You Can Judge This One by The Cover

The paperback edition of the magical short story collection The View From the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier, flapped about in January of last year, landed yesterday.

The new cover is exquisite - its dark, beautiful, imaginative visage perfectly reflects the content inside. The painting that graces it, "Library", is part of a 'city without humans' series of paintings titled "The City" by Lori Nix. I highly recommend checking her out. She has an eye for disaster, nature and tableaux that is to be rivaled by few.

Also, the Fall 2008 issue of The Cream City Review (Volume 32, Issue 2) features a lengthy interview with Brockmeier, covering everything from writing to philosophy to fancy dijon mustard commercial reenactments.

Scratchy Recordings

I have a confession to make. I love music that is scratchy and recorded on a single audio channel. I grumble whenever a new Nina Simone recording is "remastered" to sound clean and crisp. Much of the allure of old music is to hear it as it was heard when it first came alive. Not that I don't appreciate the clarity in hearing Nina's bold, husky tones and knowing all that scratchiness is in her voice, not the speakers, but some music just sounds better with audio scratches. It's true.

So when co-worker and avid Oxford American reader/subscriber Carl Hoffman* showed me the heavy tome that is The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing, all I had to do was scan the table of contents to know this was all I wanted for Christmas.

Contributors include Tom Piazza, William Gay, Kevin Brockmemier, Michael Perry, Roy Blount Jr., Beth Ann Fennelly, R. Crumb, Rosanne Cash, Steve Martin, a poem by Billy Collins and a short story by Ron Rash.

It gets better! How about diverse artists and themes such as Iris DeMent, R&B, The Allman Brothers, Lynrd Skynrd, family, Doc Watson, rockabilly, Eartha Kitt, Blind Tom Wiggins, southern heavy metal, Bessie Smith, Leadbelly and the Banjo.

On second thought, if $34.95 is more like the kind of cash money you need for groceries or to get mom some trinkets for Hanukkah, there is another option. And this one includes two CDs with 55 tracks!!

For $9.99, you can pick up Oxford American's annual music issue. It's a special treat.

There is a six-page piece by Kevin Brockmeier about little known folk music duo Elton & Betty White. Betty was 31 years Elton's senior, but that didn't stop this interracial couple from wandering around Little Rock and then Venice Beach in bathing suits and sequins playing keyboard and ukulele while singing songs about sex and love, but primarily about sex. While you may snicker at songs titled "I'm in Love With Your Behind" or "Climaxation is a Sweet Sensation" or "Menopause Mama", the piece is full of biographical information, sentimental childhood discovery, but mostly it's a lot of heart and sweetness and light.

In "I Hate to See You Go" we hear the standard issue blues sound of Little Walter as he moans about his woman leaving him, how badly he wants her back while humming into his little mouth harp (aka harmonica). But something about the sounds he makes and the simple drum line underneath it all has your heart aching with Little Walter and longing to hear more. The writing that corresponds with this song is nearly as brief and mostly talks about what a musical genius Walter was and it seems that with all his hits, he still got lost behind names like Muddy Waters. Everyone knows Muddy Waters, but who is Little Walter? Interestingly enough, the new movie Cadillac Records features a fictionalized Little Walter and he may just get his name on the charts one more time.

Not everyone is from the era of "scratchy recordings"** as indicated in the essay by Downer Schwartz bookseller favorite Jack Pendarvis. Pendarvis stalks Neko Case and his telling of this brief foray into tour bus life with a messy-haired, t-shirt wearing Neko who complains about her e-mails being uninteresting, is spirited and delightful. There is also a brief piece on the depth and beauty of Neko's solo music as well, for those of you who want serious music writing as opposed to a travelogue that will make you giggle with glee.

If you need a sneak preview (whatever you do, DO NOT open the plastic covered magazine at a store to peek at the insides of the magazine unless you really plan on buying it), check out OA editor Marc Smirnoff's liner notes for both of the two CDs included with the issue. Read some of these snippets and you will run right out and pick this bad boy up, take it home, pour it a nice single malt scotch and cozy up with it in front of the fireplace.

While most of the music is "old", the writings and perspectives are still fresh and bright. This is music that will have you closing your eyes, tapping your toes, uttering a few intermittent "mmm mmms" and dreaming of warm breezes and tall glasses of sweet tea.

*A big thank you to Carl Hoffman for his passion and excitement, without which I wouldn't have the aduitory and reading pleasure I am currently experiencing with the OA Southern Music Issue. I owe you one!

**"The Oxford American covers old music...mainly...though not exclusively. I would feel badly, I hope, if our looking back contributed to people ignoring great contemporary music. <...> My point is, simply, that there's room for a publication or CD that focuses on scratchy recordings. It's called variety."
-from Editor's Box: Baby I Love You by Marc Smirnoff, OA #63

Brockmeier's Multi-Layered Views

You know the moments where the world seems perfect and beautiful precisely because of all it's diversity and faults? When you are plugged into an iPod listening to music while waiting at the airport and everyone appears to move to the music in an odd synchronization? Or when you look out upon a snowy world in all its silent splendor and for a brief second, everything is a glimpse of heaven? Or a split second of utter and complete zen-like happiness descends upon you at the most routine time (showering, eating breakfast, shaving, walking the dog, watching a child at play)?

It is that precise moment when the world is illuminated in a way that you are left breathless; for your heart flutters a few times and it's as if the world is such pure perfection that with one breath you will break its delicate magic spell.

That moment is what it is like to read Kevin Brockmeier's short stories. And his latest collection (The View From the Seventh Layer, arriving March 4, 2008 to an indie bookstore near you) is a shining beacon atop a whitewashed lighthouse of whimsical, haunting, original, perfect, fantastical prose. The stories are hypnotic, mesmerizing whiffs of fantasy blended with the brutal realities of human existence. From a thousand parakeets that mimic the daily sounds of a mute's life to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story of mundane proportions. From photos that observe a houseguest's every move and word to a man who buys a thrift store overcoat only to discover the former owner was God and that its pockets spill over with earnest, and frightening, prayers.

Brockmeier's gifts are in his precision writing: Each word carefully placed "just so", and in his effortless way of seeing beauty in the simplest things, the unlikeliest of people. To see the world through his literary windows is to learn to love unconditionally and not take for granted the billions of little things that mosaic our lives.

I know I only taunt readers with this review as you must wait nearly 2 months for this collection to arrive on shelves. But, Dear Reader!, it will be well worth the wait, I promise you! For your reward will be his presence at our Downer Avenue store on March 27th at 7pm. To tide yourself over I suggest reading his last novel (also something very, very special): The Brief History of the Dead. It will be only a taste of the magic that is to come.