“Gold Mine Gutted” — By Bright Eyes
It was Don DeLillo, whiskey and a blinking midnight clock/
Speakers on a TV stand/
Just a turntable to watch/
The Wall Street Journal recently published a fascinating (and rare) interview with author Don DeLillo. The short article is definitely worth a read. DeLillo “talks about his Catholic roots and the inspiration for his new book.”
His new book sounds fittingly, um, psycho.
Some excerpts from the WSJ story:
His new book, he says, was inspired by a film he saw at the Museum of Modern Art.
“Point Omega” opens with a long, disorienting scene in a dark gallery, where a man watches “Psycho” in slow motion. The narrative jumps abruptly to the California desert, and centers on a filmmaker, Jim Finley, who pitches a documentary film project to Richard Elster, a 73-year-old scholar who served as an adviser to strategists planning the Iraq war. Finley wants to shoot a single-take interview in which Elster reveals his role in the conflict. Their intellectual tug-of-war takes an abrupt turn with the arrival and mysterious disappearance of Elster’s daughter.
Mr. DeLillo says the idea for “Point Omega” struck him in 2006, when he wandered into a MoMA gallery and saw “24 Hour Psycho,” an experimental work by the Scottish video artist Douglas Gordon, who slowed down Alfred Hitchcock’s film to last 24 hours. Mr. DeLillo says he returned to the exhibit three times.
[Get a taste of “24 Hour Psycho” with a clip at Biblioklept]
Franz Nicolay (formerly of the Hold Steady) covers “Goddamn Lonely Love,” by the Drive-By Truckers.
The crowd is annoyingly loud, but Franz on a banjo, unexpectedly playing a great cover mostly makes up for it.
“Goddamn Lonely Love” — By The Drive-By Truckers
One of my favorite Drive-By Truckers songs.
The Rural Alberta Advantage — “Sleep All Day” (Luxury Wafers Sessions)
Support for Mr. Leno was evident online, as well, but in much smaller portions. Simon Dumenco, the media columnist for Advertising Age, suggested in a column on Wednesday that people have rallied around Mr. O’Brien not because they adore his “Tonight Show” but “because he’s suddenly become an unlikely (Harvard-educated, multimillionaire) Everyman: the freckled face of American job insecurity, a well-meaning hard worker who spent years paying his dues but has now been declared redundant by the halfwit overlords driving his company into the ground.”
—From New York Times
Lifter Puller — “The Pirate And The Penpal”
It’s no secret that Craig Finn (Hold Steady, Ex-Lifter Puller) is a gifted lyricist, but he really outdoes himself with the darkly hilarious lyrics to “The Pirate And The Penpal.” Over guitar parts that recall Pavement, Finn paints a strangely vivid portrait of a teen misfit who develops a desperate crush on her penpal, an inmate.
You spent the summer at the strawberry stand
There wasn’t much that you could do about it
You’re 15 and you’re 6 feet tall
You’re flat-chested and you’re angry about it
Don’t wear those push-up pants, you’ve got enough nicknames already
I asked the postmaster, he said penpals really can’t be going steady
Told her all about the tighten up
The way they used to dance down in Houston, Texas
Her favorite song is still “Forget the Swan”
It gives her hope when those guitars kick in
All the money from the strawberry stand slips through your hands
‘Cause you buy too many stamps
Spend your days just waitin on the mailman
When he gets here you should ask him for a dance
Don’t listen to the whispers of the kitchen knife, the bathtub and the rain
Yeah so he’s a criminal
At least you know he loves you for your brain …
“Plainclothes Man” — By Heatmiser
The Portland, Ore., band Heatmiser was Elliott Smith’s band before his solo career. Heatmiser had more of a full-band rock sound than Smith’s later work, although the song “Plainclothes Man” is probably one of the closest musically and lyrically to the some of Smith’s solo work.
You’re everybody’s second home
Always trying to get me alone
An easy way to lose it all
Always there when all else fails
Over by the west side rails
But I don’t really need that now
I never really did anyhow
I only really needed alcohol
Something that’d treat me okay
And wouldn’t say the things you’d say
Please turn out the light
I get a sick confusion headache
Trying to figure out who’s right …
… There’s something that I’ll tell you now
Now that no one else is around
The sort of lesson that I learned from you
Not quite the way you planned
But I know you’ll understand
Someone takes a photograph
A picture while their sweetheart laughs
A perfect moment in a flash of light
Counting back from three till one
That’s exactly what you’ve done
And I’m so
Unsurprised
I remember, I remember why I dream in black and white …
