Gwenda

One Song: “I Wanna Be Somebody”

Musical / By /

"I Wanna Be Somebody," Hellsongs – A lovely Swedish band singing lounge-style versions of heavy metal songs, in this case one by Wasp. But this is the good kind of lounge; not overly kitschy, just nice, roomy arrangements. No time to properly describe, so just listen to it:

Download 03_hellsongs_i_wanna_be_somebody.mp3

p.s. My Old Kentucky Blog also has Cat Power doing a wonderful version of "Satisfaction" for AOL that I’ve been repeating and repeating again this week.

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The Mayhem Continues

1 Comment / Books / By /

Two little pointers is all I have time for.

1. I have dipped my toe into the waters of MemeTherapy, answering a question about time travel, changing history and a manky towel in what I must admit is an evasive manner. Still, I stand by it. Do not fuck with history, time travelers! Unless you’re addicted to heartache and Charles Lindbergh.

2. Ed chronicles an appearance by Ms. Kelly D. Link in the Bay area, where she read the (superfantasticallybrilliant; seriously, it may be my favorite KDL story) YA story "The Wrong Grave." (Forthcoming in Deborah Noyes follow-up anthology to Gothic!)

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Brave Girl

Books / By /

Wow:

But Fitch didn’t plan it that way. Somewhere in her house is a box filled with hundreds of pages of a weighty historical novel that, in a fit of decisiveness following months of dread, she decided to abandon in the middle of a photo shoot for that book’s jacket cover.

"When you have success, people think you know what you’re doing, and you start to agree with them, you think you can conquer the world," she said. "But you go from grandiosity to panic. My editor would call and I’d say ‘It’s fine, going great,’ and I couldn’t bring myself to admit it wasn’t happening. It was an abortion."

Fitch was then forced to tearfully admit to her editors that, after having twice written the 300-page book using two different narrators, she still didn’t have anything that she was proud of. For a mid-list author with few expectations for big sales figures, that might not have mattered. But "White Oleander" was a blockbuster, one of the bestselling new works of literary fiction that year. It had been adapted as a movie starring Renée Zellweger and Michelle Pfeiffer. Janet Fitch was a bankable name. Michael Pietsch, who edited "White Oleander" for Little, Brown, had to adjust his time frame once again. "She sent the manuscript to us, and I think she arrived at the right decision," he said. "I was sad for Janet because all that time and work must have been a great loss. But I was very grateful that she had the maturity and self-assessment to put that aside. It’s the process that brought us ‘Paint It Black,’ and I’m glad it happened so that we have this book."

That takes some guts. (Via TEV.)

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Two Songs: “Raise the Glass” and “Rumble With Gang Debs”

2 Comments / Musical / By /

So, we’ll see if this leads to too much bandwith suckage, but if it doesn’t consider this a new Friday thing (mp3s will remain up for a week). Unlike Ed and Tito, I’m just too lazy and disorganized* to commit to full album reviews; here is my answer for the lazy and disorganized among us. Usually this will be one song that I really like that week, but this week, it’s two!

"Raise the Glass," Full Moon Partisans – There’s nothing exceptional about this track at first blush, but then you can’t stop bobbing your head from side to side and dancing a little, you notice the imminently sing-a-longable lyrics are better than you thought. There’s the quiet innocence of the beginning, the straightforwardness as it builds. It’s just fucking charming, relaxed, and toastable.

Download RaisetheGlass.mp3

"Rumble With Gang Debs," Tullycraft – You want to talk about catchy? This is the catchy grail. If this song doesn’t make you happy, something is wrong with you that cannot be fixed, friend. I’m pretty much a sucker for anything with bah-dum, bahda-da-da, etc. Cupcakes and teenage runaways!

Download rumbledebs.mp3 (link hopefully works now)

*Or is that overwhelmed and realistic?

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Friday Hangovers

1 Comment / Hangovers / By /

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Sharp-Tongued Devil

1 Comment / Goodbyes / By /

Govannrichards5014half I didn’t hear about Ann Richards until late afternoon. I’m not surprised I’m sad because she’s gone — I’m surprised at how sad I am because she’s gone. I learned who Ann Richards was reading Molly Ivins columns in high school. Ivins immediately became my columnist hero; Richards quickly became my politician hero (not political hero, but one of them). Not to mention, I was comforted to find out that there was another state with politics at least as screwed up as Kentucky’s.

So, yeah, I’m sad. And I have none of my favorite Ivins’ columns at hand here to quote — the collections are all still on my childhood bookshelves back home — all I’ve got is Shrub. So here’s the best I can do, a short excerpt about Ann Richards campaign against W from that book by Ivins and Lou Dubose (but Ivins’ name’s a lot bigger on the cover):

Of Bush, she says, "We didn’t underestimate Bush, but we underestimated the Christian right, which probably reached its zenith that year. We underestimated the NRA (National Rifle Association) and its money. That cost me the male union vote, the good ole boy vote. I lost that over guns. Bush was very firm on the concealed weapons legislation, that he would sign it. I could not do it, in my conscience I could not cross that line. He is governor today because of guns."

And:

She said all along she would veto it (concealed weapons bill passed by the Texas lege in 1993), but the NRA put up a helluva campaign to convince her to sign it; one of their more innovative tactics was to try to persuade the feminist guv that Texas women would feel ever so much safer if they could only carry guns in their purses. When Richards vetoed the bill, she observed wryly, "You know that I am not a sexist, but there’s not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag."

We need more Ann Richardse; sadly, they’re in short supply. I’m raising a glass to her tonight, a woman I always thought of as the Dorothy Parker of politics.

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