Against the Country
A book filled with sentences that make you want to read them aloud and to glory in their humor, which is by turns exuberant and dark, it is a mirror in which we see ourselves plain.
A peer of Twain and Melville walks among us. His name is Ben Metcalf.
But who is he? And why has no one I know ever heard of his ghostly, rage-fueled masterpiece?
The first time I read Against the Country my wife rolled over in bed and swatted at the reading light — it was 4 AM and my laughter had woken her up. I had found the book earlier that afternoon while perusing the stacks at the New York Public Library. Its cover, of simple white font floating on a background reminiscent of Joyce’s “snotgreen sea,” stood out amid the loud titles of other contemporary fiction. From the colophon I learned it had been published by Random House in 2015, but other than that, my knowledge of the book and its author was zilch. From the very first page, however, it called out like an estranged relative; one I had never met but known all my life.
My second read was more studied, but an undercurrent of hysteria remained, especially as I discovered that none of the many book-lovers in my life had even heard of the novel, let alone read it. Literary kismet is rare. It …
Good News for People Who Love Bad News
A younger, less mature version of myself hated the idea that somebody could sell out. I viewed art as the most sacred and personal thing in the world. Turning it into profit would be completely blasphemous, right?
It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago, when I went to see Modest Mouse play at Brooklyn Steel for their 20th anniversary show of Good News for People Who Love Bad News, that my opinion changed. This album marks the beginning of the band’s rise into mainstream fame, which also means that it marks the beginning of the end of the modest Modest Mouse we knew and loved. Issac Brock became the ultimate sellout.
But my takeaway from the show was not about how terrible they were. In fact, I was kind of proud of Brock. He took a thing he loved to do, namely make music, and found a way to live off of it as a career. The bad thing about selling out is sacrificing your talent and …
American Football
Midwestern Emo was born in Urbana, Illinois, at Chris’s house
If the blues is the sound of America’s rivers, then emo is the sound of her basements
If we save America’s midwestern emo houses from college-town yuppie developers, we can have music in the future, too
Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes, Steve Lamos, and Chris Strong lived a mere five-minute walk from each other’s homes in Urbana, a mid-sized city in a midwestern state that is often thought of as the heartland of America. (The geographic center of the lower forty-eight is actually a solid nine-hour drive east, in the town of Lebanon, Kansas; and while Kansas too has a legitimate claim on heartland status, the name of Lebanon does not necessarily evoke for waves of amber grain patriotism like plain ole Urbana does.) According to the 1997 student-staff directory at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Mike Kinsella and Steve Holmes lived together at 609 W. Elm in Urbana, Illinois. Lamos lived at 109 ½ W. Washington. Strong lived at 704 W. High.
Mike and Steve and Steve were in a band that rehearsed at each other’s houses. When that band released its debut album, for the cover they …
