bands, pens, book
Feb. 5th, 2010 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllThe new Tindersticks album has a track called 'Peanuts'. "I know you love peanuts, I don't care that much, but I love you, so I love peanuts too", sings whichever underrated female singer they've got duetting with Stuart now (one downside of Spotify is that it never tells you these things). But when Stuart sings "I still love peanuts" back in that distinctive slur, it really doesn't sound like he's saying 'peanuts'. Any suspicion that this might be mere mischance is squashed on the next track when he's definitely singing "she rode me like a pony". I love that a band so elegantly heartworn can also be so thoroughly puerile.
First gig of the decade last night (unless you count that noisy mob everyone fled after the speakers at Bright Club, which I'd prefer not to). And it was David Devant & his Spirit Wife, which should have been a good kick-off but...well, it was good. It just wasn't great. But then nobody can be as good as them at their best every show, can they? Special mention to Foz? for an excellent jacket.
Went to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jamesward's Stationery Club beforehand - or should I say, 'Hashtag Stationery Club'. The way Twitterers retain the @ in conversation feels oddly formal, like something from a couple of hundred years ago when you would always use the 'Miss' or 'Mr' before a name. And I felt strangely old-fashioned being introduced as someone from the real world, just because Twitter is about the only piece of online tomfoolery where I don't have a presence. The pen selected as Stationery Club's first topic was not entirely to my taste, but the advantage over a book club is that you can turn up and find this out with a minute's loan of someone else's, whereas with a book you usually have to invest at least an hour to convincingly justify the suspicion that it's not for you.
Last year, the Guardian ran an article asking why so few novels deal with work. I thought at the time it was asinine (just to pick one, possibly obscure example - Bridget Jones' Diary?) but having now read Matthew de Abaitua's 2007 The Red Men, it seems doubly so. Of course, it doesn't matter that de Abaitua can write better than any average Booker shortlist could if they all networked their brains and collaborated, because he excludes himself from 'literary' consideration by using science fiction elements (and not doing it in a dumb, 'this is not SF' way, which you can get away with). Plus a dose of Gnosticism, and elements of the techno-thriller. But how else are you meant to address the issue? If you just try to realistically address the office, you get The Office, a dull reflection, even more boring than the original and no more illuminating. When so many people don't even realise how work is taking over their lives, distorting their personalities, how do you address that without making the issue strange and thus noticeable again? So de Abaitua externalises the element of the personality which falls for all the corporate lines - the driven side with no time for family - as the 'red men' of the title, uploaded simulations of employees which turn on their originals if they feel the original is slacking by wanting to do things like kick back and enjoy the fruits of success. Which can hijack any electrical equipment to bug their lazy partners, because some people don't think it's crazily dystopian enough that they're being bugged with official business on the Blackberry, computer and 'phone when they're not in office hours. And so forth. It's not a perfect book - the resolution is so pat it could almost be Jay MacInerney - but as a vision of a very near future London (or rather, the London of a couple of years ago given a couple of twists - the North London Line hasn't even become the Overground yet), it's not bad. And as a novel of work, it's hard to beat.
First gig of the decade last night (unless you count that noisy mob everyone fled after the speakers at Bright Club, which I'd prefer not to). And it was David Devant & his Spirit Wife, which should have been a good kick-off but...well, it was good. It just wasn't great. But then nobody can be as good as them at their best every show, can they? Special mention to Foz? for an excellent jacket.
Went to
jamesward's Stationery Club beforehand - or should I say, 'Hashtag Stationery Club'. The way Twitterers retain the @ in conversation feels oddly formal, like something from a couple of hundred years ago when you would always use the 'Miss' or 'Mr' before a name. And I felt strangely old-fashioned being introduced as someone from the real world, just because Twitter is about the only piece of online tomfoolery where I don't have a presence. The pen selected as Stationery Club's first topic was not entirely to my taste, but the advantage over a book club is that you can turn up and find this out with a minute's loan of someone else's, whereas with a book you usually have to invest at least an hour to convincingly justify the suspicion that it's not for you.Last year, the Guardian ran an article asking why so few novels deal with work. I thought at the time it was asinine (just to pick one, possibly obscure example - Bridget Jones' Diary?) but having now read Matthew de Abaitua's 2007 The Red Men, it seems doubly so. Of course, it doesn't matter that de Abaitua can write better than any average Booker shortlist could if they all networked their brains and collaborated, because he excludes himself from 'literary' consideration by using science fiction elements (and not doing it in a dumb, 'this is not SF' way, which you can get away with). Plus a dose of Gnosticism, and elements of the techno-thriller. But how else are you meant to address the issue? If you just try to realistically address the office, you get The Office, a dull reflection, even more boring than the original and no more illuminating. When so many people don't even realise how work is taking over their lives, distorting their personalities, how do you address that without making the issue strange and thus noticeable again? So de Abaitua externalises the element of the personality which falls for all the corporate lines - the driven side with no time for family - as the 'red men' of the title, uploaded simulations of employees which turn on their originals if they feel the original is slacking by wanting to do things like kick back and enjoy the fruits of success. Which can hijack any electrical equipment to bug their lazy partners, because some people don't think it's crazily dystopian enough that they're being bugged with official business on the Blackberry, computer and 'phone when they're not in office hours. And so forth. It's not a perfect book - the resolution is so pat it could almost be Jay MacInerney - but as a vision of a very near future London (or rather, the London of a couple of years ago given a couple of twists - the North London Line hasn't even become the Overground yet), it's not bad. And as a novel of work, it's hard to beat.
