Odds and Ends - Oct. 2023
Looks at the new Replacements box set, an archival John Fahey release, and links to some recent work
It’s been a while since I did one of these, mostly because I’ve been trying to focus on longer pieces - ones that pay me. Hope you understand, since this is a labor of love for me. I’ll be back soon with some more fully fleshed out reviews.
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Jenny Offill - Weather (Knopf, 2020)
Tense and fragmented, Jenny Offill’s book Weather follows Lizzie, a librarian and ex-grad student who has a side gig answering letters for a doomer podcast. Over the book she slowly comes undone, descending into paranoia and fear and growing isolated. She gets into prepper lingo, hangs out with a war correspondent, and becomes convinced of the worst possible outcomes.
In this, it’s definitely a novel of the Trump years and the undercurrent of fear and paranoia that ran through America in the months following his election, the ways people were caught off guard and struggled to rationalize an answer that wasn’t as simple as looking at the facts - Lizzie rationalizes it as the tense period before a war.
In some ways the book is reminiscent of Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport and its similar vibes about the election and the end of the world. But stylistically, Weather runs more towards Renata Adler’s book Speedboat and Susan Taubes’s Divorcing. People speak in clipped sentences, the prose comes at you in bursts, and Offill mixes in jargon, interview excerpts, even hand delivered notes.
It’s an effective novel, and one that captures a moment well. Anyone who liked some of the books I’ve mentioned above will find something here of interest, if not exactly enjoyment.
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The Replacements - Tim (Let It Bleed edition) (Rhino, 2023)
Still working my way through this one. I lived alongside this record two years ago when I was having surgery in Montreal and only had my phone to keep me company. So I listened to this record a lot. I used to look down on Tim: I thought it shrank beneath the twin peaks of Let It Be and Pleased To Meet Me. I’m less sure of that now, especially with the new mix by Ed Stasium that feels like a bright new coat of paint. The country-rock vibes of “Kiss Me On the Bus,” “Waitress in the Sky” or “Swingin’ Party” come through a lot more clearly now. So does the the shambling swagger of “Bastards of Young” which is maybe anthemic as anything the Mats ever did. Looking at it in 2023, it really does feel like this should’ve been at least as big as anything REM put to wax in the mid 80s.
The extras are nice, although one wonders if four versions of “Can’t Hardly Wait” is a little much. I like the alternative version of “Bastards of Young,” which sounds a little cleaner to my ears. And the live concert from Chicago in late 1986 is cool too, if not essential.
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John Fahey - Proofs and Refutations (Drag City, 2023)
Something of an odd one. It opens with “All the Rains,” an unaccompanied vocal piece where he shouts and chants, then mumbles. His voice was pretty powerful and honestly, I’m not very used to hearing it. From there you get some kind of American Primitive on “F for Fake,” where the guitar slides like it’s being pulled to a breaking point and Fahey’s voice melts into a dirge-like drone. But at others it’s gentle and fragile - his voice coming in as if from a reed and the guitar gently strummed. And when “For LMC” comes up later in the record it’s as abrasive as anything he’s ever done - makes me think a little about Keiji Haino’s records. His slide is overlaid with effects and droning noises, sheets of steel-corrugated sound.
“Morning (Pt. 1)” has Fahey playing almost against type: instead of the long intricate pieces I normally associate him with, this is filled with short, staccato phrasing. The second part slides back into a more traditional style of playing, although it still feels like Fahey trying to push himself out of a comfort zone. He settled comfortably into this mood on the two parts of “Evening, Not Night,” two gentle pieces for acoustic guitar.
When he wraps things up with “Untitled (without rain)” it all comes together: the effects and noise pedals, the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar, the general feeling of listening in on something late at night. It’s maybe something Thurston Moore would have done if he traded his Jazzmaster in for a Martin. It’s a curious brew, at once forward thinking and with one foot in the past. I’m not quite sure it exactly pulls it off, but I respect Fahey for trying. And this album does nothing if not try.
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Over at the Toronto Star I have a review of Emily Zhou’s debut book Girlfriends, which LittlePuss Press published not long ago. I’m a fan, as my review makes clear. I didn’t really get into it there but I know Zhou a little bit - we were mutuals on Twitter back in like 2020 - and it’s been a treat to watch her storytelling grow by leaps and bounds. Maybe I shouldn’t be reviewing her - she’s a new author and, as a peer said to me, I should maybe look at her as another peer and not a target, but I think she’s really on to something. I think readers of this newsletter will too.
At Lambda Literary I covered the new memoir by McKenzie Wark. It’s another one I really liked, and I think it’s maybe the most accessible of all Wark’s books. Back in June, when I saw Zhou read for an audience of mostly queer people at a cramped house in Brooklyn, I met Wark and we said a few words. It was nice to tell her how much Reverse Cowgirl meant to me. Next time I see her, I’ll have to thank her again for this one.
For Aquarium Drunkard I went long on the new Joni Mitchell box set Archives Vol. 3. It’s a nice piece, a sort of clearinghouse for all kinds of loose ends. I appreciate that Mitchell doesn’t want to tamper with her records with expanded reissues, so a box like this is a good place to collect the remnants for the hardcore fans. If anything, I wish there was more here.