Oh Princess Beatrice.
I love your hat.
Some say that it reminds them of Cthulhu.
All the better, I say, to eat them with.
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Tag Archive for 'fairy tales'
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I’ve covered in this space how purchasing albums based on songs heard on Pandora can be risky. The problem being that Pandora tends to share the hits. (I find this surprising, but that’s a discussion for another time.) And yet, I keep buying whole albums with the hopes of finding more good music. And we have our next album that isn’t suffering from this problem: Share This Place: Stories & Observations
It bears mentioning that this album does have the twin used CD warnings: a) There are a lot of copies for sale used. and b) Many of these copies are bargain-bin cheap. I usually avoid albums like this, and it was only the strength of their song, “Love Song of the Fly” that goaded me into purchasing it.
Like the rest of the songs on the album, “Love Song of the Fly” is sung from the point of view of an insect. In this case, a housefly. The fly isn’t expressing love for another fly. Instead, it is singing the praises of its human host, and bemoaning the cruel treatment it receives in return. The singing is sweet and clear, and the music is jazzy world music flavored. Heavier on the jazz, usually, but with strains of folk music or Latin music mixed in. People who cannot stand accordion music will want to avoid this, because there is a lot. There is also a lot of cello and guitar on the album.
The lyrics are brilliant. The insects sing poetically about the advantages of having six legs, communicating with chemicals, bio-luminescence, shedding skins, and even what life is like gestating in a ball of dung. Sings the dung beetle larvae:
My mother made for me this pear
A perfect womb, a mottled lair
Where I will grow and eat my share
Of pastry rich beyond compare
The vocabulary is splendid, and the subject matter is approached with a sly but very frank wit. This helps prevent the album from seeming like a bunch of Shel Silverstein songs, luckily. Sadly, it is not without flaws. The second half of Luminescence wants to play like a swinging jazz number, but singer Mirah doesn’t seem up to the task. She can’t seem to find the rhythm. Or something. On the plus side, it comes with a little booklet containing all the lyrics.
Of course, it’s hard to find an album where every single song is awesome. At worst, Share This Place will make your index finger itch for the fast forward button once or twice. At best, it will transport you to the experience and poetry of insect life, where you can forget your woes, trundle around on many legs, spray noxious toxins out of your abdomen, or stretch your wings and recall your favorite instars.
This is another band I discovered through Pandora in my search for new music for my ailing music collection. Unfortunately, Pandora has this problem where it only plays the hits over and over. So once again, we have an album with some really amazing songs on it, but also some not-so-amazing songs. And in the case of this album, the not-so-amazing songs are bad. Like folk singer at a piano bad.
The good news is that the good songs are awesome. As the name of the band would imply, the band features female vocals by the cake baker herself, who also plays piano. The vocals are sweet and melodic. Many of the songs are accompanied by bass, cello, violin, and other instruments.
You can’t look at this album cover without suspecting that the subject matter is going to be off the beaten path, and thankfully it is. The lyrics can be hard to follow, but topics include people being eaten, teeth, bones, fingers (see a pattern here?) and other topics suitable for fairy tales. The not-so-good songs mentioned above are pretty straight-forward emotion-filled ballads like you expect from any number of other piano-playing women. In particular, “Dear Mother” and “Brother” are like that. The enticingly-titled “Spine Song” is also sweet and earnest in presentation, and ultimately disappointing.
On the plus side, “One by One”, “64 Little White Things”, and “Doves” are deliciously weird. The least straight-forward song on the album is “Bears”. Bears is atmospheric and experimental. Cake Bake Betty pulls out the unsettling electronic drone and leans on a creaky screen door throughout. The song doesn’t get into the zone of orchestra-crashing-down-elevator-shaft-backwards a’la Corpses as Bedmates, but it is rigorously unsettling and very listenable. Everybody on the Amazon page
I love the lyrics to “Bears.”
Bears
There are bears,
In the woods.
Come and get me.
Come and get me.There are bears,
In the woods.
Come and get me.
Come and get me.Do as good bears should
Come and get me.
Come and get me.There are bears,
In the woods.
Come and get me.
Come and get me.Martha
Martha
Cake Bake Betty – Songs About Teeth – 2005 – Infinity Cat Recordings
I emerged from 2010 with an unfortunate backlog of books I don’t really have much to say about, so I’m going to slip them by with another gaggle of mini-reviews.
After reading another of Jay Lake’s books, Green, I was left intrigued by the author’s… well… genuine oddness. So my rat army has orders to bring books by Lake to me whenever they can be found used. Thus, MAINSPRING came into my possession. The bad news is that Mainspring isn’t really dark enough to review here in detail. It’s a nice piece of fantasy with some major steampunk stylings. It was also unexpected, being a tale about a boy with unshakable faith and where that faith takes him. Besides embarking on a mission to save the world, our hero finds himself falling in love with a hairy little monkey-woman named Arellya. Like the afore-mentioned Green, Arellya likes it on the wild side. And how! I give it a three out of five, mostly because I couldn’t figure out what was really going on half the time, but wanted to know.
Fans of strange stories with a European flavor should hunt down a copy of UNPLEASANT TALES by Brendan Connell. This is a collection of short tales that are indeed unpleasant, but in a way that people who read dark fiction will most likely appreciate. Yes, here we have the callously murderous, the darkly insane, the bloodied royalty, and the loathsome victim. All these up to no good. The dull-witted musical student is corrupted by his mentor. The last mermaid meets its end in the gullet of a loathsome, impotent king. We grimace and hope that we are wrong about the strange girl. The stories are reminiscent of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, except more like fairy tales and with a rich, dark undercurrent of humor. Publisher Eibonvale certainly can stir up some good authors.
I’ve reviewed two books from the Supernatural TV series here and here, so the publisher of the Season Companion sent me a copy of SUPERNATURAL – THE OFFICIAL COMPANION – SEASON 5 – By Nicholas Knight. The Supernatural season guide seems to be rather thorough. It includes summaries of every episode along with production notes, production stills and photos of the stars. Also included are trivia balloons in the margins, clarifications and definitions of terms used in the show, a section of color photos from the show, extensive notes on all the characters, and more. Thanks to Titan Books for the copy.
Thanks very much to Career Press for sending me a copy of this book, Man-Made Monsters by Dr. Bob Curran, illustrated by Ian Daniels. This is a rather extensively researched book on things such as homunculi, golems, Frankenstein’s monsters, and ancient robots. So yes, the topic of this book is anything that is man-made that can move by itself and/or do the bidding of its creator (and/or maybe kill kill kill!).
Written as a field guide, the book explores history, literature, and superstition to investigate whether or not such things have existed. Along the way, we learn about the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, and the people and mythical figures she may have used to form the basis for her famous novel. The book also digs deeply into Jewish lore about the Golem, which is a mythical figure made of mud brought to life by powerful rabbis. Curran also looks into the history of the Knights Templar and ancient Middle Eastern alchemists who may have held the secrets to creating man-made life. Later in the book, Curran details ancient myths and stories about creatures that resemble robots. Finally, the book spends some time examining man-made life in current events, such as cloning. Did I mention reanimating the dead? That figures into it as well.
I thought that this was an uneven read. If you’re at all interested in the Knights Templar, Jewish mysticism, the Shelleys, Alchemy, or Greek myths, you will certainly find interesting information here. I found some of this worthwhile, having read Tim Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard not too long ago. It made me consider the events of that book (which is really an incredible, insane vampire tale – you must read it!) in a different light. I also found the parts about Middle Eastern Muqarribun fascinating – mostly because I’m a big fan of the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night.
My Favorite Illustration from the Book
My Least Favorite Illustration from the Book
Needs More Mommets
The artwork makes me think that the intended audience of this book might be someone who would use the information to plan a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Interspersed among the tasty tidbits is an unfortunate amount of information on obtuse historical figures. The book gets a little bogged down in some of these details, such as “this rabbi studied under that rabbi, who probably had occasion to read this now-lost tome by this rabbi, who was said to have created a golem that kept his house clean.” In other words, too much history. Not enough applying electricity to dead convicts to see if they will come back from the dead.
More by the Doctor
It bears mentioning that Dr. Bob Curran is also the author of quite a library of related lore. Here is a list:
- The Creatures of Celtic Myth – 2001
- Dark Spirit, The – Sinister Portraits from Celtic Folklore – 2001
- Vampires: A Field Guide To The Creatures That Stalk The Night – 2005
- Celtic Lore & Legend – 2005
- Zombies: A Field Guide to the Walking Dead – 2008
- Werewolves: A Field Guide to Shapeshifters, Lycanthropes, and Man-Beasts – 2009
- Encyclopedia of the Undead – 2009
- Dark Fairies – 2010
- Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms: Sunken Continents, Vanished Cities, and the Kingdoms that History Misplaced – 2010
Can you tell I’m on the fence about this one, dear reader? Let’s put it this way: The contents were interesting enough that now I’m curious to read one or two of the books listed above. I think that’s a good sign. Let’s see the numbers:
Creepy Factor: 3 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 0 out of 5 (it’s not a story, really)
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 4 out of 5
Final result: People and monsters who are interested in history as it relates to forbidden and arcane subjects like this will probably find Man-Made Monsters an interesting read. It is a little dry at times. Cover will require paper bag book cover if reading in public (I’m just saying). Needs more ghouls, mommets, and clockwork automatons.
Man-Made Monsters by Dr. Bob Curran – with illustrations by Ian Daniels – Career Press / New Page Books – 2010
Buy Man-Made Monsters on Amazon now!
Thanks again to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book to review. See you all next time!
Fhtagn Spoken Here.
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