While a far-reaching survey of interesting musicians and sound artists, the connections between them frequently seems tenuous, ponderous, or forced. The tone of the book seems firmly rooted in the era in which it was written (mid 90s) as well, which makes the focus on technology-obsessed post-modern neo-primitive hippie ravers amusing if not dated.

Toop seems wary of the burgeoning “spiritual supermarket” that accompanies much of the music and scenes he is discussing; however it isn’t clear to me whether his own trips to the Amazon were to document or to plunder the authentic shamanic sound-world. He seems to want to remove the traditional hierarchy of Western music (the ascendancy of the composer), but the recording and sampling technologies that help accomplish this, also promote the colonization of cultures he seems to want to preserve.

That said, broken up as it is into small morsels of interviews and memories, this is a very accessible read, and offers a useful lineage of many strains of electronic or ambient music – especially the dawn of UK rave culture.

Watching jugglers, mimes, and magicians (card tricks) tell this joke made it worth it for me…

This issue has a short story by Alice Munro, and an interesting “real crime” article about a post-modern Polish novelist and murderer.

Not one of the more engrossing issues, there was however a decent profile of Beppe Grillo.

This is one of those films that everyone says they don’t like “despite Paltrow’s amazing performance.” Well, I’ll be the contrary voice then that says her performance is the very worst thing about this lackluster movie. Everything about her character’s “depression” is evidenced not by felt emotion, but through outward signs: nail-biting, ridiculous rocking back and forth, stagey facial expressions – all a transparent mask for Paltrow’s stony boredom. She is a maudlin, insipid, immature caricature of Plath.

Granted, the screenplay and direction had much to do with this ruinous performance, as most of Plath’s writing comes across as a product not of persistent work and study, but as a side-effect of madness – a myth Hollywood has helped perpetuate about any number of “tortured artists.”

But film after film people talk about how Paltrow’s talent is “wasted” in this or that role…when all I can think is that there is a stable of better actresses who casting overlooked because they lacked the celebrity (and therefore box office draw) that she brings.

Even after watching the documentary about the making/writing of this film, I still think the “redemptive” ending is really jarring and strange…

The performances in this film are wonderful; however, it should be noted that there were serious liberties taken with Frances Farmer’s story. Much of what you see in the film never took place – the most notable fictional element being her lobotomy.

Be sure to watch this either in Spanish or with subtitles, as the dubbing really ruins the experience of this movie…

Available via Google Video, here

I think the three novels within are best read together. Though it adds up to around 1,240 pages, it is quite a page-turner. These novels reveal a side of America not widely discussed today, and I recommend them alongside something like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. This was a time of great opportunity and great upheavel, especially in the realm of ideas. To see how all the great societal powers formed and dissolved and how these wars played out in the lives of numerous individuals from all walks of life is fascinating.

Whatever their pedagogical utility, these novels stand alone on the strength of their scale, detail, and characterization. U.S.A is a window into the myriad lives and ways of living that existed in the early 20th century, and is as close to a time machine as I have found in print.