Perhaps brevity is more than the soul of wit. Perhaps it is the exposure of the soul.
In Barry Hannah's 1983, now-forgotten novel "The Tennis Handsome," the Meridian-born author deals with "channeling" aspects of his friends' lives into his own. This is not necessarily a survival mechanism, more so than a path to regain lost youth. Hannah settled down early and, as a provider, had to find the shortest method to both living on the page as well as maintaining his growing reputation as a storied writer.
Working with editor Gordon Lish, entire novels are slashed and burned down to novella-size tales. In a 2008 interview on "Bookmark with Don Noble," you get the sense that Hannah admired Lish ("Gordon likes the echo rather than the exposition.") even though, at the time, he still seems a little mystified by large chunks of text - just disappearing. This is a lot to contend with when you consider that Hannah's 1980 work "Ray" was extracted from nearly 300 single-spaced pages. Lish's edit: 125 pages, 25,000 words that earned Hannah an American Book Award nomination.
A large portion of "The Tennis Handsome" is told by doctor/trainer Baby Levaster from Vicksburg, MS. Levaster's admiration for Hannah's true subject, tennis pro French Edward, is evident in most of the remembered interactions. As the book opens, we are even led to believe that Edward is a part of Levaster ("He has no mind outside of me.") Yet, Hannah arouses our curiosity by not telling us how or why. Instead, we become fairly transfixed on Levaster. In addition, his relationship with French Edward acts as the true indicator of the novel's passage of time.
Levaster is not necessarily a second in command, but Edward does nearly everything he says. ("Where do I run, Baby?," Edward asks Levaster who then, "told him to do it fifty times.") However, somewhere in the fog of memories past, there was a moment where they separated. Edward was married to his college sweetheart. Baby married his nurse Louise from the practically free clinic he ran to care for the homeless, drug-addled, and indigent.
These dramatic changes in life could honestly feed chapters about both men (and even their wives.) Instead, Hannah reduces it down to barely two pages. Admirably, Baby and Louise make their careers together at this clinic. Baby even cleans up his alcohol abuse.
In the last whole surge of his physical life, he won a set from French at the Metairie Club, where French was the resident pro. This marvel caused Levaster a hernia and a frightful depletion of something untold in his cells. He lost his sense of survival for five months. He became a creature of the barbarous moment.
Like a spinning backhand slicing across the net, then hitting inside the court and turning 180 degrees away from the opponent, Hannah completely breaks down Levaster in one boldly written paragraph. This is Hannah breaking down Levaster without the sad montage (no worries, it is coming and almost as brief.)
Yet, winning is Levaster's demise. Hannah is breaking down Levaster to give him character and make him not only human - but believable in every cell of your being as a reader. Everyone in life, especially in Literature, takes a bad turn. However, there is always some event that tears them asunder from the world to lay the blame upon and move on. In addition, Hannah via Levaster has him proverbially "winning at all costs." Even Levaster's wife leaves him. Baby comes home to find her gone and a typewritten note left in her wake.
One more week of this and you'd have taken us to the bottom of Hell. I used to be a strong but good person. Now I am strong and evil. I hope you're satisfied. Goodbye.
Who knew the distance from hero to pariah was such a short one?
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
New MUSIC this Week – women first!
MIRANDA LAMBERT - Postcards From Texas [BLUE LP/CD] (Big Loud/Republic) • Safe in her new label home, Lambert chooses to make her entire album at home in Texas to ensure that it gets close to the previous magic touch. While she definitely hits the same tempo and grit of older favorites ("Wranglers,") she knows that growth is what everyone is truly looking for ("No Man's Land,") even if radio still will not let her back inside the gates.
NILÜFER YANYA - My Method Actor [GREEN LP/CD/CS] (Ninja Tune/Redeye) • Singer/songwriter Yanya uses the seductive purr of her voice to cloud the reality of her storytelling. In many cases on her latest album, she is playing with and against memory (like "Method Actor.") This summoning and eventual locking away trauma is a dangerous tool for actors. In her hands, it is hopefully closer to a cathartic release. Working with producer Wilma Archer, songs are simply recorded and beefed up only when the riff needs to overpower her anger (the standout "Like I Say (I Run Away)" - one of the best singles of this year.) It is a brilliant bold trip inside of her headspace that lives outside of the now-constant confessional writing that many female singer/songwriters are engaged in. "My Method Actor" shows her dexterity has refined and reveals an inner toughness that will influence those to come.
SUKI WATERHOUSE - Memoir of A Sparklemuffin [PEARL LP/CD] (SubPop/AMPED) • Given Waterhouse's multi-hyphenate standing, the model and actress brand are largely absent from this great leap forward. While Waterhouse has chalked up a few successful singles (the TikTok hit "Good Looking,") the initial run of released tracks from this piece of autobiography show her growing into a stylistic multi-hyphenate. "OMG," "My Fun," and "Supersad" richly deserve to be hits. Still, you get the feeling that Waterhouse could care less about scoring one. For once, that is to her advantage as she disintegrates a former lover on "Blackout Drunk" while becoming both a mother and a free spirit at the same time.
ALLEGRA KRIEGER - Art of the Unseen Infinity Machine [GREEN LP] (Double Double Whammy) • When we first introduced this brash new singer/songwriter, her COVID era "The Joys of Forgetting" was all about a "hurry up, and wait" approach to living and writing. At the time, her most personal songs were where she played alone. Four years later, Krieger is free to be whoever she wants to be. "Infinity Machine" works her inventive songwriting ("Never Arrived") into noisy, wildly organized pieces of life spinning just a few RPMs faster than we are used to (the standout "Came.")
CURSIVE - Devourer [RED/ORANGE 2LP/CD] (Run For Cover) • Tim Kasher's Cursive have always been a band that lived in the company of their influences. With the weird addition of organs and other non-Rock instruments, Cursive evolved beyond their Emo/Punk roots. Now over 20 years later, "Devourer" is to be admired as this yet another older band with something left to prove. "Up and Away" dares to slow their atonal strikes down to accompany a Spoon-ish wordy Pop feeling. While the guitar riffing of "Imposturing" reaches new Emo standards while showing Kasher's skill at arranging around the entire band.
NADA SURF - Moon Mirror [LP/CD] (New West/Redeye) • After albums proving they are a better band than their one-time almost-hit still-fun-on-a-playlist "Popular," "Moon Mirror" combines Matthew Caws earnest lyricism with classic swooping Seventies Pop/Rock. "In Front of Me Now" earns its stripes with a sweeping, harmonic chorus, while the guitar-heavy (former Guided By Voices member Doug Gilliard is there for the handoff) on the jangly "Losing" triumphs above its oversimplified lyrics.
JULIE - My Anti-Aircraft Friend [LP/CD] (Atlantic) • With their distinct Sonic Youth-ian guitar thrust, Julie's 2022's double-sided single "pg.4 a picture of three hedges/through your window" pushed the trio well into the Noise Pop side of the new Shoegaze burst. Now on their debut, their new songs ring with both their male/female harmonies and quick shifts in time using what we will lovingly call "atonal mass." "Very Little Effort" does not so much as build - but explode - and then ask you to humbly carry the weight of its end-of-track collapse.
GURRIERS - Come and See [LP] (No Filter UK) • This wild noisy new five-piece from Dublin trades in the menace associated with loud Post-Punk for a more sardonic bark. "Nausea" and "Des Goblin" both expose their knack for using galloping drums and overdriven bass for danceable Post-Punk. But the brilliant noisy swirl of "No More Photos" turns hilarious thanks to yob-culture satirizing strikes like "Gentlemen, no fighting in the bathroom please" and the punctuating "I've been taking karate on the weekends." Such a promising debut.
REISSUES OF THE WEEK
NOTORIOUS B.I.G - Ready To Die [BLUE/ORANGE 2LP] (Rhino) • Used to be when you said you liked Hip-Hop, the next question was always "East Coast or West Coast?" Christopher Wallace was both the dividing line and its unifying point. East Coast domination of Hip-Hop changed hands with the N.W.A/Dr. Dre/Ice Cube/Snoop Dogg/Eazy-E/Tupac parade. In September 1994, authority was snatched back by "Ready To Die." It was not that Wallace was fulfilling his promise (see also: Craig Mack's "Flava In Ya Ear" and Mary J. Blige remixes from 1993 that detail his vocal power and lyrical prowess,) it was that Wallace knew how to tell his life story with all the immediacy of a Scorsese movie and still deliver the hits. "Juicy" and "Big Poppa" remain mainstays of Classic Hip-Hop because they learned the lessons of the remixes - push that hook as hard as you push the sample. However, "Ready To Die" is a testament not because of its hits or marketability (Busta Rhymes once gave them away just to be attached to it,) it was its honesty. With menacing cuts like "Gimme The Loot," "Warning," and especially "Things Done Changed," Wallace's easy flow lived in contrast with a police-siren, car-swerving, shouting world. It is not that Wallace was in a dreamworld, or even in opposition to telling his story. It is that Wallace's world remains tucked away from the prying eyes of the real world. Those who live it understand (like his friend the late Tupac Shakur,) those who want to understand - do not want to live or relive it. In 1994, these were the bravest statements anyone had made in Hip-Hop yet. Today, the legacy is more like a film. This is romance, humor, pathos even. Would have made one amazing film.
MAC DEMARCO - Salad Days ANN EDITION [HOLOGRAPHIC 2LP] (Captured Tracks) • There is far more to DeMarco than his penchant for Viceroys, or even the magic of his smoke-damaged wobbly eight-track tape recorder. His debut "Rock N'Roll Night Club" was a stellar concept album, and the mysterious "2" expanded on his ability to write any song he could create. "Salad Days" was a first as DeMarco finally had to stare into the mirror and write about his life. Playing all the instruments himself, "Salad Days" is DeMarco not only in control of his emotions ("Brother") but displaying a skillful almost-philosophical skill at time release ("Chamber of Reflection.") Most artists would never get away with this level of self-consumption. However, DeMarco's well honed slacker-esque/devil may care sound fed the notion that these were more ruminations than nerve-addled confessions. If anything, ten years later DeMarco still has never sounded more at peace with himself. That is a true accomplishment in the light of the fact that he kicked off this process "weathered and beat down and grown up all of the sudden."
FRANK ZAPPA - Apostrophe (') [GOLD 2LP/CD] (Zappa/UME) • In brief, if you want to get into Zappa - "Apostrophe" is the best possible front door. Now 50 years old, the Nanook suite on the first side both rocks and sells you on what a skillful composer Zappa truly was (Ruth Underwood's astounding solo on "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast.") The second side is a bit jam-heavy for Zappa catalog heads - but the title cut with Cream's Jack Bruce and Derek and The Dominoes' Jim Gordon is still revelatory. Finally, while Zappa was always eager to introduce the world to satire ("Cosmik Debris,") he never sounded as sincere as when he let brilliant keyboardist George Duke sing on "Uncle Remus." It's his first Top ten album. Classic.
