Midnight Plan of the Repo Man a Delicious Read

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THE MIDNIGHT PLAN OF THE REPO MAN (2014)

W. Bruce Cameron

Forge Books, 334 pages

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I’ve wanted to read this novel for quite a while, but the library wait list was so long I simply bought a copy. Now I understand why the demand is so high. The Midnight Plan isn’t exactly path-breaking literature, but it sure is a satisfying read. It is, at turns, social commentary, a ghost story, a murder mystery, a romance, and a black comedy. It’s also surprisingly well plotted (even when implausible) for a writer hitherto known mainly as a humor writer specializing in dog/human connections and disconnections.

The book’s protagonist is Ruddy McCann, a former college football superstar destined for an NFL career. That dream disintegrated in a single bad night in which circumstance, poor judgment, and bad luck aligned in a perfect storm. Now he’s 30, single, and living in the backwater town of Kalkaska, Michigan, in an unkempt bachelor pad he shares with an elderly dog named Jake. The bright lights of the NFL have given way to late nights: Ruddy is a repo man for a local collector/small-time operator, and doubles as a bouncer and co-manager at his sister Becky's not-very-successful bar and club. Shall we say that neither job is anyone’s idea of the fast track? Ruddy has become, simultaneously, an object of pity and a big fish in a small pond that includes characters such as malaprop-prone Kermit; hunky, dumb-as-a-brick and naïve-as-a-kitten Jimmy; and the lovely Katie, who may or may not be interested in Ruddy.

As we learn, Ruddy’s repo work—mostly cars in auto-crazed/cash-poor/post-industrial Michigan—is a combination of dullness, danger, tact, daring, and sleaziness. It’s fueled by adrenaline and caffeine and it's so stressful that it has its own associated malady: “Repo Madness,” a variety of slow nervous breakdown marked by squirrely behavior, insularity, and under-the-breath muttering. Ruddy is pretty sure he has it when a voice appears in his head and claims to be that of Alan Lottner, a dead realtor who has no idea how he has come to be inside Ruddy’s body.  Alan becomes a combination mentor, superego, nag, and major inconvenience, but somebody needs to help Ruddy think beyond his next repo job. And, as it turns out, Alan needs Ruddy’s help as well––he’s pretty sure he was murdered, but by whom and why? There’s your murder mystery connection, and Cameron spins a dizzy little swirl that involves swindle, infidelity, real estate, and small-town graft. 

Of course, none of Cameron’s tale is pure fantasy. This book isn’t intended to be anything other than what it purports to be: a frothy read. Cameron concocts memorable characters about whom we care, even though we know that their circumstances are implausible and the action set-ups equally improbable. People do really dumb stuff in this book, but we appreciate it, because we harbor gnawing suspicions that our own foibles are only a few degrees separated from theirs.  Ruddy thinks he does his best repo work after midnight, though we quickly discover that’s part of the self-deception he needs to jettison. But then there’s Ruddy’s Alan Lottner alter ego to remind us that we’re often not the best judges of our own strengths and weaknesses. Credit Cameron for making us laugh at all of this.

I ripped through this book like it was a package of opened Oreos sitting beside a glass of milk. Add this one to your summer-read list. Take it to the beach, curl up on your beach chair like lazy old Jake, and gobble it.  Rob Weir

High Mountains of Portugal Needlessly Obtuse

THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF PORTUGAL (2015)

Yann Martel

Spiegel & Grau, 353 pp.

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Those who've read Yann Martel's 2002 Man Brooker Prize-wining The Life of Pi know that he thinks animals communicate with humans in deep, unspoken ways. That theme was evident also in his third book, Beatrice and Virgil, and it's repeated in The High Mountains of Portugal. This one has been highly praised by critics, but I found it a work with more valleys than peaks.  

Martel is a hard-to-categorize writer as his work has elements of magical realism, but doesn't really fit that bill. In his latest, it's often hard to know whether Martel is spinning fantasy, metaphor, allegory, or just cloaked self-indulgence. High Mountains is decidedly a meditation upon grief, belief, solitude, faith, anguish, and mystery. Its structure is that three interlocking novellas, each set roughly 30 years apart. I was amused by the first, baffled by the second, and mildly touched by the third, though the last felt contrived. It centers on three men, each of whom has lost a wife. Each is going through the motions, but is essentially an empty husk from which meaning has been wrenched. Empty vessels, of course, can be refilled. Sort of.

Part one is set in 1904, and its protagonist, a Portuguese museum curator named Tomàs, is so damaged by the death of his wife and son that he walks backward everywhere he goes–as if he's literally turning his back on God. Purposefulness of a sort comes reenters his life when he discovers a medieval diary from an obscure priest that mentions having deposited a great treasure at an unspecified chapel in the High Mountains of Portugal. Already Martel is having us on a bit, as his "high mountains" are not the Serra da Estrela of central Portugal, rather in the far northeast corner of Portugal near Bragança and the Spanish border, which is a grassy plain that Martel populates with oddly shaped boulders. Tomàs decides to find the treasure, with the vague goal of brining it back to the museum and with the implied goal of perhaps restoring his faith. He prevails upon a rich relative, who loans a 1904 14 hp Renault, one of the first motorcars seen in the country, though Tomàs hasn't the foggiest idea of how to operate it and there are few paved roads outside of Lisbon. I enjoyed this part of the book tremendously. Let's call it an eventful journey–and a very funny one to boot, despite a tragedy at its heart. Without giving away a thing I tell you that neither the fate of the car nor the treasure is expected. I also enjoyed this section because of Martel's precise geographical descriptions of places I've actually been.

None of this prepared me for part two, set in 1938, where Eusebio, a pathologist and Agatha Christie enthusiast, holds imaginary debates with his deceased wife. This sad, but familiar ritual is interrupted by an ancient woman who comes to his lab carrying the body of her dead husband in a suitcase and demands an on-the-spot autopsy, which she insists upon witnessing. Shall we say that the grand opening unveils unexpected things?

Part three unfolds in the late 1960s, where a widowed Canadian politician, Senator Peter Tovy, engages in an ambassadorial visit that takes him to an Oklahoma primate research center. Within weeks he decides to resign his post, purchase a lab chimpanzee (Odo), and move to a village in the High Mountains of Portugal, where he and Odo share a house and are treated as residents. This section is also amusing and affecting, but it feels like a forced completion of a triptych. The ending, I presume, is allegorical, though I'm not sure of what.

Albrecht Durer (1515)--He never actually saw a rhino

That ending is one of several things that feel self-indulgent. Chimps factor into all three sections, but why? Are we supposed to see humans as thinly haired primates so lost in their own self-centeredness that they have lost sight of what is of value? Muse upon our curse of living in the past rather than the present? Think upon the uneasy relationship between nature and faith? Reflect upon the curse of grief? Conclude that Nietzsche was right about God? Or do I give Martel too much credit? The book also contains references to the Portuguese rhinoceros, but these make no sense at all other than the fact that wooly rhinos were there 150,000 years ago. Martel's ploy is more likely either a reference to a sketch made by Albrecht Dűrer in 1515, or to the gift of a rhino made to King Sebastian in 1577. If this sounds to you like thin soil for a metaphor, I'd agree. Overall, The High Mountains of Portugal reads too much like an author penning thoughts for himself rather than an external audience.

Rob Weir

Cowboy Junkies Live at the Belly Up: June Album of the Month

THE COWBOY JUNKIES

Live at the Belly Up (2015)

Noisetrade https://noisetrade.com/cowboyjunkies/live-at-the-belly-up

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A few ago, I was famous for a New York minute for teaching a college-level course on the Grateful Dead. (Put aside your outrage: It was really just a hook for exploring recent US history.) Even now, someone—students, media, a person I met at a conference—corners me to ask, "What's your favorite jam band?" They expected me to name groups like Phish, Assembly of Dust, Umphrey's McGee, or String Cheese Incident, but my answer is: The Cowboy Junkies. Students often reply, "Who?" It's a fair question in an unfair world. The CJs, after all, are Canadian and haven't charted in the U.S. since 1994. Those a bit older may recall that their "Sweet Jane" rose as high as # 5 on the pop charts back in 1989*, and that "Sun Comes Up, It's Tuesday Morning" went to #11 the next year. That's a long time ago, I suppose, but the Junkies never went away: 17 studio albums, 9 live albums, 4 compilations, and 10 singles in the past 26 years.

Let me go a step further. If you ask me to name the best jam band of all time, I'm tempted to say The Cowboy Junkies. Before you call me nuts, here's the deal of the century: go to Noisetrade's Website, and for a suggested "tip" of $5 you can download a 2014 concert from the Belly Up in San Diego whose 12 tracks sample from various CJ releases from 1988 through 2012. One of the things you'll hear on this and the band's other live albums is that, unlike the Dead, the Junkies never gave a bad performance and they continued to grow as they got older. The other thing you'll hear is lead singer Margo Timmins and if you never have before, you'll curse those who've kept her a secret from you. I like to think of her as a singer with the husk, power, and sexiness of Janis Joplin, but with the control of Grace Slick. You'll also hear that, like the Dead, the Junkies' repertoire draws from psychedelia, the blues, country, and jazz. In fact, on acid rock offerings such as "Sweet Jane," "Wrong Piano,"** and "Hunted," you can mentally time travel up the coast to the Bay Area and imagine yourself at the Fillmore circa 1967 (except the sound quality will be better)—fuzzed out electric guitar, reverb, sonic walls through whose cracks liquid guitar notes pore, robust swirls, and bring-me-up-ease-me-down arrangements. Check out also the country blues vibe of "MisguidedAngel," *** which is the sort of song Joplin would have sung, but maybe not as well as Ms. Timmins. It's about a woman in love with a bad boy. She knows the relationship is an addiction and won't end well, but she's all in. Timmins grinds out the pathos, but she never goes over the top, which heightens her vulnerability.

On the latter score, many CJ songs deal with women in precarious, even dangerous, situations, but her women are more complex than mere victims. Add solid songwriting to the list of CJ virtues. How about this line from "Sun Comes Up…:" Lunchtime. I start to dial your number/then I remember and reach for something to smoke/and anyways, I'd rather listen to Coltrane/than go through all that shit again.  Or this one from "Misguided Angel:" Telephone's ringing but I don't answer it/'Cause everyone knows that good news always sleeps till noon.

If you can buy a better album than this one for five bucks, buy two and I'll reimburse you for the second, plus shipping. Buy this record folks. Then get out your floodlight, shine it through a glass pie plate filled with veggie oil, drop some colored water onto the surface, crank up the Junkies, turn off the room lights, swirl the pan, and groove. You can enhance your time travel by listening to songs that take down hucksters and a lot of crap that used to be dismissed as "plastic." Peace, brothers and sisters.

Rob Weir   

*Oddly, "Sweet Jane" never charted for Lou Reed, though he wrote it. It first appeared on a Velvet Underground album in 1970 and didn't make it onto the rock/pop charts because the Underground eschewed commercialism. Reed released it as a solo single in 1974, but it never cracked the top 100. Today, of course, it's an iconic Reed song, but he always claimed that the Cowboy Junkies' version was the best he ever heard.

** "Wrong Piano" was written by a sadly neglected musician, Vic Chestnutt (1964-2009), who was paralyzed in an auto accident in 1982, but continued to write and perform until his untimely death at 45.  

*** On this clip, Timmins shares the song with Natalie Merchant. Wish I had been a fly on the wall for that one! 

Maarja Nuut :Avant-Garde Fiddle from Estonia

MAARJA NUUT

Une Meeles

www.maarjanuut.com

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Estonia is a Baltic nation that isn't Scandinavian, but has been controlled by Danes and Swedes (as well as Russia). At times its wild keening vocals sound Balkan, but they're not. At times, the exuberance of fiddlers such as Maarja Nuut sounds Finnish, though that's incidental and the only thing really Finnish about Estonians is that they share common language roots. Why the geography lesson? Because Maarja Nuut's music is hard to pin down; it will remind you of lots of things, without really being any of them. Especially given the fact that her tastes run more toward the avant-garde than the folk wellspring. Consider, for instance, a song titled "Kiik Tabab Kindaid," which translates "The Swing Wants Mittens." A lot of fiddle tunes have odd names, but this one personifies the swing, muses on marriage, and the composition unfolds beneath, then above, a field recording of humming cellphone cables. Nutt's strings squeal in resonance with the cables, then drop to a drone to accompany primal vocals. Memo: This is not for die-hard traditionalists.

At every step of the way Nuut challenges, pushes sonic borders, and at times begs the question: What is music? "Kargus" opens to a saw-like barrage of notes that reduce in volume and become something that sounds to my ear like a drone/triplet hybrid. Nutt this time uses a light melodic voice to add contrast. "Sammud" is a waltz, but one looped to body moment and the tune's namesake "Footsteps." Add some plucked notes and we hear scraping and tapping feet, a 1-2-3 cadence, and a lovely little melody all at once. The effect is hypnotic. It's oddly delicate, as opposed to the free-spirited and wilder feel of "Kuradipolka" ("The Devil's Polka").  It too has a repeating thread of notes, but these serve to fray the tune rather than unify it. High notes drift to the edge of our aural comfort zone and then the entire piece ends abruptly. Or would you prefer some unbridled village-like rapid-fire vocalizations and some clip-clop percussion? Check out "Hobusemäng" ("The Horse Game"), which apparently is a variation of a ritual game linked to casting spells. In other words, Maarja Nuut's music is a flight into places where reality, magic, experimentation, programming, and dreams collide–appropriate for a project whose Estonian title means "In the Hold of a Dream." Like most avant-garde projects, this one will confuse some listeners and induce wonder in others. Place me in the second camp. 

Here's a YouTube sampler of this unusual artist.

Rob Weir

Guns and Congress; Special Report

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Making America Safe:

What will it take?

The question has been on the lips of rational people even before Sandy Hook, and has turned into an angry finger-pointing scream since Orlando: What will it take to make America safe? You won't like the answer, but given that commonsense, community spirit, and basic decency jumped the shark decades ago, it seems pretty obvious: more bloodshed.

I don't mean another Orlando-style mass slaying; events such as that have become so routine that we're numb to them. The blood that will have to spill is that of Republican members of Congress and their loved ones. Let me be unambiguously clear. I am a man of peace. Not only do I not possess a firearm, I've never held or fired one. I do not advocate or condone violence against anyone. But if you ask me what it will take, my answer stands.

How can I say such a horrible thing? Because Republicans in Congress are so unspeakably out of touch with ordinary Americans as to reside in an alternate reality. They are content to take campaign contributions from the Nazi Rifle Association because America's mean streets are walled off from their gated communities. Violence is a mere abstraction and has largely been so since World War Two. Republicans don't care that you and your kids go to war abroad and return to battle at home, because they and theirs don't experience the consequences of those wars.

It's no leap of logic to connect foreign and domestic wars. Try to find the name of the last child of a member of Congress killed in combat. His name was Larry McDonald and he died in French Indochina in 1945. Looking for the last sitting U.S. Congressman killed in military action? Senator Edward Baker of Oregon, October of 1861 in Virginia, during the Civil War. Know how many sons of U.S. Senators served in a unit anywhere near combat during the Vietnam War? Just one, and his name was Albert Gore Jr. Dead or wounded? One. Representative's son suffered a leg wound.

No wonder members of Congress so blithely send your sons (and daughters) to dangerous places—it's not like it touches them. When George W. Bush managed to prove he is an absolute fool by starting a conflict even dumber than the Vietnam War, only seven members of Congress had children in the military and only Senator Tim Johnson (D, SD) had a son in a dangerous situation.

As for the war on American streets, cirrhosis of the liver is more likely to wipe out an NRA-funded Congressman than the bullets they'd put into gumball machines if the NRA commanded them to do so. Gabby Giffords was gunned down and survived in 2011, but who counts liberals like she? Prior to that, you have to go back to Senator John Stennis, shot twice by muggers in 1973, for the last attack on a Congressional member. The last member of Congress killed on American soil was Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968. Since then, two others have died abroad–Representative Larry McDonald (D, GA) was aboard a Korean Airlines flight shot down by the Soviets in 1983, and Representative Leo Ryan (D, CA) died in the Jonestown massacre in 1978.

The NRA doesn't like to talk about the fact that the politicians it buys are in greater danger from hunting with Dick Cheney than from anything happening outside their protective bubbles. And it surely doesn't want you to know about Representative Jackie Speir (D, CA) who was with Leo Ryan in 1978, and survived being shot. She's been a gun control advocate ever since. Of course, President Reagan took a bullet in 1981, but do Republicans tell you that he supported the Brady Bill, or that he embraced moderate gun control after leaving office? The NRA will never tell you that it supported California's new gun control law in 1967, after armed Black Panthers marched into the California legislature. Or that the signature on that law belongs to a Republican: Governor Ronald Reagan.

Read all about it on this blog. Republicans won't tell you any of this. They don't care. Why should they? It has nothing to do with Congressional members or their children. It sickens me to say it, but I suspect only one thing will make Congress care: the pain of loss.

Cameron Johnson, Brooke Annibale, Keith Sykes, The Baboons

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Looking for some gristle and muscle? Try Rogers, Arkansas-based Cameron Johnson, whose Stack Your Stones EP lifts a few boulders. He's a man with a rich baritone voice, an acoustic guitar, and flair for telling tales about people who may or may not be making bad decisions. Give him a percussionist, a bass player with the chops of Brad Berge, soulful backup singers like Angel Snow and Marcia Ware, and crank up the down-and-dirty. Berge's bass is so heavy on "Til I Can't Anymore" that it's like a bump-and-grind at a biker bar. "Crooked Bangs," which generated some online buzz, features  Johnson's wry commentary and sense of country rock blues. It's about a man hell-bent for a woman from whom he knows he ought to walk away. How about this line: She drinks like Hemingway on a Tuesday night. It begins with some off-kilter beats akin to a Suitcase Junket setup, and then evolves into something reminiscent of a 40s-style string combo. I was amazed by the diversity of the EP's six tracks. "On My Own" is rootsy, but  has muscular kitchen-sink jumps with a bit of everything thrown in the mix: drums that thump and crash, pulsing strings, gritty vocal, meaty bass lines…. But then there's "In The Winter Time," a sensitive love song in which his voice is a cross between John Gorka and Ari Hest; and "Too Long," with a folk rock groove á la Jackson Browne. And Johnson must  get "Mannequin with aMegaphone" out there. It's the perfect song for desultory Election 2016, with cynicism oozing from every pore. He's like a bluesy, latter-day Rudy Vallee as he croons lines about mannequin-like mass-produced candidates. I'm totally stealing his line: You're playing us like we're the media's fool/Go ahead and talk all you want, but you ain't getting through. Right on, bro—but your music got through loud and clear.

Some singers make you quake and some make you ache; Brooke Annibale is one of the latter. This Nashville-based Pittsburgh native has released 4 LPs and 2 EPs since 2005 and NoiseTrade is offering a collection called Retrospective for those unfamiliar with her. You may have heard her and not realized you have, as some of her songs have ended up on TV soundtracks, including "Silence WorthBreaking," which was used on ABC's "Pretty Little Liars." Annibale has a light, classically pretty voice, which is to say she's not a diva who is going to make you bolt upright. "Silence Worth Breaking" unfolds to bell-like tones. It, like all her songs, is polished, atmospheric, and well crafted. The only open question is whether or not you like this sort of treatment. My tastes run simpler, and I found some of her songs bathed in too much production. Retrospective contains two versions of "Remind Me," the first from her latest studio album The Simple Fear (2015) in which her voice mostly ornaments a thick mix. Pleasant enough, but I found the live acoustic version to be more honest and personal. A lot of her songs are about being in or out of love, so I need to hear the emotion in the voice if you want me to believe lyrics such as: just stop/connecting every dot/gave it everything I've got/we were nothing like I thought. But this is, as stated, my preference. Give a listen and see what you think.

Does the name Keith Sykes ring a bell? He's a singer/songwriter, though the emphasis is heavier on the second. More than a hundred of his offerings have been recorded, from artists ranging from Rosanne Cash and George Thorogood to Jimmy Buffett. Do you know Buffett's "Coast of Marseilles?" That's one of Sykes' tunes, an acoustic version of which you can hear on his EP Songs From a Little Beach Town (KSM Entertainment). It's six good time, easy-living songs in the country/folk/blues spirit of artists such as Buffett, of whose Coral Reefer Band Sykes was once a member. The EP opens with "Come as You Are Beach Bar," a tribute to a dive allegedly somewhere on the coast of Texas, and ends with the tongue-in-cheek "Drive Myself  to Drinking." The latter is a hilarious idea: a jilted man decides to indulge in self-destructive behavior without actually becoming self-destructive: Gonna build me a bar in the back of my car/And drive myself to drinkin' but he's not planning on putting the key into the ignition!

There are legions of Latin dance bands and it's a buyers' market as most of them are pretty much the same. I had high hopes for Spanglish (Syncopated Sounds) by The Baboons. As the title suggests, there are Spanish and English offerings, as befits a band based in Miami (and not to be confused with the Belgian rock band of that name, or Baboon, a Texas R & R outfit). Spanglish hits high notes when guitarist Isaac Rodriguez cuts loose and the brass gets funky behind him. Were there more of this I'd be happier. Lead vocalist Majica has a strong voice as well, but too much of this release falls into the same sold/same old dance groove. If you want to dance, by all means buy this. Beware, though: in the car it seems more of a pedestrian stroll than a sweaty samba.

Rob Weir

The Chimes a Wondrous Work for Serious Readers

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THE CHIMES (2015/16)

Anna Smaill

Sceptre, 289 pages

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The Chimes is far more than an impressive debut; it’s a work of genius. Beware, this is serious literature. It’s a slim volume, but it’s neither an easy nor a breezy read. Anna Smaill, a New Zealand poet and classical violinist, dares to challenge readers and trusts they are smart enough to fill the voids. She also trusts them to do their homework, so don't expect to be spoon-fed. Unless you are well grounded in music theory, keep your smart phone handy with a dictionary bookmarked. Smaill establishes an alternative universe—a time-indeterminate dystopia—that reveals its details in clues and individual notes, not in fell swoops or hummable pop melodies.

If you’re wondering what’s up with the music references, ponder this question: Who says communication must be based upon printed or spoken words? The Chimes takes place in England, after an event known as Allbreaking, which might have extinguished society had not a mysterious cadre known as The Order vanquished mayhem and reinstituted its namesake social organization. The Order is robed and quasi-religious in its discipline, but with a twist: they are master musicians. As such, music has replaced written language, and solfege–look it up as you’ll need to know what it means—has become the primary form of communication. It has, in fact, become the only true way of obtaining information as each day is punctuated by The Chimes, a time in which music wafts across the land. The next day citizens awake with no memory of the past; they carry small bags filled with “memoryobjects,” personal tokens that give them just enough hints about their identities to function. What has happened? What is this new world like? How can a society based upon music sustain itself? Is something sinister about the official narrative ("onestory")?  

You’ll need to be patient. There are no Sherlock Holmes-like ah-ha summations. The story arc of this dramatic thriller is linked to two young men, charismatic Lucien and perplexed Simon, and its notes begin to take shape when Simon arrives in London after his parents’ deaths—presumably to apprentice himself to an instrument maker. Instead, he finds himself along the Thames with Lucien and three other “pactrunners” sifting through the river muck and running full bore through pitch-black drainage tunnels using solfege to locate themselves and find the way back to their shelter. What’s the purpose of this and who is “The Lady” constantly referenced? What does it matter if the next morning one doesn’t recall? But what if there are those with the ability to retain memories? Is that a good or a bad thing? And who says music has to be benign?

The Chimes has a bit of everything, except birds. (You’ll find out why there are no birds.) There are secret cadres, chases, mysteries, secrets, plots and subplots. I was, at times, reminded of The Name of the Rose in the way in which symbols are manipulated, how secret languages—musical in this case—convey meaning, and how each character’s motives are ambiguous and we can’t immediately tell if that’s because they are clueless or have ulterior agendas. There’s even a medieval ambience, if you can conjure one with dashes of Mad Max and The Navigator mixed in.

Smaill’s prose is nuanced, complex, and eloquent. I adored this book and was grateful for a work that stretched me. Many readers will feel lost for the first hundred pages or so, but think of The Chimes as you might a complicated jigsaw puzzle in which it takes time for images to emerge once the preliminary straight edges are locked in place. Once you finish the novel, the picture before you will be unlike any others you will assemble this reading year. One of the book’s subplots involves searching for silver and palladium, but my take is that The Chimes is pure gold.  Rob Weir