The one hundred sixteenth album: #116 Laura Nyro - Eli And The Thirteenth Confession
This album contains a number of jazz-influenced R&B songs - plenty of brass in swinging soul songs, moving around that area throughout, with a song like Sweet Blindness moving more towards the soul end, but also switching between them. Between that and the more ballady numbers, there's a nice mix of styles that work together quite well and the whole of the album is a pleasant, refreshing listen.
The sixty-first book: #50 The 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis de Sade
Let's start today's write ups with something salacious. The story of 120 days of libertine entertainment is legendary enough to be banned in several countries. Despite that reputation, only the first thirty days were actually written, the rest mostly only existing in notes, as the Marquis de Sade was moved out of the Bastille before he could finish it and he couldn't take the work with him. It took a century for it to be found and it gives a weird insight into the excesses at the time.
While I'm sure this was, in places, exaggerated, the Marquis writes about the extravagances in such a way that he's at least heard of people enjoying some of them and some people would at least have been interested in the worst parts. While there's some disdain in the tone about the novel's protagonist, the details and care of the writing make it feel like he also gets some thrill out of it. As a reader, it gets too much real quick - I suppose I am not the biggest fan of the faecal focus of the first month, but it was extreme here. The later months really take on a BDSM focus, and there's no penetration in the first month at all, and I'm glad I don't need to go too far in the details. Just the notes on how many of the victims are maimed and executed can feel stomach churning and I would hope this isn't actually seen as erotica - even if it's sometimes written as such, and the writer having participated in it anyway.
With that said, it's well written and there's something fascinating about these descriptions of what happened - a dispassionate look at these fictional characters and their actions - and so curiosity makes it mor einteresting to read. I'm just glad it ended when it did, really.
The fifty-sixth comic: #484 Dragon Ball
And now to something a lot lighter. Like anyone else my age, I was exposed to Dragon Ball Z in my teenage years and was both fascinated by it and vaguely put off by some of its endless arcs. The anime was based on the second arc of the manga, which is on the comics list, and for that reason we started by reading the first arc.
The comic starts out as a take on Journey to the West, with a more innocent monkey and a rather less innocent monk. They hunt for the seven dragon balls, which are said to summon a dragon that grants one wish. After that, they disappear for a year - a cycle that comes back a few times in the series, so clearly it's not as much of a limitation. In the mean time, it turns into a supernatural martial arts manga - there's a lot of training done to surpass your normal limits as well as levitation, psychokinesis and the infamous kamehameha blast that we've seen so often since. Once it settles into that, it flows a bit better - it retains some of the humor and slapstick elements, but it's also one of the best at portraying action and motion, making for some incredibly satisfying fight scenes. I hope the Z arc follows that as well, rather than just the plodding delays that the anime is knkown for in my mind.
The fifty-second classical recording: #640 Manuel Falla - Nights in the Gardens of Spain
There is a sense of magic in this piece, the music carrying you away to different gardens as it plays. There are three distinct stages, meant to invoke different gardens, but also creating different atmospheres, a spring time lively first part, a darker night time second and something that feels more tragic in the third half. It's a perfectly tuned piece of music that I want to play during a walk now, rather than being stuck in an office, but this felt enough to carry me away.
The one-hundred fifteenth album: #115 Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
Every once in a while, we get these live albums, and they do have a different atmosphere from the originals. As much as you might try to power up the studio sound, the live reaction of the crowd gives a recording a different feel, while also letting you get a recording that might not be as perfect - you're not going to do multiple rerecordings if it's not quite right. This shows clearly on Dark As the Dungeon, where Johnny Cash comments on a prisoner laughing and distracting him.
This being recorded in a prison creates a different feeling too. It's not as rowdy as other recorded albums, when the club is a bit more active. Here, it feels like while there's some loud applause and hollering, they're still feeling a bit constrained and were probably just sitting there instead. It works fine for the blues being performed here, a quieter sound working well with the sometimes downer numbers, and the crowd properly responds to the more uptempo numbers.
It stays compelling. Johnny Cash's banter connects really well and the music sounds good. There's a decent variety between ballads and more uptempo songs, both of which work well, and there's enough looseness in there that playing around with it work. The lyrics are more of a focus and they work especially with this setting, creating a good sounding album.
The three hundred and eighty-second song: Child’s Christmas in Wales - John Cale
Moving on from the Velvet Underground, this rather accessible pop song feels a bit out of reach. There's maybe something vaguely off about the lyrics, but on the whole it feels quite gentle, focused on a more orchestral sound that creates a more accessible sound.
The three hundred and eighty-third song: Solid Air - John Martyn
When I see folk mentioned, I have specific expectations, but Solid Air defies them. While bluesy and ethereal in its sounds, Martyn's vocals and stretched in a disconcerting way, creating that disconnect between reality and his sound. There's a s ong to Nick Drake, his troubled friend, and the sound here feels a bit disconnected and alien, as it's likely intended to be. It doesn't quite work, though, as I found it more repulsive rather than actually enchanting.
The three hundred and eighty-fourth song: I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) - Genesis
Another example of how rock exploded, Wikipedia classifies this is as psychedelic rock - and while I can see that, it's also a lot more grounded, taking some cues from the genre while still providing an standard verse and writing a song about living a happy life without as many ambitions. It's a good riff, a solid song that avoids going too big - like the person it tries to portray.
The three hundred and eighty-fifth song: Cum on Feel the Noize - Slade
There's something crowd pleasing about these Slade songs. It has a loud chorus to sing along to, with the song itself being a simple celebration of the music. There's something compelling and aggressive, but also jubilant about all of it. It's populist, glamorous, but it deserves it.
The three hundred and eighty-sixth song: Living for the City - Stevie Wonder
Shifting from a song to celebrate to one with a meaning, Living for the City focuses on the difficulty of African Americans, at least at the time, when it was difficult for them to find better jobs or move up in society, instead living in poverty. It addresses it quite clearly and the soul wrapping, adding upbeat music and a general fun time to it, helps making it more acceptable. There's no sting, just reality, but that feels enough.
The three hundred and eighty-seventh song: I Can’t Stand the Rain - Ann Peebles
Starting off with timbales, I Can't Stand the Rain sounds different and more modern from the start. Although partially meant to resemble the sound of rain, the swing of the soul music also gets its power from it at the same time. It's a nice sound and really sets it apart in this era.
The three hundred and eighty-eighth song: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
From the same album as Candle in the Wind - whose DNA this shares - this ballad is obviously bigger with the harmonies that are throughout the song, as well as some influence from Bowie in these sounds. It's big and sweeping, melancholic but with the big sounds that really make it sound that much better.
The three hundred and eighty-ninthsong: Future Days - Can
This song is listed as an early example of ambient music, and it shows. Aside from a louder guitar riff and some slow drums, everything is buried in the mix, with hints of vocals and other instruments breaking through, but mostly ambling along to create a background track. It doesn't feel quite right to focus on listening to it, instead it's a background to what's really going in. It's nice, an unexpected relaxed treat to end this group.
The fifty-fifth comic: #260 Cheech Wizard
This has been an interesting comic. Focused on the anarchic side of comics and comedy in the 1960s (this was published in the National Lampoon), we have a weird hat-covered wizard who lives in a semi-fantasy world. A lot of the story revolves around the wizard chasing voluptuous girls, as well as following other darker subjects. While it looks rather cartoony, the contents doesn't always go there.
It wasn't an amazing hit with me. The comics are occasionally funny, but just as often disappoint and it doesn't feel like there's necessarily that much to them in the end. A fine diversion, but not much more.
The fifty-fourth comic: #367 American Splendor
The (initially) yearly issues of American Splendor are a set of slice of life stories, sometimes somewhat humorous but all just telling a tale of things happening in the cartoonist Harvey Pekar's life. It's somewhat depressing - perhaps more grim than depressing, but never really that friendly. Life goes on and is bearable, but the real sunshine in the stories is rare and bleak. It's not something to inspire big emotions, but it's a fascinating insight into a simple life that I enjoyed reading.
The ninety-fourth TV show: #699 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
We've been watching Sunny for a long time now, although we took a break for a while from getting through it. Coming back to it, though, has been a delight, and it's amazing how fresh the show is in its thirteenth season.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia takes the "no lessons learned" philosophy of Seinfeld to the extreme, creating a show around four, and later five flawed characters to its messed up extremes, between psychopathic and vile behaviour of them as they descend further into madness throughout the seasons and take those around them with them - something seen especially well in the fate of Rickety Cricket, a friend of the gang who not only can't get his life together, but makes it worse at every turn.
While you want to follow the adventures of the gang, the show threads things well enough that you never sympathize with the characters. Bad things happen to them, but they deserve it, and the way of their comeuppance is always a moment to look forward to. The fact that they can carry it off, and the main pathos comes from these characters failing in a deserved way, is an amazing treat, and I would argue this is one of the best sitcoms out there now, with some great ongoing performances.