Here's a poem I wrote last week while Tracey and I were traveling around southern New England. I wrote a couple others, but this was the best of the bunch.
"Provincetown, off-season"
A far piece to get here,
through villages nigh smug
in their quaintness, and then a stretch
of shuttered family resorts and lifeless restaurants.
Any deeper into the fall-- God forbid
one come in winter!-- and everything here
would be locked up, too, but we made it
just in time
to be only slightly disappointed.
Were we the shopping sort, the town would
reek of pointlessness;
but as we are not,
the glow of lamps in people's homes, the
thoughtless curvature of the streets,
lights on the Pilgrim Monument, and
the taste of a pocketed Narragansett tallboy
all go hand in hand
with the creeping air of desolation
and the click of drag queens' heels on the pavement.
(written 21-22 October 2014, edited 27 October 2014)
Monday, October 27, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Scott's Stash: Cursed
The storage box wherein all the CDs my brother gave me a long while back still gets opened from time to time, either because I get tired of what's on my hard drive and in my LP collection, or I'm in the mood to listen to something new that is also old while driving, since I probably ain't never gonna give up physical media. (老頭混蛋萬歲, motherfuckers.) Anyway, I was digging through said box the other day and ran across Cursed, by German death metal band Morgoth. I suspect this one of those albums that my brother got, for whatever reason, from Drew, because it isn't something I imagine him buying.
I'll keep this short, because there isn't a lot to say. My overall impression was neither positive nor negative, because Cursed is a perfectly serviceable album. Released in 1991, I can't imagine anyone being overly stoked when they first heard it, but I can also see it getting something along the lines of an honorable mention in year-end lists. There are some good riffs here and there, and the vocalist, Marc Grewe, often makes me wonder if I'm listening to a side project of Chuck Schuldiner's. A few songs have doomy passages that I dig, too, but overall Morgoth doesn't leave an impression, save that of a band that put out a record that couldn't stand up against those released by their Scandinavian (viz. Where No Life Dwells by Unleashed) or Floridian (e.g. Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick) cousins that same year.
That said, you could still put on Cursed at a party, or as background music at a meeting of non-metalheads, and probably draw some looks or disparaging comments from non-hessians and associated boring fucks. If, say, you're too busy pumping the keg at said party to rebut every snide remark, yet refuse to let someone else control the music, then Cursed is a safe bet: you, the metalhead, won't hate listening to it, but you won't get pissed if you get distracted by doing your friends the inestimable favor of pouring them drinks.
The above may be damning Morgoth's Cursed with faint praise, but according to the Encyclopedia Metallum, they got increasingly shitty as the '90s progressed, so I think a review wherein one's band is compared to Death and not mocked for later missteps is an of ex post facto thumbs up. And really, dudes, it's a decent record; if you come across it, give it a listen, but I can't recommend seeking it out.
On that note, time for some fuckin' Morbid Angel and annual fretting over (one of) the heavy metal novels I intend to write, I Was A Teenage Beast of the Apocalypse. Later, dudes!
I'll keep this short, because there isn't a lot to say. My overall impression was neither positive nor negative, because Cursed is a perfectly serviceable album. Released in 1991, I can't imagine anyone being overly stoked when they first heard it, but I can also see it getting something along the lines of an honorable mention in year-end lists. There are some good riffs here and there, and the vocalist, Marc Grewe, often makes me wonder if I'm listening to a side project of Chuck Schuldiner's. A few songs have doomy passages that I dig, too, but overall Morgoth doesn't leave an impression, save that of a band that put out a record that couldn't stand up against those released by their Scandinavian (viz. Where No Life Dwells by Unleashed) or Floridian (e.g. Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick) cousins that same year.
That said, you could still put on Cursed at a party, or as background music at a meeting of non-metalheads, and probably draw some looks or disparaging comments from non-hessians and associated boring fucks. If, say, you're too busy pumping the keg at said party to rebut every snide remark, yet refuse to let someone else control the music, then Cursed is a safe bet: you, the metalhead, won't hate listening to it, but you won't get pissed if you get distracted by doing your friends the inestimable favor of pouring them drinks.
The above may be damning Morgoth's Cursed with faint praise, but according to the Encyclopedia Metallum, they got increasingly shitty as the '90s progressed, so I think a review wherein one's band is compared to Death and not mocked for later missteps is an of ex post facto thumbs up. And really, dudes, it's a decent record; if you come across it, give it a listen, but I can't recommend seeking it out.
On that note, time for some fuckin' Morbid Angel and annual fretting over (one of) the heavy metal novels I intend to write, I Was A Teenage Beast of the Apocalypse. Later, dudes!
Monday, October 13, 2014
How to spend a Saturday afternoon (and then write about it two days later)
Bom dia, dudes. For best results w/r/t reading the following, do as yours truly: fetch yourself a fairly high-ABV beer and sip it slowly, letting the booze wash over but not drown you. Here we go.
Work on the novel proceeds apace, albeit not as quickly as I'd like. (This is a sentence I should probably have stashed away in a text file on my desktop for rapid cut/paste purposes, given how often I seem to use it, even in correspondence with myself.) I've been busy editing a book for a former professor, but more than that I'm having a hard time keeping focused on the early 16th century: I'm continually reminded, via the books I read, that all the cross-cultural action in the Indian Ocean and environs really starts heating up in the latter half of that century. Still, I'm not going to abandon Anacleto and Agnese Stornello. We've gone through a lot, and as difficult as it's been to tell their story, I'm going to see it through.
Speaking of reading, my friend Linda recently convened the first meeting of a sci-fi book club, which was a lot of fun, and we're going to be reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion next. I picked up a copy at Kaboom Books, Houston's best used book store, and will start it as soon as I finish C.R. Boxer's Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1770*, which I'd wanted to read forever and is overflowing with great stories about the Portuguese empire's outposts east of India, i.e., Macau, Timor, and, while it lasted, Nagasaki. Boxer is a really good writer, and it's a damned shame that his work is mostly out of print and therefore runs to the costly end of the spectrum; in the Portuguese-language sphere, the similarly prolific Padre Manuel Teixeira suffers the same fate. During the same visit to Kaboom I also found a couple early '70s Clark Ashton Smith paperbacks, which I think represent the first of his books I've held in my own hands. Color me excited. Also on the reading list is The Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions, from which comes the title of the excellent weird/horror/supernatural fiction blog The Stars at Noonday and of which I've begun the first story, "The Beckoning Fair One". Since last night I've been waiting for bedtime so I can find out how it ends.
Perhaps the day will come when I have a ton of money and will reprint some of the many books that have existed and fallen into undeserved obscurity. Demand won't be high, but who cares? There has to be at least one or two other dudes out there willing to pay to read decent editions of little-known tomes. I know that for a fact, since I'm one of them.
I'd originally intended to talk about music as well as books, but I've got enough music-related thoughts piled up to justify another couple posts, one of which will be the return of the "Scott's Stash" series. Something'll be up within a couple days, so stay tuned.
再見, caro leitor!
-D.A.S.
*N.B. Between the time I started writing this post and when it actually hit the World Wide Web, I finished Boxer's book. Predictably, it was great.
Work on the novel proceeds apace, albeit not as quickly as I'd like. (This is a sentence I should probably have stashed away in a text file on my desktop for rapid cut/paste purposes, given how often I seem to use it, even in correspondence with myself.) I've been busy editing a book for a former professor, but more than that I'm having a hard time keeping focused on the early 16th century: I'm continually reminded, via the books I read, that all the cross-cultural action in the Indian Ocean and environs really starts heating up in the latter half of that century. Still, I'm not going to abandon Anacleto and Agnese Stornello. We've gone through a lot, and as difficult as it's been to tell their story, I'm going to see it through.
Speaking of reading, my friend Linda recently convened the first meeting of a sci-fi book club, which was a lot of fun, and we're going to be reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion next. I picked up a copy at Kaboom Books, Houston's best used book store, and will start it as soon as I finish C.R. Boxer's Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1770*, which I'd wanted to read forever and is overflowing with great stories about the Portuguese empire's outposts east of India, i.e., Macau, Timor, and, while it lasted, Nagasaki. Boxer is a really good writer, and it's a damned shame that his work is mostly out of print and therefore runs to the costly end of the spectrum; in the Portuguese-language sphere, the similarly prolific Padre Manuel Teixeira suffers the same fate. During the same visit to Kaboom I also found a couple early '70s Clark Ashton Smith paperbacks, which I think represent the first of his books I've held in my own hands. Color me excited. Also on the reading list is The Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions, from which comes the title of the excellent weird/horror/supernatural fiction blog The Stars at Noonday and of which I've begun the first story, "The Beckoning Fair One". Since last night I've been waiting for bedtime so I can find out how it ends.
Perhaps the day will come when I have a ton of money and will reprint some of the many books that have existed and fallen into undeserved obscurity. Demand won't be high, but who cares? There has to be at least one or two other dudes out there willing to pay to read decent editions of little-known tomes. I know that for a fact, since I'm one of them.
I'd originally intended to talk about music as well as books, but I've got enough music-related thoughts piled up to justify another couple posts, one of which will be the return of the "Scott's Stash" series. Something'll be up within a couple days, so stay tuned.
再見, caro leitor!
-D.A.S.
*N.B. Between the time I started writing this post and when it actually hit the World Wide Web, I finished Boxer's book. Predictably, it was great.
Friday, October 03, 2014
Bullshit
"Ugh, I'm looking forward to tomorrow night, when everything's done. I have too much bullshit scheduled."
"Why? Everything you have to do tomorrow- karate class, Portuguese class, working at the beer store- is stuff you like."
"It's still bullshit!"
If you can't tell, dear reader, I really hate doin' shit. To the point, apparently, where I can't refer to any activity in strictly positive terms. I do like each of the things listed above, though.
"Why? Everything you have to do tomorrow- karate class, Portuguese class, working at the beer store- is stuff you like."
"It's still bullshit!"
If you can't tell, dear reader, I really hate doin' shit. To the point, apparently, where I can't refer to any activity in strictly positive terms. I do like each of the things listed above, though.
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