"Slade House" by David Mitchell

As an avid David Mitchell reader, I snapped up this book as soon as I could. This tale is similar to his most recent one, The Bone Clocks, and manages to elaborate on that world and the forces at play there. Dr. Marinus makes an appearance, and aspects such as orisons and lacunas are explained a little bit more. The majority of the plot centers around the house itself, it appears on the last Saturday of October every nine years and the people who are lured there encounter something different every time.

From a small child to a grumbling policeman to a college student, spanning 1979-2015 the reader sees the progression of this phenomenon across time and personality as the narrator changes. What remains constant is Mitchell’s wit and incredible writing ability that keeps the reader hopelessly engaged even as we realize that there is no way for the characters to make it out. (The repeated mentions of foxes and hounds should probably have tipped you off to that already though.)

This book is probably his shortest one yet, it is only five chapters and a little over 200 pages. Despite how much I liked the technique of using the house as the center of the story, instead of a character, it did leave me a little bit unsatisfied. We only get a brief snapshot of Dr. Marinus, a character who I am immensely fond of, and the book ends with a really unsubtle allusion to a sequel. Great, I’d love to hear more about this world, but could we get a little more now?

So Slade House is a great book if you are already a Mitchell fan and need an extra dose of his writing, or if you want an intro to his works. Here’s to hoping that it’s not too long until that other sequel…

Analysis of My Beatles Ranking by Album

Here’s an album by album breakdown of what I posted two weeks ago.

Might as well start at the beginning with “Please Please Me.” The highest ranked song is “Baby It’s You” at #26 (which is a cover, funnily enough) and the lowest is “There’s a Place” at #187, so it’s pretty spread out over the rankings. Since it is their first album, of course it’s going to be a mixed bag in terms of quality. I have always had a soft spot for this album though, since again it is the Beatles which is still much better than most other bands.

Up next is “With the Beatles.” The highest ranked song here is “All My Loving” at #23 and the lowest is “Money” at #179. “Money” is a bit of an outlier though, most of the songs are higher ranked, around 100 or so. As an album, it’s not one that I usually think of listening to since it is easy to overlook it. Having said that, most of the songs on it are very good, and even the covers do a great job.

Then comes their first soundtrack “A Hard Day’s Night.” Highest song is “Can’t Buy Me Love” at #10 and the lowest is “I’ll Be Back” at #180. Most songs are between numbers 80-140 though. This is their first album with only original songs, and it has gone down in history as one of their best albums as a result.

After that there is “Beatles For Sale.” Top song here is “Eight Days a Week” at #30 and lowest song is “Baby’s in Black” at #195. This song does not come out as high as the others, in fact there is a bit of a divide with about half of the album coming out around #100 and the other half around #175. At this point, they are getting a little tired of the craze about them, so I guess that is to be expected.

Their second soundtrack is “Help!” Best song is “Yesterday” at #46 and worst is “You Like Me Too Much” at #181. The songs are spread pretty evenly between those two. This is not a super great album, probably a by-product of all the pot they were smoking and their general lack of enthusiasm for this film. Still, it’s a fun one to listen to.

Next up is “Rubber Soul.” This album marks a significant shift in their music, away from generic rock n roll and into more experimental sounds. Top song is “In My Life” at #13 and lowest is the incredibly problematic “Run For Your Life” at #169. The majority of the songs here are below the 100 mark, which is pretty indicative of where it stands with me.

After that is “Revolver” which could almost be a continuation of “Rubber Soul.” “Eleanor Rigby” is the highest at #4, and lowest is “She Said She Said” at #170. The songs are actually pretty well spread out between them, probably because “Revolver” in general has a darker tone than “Rubber Soul” (“Run For Your Life” is pretty upbeat and unique for that album anyways).

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is definitely my favorite album from the Beatles. “A Day in the Life” is the highest ranked at #6 and then “Good Morning Good Morning” is the lowest at #95, so they are all below the 100 mark which is exciting. Most of them are clustered around #50 or so. It is often said that this album summed up the 60s, but let’s be honest it sums up my life as well.

This is followed with “Magical Mystery Tour.” It’s a strange album, but it claimed the #1 spot with “All You Need is Love,” and then the lowest is “Your Mother Should Know” at #142. There is a pretty sharp divide here, with some songs below #70 and some above #110. This is clearly a very hit-or-miss album, with quite a few hits and some misses. As an album, it is not nearly as strange as the movie.

“White Album” is next. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is #14 but it also claims last place with “Wild Honey Pie” at #208. There are quite a few songs from this album clustered at the end, but also some towards the beginning as well. With an album this big, it is hard to avoid that.

The last soundtrack album is “Yellow Submarine.” Top song is “Hey Bulldog” at #78 and lowest is “Only a Northern Song” at 191. The rest are spread pretty evenly between them, but since I didn’t include the George Martin (*tear*) orchestral things there are only like 5 songs included here.

The next recorded album is “Let It Be.” The title track is #3, and #196 is the lowest with “Dig a Pony.” The songs are spread out below #100, but then there is also a cluster around #180. Overall it is a pretty good album, but there are some duds in it. It happens when a band is in the middle of breaking up.

The last recorded album is “Abbey Road.” Highest is “Come Together” at #8, lowest is “You Never Give Me Your Money” at #203. The songs are spread evenly between them, which is what happens when you break up the medley I guess. This album probably would have been ranked higher if I counted it as one, but I could not really think of a good way to do that.

George Martin

Alright well George Martin died on Tuesday and I was pretty underwhelmed with the statement that Brian Wilson wrote for Time magazine about him, so I'm just going to say a few words here.

George Martin was an incredible man, producer, and artist. The Beatles had gone to many labels looking for someone to record them, and even though Martin had largely done comedy groups before, he decided to take them on. He saw their potential and took a gamble on them.

If anyone deserved the title of "the fifth Beatle," Martin would definitely have a solid argument for it. The reason why so many of their songs sound the way that they do is because of his expertise in the mixing room. Good examples of this go from the strings on "Yesterday" to the explosion of sound at the end of "A Day in the Life."

Martin continued producing beautiful music up until the early 2000s, with projects such as the Beatles "Love" in Vegas and working independently with individual Beatles. His legacy will probably be as the man who made the Beatles, but he was so much more than that. Without him, the world would sound a little bit different. So thank you, George Martin. You will be missed, but not forgotten.

The Connections Between Painting and Photography

(Disclaimer: I'm on the midterm struggle bus, so here's some food for thought about photography that I wrote up a while ago. I'll return to the Beatles next week.)

You may have seen the trailer for the film, "Loving Vincent" floating around on Facebook or other social media. (If you haven't click here) This clip perfectly illustrates the link that exists between painting and photography, and how there are many ghosts that exist within photos.

"Loving Vincent" is unique because every frame of this film is a full-size oil painting. This is an incredible artistic feat, just for starters. Most films consist of frames that are essentially photos, taken by a machine and stuck together in a reel. What is interesting about this is that it takes history and turns it on its head, in the past we have seen photos replace painting instead of the other way around. (Who sits to have their portrait painted anymore? Compare that to the frequency of selfies and school picture days.)

The other interesting point to make is that these aren't real paintings. They are images of the paintings strung together to form animation. Photos of paintings are still photos.

Clearly the ghost of painting is haunting these photos, and this work as a while. Another ghost haunting it, pretty obviously, is Vincent himself. All of these paintings are done in his style, to illustrate his life. It does not get much clearer than that.

Another medium jumping project is the Misty Copeland photo shoot from a while ago where she poses as dancers from Degas' paintings. (Find it here) Background on Misty Copeland: she's the first African-American principal ballet dancer and she is incredible!

Here's also some background on Degas' works. Degas painted dancers at a time when the ballet world was pretty gross, to put it mildly. Dancers were worked ridiculously hard, and often were made to have sex with the men running the show. Degas worked to show the reality behind the glittering ballerinas by painting dancers aching or holding their backs, or with these dark men backstage. It was pretty groundbreaking for its time, much more so than we give it credit for.

Having said that, the Misty shoot picked pretty sanitized photos. There is one where you can get a glimpse of one of the dark men in the background, and one where a dancer is holding her back, but other than that they are pretty standard. Seeing as how one purpose of this shoot was to illustrate how the dance world has changed (all of Degas' models are white) you would think they would go for a more risque painting. But the shoot does do what it set out to, you can visibly tell how much the ballet world has changed through these photos.

Now clearly the ghost of Degas is present here, there's no question about that. But Misty herself ends up looking like a ghost in this process. Since the photos are edited to look like paintings, she ends up being the one figure in focus, and in her fancy dress in such iconic poses, she looks like a woman out of her time. As though she just stepped out of it. As the subject of these photos, Misty is turned into a ghost and immortalized through the action of taking a photo. Which is essentially what everyone is when you snap a selfie, your mark is physically placed down for however long the snapchat lasts for.

This just touches on the nature of ghosts through painting and photography with a few examples, there are many more out there. And even more ghosts. Photography seems like such a straightforward genre, but as a method of art between science and aesthetics, it really could not be more complicated philosophically.