Monday, August 2, 2010

The Boys Get Suburban With Arcade Fire / The LC's Summer Book Club Continues



We weren't actually in attendance at Arcade Fire's early-career appearance at the Jackpot, but we sometimes tell people that we were in an attempt to get laid. Personally, we find them a little dull, but nonetheless they've quickly established themselves as an "important" band that can't be ignored, and perhaps no album is more anticipated than "The Suburbs," which "drops" tomorrow. Richard, who fancies himself somewhat of a scholar of "suburban literature," is paying particular attention. Pitchfork joins the blogosphere chorus of lavish advance praise with a very high 8.6:

"The bulk of The Suburbs focuses on this quiet desperation borne of compounding the pain of wasting your time as an adult by romanticizing the wasted time of your youth."

Chip: "Sounds like it totally rocks!"

But Pitchfork does level a minor criticism or two:

"...as The Suburbs reaches its second half, there's certainly some thematic redundancy-- surely, there's already a drinking game revolving around Butler's use of "the kids."

Richard: "There is now! Everybody come over to my place tomorrow for a listening party and boozefest!"

Reverend H: "I'm sure I'd prefer listening to this than reading The Ice Storm, but I imagine I'll still hate it."


---

The NY-Times offers this statement regarding post-modern literary wizard David Mitchell:

"His best-known book, “Cloud Atlas,” is one of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is — and should be — read by any student of contemporary literature."

Richard: "Fuck! I haven't read it yet. Headed to Borders shortly."

Anyway, Mitchell is back with a new novel this summer called The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet., described by the Times as "a straight-up, linear, third-person historical novel, an achingly romantic story of forbidden love and something of a rescue tale — all taking place off the coast of Japan, circa 1799. Postmodern it’s not."

We say: boring! Instead, we'll just re-read the parts of Mitchell's 2006 Black Swan Green that were nominated for the "Bad Sex in Fiction" award : "Now she made a noise like a tortured Moomintroll.".

And here's the full excerpt, for those of you who want it [we actually think we posted some of this once before, but we can't currently find that post in the archives and it's still funny as hell]:

"If Dawn Madden's breasts were a pair of Danishes, Debby Crombie's got two Space Hoppers. Each armed with a gribbly nipple. Tom Yew kissed them in turn and his saliva glistened in the April sun. I know watching was wrong but I couldn't not. Tom Yew slipped off her red panties and stroked the cressy hair there.

'If you want me to stop, Madam Crombie, you have to say now.'

'Oooh, Master Yew,' she croodled, 'don't you dare.'

Tom Yew got on her and sort of jiggled there and she gasped like he was giving her a Chinese burn and wrapped her legs round him, froggily. Now he moved up and down, Man-from Atlantisly. His silver chain jiggled on his neck.

Now her grubby soles met like they were praying.

Now his skin was glazed in roast pork sweat.

Now she made a noise like a tortured Moomintroll.

Now Tom Yew's body jerkjerked judderily jackknifed and a noise like a ripping cable tore out of him. Once more, like he'd been booted in the balls.

Her fingernails'd sunk salmony welts into his arse.

Debby Crombie's mouth made a perfect O."





Chip: "I guess it really is kind of bad. But I'm still going to beat off to it."

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a bone to pick with you guys. You need snarkier writers. Maybe you should take applications? You are way too nice to be (or cover the scene of) hipsters.

the guy in the PG-13 movie said...

Send us your snarkiness. Maybe we'll publish it. Or maybe we'll just (nicely) make fun of it.

dude, don't flush that roach!! said...

If you can't be forever young, be forever wasted

www.twitter.com/@BARRR said...

I agree with Anonymous...be snarkier. BUT now that lawrence.com is in the shitter I guess you'll have to wait for secret pigeon mail from Ghost Dog to tell you who to make fun of.....also...being anonymous makes you a TOTAL PUSSY! (my word verification is brallin...lololol)

Anonymous said...

Make fun of stuff like this: http://www2.ljworld.com/onthestreet/2010/aug/03/should-lindsay-lohan-have-served-full-90-days-jail/

or this: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2010/aug/03/7-story-building-going-downtown/

your humble servants said...

Anonymous, you are sort of weird. When have we NOT made fun of stuff like monstrous new construction projects (surely we can claim more potshots at the Oread Inn than any other local blog!). Anyway, we're on it.

But we have no interest in the Lohan (except maybe helping her out with some rehabilitory boning).

your humble servants said...

Anonymous, you are sort of weird. When have we NOT made fun of stuff like monstrous new construction projects (surely we can claim more potshots at the Oread Inn than any other local blog!). Anyway, we're on it.

But we have no interest in the Lohan (except maybe helping her out with some rehabilitory boning).

Anonymous said...

It's not LL I care about, but that the local newspaper thinks it's important enough to interview people on the street about her.

good point said...

Yeah. And whatever happened to the LJ-World's brief phase of trying to work cute animal photos into the front page? We miss that.

Also: celebrities should not serve jail time.

Anonymous said...

And this (http://twitter.com/larryvillelife/status/20247280467) and this (http://twitter.com/SFBroadband/status/20247449710)? Are you kidding? We need another larryville blog to make fun of you.

tweets have numbers? said...

Yes, we ARE kidding, with almost every word we utter on Twitter. That's why we are there.

But please do create your own blog and make fun of us, as we are always in favor of more local blogs!

Anonymous said...

It didn't sound like it, but whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.

okay, you got us! said...

We ARE a proud follower of Sunflower Broadband. Who doesn't love Broadband Man?

i hate myself for saying "snarky" (twice) said...

I have a bone to pick with Anonymous. You need snarkier comments. Maybe you should take applications. You are way too whiny to be a hipster. Oh wait. Scratch that last sentence - it makes no sense at all.