Geekstuff to fill with content. To make it easier on myself, it will cover 2 months instead of 1.
I have skipped doing this for several months now. I have been overwhelmed. I always find geeky stuff, but I never have time to make note of them — and then I end up forgetting about them.
Ended up buying another Bluetooth speaker because my other one only works for 10 minutes! I ended up buying a JBL Flip 6 for $99 (Here’s a review and another and a review video). Several notable features: USB-C port, waterproof, extra tweeter, rubber feet, 8 hours use, equalizer configurable through a mobile app, 20 watts,
I’m really intrigued by open source static site generators (SSG). Here’s HUGO. Sounds good — I guess, but the deployment details sound complicated; you can rsync via conventional webhosting, but most of the instructions are for cloud-based providers and github. Hey, am I being too old-skool by using conventional web hosting? Gotta investigate that. Update: I still want to try it out once, but the templating code looks a bit too hairy and not very human readable. Most of all, I want the resulting output code to be easy to decipher.
Trouble with mice!: I can’t understand it. A few weeks ago I was working away from home and my mouse became unusable. I finally bought a wireless mouse, which is good (I guess) but it doesn’t register the click immediately especially on chrome. Why must everything be so difficult?
Let me gripe about Google Sites. I made a website for a friend 8 years ago and used Google Sites (against my better judgment) to build the website. Google Sites has a wysiwig tool and several templates that are ok, but not particularly great. The main benefit of using it was to make it easier for the site owner (a nontechnical person) to make edits.
8 years later, I am asked to edit the site again. Normally, that’s no problem, right? Except that Google Sites changed its website management software (in a major way) and automatically migrated the old sites to the new system.
Been late about putting up this monthly pages. I read and discover all kinds of interesting things, but if I never get around to putting up the #$#$ page, I never include them here.
NEW WORD: “STROAD” — “It is a street that is designed like a road, and in doing so, it fails at being good at either one. (This 18 minute is a must-watch vid with examples from many cities around the world — including Houston where I live).
Alas, I live in a Republican-leaning district where my congressional rep Troy Nehls hangs out with a lot of GOP crazies and still offers effusive praise for Trump. The irony is that the district is not that conservative (Trump won 50% of the vote here), but thanks to gerrymandering, it is considered a “safe GOP seat.” So I will have to live with Nehls for a fairly long time.
FUNNY SPELLING BEE CONTEST: Every year Jimmy Kimmel invites the national champion spellers to see if they can spell better than the talk show host. (Here are the 2016 winners). I laughed my head off while watching this. The real 2022 national spelling bee — which I watched earlier tonight was really exciting to watch…. Two other episodes here and here.
I was going to post an interesting article here; then, I realized only a fraction of my friends would find it interesting (and an even smaller fraction would actually notice it). For everyone else, it would seem dull, irrelevant, distracting. So instead of posting this link, I shall merely note the omission, make an oblique reference to Wittgenstein and point out the difficulty of escaping one’s inner rationalizations. You’re welcome.
“There’s something about a problem being unprecedented in human history that makes applying legal precedent to it seem absolutely clownish.” (TWEET BY CLIMATE CHANGE PODCASTER AMY WESTERVELT ON TODAY”S SUPREME COURT DECISION BLOCKING EPA”S REGULATION OF COAL POWER PLANTS). Here’s a transcript of her recent podcast about the West Virginia vs. EPA case.
Live in Prague 1964 by Krzysztof Komeda Quintet. 5.99 historic and famous recording by Poland’s most famous jazz composer. (I’m a big fan of the Komeda pop band who were inspired by his music).
Skilfulness by Alan Silva. 49 cents for 37 minutes. Wiki article on the album: “For all the hippy fantasies of rock and the space operas emerging on the fringes of jazz, nothing of the time quite captures its spirit – ethereal but grounded in sophisticated intelligence and high technical skill – quite as well.” From the ESP-Disk label.
Various albums by jazz saxophonist Frank Wright:Your Prayer, Unity
Burton Greene Trio:On Tour. 99 cents. I was a big fan of the Burton Greene Quartet which was furious and fast-paced avante garde jazz, but still fun and listenable. This one is less interesting but also cheap.
Ebikokyo by Faizal Mostrixx and Suzan Kerunen featuring Aloysius Migadde. 99 cents, 23 minutes. Nice dance music from Uganda.
Imperial Blue OST, David Bryceland and others. 5.99, 55 minutes. Strangely and annoyingly, they put bits of film dialogue at start of some tracks, but it doesn’t distract too much.
I’m going to try not to embed youtube videos in these posts — pretty much the URLs go bad after a while. I still will link to them. I just love this song by Moldovan Eurovision contestants Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers – Trenuleţul – Moldova
When Stefania won Eurovision, I knew that there was a “sympathy vote” supporting the Ukrainian entry, but later, they remade the video for the song which captured the literal meaning of the song — affection for the mother, metaphorical comparisons with the “motherland.” A later video uses the backdrop of war and buildings destroyed by Russian fire to bring the point home more dramatically. Manipulative, yes, but effective. If I were to do it indifferently, I would include pictures of the war dead; I come across them all the time (graduating from college, smiling at the beach, etc). The whole is such a profound waste of life.
Here’s a great song by Kristin Chenoweth which won her first Tony. I just love this song!
As crazy as it sounds, somebody surreptitiously taped a full 1999 performance of You’re A good man, Charlie Brown — apparently from a cell phone although I can’t imagine that watching it would be a pleasant experience — although I’m grateful to have it. That makes me think. I’m sure big Broadway productions must have videotaped their live performances at least once — maybe not for sale, but certainly for archiving. I’m really surprised that more of these tapes haven’t been converted to DVD or made available on streaming services. By the way, the live taping of the original production of Come From Away is available on Apple TV+. God that was one of the best things I’ve ever seen!
Post Roe vs. Wade, I recalled a lyric from this Digable Planet song . Actually, there’s another song on that same brilliant album that speaks about the metaphor of abortion.
RUSSIAN WAR PROTEST SONG — WOW! Little Big has been famous for their stylistically subversive songs & music videos. Up to now these songs have been (mostly) devoid of political overtones. Here is their first song since the war started, and it tackles the political subject directly. Singers have always sung songs with subtle political messages (even during Soviet times), but this song is not subtle at all — and strangely, the lyrics are entirely in English! (Then again, their visuals transcend language).
The interesting thing is that the outrageous campy style and violence are perfectly normal in any hard rock music video — it’s not even that outrageous — and yet its messages cut very deep — never before have the stakes been so urgent.
Also The Russian Eurovision singer Manizha performed a very beautiful choreographed anti-war song in middle of March. (also in English, but with Russian subtitles). One wonders whether watching a music video will eliminate political indifference or simply express messages for the people who follow political events more careful.
Freegal and Library CDs
Songs by Kiki Dee. Wow, I didn’t know she was that popular before she sang Don’t Go Breaking My heart with Elton John. Her big song was, I’ve Got the Music in Me.
Various tracks by Wilson Pickett. You probably already know that Wilson Pickett’s Hey Jude (with Duane Allman on the guitar) is much better than the Beatles’ version (!). His other tracks are pretty wicked, though more in the soul category than bluesy rock.
Interesting Emusic Labels + Bandcamp or Catalog pages
Here’s an abbreviated list of emusic labels — which is hard to keep in my head. I’m using as my reference omnifoo’s comprehensive annotated list of labels. I’m just adding links to emusic and bandcamp and maybe other resources.
Audio Cave (Bc) A profusion of trios and quintets from the last few years shows promise, and I’d be happy to own most of it. MN jazz more than occasionally looks Polish in 115 at usually quite low prices. Updating in 2020 and with a few from the 1990s, one might say they’re an exceptional steal. Far better than the big jazz donors in the wine caves. I picked up Silberman Quartet in part for it being among the least jazzy.
|| Gad Records (bc) (album summaries) RJN Lots of Polish instrumental and jazz stuff — including lots of soundtracks. Great stuff, but somewhat pricey.
Serpent Records (bc) Almost 200 titles ranging from classical, jazz, folk, and Krautrock. Might be worth spending a long time exploring, as many are inexpensive. Very low-key and abstract as a whole, sometimes a little off kilter..
Metal Mind. Polish label seems to be progressive rock at least as often as it is metal, and not very loud or hard metal when it is metal. Tracks tend to be on the long side, but don’t assume what they sound like. Sample (at least some let you listen to the whole track) or get burned! 59 titles from the 1980s to 2014.
Agora S.A. (Wiki page) Polish distributor (not a label). I like Pustki and Dagadana. I think this is Polish. 25 titles ending in 2014, and there’s plenty of pop vocal nonsense and live albums to filter out. RJN: Looks like they stopped adding albums in 2014. I really love the live albums which are all called Najmniejszy Koncert Świata.
Box Music. Another of the Polish labels that inexplicably sometimes lets you listen to whole songs for risk-free downloading. Voo Voo is interesting rock, but the rest is highly questionable. 149 titles from the late 20th century to 2015.
MyMusic Group. (Catalog on Wiki) (preview by artist on Youtube). There’s almost certainly some interesting stuff in here, but I’m not going to click through 780+ titles to find it. Mostly Polish.
Tercet. 90s technopop Polish & Eastern European music and remixes.
Songbird (Wiki page) RJN: sublabel of Black Hole Recordings, primarily known for its Search of Sunrise trance mixes. (All are great, especially the earlier Tiesto mixes). Great values too.
Black Hole Recordings (Wiki page) Bigger names in electronica like BT, Solarstone, Paul Oakenfold and Tiesto veering towards house and trance.
Slovak Republic — Opus Records (Wiki page) RJN: A very odd assortment of 230 albums by Eastern Europeans over 4 decades. Probably overpriced and some albums sound cringey, but lots of great unusual stuff here! No separate Youtube page, although many albums are listed there. See also 100 Greatest Slovak albums of all time and a longer list here.
Portugal: Lux Records (bc) Irreverent blues from Legendary Tiger Man, then lots of alt. rock in 38 titles from the end of the 20th century up to 2020. Occasionally in Portuguese. More than I expected stands up to scrutiny. There’s a lot of character(s) here you should introduce yourself to.
Black Hole Recordings: (Netherlands) Bigger names in electronica like BT and Tiesto veering towards house and trance. 851 to choose from, if you can differentiate. (Artist Page / Wiki page
Trunk Records(bc) UK (label releases). A whole lot of vintage stuff to sort through, rockabilly and int’l combined confusingly with stuff that’d be a great find on cheap, old vinyl. 293 titles that often find themselves on the bestsellers list for big names in jazz.
Ghost Box (bc). Ambient, electronic. (Artist page and Wiki page) Early tests of this well regarded electronic label show promise, but it’s too soon for me to get on the bandwagon. Several users have expressed concerns about it leaving. I’d be sad but definitely survive. 58 titles almost all rated.
Earache Records (Artist Catalog and Wiki page) Finding this seminal metal label so recently makes me worry that I’ve missed a lot of labels in genres I don’t listen to at all. In 433 albums, I’d be surprised if nothing was worthwhile, even for me.
Lo Recordings (bandcamp) (Wiki article listing artists) Lots of good electronic stuff, especially when artists whose releases overlap mean labels that have disappeared are still available for a few albums. 168 titles
Burning Witch Records. (BC) Deadly Avenger and some highly rated electronica. Ten albums by Caribou have suddenly appeared in Aug.’20 on People Eating Fruit Records. RJN: I liked Oh Baby
Damaged Good Records. (Label Artist catalog and wiki). Gotten into Holly Golightly lately, on a friend’s suggestion. Lots of other stuff is rated for easy exploration if you want to revive the dirty rock and blues sounds of old but want something from 2020. Large selection of 214 here can add 59 more by adding “Records” to the name.
Memphis Industries. (Bandcamp) List of artists. The folks responsible for Self have a real knack for production without letting anything sound overproduced. I believe some past releases were also called “Spongebath” Records and were less reliably nifty. 80 titles.
Pschent (Soundcloud) . French synth pop, house, and disco, deliberately cheesy and smarmy. Just over 50 titles ending in 2011, then add “Music” for a whopping 147 more, with many highly rated. Add Stéphanie Cadel et La Caravane for a few more.
Because Music. (Bandcamp, Wiki listing) Decidedly not where I got my Beta Band cds, but if I didn’t have them, nice to know there here with Charlotte Gainsbourg and others among a whopping 357 in tota, 77 more under “Ltd.” and countless variations.
Germany:
Mole Listening Pearls. (Youtube) Quite large electronic catalog with high ratings. Accessibly poppy and upbeat. 173 titles from the turn of the century to 2019. 186 in Sept.’21, and I haven’t seen fit to buy anything yet…maybe a little too smooth in its downtempo and too broad in its pop. (RJN: Start with Ohm Square and the Rewashed compilation album of label artists).
Springstoff. (Catalog) (Youtube). 237 titles and the site’s bestseller for May’22 are here in electronic, though I’m always skeptical of deep house. Up to 2022.
LEITER Verlag GmbH & Co. KG (BC) A mighty unwieldy name for ten titles including bestselling new classical from Nils Frahm, broadwaved electronica from nonkeen, 2016-2021. I’ll be surprised if this one survives long, but it’s up to 26 titles in June’22, insulated by very high prices ($3.49 for an EP?!)…but that might mean I only buy on booster discounts that could scare the label away. (RJN:
Spain:
Must Producciones. 17 titles by a couple of pop chanteuses en español from 2018-20 (RJN: It shows 40+ titles, check out Edurne).
Nubenegra. (Artist Catalog & Album Catalog & Youtube). Latin world music from the 1990s to 2010 in 81 titles. Add a space for ten in rock up to 2019. Mariem Hassan’s story as one of the most prominent female vocalists in desert blues sure sounds tragic, while her music should live on. (RJN: The label website is very helpful and impressive, but the Spanish language text appears on top of each page; the English version for each album and artist are found below the Spanish text).
Latin/South America
Beast DiscosArtist Catalog(Chile) Rock en espanol and probably some worthwhile stuff among 170 (now 180) titles up to 2019. Pop someone w/ taste might call “tasteful.” 244 in Jan.’22 (RJN: I really love this label!)
Naafi (bc) Mexico. 33 electronic titles from 2017-21 only discovered in Sept.’21 in a farewell post from eMusers. Short but also inexpensive albums, quality is decidedly a cut above most electronica thanks to worldly elements.
Halcon, Limited label containing mostly 70s Norteno/Tejano music. Classic salsa and mariachi of the 1970s with contemporary examples. RJN: Rare stuff, but sadly overpriced on emusic.
Wing Hang Record Trading Co. Trove of late 20th century and early 21st century Chinese titles, 118 in total, ending in 2012 but extending well into the 1970s, mostly from the 70s to the 90s. The label name sounds like it’s Cantopop, as does the album art, but the song titles have been entered in Mandarin
KWAIOTO Other labels are pretenders. Japan. These dubstep EPs coming out of Kyoto are the real deal. Up to 2019. [[RJN: Lots of single tracks mixed in]]
Maestro Digital/Maestro Production (UZB Label) (Youtube). Russian is definitely nearby, but these pop vocalists look more like Central Asians, so I’m going to put their pop and hip-hop with the Middle East. 100+ titles up to 2019. Not the worst cheese I’ve heard. (RJN: Albums with the title “To’plam” mean that they are a compilation aka Greatest Hits. But they are not necessarily the best songs by the singers).
Nevo Music. (UZB) (Youtube) . RJN: Another Uzbek label, with a lot of songs in Russian. Based in Russia, I think, and the music production style seems very much in the bland techno Russian pop style.
Canada
604 Records. Catalog and Wiki page. Youtube. Nearly 200 to choose from, but I doubt the five-starredness of some of these alternative rockers and their conventional pop takes on folk, country, etc. There do seem to be more female vocalists than usual. Turn of the 21st century to 2020. Lots of variations of the name to sort through. Another reliable explorer has confirmed there’s nothing actually of interest here.
Light Organ. Wiki Page Catalog. Youtube. Large catalog of rock, folk, synth pop, etc. and on sampling the quality seems high. A few are rated, several 2019 titles. (RJN: Launched by 604 cofounder to appeal more to the college music crowd. )
Leaving Records. (BC) DNTEL, Odd Nosdam, and presumably lots of other gems to draw attention away from Laraaji, which I find intolerable. A semi-experimental cornucopia of 181 titles.
Sublime Frequencies (Bc) World guitars and similarly derived instruments, mainly from dry places? Inexpensive and high quality in 42 titles from 2007-18. (Based in USA)
Righteous Babes (bc) Ani Defranco’s baby, Another label one almost has to support for its feminism, but the music has yet to blow me away or congeal into the kind of artist or sound they’re proffering. Is Ani DiFranco in charge of it? One of those I respect more than I want to hear. Drums & Tuba are interesting. 40 titles. Add everything by Lenine on Casa 9. (RJN: I love this label, but bought a few on BC).
J.D.L. Pre-WW2 European compilations. Overpriced, but definitely rare and listenable.
Timeline. RJN: Vintage live recordings by extremely famous US bands. Some were in US; some were abroad. Sound quality is spotty (even by the standards of the decade) and that explains why so few of them were released in the States. Also, these artists have lots of other albums, making these particular recordings not particularly special.
Masters of the Last Century: Compilation of Random US pop/jazz stars. Some interesting stars here, but overall they are not a particularly good deal for the money (usually 65-80 minutes for 6.49)
Independent (?!) Omnifoo surmises that the 10,000+ releases with this “label” were lumped together because the label field was never filled in. You can’t really sort by release date because about 95% of recent releases are singles only.
JSC-Firma-Melodiya — Obscure Russian classical label with lots of composers I’d never heard of.
Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.
I just wanted to follow up on last month’s purchase of my big ass floor lamp. That — along with better floor glasses has made it easier for me to read. Much as I like to read, I have to do a ton of it for professional reasons. Some of it can be fun, but mostly it feels like work. Anything which helps me with reading is a win. I personally prefer reading ebooks — especially because it’s easy to annotate and save my place, but occasionally it is nice to read a real book for a change.
After the tremendous amount of ebook purchases between Jan and April, I settled down in May a bit and June should be rather tame. But maybe I’ll do more actual blogging. Six days later: I bought a ton of books during the intervening time! Ha, ha!
I’ve started reading Iris Murdoch‘s The Sea, The Sea, which I’ve always wanted to read!
Indie Author Spotlight
the
Under the Radar
Jesse Ball (wiki page) is an experimental writer from NY who has been compared to Kafka, Borges, Calvino. Got his MFA from Columbia and studied with Richard Howard (he has published several poetry volumes as well). He’s prolific and publishing through major publishers, so who knows where the quality stuff is. But I bought the cheapskate novella, The Lesson (99 cents) and and early story collection called Village on Horseback (2.99) which contains a piece published in Paris Review and won a prize.
Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin Yalom. (Author website). Yalom is a philosopher/psychotherapist who has written lots of nonfiction and fiction books. In 2009, he published this book about a therapy group who use Schopenhauer’s ideas in trying to heal/improve. The first chapter I read was great, and Yalom has written several subsequent books with the names of famous philosophers in the title (not a bad gimmick, I admit).
On Looking: Essays by Lia Purpura. 1.99 (Author bio and interviews). Purpura is a poet and critic Oops, a lot of these links don’t work, but she has a lot of interviews on Youtube. (2022, 2021, 2016, and another 2016)
Balladeer: Coming of Age Drama by Fred Calvert. (author website) 99 cents. Young boy accidentally causes his brother’s death; the novel is about how it affects his growing up. First novel by an extremely accomplished animation artist, screenplay writer and TV writer.
Redundancy of Tautology: 80 acerbic poems by Leilanie Stewart (author website and blog). Reviewing for Bookroar. She’s a Belfast-based poet and author who edits Bindweed Magazine — whose issues are also published on Amazon.
Luminaries by Eleanor Catton . Longish Booker prize-winning historical novel about New Zealand.
Alejandro’s Lie by Bob Van Laerhoven (author home page). Free on Smashwords. Political novel taking place in South America in the 1980s. From Booklife: There is a poetic quality in Bob Van Laerhoven’s prose that makes the story sing, and its romantic angle reminds me of Love in the Time of Cholera. As for the turbulent backdrop of a system that corrodes the nation, what started out as detention and torture for Alejandro has expanded into a moral dilemma that largely affects not only him but also those people who have faith in him.
I like digging through the archives of book reviewers. Lately I’ve been looking through Baskerville Book Reviews. This reviewer reviews lots of fantasy, thrillers and sci fi, but there’s a variety of genres. Here are some things that struck me:
Born of Air (The Valdir Chronicles Book 1) by RA Lewis. All the books start with “Born of”
Two books by Brian Freeman: Ursulina and Deep Deep Snow. Mystery/thriller (she recommended especially the audiobook).
Kitsune: A Little Mermaid Retelling (Tales of Akatsuki Book 1) by Nicolette Andrews. This series consists of retelling of several famous tales, but in a Japanese context.
Brilliant White Peaks by Teng Rong. In the good style of Watership Down, this novel depicts a life of a wolf.
Chloe After Dark by Elsa Joseph. Steamy thriller book, btw, the audiobook reader Aisling Bea is a well-known Irish actress.
Minion: Vampire Huntress Legend Book 1 by L.A. Banks. (First in a Series).
Blink and It’s Gone
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins. (Wiki page) “The dawn of the atomic age is seen through the eyes of Fos, an amateur chemist in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and Opal, a glassblower’s daughter.” 1.99 Wiggins claim to fame is being married to Salman Rushdie when Iranian crazies were trying to assassinate him. Eventually they separated, and she’s gone onto a successful writing career. I read some of her stories from Herself in Love and read the 1989 John Dollar, which was interesting.
Agamemnon’s Daughter: Novella and Stories by Ismail Kadare. Well-reviewed shorter pieces by Kadare.
Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday. (Author Website) Big sciencey book about extinct animals. Covers some of the same ground as Elizabeth Kolbert‘s Sixth Extinction,but hey, Kolbert and McKibben wrote blurbs, so I’m going for it! (It’s a heavy ebook weighing 25 MB)
Cabinet by Un-su Kim. Well-regarded Korean novel about an office worker who discovers a cabinet with magical qualities.
American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1960-1966 (LOA #321). This special Library of America edition novellas by Poul Anderson, Clifford D. Simak, Daniel Keyes and Roger Zelasny. All for 1.99 via a bookbub deal. There is a later volume titled American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1968-1969 (LOA #322) (not discounted yet, but just you wait.
Several books by James Morrow (Home Page) Last Witchfinder, Philosopher’s Apprentice, Galápagos Regained. Can’t wait to read them.
Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge (Wiki page). Russian Marxist-anarchist critical of Stalin who wrote novels about Stalinist purges. This 1962 work was later republished by NYROB with a fancy introduction by Susan Sontag. I bought the original 1962 edition in a nearby store for 90 cents — and I can download the ebook sample which contains the full Sontag essay for free!
Not where I started From by Kate Wheeler (Oklahoma-born American Buddhist novelist – wiki page) .
Several Postsecrets picture books — edited by Frank Warren: The World of PostSecret, Postsecret : Confessions on Life, Death, and God; Lifetime of Secrets : A PostSecret Book; My Secret : A PostSecret Book; PostSecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives.
Triangulum by Masande Ntshanga. (Author page on two dollar publisher site). “ambitious, often philosophical and genre-bending novel that covers a period of over 40 years in South Africa’s recent past and near future — starting from the collapse of the apartheid homeland system in the early 1990s, to the economic corrosion of the 2010s, and on to the looming, large-scale ecological disasters of the 2040s.” Here’s an 8 minute video about the book and a 1 hour zoom interview.
Street by Ann Petry. (Author wiki page). 1st bestseller by African-American woman in 1946.
Sun is Not Merciful: Short Stories by Anna Lee Walters. (Author page and wiki page). Oklahoma-based Native-American author. This collection published in the 1980s won an award.
Available Light by Ellen Curie. Humorous magic-realist novel published in the 1980s. (wiki page). Praised by J.D. Salinger of all people.
Creative Commons/Freebies
the
Literary Articles and Essays
Here’s a nice article about translations by Hindi translator Daisy Rockwell whose translation of Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree later won the International Booker Prize for translations. I expect that the ebook will be rushed to the US market soon.
Interview/profile of Syrian author Samar Yazbek about writing in exile. Learned about her from an interesting zoom discussion with several East European authors and poets talking about writing during wartime. I’m still exploring these authors, so I’ll probably report on some other participants later.
From an article about new apps to help people discover book titles, I wrote this modest comment:
The best way to learn about new stuff is to sign up for newsletters of publishers and authors. The best way to learn about indie authors and publishers is to subscribe to a ebook deal newsletter like Bargain booksy or fussylibrarian. Another idea is to read Midwest Book Review which reviews everything… Social media and community sites are fine too — I like twitter and reddit — but many of the highbrow readers end up recommending the same writer or books. To summarize: rather than trusting one critic or one publisher, I recommend drinking from the firehose — you’d be amazed at how much you can learn about a book just by reading the book description and the blurbs — but especially the description. I’m not particularly impressed by blurbs or negative reviews; lots of books get negative reviews because reviewers don’t know what they’re reading or they are the wrong kind of audience for that particular book. I no longer worry about the objectivity of these reviews — who cares if they are so-and-so’s sister? I just read for information about style and themes.
I followed a different path to publishing — avoiding writing to market, and abandoning the futile effort to get published by a traditional publisher. Also, I never bothered with submitting stories — or rather I stopped doing it 5 years after finishing JHU; it seemed like an incredible waste of time. Also, by starting my own publishing company, I retained a lot of control, but at the cost of writing much much less than I would otherwise have done. Instead I learned more technical skills and developed more outside interests — though at heart I’m a scholar and bookworm. As a result, I started publishing much later in life although I’ve always been writing (I guess). I disappoint myself every day with my lack of writerly productivity — it used to be so easy — but the problem is not lack of inspiration or drive, but struggling with other personal commitments. On the other hand, I can still pursue certain narrow topics in excruciating depths. In my 20s and 30s reading seemed so important to do — and I guess it still is that way, but I don’t need to read the way I used to. I’d rather spend the time writing my own stuff — especially now that my time is in such short supply.
I do enjoy this artistic experience, but I confess that lack of feedback can potentially hurt me in the long run.
The next section contains my “review” of a Clay Reynolds book. It’s more like a rushed review than anything else.
Truthfully I publish book reviews a lot less often than I should. I come across tons of books I like and recommend; often I am asked by friends to write a review of their ebooks, and I feel obligated to do so (and try to be honest and fair). I generally have no time to pause to write a review unless a book has a dearth of reviews and a book is particularly deserving. In such cases, I usually write “rushed reviews” which are superficial and generally laudatory, but also provide the bare minimum to tell readers what the book is about. Certainly books deserve better reviews than this, but I just dash these things quickly.
I love reading longish reviews and will read book review essays in New Republic and NYROB. Often though, these book review essays seem like overkill. They are written not necessarily to assess the book’s quality but to respond to the issues of the book. That certainly is a worthy goal for an essay, but it often skirts around the consumer question about whether someone should pay to read the book.
Some people can do it quickly and effortlessly. Not me. But when I do write a review, I want it to count; I want to grapple with aesthetic and ethical questions posed by the book. Yes, I’m inclined to write precisely the type of essays which I just called unnecessary.
One of my greatest literary misdeeds is that I queried the book review editor of an extremely well written online litmag called Cleaver Magazine. Cleaver Magazine is one of the best litmags in USA, and they publish great and thorough reviews (and fiction, etc). I pitched the idea of writing a review essay about my favorite discovery — a quirky translation of Confucius’s Analects. I was all set to write a deep review of this book — and maybe do some comparisons with other translations. The editor wrote me back, saying, great. I gave a date range when I would get it done.
For a while, I really wanted to get it done by that date. I read it quickly, wrote nice notes and commentary. But then some major life events happened, plus this book just became a low priority — always. I wrote the editor a month or two later, saying, don’t worry, I’m still working on it. Truthfully though, I couldn’t justify spending any time writing this review. I was so humiliated at wimping out that I didn’t even write the editor back to explain myself.
A year goes by. No one has discovered this quirky translation. It still does not have a single review on Amazon, Smashwords or anywhere else. The translator is a distinguished scholar and translator living in California somewhere. Eventually one morning, I decided just to throw together a “rushed review” of the book (and really all my blog readers should buy and read this book — it’s that good!) It took 30-45 minutes to write. But this rushed review is not genuine criticism; it’s just praise mixed with book descriptions. I’m not really saying anything except, look how incredible this book is!
I never felt comfortable in academia and never could crank out above-average criticism rapidly. Usually, when I try, the result is garbage. As it happens, I’m writing two long analytic essays about books; it’s killing me. These essays are the first (and possibly only) long essays about the topic; both of them need to be great! By contrast, these “rushed reviews” feel like off-the-cuff impressions.
Capsule Book Reviews
Here’s an Amazon review I posted for Clay Reynolds‘ Of Snakes & Sex & Playing in the Rain
This is a great and funny and poetic collection of personal essays about all sorts of topics ranging from “macho” topics (like trout fishing, golf, baseball, etc) to pop culture (Elvis, first dates, coffee, warning labels) to personal reflections about the legacy of long lost relatives. This is the perfect gift book for the I-Know-How-To-Read-But-I’d-never-be-caught-dead-reading-Proust-or-Faulkner-or-Morrison type of reader.
Reynolds (1949-2022) is one of the most erudite authors in USA. His fiction is distinguished and very Texas-focused. This essay collection contains a little bit of that regionalism and some of that erudition (although Reynolds hides it very well here). Reynolds has written lots of literary essays and book reviews, but judging from this book, you’d never know it. These are more like personal incidental essays. I guess it’s sort of tragic that Reynolds didn’t write more in this genre; he came to the personal essay genre later in life (and didn’t have time to release more).
Don’t be fooled by the lack of reviews (blame the publisher for that!) This collection is sure to be a classic.
Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc
Hmm, I’m already linking to the podcast and youtube by the author’s entry. Maybe I can delete this section. Need time to think…
Personville Press Deals
I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords.
Interview with the Sphinx. By Jack Matthews. ($1.50). Hyperintellectual Tom Stoppard-like play which reads like a novel about a strange interview with the ancient Sphinx character. Freud and Florence Nightingale show up too. I loved this play and even produced an audio version of it which you can buy for $2 on payhip (mp3/m4a) but the script reads well too. The audio book is available from most audiobook streaming services like |Audible $6 | Apple $3 | Google Play $3 |
A Worker’s Writebookby Jack Matthews . $2.25 Matthews distributed a photocopied version of this writing guide to his Ohio U. creative writing students over the decades.
Three Times Time Story Sampler by Jack Matthews (Always Free!) US Amazon customers can sometimes get it for free, but to make things easier, you can down these files directly without having to register: Epub, Mobi.
I’ve been really behind on a lot of stuff, so I’m keeping my social media in one monthly post.
FILTRATION CAMPS ARE REAL: Perhaps the most shocking thing about the Russian attacks is the least publicized: Russian armies have been capturing Ukrainian noncombatants in Western Ukraine — taking their identity papers and cellphones and deporting them out of Ukraine and deep into Russia. There are scattered media reports, but nobody knows the true number. Some Ukrainian media say that about 1.2 million Ukrainian citizens have been essentially kidnapped into these filtration camps and removed from Ukraine. It may take weeks or even months to know the true number or the true extent of the horrors from this process, but make no mistake: Russia filtration camps are real, and the Russian state bears full responsibility for this awful thing. Here’s a BBC report from April and a first hand account by a Ukrainian writer in late March.
BAD JOURNALISTS WHO WIN PULITZERS: This report retells the story of a terrible US journalist who believed Soviet misinformation about the Ukraine famines and showed pro-Stalin sympathies. This US reporter later won a Pulitzer prize! “Duranty simply toed the line because it was good for his career — excusing and rejecting the deadliness of Stalin’s rule well past any moment of possible denial.”
This is the month of song contests — American Song Contest and Eurovision. I’ll try to capture my thoughts. ON the day of Eurovision finals, I’ll do my once-a-year tweeting about Eurovision at this twitter account.
Here’s my twitter storm:
All psyched to watch @Eurovision from Texas, with the fun commentary by ex-Olympian ice skater @JohnnyGWeir.. My rule for the contest is that the winner never turns out to be who you want or expect. (Last year, I rooted for Germany’s Jendrik and Lithuania’s Roop — oh well!)
As good as this year’s @Eurovision will probably be, Euro2021 was pretty amazing — the best ever. Even Russia was great, and so was … Malta!? Israel!? Iceland?! Belgium!? Even the Yaja Ding Dong Man was there.
I’m so into @Eurovision but I gotta admit, American Song Contest was also outstanding. Jordan Smith, Allen Stone, Tyler Braden, Alexa, Grant K were all the best — any one of them could probably do great in ESC as well.
Gotta admit that I love the interval acts, local talent, dance medleys and nostalgia cameos just as much as the @Eurovision itself. I still remember being gobsmocked by Onuka in 2017’s contest…..
I always knew that Italy would put on a great show this year. Their Sanremo song contest was the place to be in the 1950s and 1960s. (Frankly I didn’t belong to the Maneskin fan club, but they were great tv!) @Eurovision
Czech’s song was cool and danceable, though not weird enough for my tastes. Some competitors aim for mainstream appeal, others try to go for niches. I guess to be popular across Europe you can’t be too niche…
Romania, well, it was fun, but nothing special.
Portugal’s Saudade is a different kind of singing — slower, more relaxed and lowkey. I love these kinds of songs, but unfortunately it’s not often that these songs win….. @Eurovision
It’s often fun when hard rock/heavy metal songs compete — as long as there’s not too many. Finland’s Jezebel is upbeat, energetic definitely not as rowdy as other rock songs @Eurovision
Nice Boys do Cry song by Switzer…. slow, earnest song with a very pleasant peaceful finish….@Eurovision
This year’s France entry is so much more energetic and folkselectronica than last year’s wonderful VOILA. It almost sounds like the kind of thing Ukraine specializes in… @Eurovision
I like Norway’s stylish memish song, kind of like “What does the wolf say?” . It doesn’t really inspire though…
I love Armenia’s blithe spirit, the ultimate bedroom song. Kind of has an Olivia Rodrigo vibe . I just love this song!
Sorry, not getting into Italy’s song. Maybe it’s a language thing, but it didn’t really work as a melody.
Spain’s song is catchy, and the dance steps are great too. (Also great costume change too!) If you’re talking about theatrics, Spain’s song is great. .
Netherland’s song is simple, uplifting, joyful. Wish I knew what she was singing about. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her win the whole thing
Ukraine’s song… I wanted to like it, but the rap vs. folk singing just seemed a little forced. Outstanding dancing though…
Germany’s confessional rock was a surprise; it’s very “unproduced” and personal, with a rap climax. Liked it, but I don’t think it willdo well.
I love Lithuania’s nightclub chanteuserie. These things rarely win, but the style and melody tends to stick in your mind long after #Eurovision is over.
Wow, Azerb has an incredible vocal climax ; the song seems a little muted though…..#Eurovision
I love Belgium’s soulful I’m going to miss you —- Noooo! (Also I really loved Hooverphonic from last year’s contest). Wow that song ended very well… High marks! #Eurovision
Greece’s song seems awfully forlorn for a #Eurovision contest. Lovely song, but it just didn’t work…..
Even though 2021 iceland group was incredible, I’m liking this dreamy country song. The song is good, but the singers are barely part of it… Maybe it’s a problem with the musical arrangements or balance…. #Eurovision
Moldova’s song is fun, zany, eclectic. I would love to see this song win the whole thing. I can’t help but snap my fingers….. This is Moldova’s best shot at taking the crown #Eurovision
Sweden’s singer is definitely a star, and the song is great, but I’m not sure this is her ideal place to shine. Kind of has a Duffy vibe (that’s the ultimate compliment in my book). #Eurovision
Astonishing vocal power of Australia’s NOT THE SAME — though it’s a little too emotional for me. #Eurovision
I always love when they recall older songs, like Laura Pausini singing Volare…..
I love UKs spaceman — definitely redeeming last year’s horrifying #Eurovision entry. Definitely a top tier performer for the year….. rock and roll with a crazy powerful voice…..
Poland’s song is just gorgeous and his singing is just amazing — a little operatic, but soaring enough for a pop song. What a beautiful song…..
Serbia’s story-based song is interesting and mysterious and certainly memorable, It’s an original concept, not the thing that goes over well in #Eurovision
Estonia’s country Johnny Cash song is pleasant, plus the singer is charming. It’s an interesting style and song, but I don’t see it going over that well in #Eurovision
Ok, top contenders: Moldova, Netherlands, Spain, Poland, Portugal, UK (ha,ha!), Romania, Armenia. I would also be happy with Ukraine, France, Belgium, lithuania,, Sweden, Australia, Switzerland,
It warms my heart to see Cinquetti singing onstage at #Eurovision again, seeing a return to its origins. I would love to hear her speak about what it was like to win in 1964….
I reallly want Moldova, Poland and Netherlands to win the damn thing. They are all spectacular. #Eurovision Ultimately though I have no idea who the Europe collective will vote for….
Truth be told, I have no idea who will win or even place….I love the singers but am usually disappointed at the final outcome..
It’s great to have the Italian hosts singing their hearts out. My public library actually has some Laura Pausini CDs, but it was pretty amazing to hear Mika sing #Eurovision
Midway through jury votes, I am shocked that UK is staying on top…. and Greece too.
Wow, Moldova turns out to be a crowd pleaser. Thank god…. #Eurovision
I am happy that Ukraine won (and I’m as pro-Ukraine as you can get), but I thought Moldova, Netherlands, Spain and Poland were equally incredible, probably more so than the country that actually won… Lots of individual performances really shone
Articles and Interviews
stuff
Emusic Purchases
I temporarily put my emusic account on hold, but I’ll be buying another $200 credit sometime this month. Stay tuned.
List begins here
Bandcamp Purchases
Begin
Youtubey Things
I’m kind of changing my mind whether I should embed youtube vids. Those links change so much, that you can never count on anything to remain.
Hooverphonic’s 2 Wicky is the strangest music video I’ve seen in a while. It’s goofy 1990s absurdist Euro-shit by the Belgian group Hooverphonic. She wowwed me in 2021 Eurovision with the song Wrong Place. . And I love it.
I’ve been addicted to watching this amazing light show on a 2019 live performance in Kiev of Chemical Brothers performing their song Private Psychedelic Reel. Who would have ever thought that animating some stained glass window designs would provide such an aesthetically satisfying experience. (By the way, the person who videotaped this song really did an expert job — he must be a professional; I just love how the camera mostly ignores the audience except for one simple 360 degree twirl at the 5 minute mark. Some other concertgoers have tried to capture the light show of Chemical Brothers concerts with somewhat disappointing results. Below this video I have placed a “Best Moments of their Paris Show” (1 hour long), which is also remarkable, but nowhere near as amazing as the Private Psychedelic Reel in Kiev.
Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited, LE means that lending of this Kindle title is allowed, and APUB means it was published under an Amazon imprint.NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here.
This month will probably have a smaller number of discoveries/purchases. (I bought a ton of books in March 2022 and am still catching up). I’m still caught up in the Russian attack on Ukraine, so that colors my blogging accordingly.
This month after doing lots of research I bought a bigass floor lamp from Ikea. (the Hektar floorlamp model). Boy I’m happy with that. I have a hard time reading books in anything less than bright light, and this lamp fits the bill perfectly. It’s only $70 and the only catch is that it’s slightly tricky to assemble.
Other news is that I broke down and bought a subscription to New York Review of Books. I don’t love this journal, and its coverage of fiction is pretty skimpy and limited to the self-consciously high-brow, but I generally enjoy the contributors and the longish essays by JC Oates, Vivian Gornick. Now that I think of it, I’m not that impressed with any book review journal at the moment; either they are too taken with NY publishers, are too niche-specific (especially with scifi) or too open-minded to series and genres. I personally like drinking from the spigot — reading MidWest Book Review, City Book Review, Publishers’ Weekly and Kirkus. (Actually even though NPR Books covers the more obvious offerings, it reviews more titles than anybody else, so you could do worse than to read that for book suggestions). You’d be amazed at how seemingly-highbrow publications like Popmatters have laughably bad book review sections. The essays are good, (I guess) but the books are about overpriced print titles (graphic novels, etc), cultural history and criticism, biography, YA shit, fashionable sci fi and memoirs by cool people. I have a friend Michael Barrett who publishes topnotch film crit on Popmatters and I’ve read excellent musical reviews, but book reviews –fagettaboutit!
(By the way, you really should check out the blogroll of literary critics. If you’re reading on a laptop, it will appear in the right sidebar; or on mobile devices it will appear below all the blogposts (yes, that’s a problem I know).
Indie Author Spotlight
the
Under the Radar
Natural Trajectory of Human Consciousness: 10 Speculative Stories by William W. Chan.
Rat by Kevin Lavey
Watershed by Colin Dodds
Accidental Child by Karen Douglass
Other Hand Clapping by Marco Vassi — philosophical/erotic novel.
Blink and It’s Gone
Reality by Other Means by James Morrow. (Big story collection by this fabulist/fantasy writer).
Evil Geniuses by Kurt Anderson (author website) Political history that tries to explain why progressives keep losing and not getting anything done in American society. The short answer is because GOP are obstructionist and benefit from the power of corporations (duh!) Anderson has observed that it’s easy for young liberal-minded people to assume good faith on the part of their conservative opponents. Gradually it becomes clear that it is not an even matchup because progressives keep losing. I personally would point to climate change. Despite the rhetoric, pretty much the federal government has done next to nothing to regulate carbon emissions or enact legislation to wean people off fossil fuels. I’m sure as I delve into this book, the book is liable to fall into generalizations, but I’m very sympathetic about the issue and how to solve it. I enjoyed his previous book Fantasyland which put Trump’s ascension into historical context.
Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet–And How We Fight Back by Kate Aronoff. (twitter) Aranoff is a first rate environmental reporter covering both the crisis and the tepid political response. I’m sure this book strings together articles from the Intercept, Nation, New Republic — and frankly I read so closely in the field that this might all be a review for me, but her writing is so good that it’s worth re-reading just to remember where we were a few years ago.
New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent edited by Margaret Busby. 1.99. Distinguished 1200 page anthology including contributions from not only Africa, but lots of African-Americans as well. This is an expansion of an earlier print-only edition.
Library Purchases/Printed books
Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind by Siri Hustvedt. I’m currently reading/buying any book by Hustvedt, but they rarely are priced moderately. (June update: I found some low priced copies on Better World Books).
Plato at the Googleplex : Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away by Rebecca Goldstein.
Creative Commons/Freebies
the
Literary Articles and Essays
the
Rant
the
Capsule Book Reviews
the
Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc
the
Personville Press Deals
I run Personville Press, a small literary book press where all the ebooks cost less than $4. Prices normally appear highest on Amazon, Apple, Kobo and BN, somewhat lower on Google Play Books and lower on the two DRM-free stores which are Smashwords and Payhip. Personville Press is committed to selling DRM-free ebooks and audio files directly from the Personville Press payhip store or from Smashwords.
Interview with the Sphinx. By Jack Matthews. ($1.50). Hyperintellectual Tom Stoppard-like play which reads like a novel about a strange interview with the ancient Sphinx character. Freud and Florence Nightingale show up too. I loved this play and even produced an audio version of it which you can buy for $2 on payhip (mp3/m4a) but the script reads well too. The audio book is available from most audiobook streaming services like |Audible $6 | Apple $3 | Google Play $3 |
A Worker’s Writebookby Jack Matthews . $2.25 Matthews distributed a photocopied version of this writing guide to his Ohio U. creative writing students over the decades.
Three Times Time Story Sampler by Jack Matthews (Always Free!) US Amazon customers can sometimes get it for free, but to make things easier, you can down these files directly without having to register: Epub, Mobi.
I’ve been sick for the last 9 days, so I’m way behind on everything. Now I feel better (not 100%, but definitely better), so I’m ready and raring to tackle the work awaiting me!
(Update: When I said yesterday that “I feel better”, honestly that was true, but I was still very exhausted. I was still a vegetable (albeit a happy vegetable). Today though (Tuesday) I’m at all 4 cylinders, horray!
Links to ebooks for sale on Smashwords may result in small payouts to this website owner (Read more)
What if Don Quixote were an Ohio janitor who loved comic books? "A fun read of a journey of discovery, adventure, and relationships." $1.99
Unconventional translation using American slang & pop culture references. "A fun read -- full of surprises and insights into contemporary culture and ancient philosophy." $1.99
The reader is advised that this book has almost nothing to do with Christmas ... Pay what you Want!
Zen adventures for "naughty Buddhists" by noted poet (and erstwhile rap singer) Free!
Lyrical, narrative, and dramatical works, with subjects imagined, invented, and derived from Native American culture. "... ambitious, epic in its style, containing many great lines and ideas, but also strangely baffling." $1
Robert Recommends: "Psychologically-nuanced love story, reminiscent of Anne Tyler or Somerset Maugham .." $2.99
Government worker and his friends discover a way save his agency millions ... but instead of receiving praise, finds themselves in hot water. "Modern-day tale with working-class folks: part fable, part satire, and part comedy." $0.99
A "marvelous, thought-provoking, daring novel" about a father's deluded love for his daughter $0.99
"Lisa Mason might just be the female Phillip K. Dick. Like Dick, Mason's stories are far more than just sci-fi tales, they are brimming with insight into human consciousness and the social condition." $3.99
Anthology for readers’ “craving for emotionally and intellectually satisfying erotica.” $7.99
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