the sounds of (Indian) summer

In honor of the heat wave sweeping the Bay Area this week – I’m going to sleep with the fan on and it’s October – I present a selection of songs that sound like summer, a list originally spawned by an av club q & a from 2009. As previously stated, I love themed playlists and mixes. I mean, I’m the person who has a whole group of songs that I think somehow sound like whiskey (yes, I realize that’s odd, and maybe I’ll clarify some day).

So, after the jump, the songs that put me in mind of summer days, either because they sound summery or because I hear them a lot during the summer (with links or video where possible).

 

From the Pile: Balkan Ghosts – Robert D. Kaplan

Let’s start with a little background: I read this book a while ago. I’m not exactly sure how long “a while” is, but I think maybe the summer of 2009. And I wanted to write something about it, because it’s an interesting book, but then it got set on a shelf and I never returned to it, except to occasionally move it aside when reaching for my Chicago. So I sat myself down tonight, determined to finally conquer this task.

As a journalist based out of Athens for many years, Robert Kaplan’s familiarity with the region and his subject matter is easily apparent in his writing. Balkan Ghosts is a great combination of travelogue and journalism, drawing on history, current events, and personal experience. It’s designed for a trade audience in a country where most people, I am willing to bet, cannot locate Bulgaria on a map. And so in many ways, it’s a tremendously successful book: it’s readable, it’s intelligent, and it came out at a time (1993) when the Balkans had suddenly drawn international attention.

 

the more things change, the more they stay the same

Hello! I am back (I hope)! With an article I originally plunked out last year, true enough. Baby steps, people.

Anyway, this all started when I came across a June 2009 article in The Globe and Mail (now sadly behind a pay wall) on the Canadian government’s reaction to swine flu outbreaks on First Nations reserves (the Canadian version of reservations):

In the critical days after dozens of Manitoba aboriginals fell severely ill with swine flu, Health Canada hesitated in sending desperately needed hand sanitizer to native towns because of concerns that people would ingest the alcohol-based gel.

 

change your perspective

So I have a new job. And I’m still doing my old job. And freelance work. I am so exhausted. So I’m just going to give you a pretty picture to look at:

#58 Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range Madison County, Montana, August 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

And then I’ll say you should go check out the rest of the set, a series of rare color photos taken by government employees in the late 1930s and early 1940s. They’re fascinating and well worth the time. And I’ll let you imagine I said something insightful and deep about how we respond to images, how the addition of color changes our perspective. These photos seem considerably less historic than what we would expect from pictures of this era; they feel closer to us because we are not expecting color in this context. Now take this and talk amongst yourselves.

 

can music save your mortal soul?

Anyone who knows me can tell you that my favorite band is the Drive-by Truckers. For the past couple of years, I have been on a one-woman proselytizing mission, dragging friends off to concerts with me, making mix cds, etc. And in 2008, when they were touring with the Hold Steady, they played SF on my best friend’s birthday, and we went together and had a fabulous time.

(this is the best video I could find from that specific show, a combined encore of the two bands playing a Blue Oyster Cult song. You can’t see me, obviously, but I about 3 people back from the stage, right under the keyboardist.)

ANYWAY, the point I’m slowly getting to is that after this show, which was fucking phenomenal (as most DBT shows are; they’re a great live band), L. turned to me in the car and said, “Concerts are religious experiences.” I wasn’t really capable of replying to her in any kind of serious way at the time, but it’s an idea that’s been bumming around at the back of my mind for a while now.

 

you know what burns my ass?

I’m watching The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas right now. Have you seen this movie? If you haven’t, then I’m not really sure how to explain it to you. Here’s the basics: Dolly Parton, Burt Reynolds, whorehouse, musical. However, it’s way, way more badass and hilarious than the sum of its parts. Trust me on this.

The other thing I’m not sure about is how to explain my response to it. Part of me – the part that loves Dolly and weird movies and has been watching this movie forever – would sum up my response as: AWESOME. 100% PURE AWESOME.

The logical, analytical, feminist part of me has some reservations.

 

the falling sickness

In the spring of 2003, I was having a rough time. I’d just been soundly rejected from every grad school I’d applied to.* My plan for the future – or at least the next year – had just collapsed. My ego, long connected to my academic performance, had been completely crushed, my whole sense of self brought into question. I didn’t know what to do next. So that spring, I had some ups and downs. I agonized over grad school, and then I went to a conference and hung out with some great people and started to see that it wasn’t the end of the world. I had an enormous, humiliating anxiety attack in front of my boss, and then I went on my first adult vacation, to NYC, and it was fantastic.

I came home from New York much improved, smoking less and no longer feeling the need to take daily work breaks and head over to the park to swing.** I was back on track. Until five days later, when I had a seizure while sitting at my desk.

 

(over) identifying

On Fridays, the A.V. Club has a feature called “A.V. Club Q&A,” where all the various contributors answer a question on pop culture. Sometimes I don’t care about the question at all, but sometimes I find the question – and the answers – quite intriguing. On these occasions, I’ll sometimes post my own response. So this week’s question: art that “hits close to home.”

One of the things that always amuses me is how often these questions hit close to something I’d been ruminating on myself. Just a couple weeks ago, after reading this post on Jezebel, a friend and I were discussing Reality Bites, a movie that I was completely obsessed with after I graduated from college.

 

the ear-stomach connection

I like music. I have a lot of music. And one of my specialties in life is making themed mixes for my friends. This activity allows me to play with juxtaposition, and get kind of nerdy about rare bands and off-the-wall themes, and proselytize about my favorite musicians. Occasionally I will post the mixes here and try to make some larger point about music and culture. But really, I’ll just be showing off (and, sure, trying to incite some conversation about your own suggestions for the theme).

Today this article appeared on SFGate. The headline intrigued me, so I clicked through and then became irate. Irate, I tell you! Partly because this list is terrible – “California Gurls”? SERIOUSLY? – and partly because my most recent masterpiece was a collection of songs about food, so I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately. So, herewith, my track listing for the two-volume collection “Gastromusica”:

 

The Missing – Tim Gautreaux

At first glance, The Missing is a book that is basically screaming my name. It’s a mystery, it’s historical, and it’s set in the South. So why didn’t I love it?

Well, for one, despite its recent Edgar nomination, The Missing is less a mystery novel and more a meditation on the nature of loss and the gaping holes that people leave in our lives when they suddenly disappear. It’s the story of Sam Simoneaux, a New Orleans musician (and WWI veteran) who gets tangled up in the family and fate of a missing child, Lily Weller. The novel follows his journey through the South of the 1920s as he tries to find Lily. Bookending the main action, and woven through it at times, are Sam’s attempts to deal with a tragic past–a murdered family, a son lost to illness, memories of war–and forge a future.