The Daily Sabbatical
Music, Books, and Assorted Maunderings

A lot has been said about this book and this writer: it was runner up for the NBA, and he's received a MacArthur grant and has been compared to Nabokov more times than Nabokov.  So, I'm sorta just adding my voice to the choir: this is a really good novel.  It combines an adventure story, a buddy novel, a historical fiction, and a potent reflection on immigration to the land of the allegedly free. The book flows from the project and ambition of it's narrator, Vladimir Brik: a Bosnian/American transplant who wants to write… Read More

A friend of mine once said that England and America are separated by a common language.  While not entirely sure what this means, I'm often surprised at how much the predominant sensibilities of the two countries differ.  We both have our forms of The Office, sure, and who doesn't love Hogwarts, but it is startling how many things fail to translate even though no actual translation needs to be done.  The works of Penelope Fitzgerald might be an example.  This woman had two books shortlisted for the Booker… Read More

Though I now feel myself to be a southerner by little more than birth, I have to admit a tendency to seek out and relish southern writers with something approximating a search for kinship.  After his last book of short stories landed him on the shortlist for the Pen/Faulkner award and his novel Serena was one of the most lauded books of the year, I thought it time to check out the Appalachian poet and author, Ron Rash.  In the end I wasn't disappointed so much as underwhelmed. Serena is the story of the… Read More

I recently read a story by Rick Bass in the 2008 Pushcart Prize anthology, my favorite book almost every year. I'd definitely heard of Bass--he's in the pantheon of America's short story writers--but till then I had never read him. It was a story about boys in Texas trying to turn a buck buying cattle, and I almost wept with laughter. I resolved to check this guy out, and though this story was from his new collection, The Lives of Rocks, anal retent that I am I had to start with his first book, The Watch, published… Read More

This seems to have been an especially strong year in fiction.  It seems as though every book I have read recently has merited enthusiastic jigs.  Perhaps I've simply become better at choosing what I read.  Who cares.  The result is that I'm a happy reader. Atmospheric Disturbances is a wow book.  It is a gift.  I had heard Rivka Galchen's name, and I had seen the book's striking cover, but I was not ready for such an excellent work.  I was, in fact, poised to hate this book.  It has an epigram… Read More

The new album by the Finnish group Paavoharju is my clear choice for an album to drive snow covered roads to.  Listening to this is like listening to a radio tuned between three stations, where one is playing the most beautiful melodies you have ever heard, another is playing organ music recorded in a gothic cathedral, and yet another is playing nordic-techno.  The music is of a crystal fragility, and it is layered beneath dissonant statics and hisses.  It is also utterly entrancing.  I haven't heard… Read More

I hope there is such a thing as a Marnie Stern wall-poster, and I hope that many of them are hanging on the bedroom doors of rock-aspiring young women everywhere.  This chick is completely kick ass.  Her new album "This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That" is one of the strongest records of the year.  Stern's Deerhoof-ish guitar leads the way in this uncompromising album, but her voice--more rhythm than melody--and the spasmodic drums push this… Read More

I know next to nothing about Yussuf Jerusalem. Their myspace page says they are from Paris, but I'm not sure I believe it. They certainly don't sound like it. They sound a bit like a garage band version of Joy Division, with female vocals thrown in on a track or two. Sound good? I'm excited as hell about them, in any case. You can purchase their wares at Floridas Dying records.  Nine bucks for… Read More

In these early post Obama hours, I feel a need for a little garage-punk, and my morning anthem comes from a young band out of Seattle.  Love Tan has released one seven inch, and the have an LP just out of the box on Kill Shaman.  I loved this song so much that I ordered their new album.  Not much info out there about them, but so far, I'm a fan.  Check out their myspace page.
Brush Your Teeth.mp3
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Nothing makes me happier than a purchase out of the blue that turns out to be a highlight of the year.  Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is a transplanted Oregonian--and a current Brooklynite--who has completely blown my mind.  None of the comparisons I am apt to make do him justice--Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Walkmen come to mind, but great as those bands are I don't sense in them the purity of inspiration that I get from Robinson.  He's like a Bob Dylan who rocks.  I'm not going to say any more,… Read More