There are many wonderful, wonderful things about Make Much Of Me by Kayla Bashe. It has an innocence I haven't really seen in the fiction I've read very recently. And much of its charm comes from the story being set in an earlier time. While it doesn't flat out state it (unless I somehow missed something) the suggested era is the 1920s. Words like "jake" and "cloche hat" and the mannerisms and dress of the girls attending the school they go to suggest this.

Make Much About Me is only 84 pages, but it took longer to read because I so loved to linger over a lot of the passages. 

Delightfully unusual (it often reminds me of the Nancy Drew books, minus the mysteries) main character Lily has an plucky yet endearing spirit and the warm tenderness between her and her friend Laura permeates all around. And, best of all, there is no sex...it's all about emotion and connecting on other levels, while still being romantic and sweet.

Some of my favorite sections:

- "The woman I might marry someday. I was thinking of her." She propped her chin up on her fists. “Perhaps she lives only a few hours away in New York- or perhaps she lives right here, or in a tenement. I ought to send her my best wishes, in case she has no one to look out for her. That’s what I’m doing. I’m sending her my love.”

 

-How could one not listen to Stravinsky and not feel utterly wild afterwards, or not sit paralyzed in amazement and admiration after the final chord of a choral piece? The teachers who had heard her sing in her private assessment agreed that while her technique was shaky, the heart was there, and while the world might never weep to hear her sing, it would surely draw joy from her.

-Lily talked to Laura in bed, saying whatever came into her head while stroking her friend's sunbeam hair. Everything from, “I don't think there is any such thing as an unattractive woman. Tired women, and badly dressed women, and women who don't look after themselves or stand up straight or could use a bit of good advice on how to present themselves. But ugly? Never."

 -Lily felt as if she knew Laura, and liked Laura, more than ever. She wanted to rescue Laura from any unhappiness, to look after her always, to see her smile like the sun coming out from behind a cloud at long last

  
-There was a girl in my life, Father, Laura thought, and she made me happy. And had I been worthy of her, I would have continued loving her until the day I died!

 

“No, Laura, that's not what I mean. The thing is...Every day before I met you, my soul spent it missing you. Laura, my dandelion fluff, my angel light. We were made to keep each other safe."

Make Much Of Me is definitely going to stay on my Kindle for re-reading. Its specialness (and deep sincerity) has nestled itself into my heart.  I know how corny that may sound, but it's just how it is.:)

 

Friday music, this and that...

This appears in December's Elle magazine. 400 dollars, "built to endure all manners of hell," the headphones are available at masterdynamic.com. They're definitely outside my price range (and lined in lambskin so that's not good), but I'd rather spend that kind of money on music than shoes any day.

Sadly, Elle isn't trying to appeal to the shoe-buying crowd here. The Master & Dynamic MH40 headphones appear in an article about top ten things to get for your guy for the holidays, right next to a sweet MP3 player that costs a cool 900 bucks.

I'd think it was kind of sexist, but I'm not sure. Whenever I'm in the music magazine section of a bookstore or in record stores like Sound Garden or Record and Tape Traders or at Radio Shack (or other places that sell stereo-related stuff) it seems like I only ever see men. And when I read Mojo and Uncut and Classic Rock, the letters to the editor section never features women readers.

Oh, well. Shoes (and diamonds) can't be every girl's best friend and that's just fine with me.

One article I found explores whether men really are more serious about music when it comes to fandom:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/11167333/Are-men-more-passionate-about-music-than-women-are.html


Meanwhile, this is on SoundCloud, not a mix, just the original version. It's still lots of fun to listen to:

Another reason I like SoundCloud so much is that it can give you over a dozen different (wildly different) mixes for the same song. David Bowie's "Let's Dance," for instance, is the perfect track to mess around with, as it has been here:

https://soundcloud.com/tool-o-saurus/david-bowie-lets-dance-studio



Dimitri from Paris's take changes the tempo so fast it's like, "Dude, where's the fire?" And another dj mashes Santana, Tito Puente and "Let's Dance" all magically together...it shouldn't work, but it does.

My favorite discovery so far, though, is Amos Lee's cover of "Like A Virgin," as a ballad. I always imagined what the song would sound like slowed down and pretty and now I know...it's so very gorgeous, with a wonderful spirit. Sorry, Madonna:

https://soundcloud.com/mrmetacrisis/amos-lee-like-a-virgin-madonna-cover-from-greys-anatomy

 

Thursday odds...

 

I was listening to the DI music app again and discovered this awesome, awesome dj/singer named Tallulah Goodtimes (the name is spelled wrong on the app.) She mixes swing with electro synth and hip hop...it's amazing stuff. "Hop On This" is not available for purchase, but I've been taking it in on Sound Cloud. It's made my whole day:

http://www.tallulahgoodtimes.com/hop/

The SoundCloud app is another favorite and I love it most for finding different mixes for the same song, in this case Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing":



Brendon P's "Moonlight Shadow" dub

Never start your cleaning with the bookcase. I always forget this and my dusting venture ends (shortly after it just started) with me sitting on the floor, engrossed in a book I completely forgot I owned.

So now, I'm reading a collection of stories from an old Alfred Hitchcock anthology. The best one I've read so far is called "The Clock is Cuckoo" by Richard Deming, but I also like "Six Skinny Coffins" by Jonathan Craig.

If you don't mind reading a PDF file, you can link to the Richard Deming story here:

http://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock%27s_Mystery_Magazine_(May_1969)

It happens even when I'm extra careful. My headphones get snagged one too many times in my book bag and over time the wires get a short in them and I have to get a new pair. Recently, I bought a set that looks like something fancy you'd use in a recording studio and yet they are...well, I won't use the actual word I want.

Not only do they weigh my big head down enough to bring on vertigo, the bass sounds awful and there is no actual "there" there. My five dollar headphones from 5 and Below worked better than this.

I have my iPhone ear buds to fall back on for now, but I don't like ear buds; they never stay in and the sound just isn't as good. Plus, you can't turn off everything else the way you can with headphones.

Speaking off music that helps you forget the world for a while... Future Islands' "Doves" (the Vince Clarke remix, specifically) is amazing.

It's the saddest dance song I've heard in ages. Samuel Herring's voice is terrific, the way it transforms from melodic baritone into a deep guttural growl only makes the song more intense, more bare in its expression. My heart wants to break but my feet want to dance.

*re-rub (according to Urban Dictionary): "The rerub of a song is a less radical reworking of the original than a remix. A rerub adds new drums, new snare, new percussion, possibly effects. Rerubs are also often shorter than the original song.

David Guetta thought he remixed Cassius's song "Toop Toop" but it's just a freakin rerub. All he did was add some bass. "

 

The last thing a bookworm with not enough time needs is another title for her TBR pile, but this past Sunday's New York Times highlights a novel that sounds like a must read:

 

 

By CURTIS SITTENFELD

NOV. 21, 2014

                  

In a 2013 exchange that’s become famous in literary circles, the novelist Claire Messud took to task an interviewer at Publishers Weekly who observed that she — the interviewer — wouldn’t want to be friends with the protagonist of Messud’s most recent novel and asked if Messud herself felt the same way.

 

“For heaven’s sake, what kind of question is that?” Messud responded. “If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t ‘Is this a potential friend for me?’ but ‘Is this character alive?’ ”

 

For the most part, I agree with Messud, yet as I devoured Miriam Toews’s latest novel, “All My Puny Sorrows,” I thought that I’d very much like to befriend the main character. In fact, spending time in the company of Yoli, a 40-something woman alternately busy with the work of caring for various family members and screwing up her own life, was the main reason I loved the book.

 

It’s a testament to the entertaining voice, emotional acuity and quick pacing of “All My Puny Sorrows” that it doesn’t become evident until about two-thirds of the way through how slight the plot is: Yoli has traveled to Winnipeg from her home in Toronto because her sister, Elfrieda, a brilliant and successful classical pianist, has — not for the first time — attempted suicide. Elfrieda, a.k.a. Elf, is now in the psychiatric unit of a hospital, and most of the book’s suspense arises from the questions of whether she’ll attempt suicide again and whether she’ll persuade Yoli to help her. Many pages are devoted to the daily pattern of waiting out a family member’s hospital stay: trying to extract information from doctors and nurses, trying not to let non-hospital-related obligations fall into disarray, hugging, crying, hugging while crying, procuring food and sleeping (usually not well).

 

Such a synopsis would not, if I hadn’t read the book, seem to me enticing, but “All My Puny Sorrows” is irresistible. The flashbacks to Yoli and Elf’s childhood in a rural Mennonite community are vivid and energetic. In both the past and present, Toews (who is the author of six earlier books that have received significantly more recognition in her native Canada than in the United States) perfectly captures the casual manner in which close-knit sisters enjoy and irritate each other. The dialogue is realistic and funny, and somehow, almost magically, Toews gets away with having her characters discuss things like books and art and the meaning of life without seeming pretentious or precious; they’re simply smart, decent and confused.

 

It’s Yoli who is the story’s heroine, though she wouldn’t believe it. Relentlessly self-deprecating, she explains that she “had two kids with two different guys . . . as a type of social experiment. Just kidding. As a type of social failure.” She is semi-amicably ending her second marriage and receives a text from her soon-to-be-ex-husband that reads, “I need you.” When she texts back asking if he’s O.K., he replies: “Sorry, pushed send too soon. I need you to sign the divorce papers.” In contrast to her famous sister, Yoli is the author of an unremarkable Y.A. series called Rodeo Rhonda and is also trying to write a more literary novel, which she carries around in a plastic Safeway bag. She gets lost in the hospital’s basement, has impulsive sex with her car mechanic and, when she gets a recorded phone call asking if her debt has become uncontrollable, whispers into the phone, “Yes, yes, it has,” then hangs up.

 

Per the Messud Doctrine, Yoli is bracingly alive, as is everyone with whom she interacts, even as the possibility of Elf’s death looms over them. “All My Puny Sorrows” is unsettling, because how can a novel about suicide not be? But its intelligence, its honesty and, above all, its compassion provide a kind of existential balm — a comfort not unlike the sort you might find by opening a bottle of wine and having a long conversation with (yes, really) a true friend.

ALL MY PUNY SORROWS

By Miriam Toews

317 pp. McSweeney’s. $24.