Album Reviews 22/09/15

Joseph Shipp, Free For A While (self-released)

This 40-year-old Tennessee-born singer-songwriter tried San Francisco life for a while, landed himself a wife, then came back to his home state, specifically to Nashville, where he put out a coffee-table book (A Community in Black & White) of old photographs in collaboration with The Bitter Southerner. His background is in fact rooted in photography; his family owned a photography business, so what prompted him to put out this debut album (shipping on Oct. 28) is lost on me but probably speaks to an adjunct product to the book. Unlike so many of these jack-of-all-trades projects, the music fits in quite well with his rootsy art; in fact, if I had to pick a RIYL comparison for kickoff song “Rest Assured,” it’d be a cross between Hank Williams Sr. and Woody Guthrie, a comparison that’s deserved. Lot of more modern Americana here, though, like the strummy, near-Guster-like “Where You Are,” and there are curveballs of course, like the Mazzy Star-like “Only The Moon.” Shipp’s voice is unusually high, which does add some quaint eeriness to these proceedings. A

The Callous Daoboys, Celebrity Therapist (Modern Static Records)

It’s been quite a while since I investigated a band that specializes in mathcore, a genre that, last I knew, was lorded over by Dillinger Escape Plan and all that stuff, armor-plated with old-school emo ’tude and a lot of riffs with bizarre time signatures. That’s descriptive of the genre’s high end, of course; there’s no hard and fast rule to mathcore other than being loud and somewhat unfollowable relative to song structure (and yes, that’s my guideline; I stopped trusting Wikipedia’s genre definitions years ago, not that that’s the smartest thing to do in every case). So these four guys are from Atlanta, and what a terribly clever name they’ve given themselves, I’ll readily admit. That’s in line with their musical approach too: extended bursts of Dillinger Escape Plan-ish syncopated cacophony, but plenty of skit moments as well, probably recorded during dinnertimes and whatnot; it all feels very punky and personal. Well done, for what it is. A

Playlist

• Friday, Sept. 16, will see, like every Friday, a bunch of new music CD releases, and I’ll tell you right now, gang, things are already starting to heat up for the holiday buying season! I didn’t get a lot of Christmas releases last year, so hopefully that situation won’t repeat itself as we start running out of months in the calendar of 2022, widely regarded as the worst year in history only because nothing’s been fixed, things just get worse and worse, don’t they? But I know that you know the only cure for all that existential dread, that’s right, it’s new rock ’n’ roll albums, and guess who’s leading us off? That’s right, famous Manhattan-based band Gogol Bordello, with their Eastern European tuneage and fiddles and accordions; it’s great music to run around to while guzzling cheap whiskey and randomly punching people in the face, you should try it sometime if you haven’t! Wait, don’t go to Amy’s movie reviews yet, there’s a point to all this, specifically that this bizarre accordion-filled Romani-punk band does have an album coming out on Friday, titled Solidaritine! As always, the band is fronted by Eugene Hütz, who was born in Ukraine, so I’m assuming there won’t be a lot of protest songs about the recent Russian invasion or he’d end up peeling potatoes in a factory, but you never know, so howzabout we get to the gettin’-on and give a listen to the new single, “Take Only What You Can Carry,” which is wait a minute, like Steve Harvey says when he’s emceeing a beauty pageant, it is about the Russian invasion! It says here that the song “encapsulates [the] emotional message of uprooted people whose lives were destroyed by this f–d up war in Ukraine.” Love this video, look at Eugene and his peeps walking around and overacting, occasionally stopping to say hello to some of the refugees. The tune has sort of a Meatloaf-ish, off-Broadway feel to it; it’s fun and crazed, of course. Did I mention there’s fiddles and accordions?

• Oh come on, just when I thought it was going to be a fun column, here we go, look who it is, folks, it’s unlistenable twee-rockers Death Cab for Cutie, with Asphalt Meadows, their latest batch of Gilmore Girls-begging nonsense-pop! Death Cab were the poster children for the “do all indie-rock bands have to be white” backlash of a few years ago (you remember, right? No?), which I largely avoided owing to the fact that I’ve never considered these guys to be “rock” in the first place, more like a sleepy, boring, dishwasher-safe garage band that’d be right at home opening for a balloon-animal-making clown at kids’ birthday parties. Man, do I hate them, but here we go, let me finish this bottle of Jagermeister and see if I can handle their new song, “Here To Forever.” Wow, it’s kind of listenable after all, but in a stupid way. It’s a cross between New Order and Christopher Cross’s yacht-rock song “Sailing.” Why would anyone do this sort of music? Don’t ask me, I really have no idea.

• Well, bless their hearts, look folks, it’s 30-year-old British art-rock band Suede, with their first album since 2018, Autofiction. The single, “She Still Leads Me,” is a feisty little Blur-like number that totally rips off Flock Of Seagulls’ “Space Age Love Song.” Other than that it’s astonishingly original.

• OK, and finally, it’s neo-neo-metal whatevers The Mars Volta, with a self-titled album. The album opens with “Blacklight Shine,” which features some very authentic-sounding African tribal music. Still not going to keep most critics from making fun of the band, though, just saying.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Knopf, 416 pages)

If a great writer is someone who can take a subject like video games — loved by some, maligned by others, inconsequential to the rest — and use it to weave together a story that even the latter two categories of people can appreciate, then Gabrielle Zevin is a great writer.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is about love, friendship and, yes, video games. That might sound like the premise of a young adult novel written to entice middle school gamers to put down the controller and pick up a book, but no; this is a beautifully written, emotionally complex story that unravels over the span of 30 years through various characters’ points of view — though mainly protagonists Sam Masur and Sadie Green’s — and in settings that range from hospitals to living rooms that serve as creative epicenters and offices, to inside the world of a video game that Sam creates.

Sam and Sadie met as kids in a hospital, where Sam was recovering from a car accident that killed his mom and Sadie was visiting her sister, who had cancer. Their very first interaction drew me in, with some of the best dialogue I’ve ever read. Sadie walks into the hospital’s game room, where Sam is playing Super Mario Bros. She sits down next to him and watches him play.

“Without looking over at her, he said, ‘You want to play the rest of this life?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘No. You’re doing really well. I can wait until you’re dead.’

The boy nodded. He continued to play, and Sadie continued to watch.

‘Before. I shouldn’t have said that,’ Sadie apologized. ‘I mean, in case you are actually dying. This being a children’s hospital.’

The boy, piloting Mario, climbed up a vine that led to a cloudy, coin-filled area. ‘This being the world, everyone’s dying,’ he said.

‘True,’ Sadie said.

‘But I’m not currently dying.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Are you dying?’ the boy asked.

‘No,’ Sadie said. ‘Not currently.’

‘What’s wrong with you then?’

‘It’s my sister. She’s sick.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Dysentery.’ Sadie didn’t feel like invoking cancer, the destroyer of natural conversation.”

Thus begins their relationship, though it’s derailed after 14 months when Sam finds out that Sadie has been counting the time she spends with him at the hospital as a community service project: “Their friendship amounted to 609 hours, plus the four hours of the first day, which had not been part of the tally.”

Sam and Sadie reconnect in their college years after a chance meeting at the subway station. They end up collaborating on a video game, Ichigo, which is a huge success and propels them toward future collaborations. Over the years, though, that work is complicated by emotions and miscommunications, deep love and unrequited romantic love, outside forces and other people, like Sam’s roommate, Marx, and Sadie’s professor/lover, Dov. These characters are what make Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow the compelling story that it is, and they’re a big part of the reason why people who don’t like video games can still appreciate this book. These are characters that readers can care about, and get mad at, and grieve with.

Zevin’s writing is exquisite; there are so many passages and sentences in the book that are worth reading more than once — an especially good thing when time jumps and perspective shifts get a little confusing and you need to stop for a moment and reread to make sure you know what’s going on.

There are some people who are not going to be able to get past all the video game references, because there are a lot. There are references to old-school games, and there are some technical aspects related to the behind-the-scenes work of creating a game, like design and programming and graphics engines (I’m still not quite clear on what such an engine does or why it can seemingly make or break the quality of a game, but those details don’t take away from the ability to understand what’s going on). There’s also a whole section that takes place in a video game called Pioneers, and while it wasn’t my favorite part, I can appreciate the depth that it adds to the storyline, as the game becomes an essential part of Sam and Sadie’s relationship.

I haven’t considered rereading a book in years — who has the time when there are so many new books waiting to be read — but this is one that I’m definitely going back to again, to savor the prose, spend more time with the characters and possibly get a better handle on what a graphics engine does — not that it really matters. A


Book Events

Author events

PHIL PRIMACK presents Put It Down On Paper: The Words and Life of Mary Folsom Blair in a Literary Lunchtime event at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Sept. 8, at noon.

MINDY MESSMER presents Female Disruptors: Stories of Mighty Female Scientists at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600, bookerymht.com) on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 5:30 p.m. Free admission; register at bookerymht.com.

SUSIE SPIKOL, a naturalist at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, will discuss her book The Animal Adventurer’s Guide: How to Prowl for an Owl, Make Snail Slime, and Catch a Frog Bare-Handed, on Saturday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. at Toadstool Bookshop (12 Depot Square in Peterborough; toadbooks.com, 924-3543).

JOSEPH D. STEINFIELD presents Time for Everything: My Curious Life at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 6:30 p.m.

BOB BUDERI author of Where Futures Converge: Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub will beat the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600) on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 5:30 p.m. for a discussion with special guests C.A. Webb and Liz Hitchcock. Free admission; register at bookerymht.com.

SUSIE SPIKOL, a naturalist at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, will come to Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St. in Concord; gibsonsbookstore.com, 224-0562) to “teach your kiddos how to find critters in their neighborhood” on Saturday, Sept. 24, at 11 a.m. with her book The Animal Adventurer’s Guide: How to Prowl for an Owl, Make Snail Slime, and Catch a Frog Bare-Handed, according to a press release. The book, which is slated for release Sept. 13, features “50 hands-on activities and adventures that bring you closer to wild animals than you’ve ever been,” the release said. Spikol will also bring supplies to do one of the crafts from the book.

MARGARET PORTER presents The Myrtle Wand at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

Poetry

OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

MARTHA COLLINS and L.R. BERGER hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Wednesday, Nov. 16, from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Writers groups

MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Album Reviews 22/09/08

Darryl Harper, Chamber Made (Stricker Street Records)

Here we have something of a culturally relevant item, a highly successful attempt to expand the racial boundaries of concert music, specifically chamber jazz, an organic style that sounds like high-end soundtrack music made with the barest numbers of personnel. In this case it’s New England Conservatory-taught clarinetist/composer Harper working in various settings, most fascinatingly the Wistaria String Quartet in the three-part “Suite For Clarinet and String Quartet.” That’s 16 minutes of nimble, sublimely melodic tuneage that will alternately make you think of very old Disney films and the more innovative things you’ve heard in Daniel Day Lewis’s more gritty movies, as wide-ranging as that may sound. And yes, the compositions aren’t of a kind your typical listener would usually peg as coming from Black musicians, but that’s part of the point — despite all their genius, the world tended to deny even the greatest composers their due as “legitimate” concert music composers: Duke Ellington, Scott Joplin and James P. Johnson, to name three. In Harper’s case, his deep expertise with his instrument keeps every moment vibrant and attention-grabbing, even when his accompaniment is bare-bones. Complicated, tuneful and brilliant. A+

Blue Largo, Got To Believe (self-released)

Pretty nice little surprise here, a married-couple-led band from California that categorizes itself as “Americana soul.” As you may or may not know, I’m not big on “fedora bands,” the type of act that would fit in fine at some craft-beer eatery playing Van Morrison covers and things like that, and that’s what I’d expected to hear from this LP. Ten original songs here, along with a cover of Nina Simone’s Quentin Tarantino-begging torch-blues hit “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” which does go well with their core vibe: a rugged, rough and slightly muddy style, redolent of ’60s girl-groups and Amboy Dukes on a Byrds kick. Eric Lieberman and Alicia Aragon share the wheel here, the latter taking the mic for the Blues Brothers-meets-Temptations-ish album opener “A World Without Soul,” a fine vehicle for Aragon’s trill-heavy warbling. “Got To Believe” finds the pair cleverly blending their voices on a Frankie Valli-oriented joint. Nicely done all around. A

Playlist

• Friday, Sept. 9, is the next date for CD releases, and wouldn’t you know it, the first thing to appear in my list of “important new albums” is the new album from Julian Lennon, son of former Beatle John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon. The album’s title is Jude, which I assume is somehow derived from the ancient Beatles song “Hey Jude,” which I never really liked, but maybe there’s something more to this album than Julian doing his usual John Lennon karaoke and trying to ignore the fact that most millennial kids who heard his boring songs on the school bus radio back in the ’90s thought he was Hanson or maybe They Might Be Giants trying to sound like The Beatles, who knows. I mean, you remember his 1984 hit “Too Late for Goodbyes,” and how it sounded like a song made specifically for grandmothers who needed a song about riding a choo-choo train made out of candy to help the grandkids fall asleep at nap-time? I’m sure you hated it as much as I did, and that you were like “Why would the son of a Beatle ever record such a thing?” but, like me, you sort of forgave him because he never really liked Yoko, like everyone else on Earth, I mean, you did, right? Oh, whatever, Julian had a hard time of it as a kid, being that John dumped his mom for Yoko. In fact, “Hey Jude” was written by Paul McCartney to console Julian over John’s divorce from Julian’s mom; it was originally called “Hey Jules” but McCartney changed it because he thought that “Jude” was an easier name to sing. But I won’t turn this exercise into a documentary about bad music and artistic oligarchy, as I’m sure other award-winning music journalists have done that with regard to The Beatles, so with your permission I’ll move on to the entertainment portion of this column by toddling off to listen to “Save Me,” the latest song from this album, and it’s actually not bad, a dark, insistent piano line, haunted vocals. I dunno guys, maybe it’s time to give the kid a break, hah? No? OK then.

• The old-school music from bands who don’t need the money at all continues with Ozzy Osbourne hawking his 13th album, Patient Number 9! The title track features a team-up with the super-ancient Jeff Beck, who’s been on more Guitar Player magazine covers than probably anyone, mostly because throughout his career he always stubbornly refused to play anything that most people would call “listenable music,” although his “People Get Ready” team-up with Rod Stewart almost qualified, back when the Earth was still cooling from the Big Bang. As I expected, the situation where Ozzy hasn’t had a truly cool arena-metal song since his Bark At The Moon days hasn’t changed, i.e. the song is in the vein of Alice Cooper and kind of sucks, but Beck’s guitar is pretty neat of course.

Santigold, an avant-electronic artist whose real name is Santi White, releases her fourth album, Spirituals, this Friday. She’s dabbled with a lot of techno sub-genres, but the new single “Disparate Youth” finds her in sublimated dubstep mode, the main groove a barely there rinseout-ish thingamajig while she sings druggy indie-pop lines over it. It’s not catchy, but who knows, people have liked a lot worse songs.

• OK, very good, we’ll wrap up this week’s nonsense with Idaho-based indie band Built to Spill and their new album When The Wind Forgets Your Name! This includes the new single “Gonna Lose,” a completely horrible little song that’s like if Pavement and Flaming Lips had a baby and it was christened by those King Gizzard guys. This has been done a million times and a lot better, but other than that it’s terrific.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Deluxe Edition 1, by Hitoshi Ashinano

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Deluxe Edition 1, by Hitoshi Ashinano (Seven Seas Press, 450 pages)

Originally published in Japan starting in 1994, the manga series Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (translated as Yokohama Shopping Log) follows the daily life of Alpha the android running her missing master’s coffee shop. Now the series has made it to the United States after a long wait, collected in this single volume, and publisher Seven Seas has done an excellent job preserving the style of the time in which it was originally published. Most of the pages are black and white with old-school screentones, but there are full-color images and panels as well, bursting with beautiful warm yellowish hues. Both aspects are preserved excellently with no apparent digital tampering. This desire to stay true to the original makes opening the book for the first time akin to rediscovering a long-lost favorite from your shelf.

Typical of manga created in the ’90s and early 2000s, the character designs are big and bubbly with round exaggerated features. There is less focus on realistically rendering the human face and more on amplifying expressions, making emotional beats more easily understood. Whether characters are enjoying a cup of coffee or asking for directions, the reader can get a sense of what they feel in quiet moments.

Yokohama’s art elevates itself past merely entertaining; two incredibly evocative scenes, one of dancing and the other of swimming, capture the nature of each specific movement. There’s a lightness in the renderings of Alpha’s dance at the Neighborhood Association party that shows a character free from worry or judgment by others.

The setting and background art contribute significantly to the reading experience as a whole.

The story takes place after some unknown large-scale ecological disaster, on a strange yet familiar Earth. Throughout the volume, whether Alpha is home or out traveling, there are only a few people, and nature has reclaimed much of the environment. The one local gas station with its single kindly caretaker feels lonely with a wide and empty lot, the asphalt cracked with fault lines. The roads, when they are not flooded, battle against ever-encroaching overgrowth. Flashbacks later in the volume depict the previous lay of the land, so we see how it has changed over time.

Another small but overarching detail is the way Yokohama implements shading in the panels. A chapter where a child plays outside would not be as vivid if the background art did not show the passage of time from a clear summer afternoon into dusk. Instead of using the setting as a vehicle to propel the narrative, it becomes a separate entity to care about all on its own.

There’s not a lot of plot in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. While there is the underlying thread of Alpha waiting for the cafe owner to return, it is rarely anything but an implication. Instead, the narrative is more of a series of vignettes with shared characters connecting them. Going with this larger, more unstructured narrative could have made the reading experience fragmented but, because of the work done in the setting, it is as if the reader is going alongside the characters throughout their day. Chapters consist of everything from trying to get rid of excess watermelon before it spoils to spending the day attempting to take a good picture. There’s the occasional mystery of the setting to ponder, like Alpha’s legendary neighbor the Osprey or watching the sky for a plane that never lands, but these things are passing curiosities, never resolved.

As summarized on the back of the book, the story presents itself as Alpha the android watching the end of the human world, but such an unstructured narrative, focused on the day-to-day, presents more a paring down of the world. What if money stopped mattering? What if there were no job to wake up early in the morning for, and no fear of losing shelter or health care? What would people care about and what would they value? Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is a fantasy of kindness, where what matters most to the characters is connecting with others and the environment they live in. For them, there is time to contemplate who they are and what they want to become, and even how they want to experience the world around them.

For a work of fiction to gently remind the reader to open their senses, whether to a swirling storm of clouds or an expansive endless blue, and commit to memory the day that is given, truly is a treasure. A+ — Bethany Fuss


Book Events

Author events

PHIL PRIMACK presents Put It Down On Paper: The Words and Life of Mary Folsom Blair in a Literary Lunchtime event at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Sept. 8, at noon.

MINDY MESSMER presents Female Disruptors: Stories of Mighty Female Scientists at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600, bookerymht.com) on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at 5:30 p.m. Free admission; register at bookerymht.com.

SUSIE SPIKOL, a naturalist at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, will discuss her book The Animal Adventurer’s Guide: How to Prowl for an Owl, Make Snail Slime, and Catch a Frog Bare-Handed, on Saturday, Sept. 17, at 11 a.m. at Toadstool Bookshop (12 Depot Square in Peterborough; toadbooks.com, 924-3543).

JOSEPH D. STEINFIELD presents Time for Everything: My Curious Life at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 6:30 p.m.

BOB BUDERI author of Where Futures Converge: Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub will beat the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600) on Wednesday, Sept. 21, at 5:30 p.m. for a discussion with special guests C.A. Webb and Liz Hitchcock. Free admission; register at bookerymht.com.

SUSIE SPIKOL, a naturalist at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, will come to Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St. in Concord; gibsonsbookstore.com, 224-0562) to “teach your kiddos how to find critters in their neighborhood” on Saturday, Sept. 24, at 11 a.m. with her book The Animal Adventurer’s Guide: How to Prowl for an Owl, Make Snail Slime, and Catch a Frog Bare-Handed, according to a press release. The book, which is slated for release Sept. 13, features “50 hands-on activities and adventures that bring you closer to wild animals than you’ve ever been,” the release said. Spikol will also bring supplies to do one of the crafts from the book.

MARGARET PORTER presents The Myrtle Wand at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

Book Events

CAT KID COMIC CLUB: COLLABORATIONS CELEBRATION Toadstool Bookshop (Somerset Plaza, 375 Amherst St. in Nashua; 673-1734, toadbooks.com) will hold a party to celebrate the release of Dav Pilkey’s newest Cat Kid Comic Club book (Nov. 29) on Saturday, Dec. 3, from 1 to 4 p.m. The afternoon will feature games, puzzles, goodies, raffles and more, according to the website. The book is available for preorder now.

Poetry

OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

MARTHA COLLINS and L.R. BERGER hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Wednesday, Nov. 16, from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

Writers groups

MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Album Reviews 22/09/01

Mary Onettes, What I Feel In Some Places EP (Labrador Records)

Glad I decided to clean out my pathetically overstuffed excuse for an emailbox, because this one had gone in one eyeball and out the other back in June and I’d totally forgotten about it. This Swedish band would belong in the same section of your Spotify as Raveonettes, Jesus & Mary Chain, et al., i.e. they’re a shoegaze/dream-pop crew, one of the few genres I still get excited about: Usually noisy but pretty, it’s been around forever now; you always know what you’re going to get out of these records. The tradition continues here with this three-songer’s title track, a stunningly pretty, sunburst-y mid-tempo tune that has more ’80s-synthpop than any casual fan of Stranger Things could ever hope for. It tugs at the hormonal angst area of the brain with the best of them, and then comes “Mind On Fire,” a vision of Sigur Ros reborn as a radio-pop band. Great stuff. A+

Boris, Heavy Rocks (Relapse Records)

We last left this Japanese experimental metal/stoner trio way back in — wow, January of this year, with their count-em-27th album, W. That one included material that was on a Portishead/My Bloody Valentine tip, and like always there was nothing wrong there other than yet another return to a more ambient approach, but after 30 years in business and that many records, these guys are holding a golden ticket, able to do pretty much whatever they want. Lucky for their metalhead fans, what they usually want to do is spazz and rock out; which is what they do on this one, again. To me, their essence is that of a wind-up toy, sort of like those plastic teeth that would walk around chattering crazily until they ran out of steam: Like they’ve done plenty of times, this LP finds them wound all the way up and throwing cartoonish but thoroughly listenable wackiness at the listener, starting with opener “She Is Burning,” a cross between AC/DC and Hives if I’ve ever heard one, and I sure haven’t. Is it awesome? Yes, it is, and fun fact, this is the third time they’ve put out an album titled Heavy Rocks. No, I’m serious. A+

Playlist

• It’s over, baby, the summer’s over, I can’t even stand it, the next bunch of albums will be out this Friday, Sept, 2. Where did it go, the lovely summertime, with its beach trips and the occasional visit to the Goldenrod ice cream place in Manchvegas? That’s actually a nice place, for ice cream, I had a chocolate frappe there, and Petunia had some sort of vanilla caramel ice cream thing, you should try it while there’s still time, before it’s freezing and insane, you betcha. Oh sorry, yes, new albums, yes, let’s talk about them. Hopefully you remember when I was throwing all sorts of shade on dumb aughts-era band names, right? Well I really didn’t have room in that mini-rant to cover all the bands with “Club” in their names, like New Young Pony Club, which was a new-rave sort of band, and also Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club, billed as a post-punk revival band, which, can we be real for just once, is basically the same thing as new-rave. In a way. Or maybe not. Oh whatever, Two Door Cinema Club releases their fifth album, Keep On Smiling, in just a few hours, and it’s all sort of auspicious, given that their last album, 2019’s False Alarm, actually made it to No. 11 on the U.S. indie charts on the strength of the Simple Minds-influenced single “Talk” and a few other tunes, and so I must take them seriously, and so away I go, off to listen to the new single, “Lucky.” Wow, it is totally ’80s, pretty much like A-ha and whatnot, music to roller skate through malls to and all that stuff. If you’re a Gen X-er, you’d probably love these guys.

Yungblud, the pansexual British alt-pop singing dude who was the momentary boyfriend of Halsey, is up to three albums this week, as his new self-titled album is on the way! When it gets here, you’ll be able to thrill to the emo-rawk strains of “The Funeral,” in which our hero dabbles with My Chemical Romance sounds whilst playing around with the Adam Lambert aesthetic he had to steal just to get on the map in the first place. Cool goth jewelry bro!

Sawayama Rina is a Japanese–British art-pop Lady Gaga-wannabe singer-songwriter and model who’s set to make her film acting debut in John Wick: Chapter 4, but then again, isn’t everybody? She’s obviously sort of a manufactured person, molded out of plastic, bearing random messages about — well, nothing really, something-something sexuality, and she did a cover of “Enter Sandman,” probably because she noticed that Miley Cyrus had done some heavy metal cover songs. In other words she’s basically a trite contrivance and you shouldn’t let your kids listen to any of her music, not that you’ll be able to stop them. Mind you, the above is all based on prejudices I held prior to listening to her new album, Hold The Girl, so why don’t I just go and check that out right now, that’d be great. So the video for the album’s title track starts off with a visual based on Walking Dead-style imagery, a random house in the flatland countryside that’s sort of randomly menacing, but then we get a shot of Rina sitting in one of the upstairs bedrooms and then she’s singing exactly like Gaga and you realize she’s destined for obscurity in the not-too-distant future because there’s already a Gaga, so why would anyone care about this album? Why do people even do stuff like this, honestly?

• Let’s wrap up the week with a cursory listen to the new album from arena-thrash band Megadeth, The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! The tire-kicker advance tune “The Dogs of Chernobyl” sounds exactly like what you think it sounds like: Metallica with a really low budget but totally killer double-bass drums. (People still use “killer” as an adjective, right—?)

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Return of the Artisan, by Grant McCracken

Return of the Artisan, by Grant McCracken (Simon Element, 207 pages)

Behold the Pop-Tart, the humble toaster pastry introduced in 1964. It’s pretty much the same product as it was when Lyndon Johnson was president, which is to say it was the epitome of unnatural food. Designed to fit a toaster, the Pop-Tart was, Grant McCracken writes, “the ultimate triumph of artifice.”

“You couldn’t tell where it had been farmed, who had farmed it, or what, indeed, was in it. Somehow Pop-Tarts existed sui generis.”

Pop-Tarts, of course, still exist, but the world into which they were first introduced is far different now. In the 1960s, Americans were still enamored with factories and assembly lines and the convenience foods that rolled off them. There were objectors, of course; they were called hippies. As McCracken explains in Return of the Artisan, the ideals of the counterculture granola-eating warriors would ultimately prevail. America, the author believes, is over its ill-advised love affair with the industrial production of goods, and we are finding our way back to a better way of producing and consuming. It’s still capitalism, but we’ve found a better way to do it.

The change has occurred in 10 waves that began with the opening of Alice Waters’ trendy Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California, in 1971, continuing with the tide of “foodie” cookbooks and the trend toward “slow” eating and natural foods, which naturally gave way to mixology and craft beer, and ultimately the rise of “fast casual” fare (think Panera and Chipotle) and, of course, Whole Foods. Incredibly, more than half of Americans identify as a “foodie,” someone who takes an inordinate interest in what they eat and how it is prepared. The trend is so significant that even the giants of mass production are trying to present themselves as artisanal; hence, the advent of Wendy’s “natural” fries and the blocks of “handmade” soap you can buy at chain supermarkets.

But this is not just about food. There are more craft fairs than malls these days, and many of the malls that exist are struggling to survive. Even if they don’t have the time and skill to make gifts themselves, most people prefer to give handmade gifts that have (and hold) value more than anything found in a big-box store. “Artisans make gifting easy,” McCracken writes. “Their creations are perfectly gift-proportioned: authentic, human scale, handmade, they are exactly the right size and shape, plus particular and personal in just the way a gift should be. They are Goldilocks valuable: not too precious, not too mere.”

The change to a society where artisans are valued more than industry comes with subtle shifts that are potentially radical. For example, McCracken says that in this new arrangement, the consumer isn’t king, as Charles Coolidge Parlin famously said. Neither are the Mad Men. The artisans, the ones who know what they’re doing, reign. Also, artisans aren’t in it for big profit, although they, too, need to pay their bills, and McCracken argues that the artisanal economy opens up opportunity for many 9-to-5 workers who have retired or lost their jobs, providing both income and community.

“Capitalism lives to optimize. … The artisan is inclined to make the product she thinks is most compelling, for a small audience, not with the cheapest method, but the most crafted one,” McCracken writes.

McCracken, who lives in Connecticut, is a cultural anthropologist with a Ph.D., and as co-founder of something called the Artisanal Economies Project he has skin in this game. He is not just observing changes in the American economy but advocating for them, elegantly and convincingly. This is a lovely collection of essays, reminiscent of the thoughtful reflections of Bill McKibben, Howard Mansfield and Alan Lightman.

His most powerful one comes at the end of the book, when he recounts how he came to discover a simple canvas wallet that had been made by his uncle’s mother 65 years earlier. “The wallet was what we might call, after Proust, a ‘Madeleine’ object: an object charged with meaning and power,” he writes.

That wallet “opened a cut on the surface of reality. Something dangerous came spilling into life. … Somehow it managed to be both personal and completely traditional. You could see that it conformed to a traditional pattern to which generations had contributed. But it was also the work of an individual in the throes of a terrible emotion driving the stitches in one direction and then another. There was craft here and there was something craft couldn’t contain.”

There are pleasures to be found in Walmart and McDonald’s, to be sure, but they are thin ones and they make us fat. The return of the artisan, as McCracken sees it, won’t solve all our problems and is a slow work that is still in progress; it took 60 years, for example, for people to start questioning the wisdom of Pop-Tarts and mass-produced boxes of cereal. But there is value in the process, and in simply paying attention to the choices we make, McCracken maintains.

“The artisanal community is a respite precisely in that it allows us to take refuge from the blooming, buzzing world out there. It speaks to us precisely because it is not distracted and complicated by a hundred points of view.”

It remains to be seen whether the premises put forth here are true, but it’s a testament to McCracken’s persuasiveness that we want them to be true at the end. See you at the next craft fair. A

Book Notes

In the publishing world, the most prestigious books are the hardcover ones, and that prejudice trickles down to the masses. It’s mostly hardcover books that get reviewed; some publications won’t even consider paperback books. (For the record, we do on occasion.) While many paperbacks are subsequent editions of hardcovers, plenty aren’t, which means a lot of books aren’t getting reviewers’ attention. According to Publisher’s Weekly, there were twice the number of paperbacks (both trade and mass market) as hardcovers last year.

All that is to say, it’s worth poking around “new releases in paperback” to find gems that were not previously published. One appears to be Animal Joy, A Book of Laughter and Resuscitation (Graywolf, 320 pages) by Nuar Alsadir. Alsadir is an Arab-American poet in New York City, and her first nonfiction book is a lyrical and free-form exploration of the importance of laughter and humor to the human animal.

Two other new paperback titles worth your attention as we approach the end of summer reads:

¡Hola, Papi! How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons (Simon & Schuster, 224 pages) is a collection of humorous essays by advice columnist and Substack writer John Paul Brammer.

The author has been called “the Cheryl Strayed for young queer people everywhere,” but I’ve read Strayed and Brammer appears to be much funnier.

Equally fun is the novel Love in the Time of Serial of Killers (Berkley, 352 pages) by Alicia Thompson, which is about a Ph.D. candidate obsessed with true crime who goes to Florida to clean out her childhood home after her father’s death and starts suspecting that the next-door neighbor is, in fact, a serial killer.

On a much more serious note, anyone who wants to show support for Salman Rushdie, hospitalized in critical condition after he was attacked during a presentation earlier this month, could purchase his Language of Truth, a collection of the author’s essays between 2003 and 2020, which was released in paperback in July (Random House Trade, 368 pages).

A past winner of the Booker Prize, Rushdie is the author of 14 novels, including The Satanic Verses, the 1988 novel believed to be blasphemous by many Muslims. Ironically, the subject on which Rushdie was speaking at the time of the attack was about how the U.S. is a “safe haven for exiled writers,” The New York Times reported, quoting the CEO of PEN America, who said, “we can think of no comparable incident of a public attack on a literary writer on American soil.”

In the wake of the attack, The Satanic Verses re-emerged on Amazon’s top 10 list of fiction; it’s No. 1 as of this writing. A paperback edition (576 pages) is available from Random House.


Book Events

Author events

SPENCER QUINN presents Bark to the Future: A Chet & Bernie Mystery on Sunday, Aug. 28, at noon at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600).

ADAM SCHIFF presents Midnight in Washington at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, Aug. 30, at 2:30.

MINDY MESSMER presents Female Disruptors: Stories of Mighty Female Scientists at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Wednesday, Aug. 14, at 5:30 p.m. Free; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

PHIL PRIMACK presents Put It Down On Paper: The Words and Life of Mary Folsom Blair at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Sept. 8, at noon.

Poetry

OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

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