D CDs #478: This Is Cheating

Wait, we're allowed greatest hits albums on this list? I thought Alan Partridge had conclusively demonstrated that this is bullshit?



Still, if we're forced to go down this route, there are undeniable advantages, particularly when dealing with an artist like Lynn, whose career covered so great a period, with the earliest recording here hailing from 1964, and the latest from, I think, 1978. That nearly fifteen year stretch represents a healthy slice of musical development - 1964 saw the Beatles singing "Can't Buy Me Love"; by '78 the Clash were already on to their second album.

For all its defiant wallowing the past (more often than not a fictitious one, but that's beside the point right now), country music had to make changes of its own. It needed to pick up an electric guitar like everybody else.  This evolution can be sketched out as we travel through the (roughly) chronological track listing here.  It's interesting from a musical history perspective, but it works in the disc's favour, too, classic country often being a genre that can suffer from diminishing returns. Lynn provides a good example ; the first half here is packed with simple guitar work, smiling honky-tonk piano, and Lynn's clear, if slightly inexpressive voice. All fine in moderation, but there's only so many reworkings of that basic theme a man can take, especially given the limited range of subjects on display here.

I mean, I can't complain too much about the density of "my man's a cheater/other women keep trying to make my man cheat" on display here. It did result in Lynn's own composition "Fist City", after all, the third-best song she ever wrote and presumably only given that title because the '60s Midwest wasn't ready for a song called "Touch My Man And I Will Fucking Lamp You, Bitch".  There's issues to be had about songs blaming other women for "making" your husband cheat, but there's plenty of blame to go around in these first eleven tracks, I guess.

Whatever the progressive objections, though, it's a limited palette to work with. An expansion into more general domestic matters buys Lynn some time - and produces her second-best song in "Coal Miner's Daughter", a song about remembering where you came from and refusing to take any shit about it - but there's an inescapable sense of losing momentum.

It's a this point, though, that we shift into Lynn's second iteration, kicking off with the best song she ever wrote, "X-Rated" - about the absurd difficulties divorced women face in living any sort of normal life for the high crime of having decided to not spend her entire life with a man who no longer does what she needs him to do, whatever that is - and then focus for a little while on her series of duets with Conway Twitty. Presented here as more as a palette cleanser than anything else, the Twitty collaboration offers us an excellent rendition of "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" (though Twitty brings more to this than Lynn, in all truth) and Twitty's own "As Soon As I Hang Up The Phone", probably the most depressing song Lynn offers up on this disc, and not through lack of competition.

This injection of new blood serves as launch pad for the tail end of the disc, in which the music responds to emerging trends by becoming a little more muscular (just a little, of course; this is still classic country) and the songs push a little further into storytelling territory, though the central theme very much remains the failures of men and the resulting damage done to women.

But then, potentially after some inverting of one or both genders, that describes, at a conservative estimate, something approaching 97% of all art ever created.  No sense in fighting too hard against that, especially considering it's blueprint country. Blueprint country, competently delivered, with three distinct phases to keep things fresh - and remind us of how things were changing in this period - and tempered with the occasional flash of brilliance.

That, in the end, will do.

Seven and a half tentacles.

Monday Pessimus Prime: It's All Got A Bit Too Real

Some background...

Fliss took me to her old university stomping grounds for the first time since we'd met this weekend, so she could perform bridesmaid duties for an old friend. Which was fine; taxi service for weddings is entirely within a boyfriend's remit, and I didn't even really mind having to sit through a church service surrounded by people I didn't know just to make sure sufficient pictures were taken of the bridesmaids - Fliss was worried for some reason that everyone would focus on the bride, like that's important.

Things seemed to be looking up at the reception, since there was a) fewer Bible quotations and b) a bar. Alas, this seeming promised land was naught but a lie, a comforting illusion designed to keep me busy trying out new ciders whilst agents of the Forces of Naughtiness could smash my passenger rear quarter window and make off with my SatNav and wallet.

This, obviously, is Not Good. I was so shaken up by the whole affair I was almost put off my full English yesterday morning, and that wouldn't happen if you told me the sausages were made from my mother.

But! There were upsides. Most important is the sheer meagreness of the villain's score. A battered five-year old SatNav I refused to update and a wallet containing £3.70 and a credit card cancelled before they could use it. According to the police officer who came looking for prints and DNA, they only broke in to try and steal the camera case on the back seat, which was of course empty. It's hard to not imagine their faces falling when they realised just what a waste of crime they'd gone through.

It'll have been a quiet supper in their secret lair and no mistake.

(There is though some personal stuff I've been gutted to lose. The business card Chris made for me in my first term as a teacher, explaining exactly how little of a shit I gave about children on one side and containing my lonely heart's ad on the other. The ID card I got when I turned 18 with a picture of my young, be-curtained self that I would show to children who'd done particularly well in class so they could laugh themselves sick. The two US coins I own, given to me by my sister to give me some kind of tangible connection to the country I spend so much time shouting about. These things I shall miss. Also there was a parking receipt I hadn't claimed back yet in there, so you can imagine how gutted I am over that.)

Watching other people's reactions to the situation has been entertaining as well. The particular denomination of Christians running this particular show took it all pretty hard, believing as they seem to that literally everything that happens is God's will (rather then the far more laissez-faire approach the Methodists I was raised around take, which is that God knew my car would be broken into, but didn't). Frankly, some of them seemed more upset than I was. One woman told us how she'd struggled to get to sleep on Saturday night, because she was so deep into trying to figure out why God would choose to have car thieves strike in the middle of a Christian wedding. For my part I figured "shit happens" and passed out.

In the end, she decided it was fine because so little was stolen. Which, whatever floats your theological boat, obviously. Though it turns out though that there's not a lot of social situations more awkward than a loudly committed Christian expounding how awesome Christian weddings are because God only lets small-bore shit gets nicked, and how lucky we are to be a part of that, then when you politely point out you're an atheist get a sales pitch about how "God protects". I mean, I don't begrudge this woman her faith or the security it clearly gives her, but maybe citing the protection God offers you is a mistake eight hours after it turns out he won't even protect your SatNav.

Other interactions were less awkward. There is something uniquely laid-back and yet acerbic about Yorkshire humour:

Fellow Guest: Sorry to hear about yer car. You got yer cards cancelled? 

SpaceSquid: Yep. All but my Nectar Card. It was tough to sleep knowing the gits who robbed my car might even now be enjoying fractionally cheaper groceries. 

Fellow Guest (prodding my admittedly generous belly): Yeah, yer look like yer wasting way, don't yer?

Or:

Police Officer: See that helicopter? It's from an old RAF base they use for training now. All privatised now, of course. 

SpaceSquid: The government does love its privatisation. 

PO: I think they should privatise the government. 

SS: If we're defining "privatise" as "major corporations get to call all the shots without outside interference", I would like to submit that you already have your wish. 

PO: Fair point. What do they call the big head office again? Eton, in't it?

(I suppose the guy's plan has some merit. If we formalised bribery at least we could tax it).

As of 11am today I have finally waded through the list of tasks necessary to respond to this hassle, including setting my insurers against my glass-replacement company so that whichever one of them was lying to me about the other one could do it to their metaphorical face (so far it's looking like it was the insurance company - no surprise there; these are already the people who've told me my contents insurance which includes personal items and built-in navigation devices doesn't include SatNavs; too car-based to be a personal item, too detachable to be a car feature).

So that was my weekend. How about you peeps?

Friday Talisman

Time to rock it old school as we return to the Elder Days and to the original 4th Edition bundle, and present... the Elf!

In all honesty, I think he's a bit too bright, and I lost too much definition painting his boots brown (my own fault; the paint was too thick). Still, I quite like his hair, and his bow.

Paul The Octopus Has Nothing On Me

Just quickly throwing this out there under the heading of "Thank Cthulhu I don't live in Louisiana". When you're not having your city torn out from under you by a hurricane, shot dead for the crime of wanting food whilst black, or dying in an overcrowded hospital because there's no money to keep anyone but the rich alive any more, you're finding stuff in your drinking water which will literally eat your brain:

The water in St. John Parish is safe to drink, said the CDC, but special care should be taken not to allow it to go up the nose, which is the route the parasite takes to infect the brain. Once inside the brain, the amoebas cause primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), which is almost invariably fatal.

I've no idea who, if anyone, is to blame for this hideous gribbly showing up in the first place.  But I absolutely guarantee you two things. First, there will be a non-trivial number of state Republicans who will argue increased governmental surveillance of drinking water to stop people getting their heads melted will constitute "Federalism run amok".  Second, there will be a non-trivial number of Republican voters on the internet who will argue that since no-one deliberately snorts drinking water up their noses, this is a non-issue that will simply rid us of obvious idiots.

There is simply no bottom with these people.

(h/t to Elon James White over at Balloon Juice.)

Zero Tolerance

Our ongoing tour of the best companions in Who history reaches its end with The Curse of Fenric, and after having to basically tread water with the Sixth Doctor, we have here something we can properly get our teeth into. ...Fenric is not only the greatest story the classic show ever broadcast, but it's got a well-considered role for everyone's favourite teenage anarchist, as well.

Radio Monday: Back To School

Let's do this.

Turnabout Is Fair Play

So Fliss and I have a deal; every time I make her read a Horus Heresy novel, she can select something from her extensive collection of books for me to try. So far nothing has sprung out as being worth an entire post, but here are some postage stamp specials on the first three selections.

Hunting Party - Elizabeth Moon

Transplanting the English gentry to a sci-fi setting isn't automatically a bad idea, but doing it so utterly uncritically causes exceptional problems. Moon's twin obsessions with the military and British toffs rub uncomfortably against each other, and in fact only work together in the sense that they paint a rather distasteful, retrograde viewpoints.  The fact Moon turned out to be an Islamophobe convinced we try too hard to allow Muslims to believe things that make them unfit to live in "our" society is some distance away from surprising.

The Painted Man - Peter V Brett

An incredibly standard fantasy with a central conceit (demons arise each night and terrorise those unable to draw the wards necessary for defence) that's nowhere near as original or smart as it thinks it is, this story starts poorly, becomes mediocre, and yet legitimately finishes strong as we finally arrive at the point. This has the odd effect of making the books first two-thirds or so read like one of those awful prequels fantasy writers put out to delay getting on with their core series or to make a quick buck, completely failing to realise that there's a reason they started their stories where they did, and that the prequels are therefore mere exercises in dot connecting.

Oh, and it's sexist, has an entirely too stereotypical depiction of an Islamic-style civilisation for comfort, and features (off-page) an entirely unnecessary and unpleasant gang rape which violates the three rules of having a main character sexually assaulted: 1) don't do it unless it's narratively essential, 2) don't do it unless you are quite convinced you can deal with the fall-out plausibly and sensibly, and 3) maybe don't do it anyway?

King's Dragon - Kate Elliott

This is rather more like it. There are proper things to say here.

In several ways this is once again familiar fantasy fare - a medieval society with added magic finds itself invaded by Orc analogues, in this case slightly snake-like Vikings with a commendable love of dogs.  Complicating this is a rebellion by the King's half-sister Sabelle, which again is far from unfamiliar, as well as perpetuating the standard fantasy problem of inviting us to somehow give a toss about which scion of a family who murdered their way into a dictatorship gets to perpetuate that dictatorship.  Remember that time Kim Jong-Il had to decide which of his sons would next be directly responsible to the immiseration of millions? Remember how hoping he'd choose the least unpleasant option was entirely not the point?

What sets this book apart is Elliott's religious system, a brilliant simple reinvention of Christianity that replaces the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit with the ...Duonity?... of Lord and Lady. Every part of Elliott'  Unity faith spills from this central precept of God manifesting equal male and female forms.  Gender roles in Elliott's kingdom of Wendar and Varre are far more fluid as a consequence; not only are women no less likely to hold titles than men, but parents are free to choose from their children who will make the best heir, irrespective both of their children's age and their gender. Even in areas where gender roles are still separate - bishops (biscops, as they're called here) and city majors are (almost) always female, generals are usually male - there is no implicit superiority of masculine roles. There is I suppose a criticism one could mount here about whether Elliott is suggesting "separate but equal" is actually a viable approach in gender relations, but I'm not inclined to make it. It seems more likely that Elliott is exploring the best-case scenario of a powerful state religion in a period when gendered roles may have seemed an inevitable result of manual labour and "strength of arms" (a phrase in itself implying the importance of muscle mass) would perhaps have made any attempts to suggest men and women could be considered universally interchangeable on the job market difficult to credit. By making so few concessions to the differences between the genders, Elliott is not only criticising the degree of Christian tradition that springs from nothing but ugly misogyny, but reminding us that fantasy writers developing their own societies have to choose to bake in cultural sexism (and there are good reasons to make that choice), they can't just put it in automatically on the grounds that "that's how things were back then".

This being a fantasy novel, it is inevitably the first in a series, in this case one of seven (Green 1/7, in the FlissRic system). Elliott again reaches for a standard approach here, giving her protagonists one problem to successfully solve (Sabella's rebellion) whilst another (Vikings! Who are snakes!) gets increasingly worse. Which is fine, I guess, though the pacing is rather strange; we spend forever getting to any action regarding the rebellion, and things wrap up completely within a few pages. In part this is because of the noticeably passive nature of our protagonists Alain and Liath. Neither do much but watch and worry for most of the book until they can act of visions they receive from saints and use them to save the day/avert total catastrophe.  This is deeply unsatisfactory, of course, about as ex machina as a deus or two can get, but hopefully there's more going on here than there seems to be.

Given I slapped around Favre for his use of rape in his novel, I should talk a little about the same being used here. I'll be as circumspect as possible, but even so the following has attached both a trigger and a spoiler warning. One of Elliott's characters is explicitly as passive and removed as she is because she spent time (which we witnessed) as a slave, who was repeated sexually assaulted by her master. Elliott deserves credit for how she handles this in general; she is both as vague as possible about the specifics of the situation and gives plenty of time to the emotional fallout from it. If you feel the need to put a character through that sort of horror, this definitely seems to be the way to go.

The problem here, and it's a small one, is that Liath's passivity rubs directly against the rest of the novel.  If a rape survivor needs to disengage from the world in order to process what they've been subjected to, that's obviously none of my fucking business. But the structure of the text is such that we're being encouraged to engage fully at the same time as Liath is pulling back. The result is to in some sense present Liath as an obstacle to plot development, which is what happens when you try to run a deeply personal traumatic story alongside a large-scale tale of war and deception.  You can use more general horror for a backdrop, indeed doing so has a long and noble history, but there's a low ceiling on how much you can push reader interest in the particulars of that backdrop on its own terms, as oppose to as a mechanism for complicating the protagonists' lives.

Or at least, so it seems to me.