Some folks make New Years resolutions to drink less and exercise more. This year, I’ve resolved to write better marginalia in the books I read.

In the December 30 issue of the New York Times Magazine, Sam Anderson offers a sampling of his marginalia from some of the books he read in 2011. I admire Anderson for this—it’s like peeking inside another’s intellect and imagination. And his article inspired me to take a closer look at what I write (or don’t write) in the books I read.

I am currently reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. Which means Dostoevsky’s text is being slowly invaded by my own jottings. I underline, I circle, I draw arrows to connect specific words and phrases, I use exclamation marks to highlight passages I like and large Xs to cross out phrases or plot developments I find obnoxious. And like Anderson, I’m a chronic margin scribbler.

Sometimes my comments are of the ordinary roadmap variety (page 31: “Note importance of physiognomies in D’s descriptions”). Other times, they might point out parallels with other characters/works (page 227: “Note similarities to Raskolnikov’s wandering in C&P) or try to draw out the philosophical depths of Dostoevsky’s story (page 226: “pre-epileptic epiphanic illumination  --> higher existence --> fleeting --> sublime moments of infinite clarity and understanding accompanied by suffering”). These notes aren’t intended for some greater end or project (although, come to think of it, it would be interesting to trace the meaning, use, and development of human “strain” throughout Dostoevsky’s novels); they simply represent my brief thoughts and reflections. They help keep me engaged while I read.

Unfortunately, however, I’m a hyper-self-conscious marginalia writer. I dwell too much over the right words, worry too much about trying to express an exact thought. Perhaps I’m also worried about what others might think if they read my scribblings. What if, after I died, a friend came across my marked-up copy of The Idiot? “Why the hell did he write that?" this friend would say. "That wasn’t what Dostoevsky was going for at all! I didn’t know Todd was such a simpleton.” But marginalia ought not be an art of perfection. It should be an informal stream-of-consciousness dialogue with the text. As Rachel recently blogged, marginalia makes reading more participatory and performative.

So as I wrap up The Idiot and begin re-reading The Brothers Karamazov, I’m resolved to become a less self-conscious and more expressive scrawler. Here’s to a 2012 filled with better marginalia.

Photo: Author

​Artist's approximation. This is how we picture Todd's desk, Linux Fish et al.

Credit: Flickr user blakespot. Used with a Creative Commons license.​

Todd is a person. He lives in Chicago. He's half-Cylon, half-Bartlett's Quotations. He does not do interviews. These quotes come directly from his mind to your screen/God's ears.

Todd says, "You're Welcome."

I've never liked concerts where the performers sound exactly like they do on their studio recordings. Live performaces need spice and spontaneity. I want to see and hear a band take risks, explore some new territory, and challenge me as a listener. Otherwise, I'd rather stay home.

For this reason I was looking forward to jamming my way through Wilco’s first of five sold out shows in their beloved Windy City. It was a highly publicized homecoming for Chicago’s favorite Dad Rock band. Mural-sized posters on city busses. Ads on NPR. Official countdowns on local radio programs. But the show itself, while musically and technically accomplished, was, well…boring.

So boring, in fact, that the young woman sitting next to me fell asleep during nearly every song, only to wake up during the applause. A sharp contrast to the energy of the Kanye & Jay-Z show I recently wrote about. Perhaps the snoozer was only feeling the soporific spirit of Chicago Lyric Opera House (a pretty fucking cool venue for a rock show), or maybe she pounded too many PBRs before the show. Most likely, each Wilco tune lulled her to sleep.

Which was surprising given the "jam band" aesthestic Wilco's embraced since their 2004 release, A Ghost Is Born, with guitarist Nels Cline now leading the band into cacophonous maelstroms. But over the past few years these diversions have become perfectly scripted, well-timed (and well-rehearsed) events during their live shows. I wish the band would again explore those exotic spaces outside the riffs and solos we already know.

As James commented in his recent review of the Wilco boys’ latest effort, The Whole Love, the album tends toward “symphonic soft-rock.” Nothing spectacular, offensive, or terribly original. Which is fine for dinner parties and Volkswagen commercials, but pretty lethargic stuff for a live show. Especially when they kick things off with a 12-minute performance of the hushed and insanely repetitive “One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend).” Which also has to be one of the clumsier song titles of the year. “Oh shit,” I tell my friend. “This is gonna be a long night.” A night, in hindsight, I should've stayed home.

What the show really lacked was a true spirit of spontaneity—guitar solos that spiralled and splintered, challenging the band and audience to keep pace and anticipate what might come next.  Instead, the audience was taken on a well-planned musical field trip, capably (and soberly) chaperoned by Tweedy & Co. (nobody’s ever accused them of being shoddy musicians). Sometimes the best field trips are the ones where the chaperones get drunk, the driver gets disoriented, and the bus goes careening down a dirt road towards some unknown end.

 Photo: Hidden Track

Until very recently I hadn’t popped my hip-hop cherry. My only foray into that world was via Girl Talk’s mash-ups, which is kind of like trying to score with your cousin: it just ain’t legit. But on the night of November 30, my cherry exploded in a fantastic ass-grinding soundquake at Kanye and Jay-Z’s “Watch the Throne” concert at Chicago’s United Center.

We arrived early to catch the unofficial warmup act: the flesh-fest on the mezzanine surrounding the arena. Tits and ass on parade. NFL players with their retinues, cruising. Hipsters with handlebar mustaches darting nervously through the crowd. South-siders looking skeptically at North-siders. And a couple of geeky white dudes watching it all go by. It was one of the most entertaining opening acts I’ve experienced, itself almost worth the insane $160 admission.

The show finally started. Kanye and Jay ascended on giant glowing cubes at opposite ends of the arena and the United Center was transformed into the Midwest’s hippest blinged-out, iPhone-illuminated dance club. It was also the largest crowd-generated ganja smoke machine I’ve ever known, the acrid haze casting a mystical blue aura around the two performers. They appeared like titans flaunting the spoils of their conquests (“Let’s get faded, Le Meurice for like 6 days / Gold bottles, scold models / Spillin’ Ace on my sick J’s.”).

I didn’t know the majority of the songs, but it didn’t really matter. More often than not, they simply instructed the crowd what to do: “Throw your diamonds in the sky!” “Lemme see your hands!” “Bounce!” They were the masters and we their kowtowing servants. Their charisma was majestic and totalitarian."You know how many hot bitches I own?!"

After 2 ½ hours and nearly 40 songs, Kanye and Jay wrapped up the show by playing “Niggas in Paris” eight times. (They played it ten the next night.) While audiences from Atlanta to Detroit have enthusiastically embraced this finale, it just reminded me of the time I heard a Dallas radio station play Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” for an hour straight. I’d like to think Kanye and Jay were above such stunts, but I guess you gotta give the people what they want. Or what you think they want.

After their first pass through “Niggas in Paris," we headed for the exits—much to the astonished chagrin of our stoned neighbors and distracted security guards (“What? Where are you goin'? It’s not over!”). And as we walked out into the late autumn night we were pleased that we fled before the show devolved into a litany of repetition. Indeed, it was an overhyped show that celebrated its own hype. But it was hard not to be swept up in such a tidal wave of  narcissism, at least for a little while.

It had been an aggressive, but proper, deflowering.

Photo: Associated Press

Classical music can be one temperamental bitch.

Take, for example, what recently happened during the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Anton Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. One concertgoer (this guy, it turns out) was so disgusted by conductor Osmo Vänskä’s “self-indulgent bad conducting” and the LPO’s “terrible playing” that he stormed out halfway through the performance yelling “Rubbish! ...This is terrible! ... Rubbish!” (Listen for yourself.) Unfazed, Vänskä and the LPO completed the performance without further incident. But try that kind of shit at a Mark Kozelek show and he’ll rip you a new asshole.

Classical music geeks are famous for their subjective peculiarities. One man’s forte is another man’s mezzo-forte. And there’s certainly no room for compromise—you’re just fucking wrong. Which makes the critical love fest that has followed the release of Riccardo Chailly’s recording of Beethoven’s complete symphonic cycle with Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra rather shocking. Since becoming music director of the esteemed Gewandhaus Orchestra in 2005, Chailly has solidified his reputation as one of the most accomplished, demanding, and energetic maestros in classical music today—qualities which also helped shape his new Beethoven cycle.

“Superb...joyful...fearless,” beams one critic. “Fresh and bold,” says another.Gramophone magazine, the apotheosis of classical music reviews, boasts that the performances under Chailly’s baton are a “tour de force,” “distinguished,” “electrifying,” and “powerful.” And according to The Guardian, it’s one of “the best modern-orchestra versions of recent times.”

A fan of both Beethoven and Chailly, but no classical music wonk, I can only say that Chailly’s Beethoven cycle is intense and driven, reawakening Beethoven’s music for a new century and the coming-of-age of the Millennial Generation. I also believe it’s something music fans of all stripes should include in their collections. And if Big Boi thinks Kate Bush’s new album is “very, very deep” and “good ride music,” he’ll definitely dig Chailly’s Beethoven.

So here are three simple reasons you, and Big Boi, should check it out.

• Big sounds. Beethoven’s music marked a decisive break with soothing, soporific chamber music that preceded it. Music was now loud, scandalous, unpredictable. Chailly’s recordings unleash the abrasive spirit of Beethoven’s revolutionary aesthetics. Turn it up.
• A Clockwork Orange. With Chailly’s galloping take on Beethoven’s Ninth—a true celebration of life—one can finally grasp Alex’s ode to “Ludwig van’s” final symphony in Burgess’ novel: “Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!” Sure, Alex's "lovely pictures" included a bride dropping from the gallows (in the movie, anyway); like I said, classical is nothing if not subjective.
• The cover. It’s just fucking cool. Recently, classical labels have been focusing on making covers more alluring to (younger) buyers. Hence the growing popularity of some classical music hotties. While lacking the drool-worthy sex appeal of a Ryan Gosling, Chailly still looks dapper and fierce as hell in the Avedon-style cover photo. Indeed, Chailly commands your attention. He dares you to listen.

So accept Chailly's challenge and discover what radical Romanticism sounds like. 

Image: Gewandhausorchster

“Okay, Mr. Shteyngart, can you please remove your pants?” Ever compliant, the Super Sad True Love Story author drops his designer jeans to reveal that he is wearing…what?

Does a certain contemporary Pushcart Prize-winner still wear Underoos? Does the latest Pulitzer-winner prefer the silkiness of Victoria’s Secret panties against his hairy nether regions?

Wouldn’t you like to know.

Recently the Financial Times and the New Yorker featured profiles of writers and their libraries, hoping to unlock some great secret about what book collections say about their curators. Voyeuristic bibliophilia at its geekiest. Yet we don’t learn anything new about writers: they own a lot of books; like to talk about books; think Chekov was a genius (fair enough); and feel like they haven’t read enough books.

So rather than invade writers’ libraries, why not launch a literary panty raid? Invasion of privacy issues aside, analyzing undergarments might reveal far more about our favorite writers and expose what kind of creative stuff they are made of. “Scandalous!” cries Oates. “Okay,” mumbles Roth, loosening his belt. “Undergarments?” queries Boyle.

Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows, supposedly changed his underwear only once a year.  Evidently his underwear became a type of protective second skin he was reluctant in shedding. And Jane Smiley writes in a robe—or perhaps even less. She’s rather vague about it.

Looking back, I imagine that Hemingway went commando or strapped on some sandpaper. Something rough and uncomfortable yet oddly liberating, the feeling of which helped him keep his prose economical. Tolstoy, too, probably free-balled it under his coarse peasant garb—a vain attempt to rid himself of impure sexual thoughts.

Other writers, however, must have required some type of confinement. Jean-Paul Sartre probably preferred Gauloises-singed tighty whities, something that undoubtedly irked Beauvoir’s more refined sensibilities. And I like to imagine Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf shielding a secretive sensual side, burying sexy lace buried under heavy woolen skirts. Much like their prose, both women harbored fiery passions beneath stoic veneers.

Or there’s the curious case of John Cheever. As a young and poorly paid writer, Cheever donned his only suit in the morning to commute to the building where he rented a room in which to write. Upon arriving, he would undress and carefully hang his suit. Then he would sit down and write. “A great many of my stories were written in boxer shorts,” Cheever wrote in1978.

Our contemporary literary giants should be as forthcoming about their unmentionables. What was Underworld written in, or IQ84? Given the massive girth of his latest tome, I imagine Murakami required something roomy and durable. Perhaps a simple pair of cotton Hanes boxers or, ideally, his awesome red running shorts. 

Photo: Jaunted

“Damn, the new Wilco album sounds like the seventies,” a friend recently complained to me. “And not in a good way. It’s like Tweedy discovered the cosmic Bowie vibe, a bit of glam rock, and some pseudo-jazz shit and is trying to concoct something new. But I just can’t tell what’s really new.”

Simon Reynolds would probably agree. In his fantastic book, Retromania, Reynolds laments the demise of originality and innovation in today’s music: “Could it be that the greatest danger to the future of our music culture is …its past?”

Perhaps we’re simply slogging through a purgatorial era of the eternal recurrence of past styles and sounds until we can no longer separate the vintage from the retro and we yearn for, and create, the next tectonic shift in music culture. Until that apocalyptic moment, we have Nick Barbery’s blog, ghostcapital, to guide us through some of the quarries of past music cultures, sans condescending irony, to (re)discover music that has been lost, forgotten, or altogether ignored—music that has thus far escaped the perils of retrofication.

As Aquarium Drunkard blogger Justin Gage remarks, ghostcapital exposes the “secret shafts of psych, folk, blues and beyond.” With the likes of Syl Johnson, Karen Dalton, Blackrock, and Judee Sill, these "shafts" tunnel through the sound and soul of so much contemporary music. The difference is that these musty crawlspaces feel groovier and grittier than today's ersatz sounds.

The magic of ghostcapital lies in its juxtaposition of the old and the new, the unknown and known, challenging listeners to expand their own musical comfort zones and perhaps draw some connections—musical, emotional, or otherwise—between seemingly divergent styles. This is especially true of the bizarrely sublime mix tapes ghostcapital curates, either solo or with the likes of Holy Warbles and Aquarium Drunkard. You might not dig all the obscure shit ghostcapital & co. unearth for these collections, but you’ll be taken through a genre-bending kaleidoscope that can awaken your senses to new musical realities.

So if you're jonesing for some seventies Norwegian folk jazz, smooth Ethiopian soul, vintage German punk and wave, Korean downer-folk, early electronic music (from the fifties!), or the folk sounds of a Paraguayan string band, ghostcapital can help fulfill some of your esoteric musical fantasies—and perhaps lead to some new ones.

(Photo: ghostcapital)

After a 14-year hiatus, Beavis and Butt-Head has returned to MTV. Many fans of the “new” Beavis and Butt-Head are likely in their mid-thirties to early forties and are enjoying a bit of nostalgia from their high school and college years, when the show provided an easy excuse to do bong hits and invent drinking games (“Okay, every time Beavis says ‘Cool’ or ‘Dumbass’ or Butt-Head laughs you gotta fuckin’ drink”). Glory days. Now a new and younger generation can be indoctrinated to this infectious idiocy.

After watching several of the new episodes—sans bong & drinking games, but with a bottle of wine—I found myself wondering, Why? Yes, I still laughed my ass off. Yes, it was clever to include Beavis’ and Butt-Head’s commentaries on MTV reality shows (Jersey Shore, 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom) in addition to music videos. But why is the show back? Why do we watch it? And what the hell does it say about us?

Knowing there probably isn’t some grand narrative answer to these questions (nor should there be), I came up with some existential qualities that characterize Beavis and Butt-Head—embarrassing, inappropriate values that make the show such a guilty pleasure.

Unfettered pleasure-seeking ids: Sex-obsessed, immature, unreflexive, irrational perverts. They never end up having sex, but their sole mission in life is to look at porn and try to score. Dr. Freud would be proud. “Hey Beavis, we need a chick that doesn't suck. No, wait a minute, that's not what I mean.” An ontology of primitive pleasure.

Naïve nihilists & myopic cynics: They truly don’t give a shit and are champions of schadenfreude. The world is nothing beyond whatever is directly in front of them. Everything else sucks. And they constantly beat the crap out of each other and destroy or burn whatever they find. “Damn it, all this wussy crap is pissing me off! C'mon, get violent! I wanna see some violence!” An ontology of nothingness.

Champions of sloth: Laziness rules, work is for losers, and their torn sofa is the center of their universe. “This sucks more than anything that's ever sucked before. We must find this butt-hole that took our TV.” An ontology of stasis.

Masterminds of ineptitude: All of their plans result in remarkable failure—and typically self-inflicted pain. “Dammit Beavis, what the hell are you doing? You're not supposed to have your penis out while you're cooking!” An ontology of masochism.

Beavis and Butt-Head is both a mocking condemnation and an exalting celebration of modern American adolescent stupidity. Immune to any type of moral reasoning, Beavis and Butt-Head offer glimpses into what the complete suspension of the ethical might look like. And rather than turn away in fear we tune in and laugh until we piss ourselves. But just a little bit.

Photo: Screen Junkies

“You got me feeling pussyish, Nedbody," she said, breathily.

"Think with your asshole." She grabbed his dick with one hand, and with her left hand she snookered a finger up his ass, and then she held her mouth still and began a slow, deliberate crescendo, jerking him off into her mouth.

That's Reese, pleasuring a headless but fully sensuous and aroused body (hence, "Nedbody") in Nicholson Baker's latest pornocopia of freaky fucking, House of Holes. In a wet little nutshell, the Vox author's short novel is about an alternative universe where visitors to the titular House (or HoH) can have any and all of their sexual fantasies and fetishes fulfilled. It’s a (heterosexual) sextopia focused entirely on consuming pleasure.

House of Holes is not a work of great fiction, but it is a provocative piece of social criticism: Are we too obsessed with sex, too afraid of loneliness, too ashamed of our most secret desires? It is also entertaining—not in some seedy porno-flick way, but in a slutty orgiastic-comic way. Throughout the novel I was far more amused than aroused.

Highlighted by his vibrant and playful sex-laced vocabulary (“dickitude,” “cockfuckedfulness,” “Kegeling love muscle,” “famished slutslot”), Baker’s work consists of a series of vignettes describing the wormholes through which people arrive at the HoH (found in such places as a dryer, a straw, and a vagina—one is literally “sucked” into the HoH) and what the people do once they’re there.

For example, for men there’s the “International Couch”: a line of women, “from all countries, all ages, all weights,” kneeling “with their asses up” waiting for you to “hump your way right down the line.” Similarly, women can take advantage of a “Squat Line” of reclining and aroused “international dudes.”

There are activities focused on specific fetishes (feet, tits, asses, fruit); a dismembered hand that pleasures women; a tree that grows magical dildos; a Hall of Penises and a Cockstorm Room; and the Porndecahedron: a private IMAX-like cinema where you’re surrounded by porn. There is also a monster composed, like those subway platform newsstands, of nothing but bad porn. Again, House of Holes drives us more toward laughter than masturbation. Sex can be quite silly.

Adding a bit of suspense, there’s the ongoing mystery of and search for the “Pearloiner”: an AWOL ex-TSA agent who has infiltrated the HoH to steal clitorises. Denying pleasure: pretty much the most heinous crime one could commit in the HoH.

Baker’s jism-splashed slutfest celebrates our horniness. But beyond such conspicuous consumption of sex—and each other—there’s still a dirty little remainder: the kinky underbelly of our filthiest, most arousing and amusing desires. The House of Holes exposes the many ways we fuck each other and encourages us to explore our own HoH, so we too can unleash an “Atlas-shrug shudderation of arrival” in which we shiver “through the seven, eight, nine, twelve seconds of worldwide interplanetary flux of orgasmic strobing happy unmatched tired coughing ebbing thrilled spent ecstasy.”

Photo: Gimcrack Hospital

I remember my first Tom Waits song, "Tom Traubert's Blues," like the first time I was racked by a girl in middle school. [Rack: v. To kick or knee one in the balls, in Texas. -ed] Not fondly, but viscerally. His voice ruptured that which I was accustomed to hearing. Unlike the kick to the crotch, however, I wanted more. There was something intimidating, yet soothing, about his raw and caustic ­­soul. The “brawlers, bawlers, and bastards” Waits sings about can haunt you.

Bad As Me is no exception. In many ways a microcosm of Waits’ entire oeuvre, his new album traverses gritty up-tempo train-chugging blues (“Chicago”), Elvis-like swagger (“Get Lost”), barroom bravado (“Bad As Me”), and existential angst (“Last Leaf”). Its varied musical portraits reflect the diverse personas that populate our culture: the ruined life of a recent war vet (“Hell Broke Luce”), addiction (“New Year’s Eve”), and the white noise of domesticity (“Talking At the Same Time”). A gallery of misfits and anti-heroes, all of them desperate, broken, and searching.

“Pay Me,” a song about the misery of an aspiring actress-cum-dancer, is the album's emotional nucleus, pulling together some of its key themes: the quest for, and question of, home; the irony of redemption; fatalism tinged with a fuck-you smirk. The song is starkly furnished with guitars, strings, accordion, and piano, allowing Waits to mourn, his voice hushed and fatigued. As usual, he's a brilliant storyteller:

You know I gave it all up for the stage
They fill my cup up in the cage
It’s nobody’s business but mine when I’m low
To hold yourself up is not a crime here you know
At the end of the world.

Like us, Waits’ characters are full of delusions and contradictions. We simultaneously long for and shun that which is impossible to reach (“home,” for example). In this way, “Pay Me” closes ambiguously, juxtaposing fate and hope.

And though all roads will not lead you home my girl
All roads lead to the end of the world
I sewed a little luck up in the hem of my gown
The only way down from the gallows is to swing.

But in the final coda, resignation is mitigated by that fuck-you smirk: “And I’ll wear boots instead of high heels/And the next stage that I am on it will have wheels.” Nodénouement in a Waits song is ever simple or one-dimensional.

I still find Waits intimidating, his stories haunting. But I’m learning to accept and embrace his brawlers, bawlers, and bastards. After all, these are stories about us.

Photo: For the Sake of the Song