The warm summer air isn't so much sweet and delicious as hot and oppressive

On the way to dining at the restaurant my sister executive chefs, we (my mother and I) stopped first at some bookstore in LA, and then at Amoeba; I exited the former four books richer, yet no poorer as to the supply of cash at hand nor in any greater, albeit temporary, debt to a credit card company. Each book I accrued I got instead when my mother asked me, had I read anything by X?; to my in each case no she responded by adding another book to the pile; in this wise I became the owner of Madame Bovary (the book which started this off, since she decided some time ago that it was a scandal! that I hadn't yet read it—I then decided that I also wanted Bouvard & Pécuchet—it has the dictionary of accepted ideas in the back—but was rebuffed; I would have to shift for myself (and that's why I don't have it)), Saramago's The Cave (true story: I was attempting to think of Pamuk's The Black Book, but could only remember that it was written by a recent Nobelist, and for some reason assumed that the author was Iberian; since Saramago's Nobel was actually awarded ten years ago, I think we can chalk this up as further evidence that my awareness of literary goings-on peaked in high school), and hot property Bolaño's The Savage Detectives.

But wait, you perhaps think. Those books number three.  What about the fourth?. Well, I didn't want to have to admit it, but I lied above when I described the manner in which I came by the four books I came by. For, in the case of the fourth, I was actually seeking out books by its author (not because there was any that I particularly wanted, or so I thought, but because I wanted to see what was in stock). Since the bookstore had the confusing policy of stocking all the McM-authors before any of the Ma-authors, it was actually not obvious at first that there was anything by either Harry Mathews or David Markson, both of whom I was seeking; it is Markson's recently reissued The Ballad of Dingus Magee that completes the foursome. If I read it, then I will have read, barring Going Down (and I always bar Going Down), all of his novelistic opera, and two entertainments, to boot. Not that I got it for that reason. I certainly don't have that sort of collector's mindset about these things.  Only the sublime and shit for me.

What I actually wanted to mention, though, was that despite my bellyaching about its title, the remastered rerelease of Univers Zero's first album is really fantastic; the remastering really does mark a change which is almost everywhere an improvement. (The only part that I don't really care for is the way the spinet now sounds on Carabosse—it's both quite forward in the mix and really bright in a way that doesn't fit very well with the rest of the track.) In particular, the best track evar, Complainte, now has a feature that , having long since sold my soul to Junichiro Tanizaki and Yoshida Kenko, can't but admire: the bassoon, playing the melody in the first, I dunno, minute or so, stands out much less; I, knowing and liking it, therefore have to work a little harder to hear it, and risk (suppose I'm not paying close attention) not remarking it at all. Instead the melody's being out in front and easy to get to, it is now (comparatively, anyway; this is just the way I, used to the more bassoon-centric mix, hear it, and I'll probably get used to it in a while) treated on a par with dronier background. (Something similar is one of the reasons why I like the guitar solo in "Shore Leave" so much; even though I wouldn't change it, often in listening to it I can't help but think of how Marc Ribot would have played it differently, or how great it would be if the person who did play had done X instead (sometimes these can be quite determinate thoughts)—that is, it's both good as it is, and shades off on all sides into all the quite easily imaginable other ways it could also have been good, maybe even better—so you get the pleasure both of listening to it as it is and of imagining the similar solos it might have been, which those similar solos, even if better by themselves, might not have afforded.) Of course having listened to the two mixes I know that this particular track sounds good both ways, but that needn't always be the case, of course; there's a bit of Radiohead's "Wolf at the Door", a little guitar not really riff, that I think is by far the best part of the song (I don't currently have access to the track, but apparently I once claimed that it takes place "2:02ish to 2:14ish, then 2:16ish to 2:29ish.  The second one is easier to hear." and that it "[e]choes the trumpet part at 1:02-1:16ish.  Sorta."), to the point of making it—and whenever I hear it I always wish it were further up in the mix and clearer, but I'm also willing to believe that if it were, I wouldn't find it nearly as interesting. [The magic of scp puts the Radiohead at my fingertips, and makes me wonder if I only ever thought the guitar part was hard to make out because I was listening on crapp speakers: ah well.]

I got that at Amoeba, obviously, along with these: one (the last one on that page, Plans); two; three. Note the title of the sixth Lied nach Gedichten von Robert Walser on that last.

Comments

[Kara]

Dear Ben,

You could have gotten all of those books from Fort Phil Collins, although I admit I have scratched out the title of "Madame Bovary" and replaced it with "Madame B. Ovary." I am certain you will soon see why.

[ben wolfson]

Even The Ballad of Dingus Magee?