I don't know if you follow Fast Show alumnus Simon Day on any social platforms, but you should. He's just made The Builder, in his words "a sketch in seven parts". Here they are. The pathos is part seven...
Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Tuesday, 19 October 2021
Twenty-one in '21: Nameless, Season 2
I've read far less in recent years than I would like. To help remedy this, I've set myself the modest target of reading twenty one books in 2021. When I finish one, a thumbnail review here will follow.
10-15/21: Nameless, Season 2 by Dean Koontz
The blurb: Behind a wall of amnesia, he can’t remember anything. Maybe he can’t bear to. Nameless knows only the mission: Directed by the mysterious Ace of Diamonds, he travels the country, turning predators into prey. But the pain in his past can’t hold him back when dark visions of the future lead him toward his greatest test yet. Nameless is closing in on a revelatory endgame in this collection of short thrillers from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontz.
The review: regular readers might recall that I read and reviewed the first sextet of Nameless novellas last year. I quite enjoyed them, summarising that "if you like Koontz already, you'll like these too. They won't change the world, but would make intriguing films or, better still, a mini-series." Well, following the series analogy, here's Season 2, another batch of six novellas that progress, explain and ultimately conclude the strange tale of Nameless, an Equalizer for our times. For our protagonist roams the US, dispatching awful people who have somehow escaped justice through formal channels. In that regard, Koontz has created a satisfying set-up.
Of course this is Season 2, so something needs to be a bit different, to prevent it becoming samey. And there is difference; more is made of Nameless's preternatural abilities, specifically his apparent clairvoyance, and how that becomes more frequent. Beyond the utility of this skill in his chosen line of work (foresight enables Nameless to avoid getting killed, and help others more effectively), this precognition also serves to introduce a second story arc, in which our (anti-) hero foresees the imminent rise of crypto-fascist group in his homeland, and increasingly dreams of them carrying out appalling acts. His desire to stop this group before it can really get started becomes woven into the other wrongs that Nameless rights, and provides a theme that runs throughout the six novellas. Given the charismatic but appalling leader of the group, and the actions of his followers, it's hard not to speculate that Koontz was thinking of Trump, the invasion of the Capitol, and the schism of reason in the US right now. Certainly that's a parallel that I could see, intended or otherwise.
The other underlying theme is the true identity of Nameless and his handler, Ace of Diamonds, and what has brought them to this way of life. I think I can avoid a spoiler by hinting that the latter turns out to be interwoven with the crypto-fascist plot mentioned earlier. Anyway, for the most part the big reveal of Nameless and co is handled well - it's a satisfying explanation, albeit one that stretched (but did not break) this reader's credulity on occasion.
Ultimately, this is a sequel series, a follow-up, and the inevitable question must be, does it measure up to what came before? And the simple answer is yes. It has the same strengths as Season 1: well-paced, and with a prosaic style that suits the subject matter well. It has the same weakness too: occasional pontification, the sermon according to Nameless (or Koontz). My Kindle tells me that lots of people are highlighting some of these grand pronouncements but they are mostly just truisms and, if anything, they disrupt rather than add to the storytelling. That said, I again rattled through the six stories that make up Season 2 and, although I viewed with denouement with the plot-scrutinising, plausibility-busting eye of a wannabe novelist (and found it slightly lacking), I still enjoyed these last Nameless tales. I still think they would make a good TV mini-series. I'd certainly watch it.
Bottom line: fast-moving, engagingly written series of stories that will satisfy Koontz fans without winning anyone else over.
Since everything online is rated these days: ★★★★☆☆
Monday, 18 October 2021
Monday long song: Comeuppance
This is very much of its time, lost somewhere between shoegaze, Madchester and Britpop, but blimey, Thousand Yard Stare made some lovely sounds with their layered guitars. And you know what? They're back and still sounding good.
Anyway, from very nearly (gulp) thirty years ago, here's the one track of theirs that cracked the main UK top 40: Comeuppance.
For anyone interested (probably just me), they later released an instrumental remix of this entitled Moccapune e.p. - see what they did there? We laughed like drains, et cetera...
Friday, 15 October 2021
Blue Friday: Grey Day
From the third Madness album, 7, this is very different from most of the Nutty Boys fare that had propelled them up the charts to that point, a downbeat tune with depressed lyrics and a video full of anxiety dreams. Note also the pallid make-up, the falling backwards, the manic clown grin... even the trademark nutty conga line sees the seven in identical grey suits, peeling off one at a time to enter identical houses. Was fame losing its sheen for the boys? Did they feel on a treadmill? A commercial product, rather than a band, perhaps? Performing in a shop window might be emblematic of that.
All of which speculation makes it even more interesting to learn that Mike Barson wrote this song in 1978, when the band were still The Invaders, but that it didn't get recorded until 7, three years later. Of corse, what's also interesting about that is how much can change in three short years.
Despite the minor keys, brooding sax and atypical video, Grey Day spent ten weeks in the singles chart and reached a highpoint of #4, such was Madness's power at the time. All together now...
In the morning I awake,
My arms, my legs, my body aches,
The sky outside is wet and grey,
So begins another weary day...
We've all been there, right?
Monday, 11 October 2021
Monday long song: Sunrise
The closing track of Pulp's final studio album, the Scott Walker produced We Love Life, released a scarcely credible twenty years ago this month.
Friday, 8 October 2021
Blue Friday: Anchor
This Friday's blue song came to my attention via the recent equal-parts-gripping-and-frustrating BBC drama Vigil. It's by Novo Amor, about whom I know nothing, and sounds like the sort of song that should be used to soundtrack a car ad, until you look closer at the lyrics and see words like this:
And I hear your ship is comin' in
Your tears a sea for me to swim
And I hear a storm is comin' in
My dear, is it all we've ever been?
Gulp.
Wednesday, 6 October 2021
Music Assembly: Vesti la Giubba
I love The Untouchables, the Kevin Costner vehicle directed by Brian De Palma, ostensibly telling the tale of how Eliot Ness brought down Al Capone on charges of tax evasion. For all it faults, it is, as critic Pauline Kael once wrote, "like an attempt to visualise the public's collective dream of Chicago gangsters." Andy Garcia is superb in this film too, and of course Robert De Niro got to play Capone, wielding a baseball bat to memorable effect. Billy Drago, as hitman Frank Nitti, is also underappreciated. Even Costner's occasional woodenness can be excused, as it lends Ness a buttoned-up, stoic air. And of course there is Sean Connery's turn as Irish beat cop Jim Malone, for which he won an Oscar, despite criticism of his Scottish Irish accent. Whatever, for my money the film is beautifully shot, excitingly paced, and well acted across the board. It also has a quite brilliant, evocative score from Ennio Morricone - what more could you want?
Of course one piece of music in the film is not by Morricone. Whilst Nitti is off [spoiler alert] killing Malone, Capone is very visibly at the opera - the perfect alibi. Now I have always struggled with opera, and can't imagine that I would ever go to see one in its entirety. But I can appreciate certain pieces, such as that which Capone watches in The Untouchables. The piece is from Pagliacci (literal translation, "Clowns") by Ruggero Leoncavallo, and is called Vesti la Giubba ("Put on the costume"). In the opera, the protagonist Canio, a clown, must prepare to laugh and perform, despite being heartbroken. This dichotomy of emotion suits the Untouchables scene well, as Capone appears tearful watching the opera, whilst joyful at the news of Malone's demise.
Now I don't know if the music has stayed with me just because I love the film, or because I can actually appreciate it standalone, despite my ignorance of, and general ambivalence towards, opera. Either way, here's Vesti la Giubba in its cinematic context...
...and in full.
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