Will’s Picks
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981–1991 by Michael Azerrad
The greatest stories are captured in the form of music. This, a collection of some of the real tall tales of bands you've never heard on mainstream radio. Reinvention. Pieced together by down-and-outs these restless, creative souls gave birth to their own blend of D.I.Y sturm und draang, doggedly going against the zeitgeist of the quintessential "Me Decade." The stuff contained herein is a testament to the fact that virtue and vice go hand-in-hand and make for one hell of a racket. In wanting to tear the whole of music down these individuals may have inadvertently had a hand in saving it. Listen.
The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
Arguably the greatest social, political, and philosophical critique of the twentieth century and one that is considered a cornerstone within the Situationist International "movement," Debord's text played a large part in scripting the *almost* revolution that took place in France in 1968. Far from some simple political communique filled with empty sloganeering this is, quite simply, poetry.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Grim. Written in stark, unforgiving prose this story is set during the crumbling years following the Apocalypse. The world is burnt, ashen and stagnant; made all the more horrific from McCarthy's barest of descriptions. The central characters or "good guys" as they refer to themselves as, are a father and son neither of who are ever named. As their struggle to reach "the coast" unfolds they are assailed from every side by a world that has manifested itself in depravity worthy only of humankind. With echoes of Nevil Chute's 1957 classic On the Beach, this book foretells the most terrible of possible futures and one that is tempered only by the love the two protagonists share with each other.
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins
The title: a line from Rimbaud's poem "A Season In Hell." The (anti)hero: Switters, the most wildly contradictory of protagonists. The summation I shall leave to the author of the website Spank The Monkey who, despite the website's title brilliantly describes Robbins' book as "an analysis of the importance of levity in Western culture. [Whereby] we learn how anyone missing any of the vital qualities of Humor, Imagination, Eroticism, Spirituality, Rebelliousness and Aesthetics is equivalent to one of humanity's missing links and should not be trusted with anything, let alone the positions of authority that seem to be the exclusive domain of people lacking in all six." Enough said.
The Places In Between by Rory Stewart
Dispensing with the usual Euro-centrist tendencies toward Orientalism, Stewart, in unflinchingly honest language, describes his trek across Afghanistan immediately after the fall of the Taliban, focuses instead upon the richness of Afghan culture and takes the time (often lengthy bunches of it) to explain its history as well as the myriad of fascinatingly delicate social complexities which bind the whole thing together. Certainly a worthwhile undertaking and one that may very well help to dispel the myth that has ingrained itself in our collective consciousness for far too long: that of "us versus them."
32 Stories: The Complete Optic Nerve Mini-Comics by Adrian Tomine
This, a collection of the first seven issues of the indie darling's highly lauded Optic Nerve series is hit the nail on the head stuff. Tomine brilliantly captures slivers of modern young adult life with an almost uncomfortable intimacy: the feelings of alienation -- the futility of being, "narcissistic neediness" cloaked in the guise of a relationship; characters who seem tied to each other only through a shared sense of disconnectedness and moral ambiguity. His artistic style of clean lines and sparse dialogue add urgency to stories already unsettling because they often exhibit such a lack of relief or closure. But not so fast, you young pretenders, you disenfranchised, take heart! And know you're not in this alone.
Kaputt by Cuzio Malaparte
Not since Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun has a book managed to bottle (in concentrated form) the absolute horror of war. Malaparte's narrative comes pieced together from his experiences along the Eastern Front as both an Italian consul and reporter. His darkly atmospheric descriptions, infused as they are with a mania that is at times almost gleeful (the image of the horses at Lake Laguda being one of the most harrowing I've ever encountered), seizes the reader transforming them into voyeurs in a theater of the absurd; lunacy reaching the comfort level of sustained emotion. This is an amazing and astonishing work and one that serves as a reminder that there can only ever be one constant in war: the collective loss of humanity.
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Don't be put off by the *protagonist wakes up with amnesia* shtick - the barest of plot devices. Your patience will be rewarded around page fifty when the whole thing goes completely ass over teakettle. Many of Hall's influences are readily apparent as tips of the hat are given to the Cyberpunk genre, Memento-style thrillers and Jaws (best!) with the result proving to be if not greater than, then at least as interesting as, the sum of its parts. Conceptually speaking, one of the more enjoyable books I have read in quite awhile.
