Out of curiosity I picked up a kids book titled
Mr. Gum and the Dancing Bear by
Andy Stanton. I hesitated because our library only has book 5 of the Mr. Gum series, which disappointed me (only days later did they add a book-on-CD version of
You're a Bad Man, Mr. Gum Book 1). However, with a cover like this, how could you not.
I was skeptical at first as the book seemed to be about a depressed bear who wanders into town and is taken advantage of by the scheming Mr. Gum and his sort-of sidekick Billy William the Third. However, I laughed my head off. Alan Taylor, the town's school's headmaster, is, in fact, a gingerbread man. Jonathan Ripples, the towns fat-man decides to go on a world tour of food in a hot air balloon. Sure, it was all nonsensical, but it made me laugh out loud and read passages to Talia. I can't help but use Mr. Gum's "curse phrase": "Shabba me whiskers!" Fantastic! Oh, did I mention that the character Captain Brazil is nuts... actually Stanton calls him a "crazer." And here's an exerpt from my favorite scene... or one of them... Polly and Padlock the bear are stranded on the ocean and are slowly going a bit nuts:
"Thirst and hunger.
Thirst and hunger.
Polly was starting to lose her mind.
Was Padlock really talking or had she only imagined it?
SWWWSSSSShhhhhhhh.
Hundreds of Crunchy Little Leopards floated by in a postman's hat, laughing and splashing each other for fun.
'Look at me,' said Padlock, taking off his head and playing football with it. 'Ha ha ha, hee hee hee!'"
... and it goes on. Here's another. Mr. Gum and Billy William the Third have just jumped in a boat in pursuit of Polly and Padlock:
"'They ain't gettin' away with this!' screamed Mr. Gum, jumping on to a rundown little fishing boat called The Dirty Oyster. Billy hopped in after him and started up the engine, sending billowing clouds of filthy black smoke into the night air, and off the set in hot pursuit.
But luckily the pursuit wasn't that hot after all, because The Dirty Oyster was absolutely loaded with cans of smuggled beer. In less than ten minutes the villains were completely drunk, completely lost, completely going round in circles, completely shouting at each other and completely and utterly useless. Polly and Padlock had escaped!"
Last note on this book: the similes are fantastic and confusing. "as quiet as an avocado," "his chest thrust out like a vainglorious acorn," "fit as a unicorn and twice as real," or "like the world's furriest gymnastics guy." I have a new category of silly turn of phrase. Hilarious.
Change of Pace
I heard a track off the new
Dirty Projectors album a couple weeks ago and couldn't believe it. I have only heard of this band in conjunction with art rock and "best album you wish you could like."
They're a hard band to get into because they create intricate and abrasive and sometimes freakish songs. However,
Bitte Orca is being hailed as the most accessible of their albums to date. From my end, it's another album to vie for the top of the year end list. Variated harmonies, slippery guitar lines, morphing time signatures, but under it all is a dedication to song-craft and an almost epic sense of the new. The Dirty Projectors have always been at the forefront of new sounds, but it seems that, here, they have the potential to remind/wake up others to the vast array of sounds out there.
