I’ve been having some difficulties with the portable locker now holding my brain. You see, I checked it in on Friday, with the hopes of reclaiming it on Tuesday — it being a three-day weekend and all. But the locker is now busted and I’m now thinking at half-mast while trying to raise hell at the incompetents who promised me a “smart and secure locker room.”
So if you have time to kill as my brain crawls across locker, I direct you to the Vancouver-based Nardwuar the Human Serviette and his interviews with assorted notables. Nardwuar is possessed of an infectious and delightfully strange enthusiasm that frequently has him referring to his guests by first and last name, and asking them bizarre questions. Consider this hilarious interview with Ron Jeremy, whereby Nardwuar insists that Mr. Jeremy smells fine and is perturbed at the various sullies (“hedgehog” and the like) directed his way. Or his interview with Franz Ferdinand, whereby Nardwuar asks, “What did you think, Alex, of your bandmate having to have some flesh taken out? Was that how hard it was in the early days of Franz Ferdinand?” Even Harlan Ellison was puzzled by Nardwuar’s boisterous malapropisms, attempting to play the humor game with Nardwuar, only to see his own lackluster jokes taken seriously by Nardwuar. What can one say when Ron Jeremy gets Nardwuar and Ellison does not?
Thankfully, Nardwuar continues his efforts on Vancouver radio. The man even talked with James Brown in 1999 and asked him what he thought of sweat, getting the following answer: “I think sweat is something that is a very emotional thing in regards to where you put it at. You might put it in different places! Sweat expresses emotion, either way, whether it is hard work, or… uh…, I wish I could get out of here, I’m tired.”
Strange wine often spills the truth.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (