The Vaselines

Last Sunday R. and I ventured on a rain-drenched and nearly ill-fated trip to Portland to see one of our favorite bands, the Vaselines. Ill-fated? Indeed. As we were leaving our humble abode (read: total dump), the doorknob broke, and an hour-long debacle of discombobulating the mechanism ensued, peppered with many an obscenity and the frustrated tossing of lock components. By some miracle, R. managed to fix the thing while beating it mercilessly with a hammer while I was out in a blinding rainstorm, cursing the weather, on my way to buy a new doorknob.

Fazed and irritated, we left later than planned but with enough time to perhaps find a nice restaurant and wander about fair Portland. Fate, however, was not on our side, and we ended up lost for about 45 minutes. We eventually found our way to the Wonder Ballroom, wandered, set out in search of food, found none suitable, settled on some rather unfortunate and not entirely agreeable fare, not after being stared-down small-town style in a locals bar, and finally made our way back to the venue, fully drenched from a rather insidious downpour.

Despite all this, however, seeing Frances and Eugene more than made up for our plights, and soon enough we were dry and dancing to Oliver Twisted and I Hate the 80's. Seeing the Vaselines was particularly sweet not only by virtue of their stage banter (Frances is salty and adorable; Eugene wry and witty....), and magical performance, but because R. and I courted and fell in love to their music. We even played Molly's Lips on guitar and mandolin/autoharp together, troubadour-style down neighborhoods and thoroughfares.

Sadly, and somewhat confusingly, the crowd last Sunday was rather small, but this lent an intimate air to the show, and R. and I left satisfied, the madness of the day behind us and forgotten.

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I highly recommend the Vaselines' new album, Sex With an X. Their sound has become a little more refined, Frances' voice has increased in heavenliness, and the album holds up, if not even surpasses in some ways, their older material. I particularly enjoy their views on younger generations' proclivity towards yearning for decades of yore in which they did not exist. Although I have a predilection for anachronism, and very much admire that of Baudelaire and Plutarch, I must admit that in some aspects nostalgia can take on attributes most irritating, in particular, and in following with the song, this odd worship of all things 1980's is foul and awful. I already loathe the day when the 90's will resurface in some ghastly incarnation.

A lovely quote from Boswell's Life of Johnson:

"...for love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions of which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language."

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A friend posted this, and I thought I'd share it. I do wish this would happen at my work--Eugene isn't too far from Portland, after all:



For those of you who have never seen The Music Man (tisk):

The Goncourt Brothers

A while back, in March, most likely, I was browsing at a local used book shop and came across Pages From the Goncourt Journals and bought it, not necessarily because I had ever heard of the work or was too particularly interested, but because it was published by NYRB. Yes, dear reader(s), I am a publisher snob. Oh, I do own a Reader's Digest Book Club edition of Moby Dick, but the damn thing is something of a thorn in my side, and I am putting the Penguin version on my birthday list this year. But I degress! Ahem:

While pondering Bourget for a class the name Goncourt appeared, and I immediately rushed over to the library to see what tomes about or by them were available. Until this moment I had kind of written the Journals off and came close to selling the book on a number of occasions, but a light had gone off, and now it seemed necessary to find out more about them.


I found two different English translations of the Journals, the complete French text (why, WHY did I give up on French???), and the brothers' novels and plays, and checked out the English translations. One is quite inferior, translated by Lewis Galantiere, and the other appears to be the standard (as well as the one published by NYRB), by Robert Baldick.

The lives of the brothers Goncourt, or dare I say life, is on the one hand absolutely compelling and quite touching, indeed: two inseparable siblings penning a journal of their mutual exploits, thoughts, and acquaintances. At once they were men of the society and reviled by it. I love how mercurial they were, as well as their rotten constitutions. On the other hand, the two were disagreeable on so many levels, but the genius of the work and their overall talent overshadows their less savory qualities. I'd highly recommend it if you have even a modicum of interest in 19th century lit, French lit, precursors to fin de siecle, belle epoque, or dabble in literature steeped in debauchery.

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This quarter has me flustered already, but never fear, recipes and more are on the way!