Denis Johnson TREE OF SMOKE (2007)

Won the National Book Award, like one of those Oscars that go to a leading man's lesser work after eight or nine near misses.  His dad was something of a spook, and the CIA bits hum with tension but the time with the military men is a gritty yet metaphysical mess, character's from JESUS'S SON dosed and dropped into a warzone, freed of his Carver-influenced brevity.  Fun with sentences! Yes.  Fun with dialogue? Not so much.

Dustin Wong, Takako Minekawa, Good Willsmith EXIT FUTURE HEART

don't drink the poison without the antidote on hand

Orquesta De Las Nubes THE ORDER OF CHANGE (2018 Reissue)

If Blade Runner happened on the Mediterranean, amid jamón and intrigue.

Deafheaven ORDINARY CORRUPT HUMAN LOVE (2018)

If Yo La Tengo made a metal album.  I guess Fucked Up was working in a similar vein with THE CHEMISTRY OF COMMON LIFE, but suffered with unfortunate, interminable vocals from Damian.  This is way better mixed than that, keeping shoegaze-y vortex and triple-time drumming in the forefront. 

Rest in Peace Bourdain

This one was super tough for me, as bad as Petty or worse.  Cultural currency was farmed more from Prince or Bowie, because they're cooler icons, of course, but good God did Petty make thirty of the best songs in the American songbook or what.  Do heroin survivors have more kindness in them, because they know they're terminal cases?  Bourdain was a hero to me, my favorite travel shows bar none.  To be a real one, do you have to suffer, sleep in a cave near some hibernating terror?

I love the dude and hope the kids see his stuff and see a better way to be.

GLOW (S2)

I guess I've never attempted to screencap anything from Netflix, maybe because it hasn't been worth doing before? (They black everything out somehow, not worth bypassing right now, but I will just on principle).  This is the most humane show on television, it doesn't need to be as inventive as it is for me to love it, but it is; an AA meeting for misfits, and also Maron himself writ large, some worn, welcome cavern of feeling, with a mind jerry-rigged and reverse-engineered to run on empathy, guts and yardsale, soup-kitchen comedy.   2018 seems like a good time to sub in guillotine for gallows humor.

I want to be posting be more but I'm deep in preparation for fantasy football so that I can continue to hold the line and prevent Doug from claiming a title.  Wish me Luck!

Gas RAUSCH (2018)

Our desktop was on the fritz for most of June, so apologies to my adoring Italianos! Enjoy some meditative enviro-techno from the Danube.