I’ve been putting off writing this review for some time. Mostly because I simply haven’t figured out how I feel about the novel. Absurdistan is intended to be a satire about both eastern and western culture, a harrowing feat for any author. Oh sure, it’s certainly well-written and is definitely absurd, but I actually didn’t finish the novel knowing whether I liked it.

For this novel, I can’t summarize it without giving most of the plot away. Deal with it. Absurdistan centers on Misha Vainberg, the son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia. He’s a large man—328 pounds—and has a deep love of all things urban American, especially gansta rap and the Bronx. He discovered these things after going to Accidental College in New York City (I don’t know either), where he majors in multiculturalism. Vainberg was originally sent to New York by his father at age 18 to be circumcised by a group of Hassids. However, the Hassids end up mutilating Vainberg.

It’s here that the reader begins to realize that Vainberg was sexually abused by his father as a child. And quite often. The reader also realizes two more things: that Vainberg probably knows this and chooses to deny it, and that if he has acknowledged it, his denial has forced him to decide that it wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It’s this part of the novel that made me not want to finish it. About the first forty or so pages are entirely about Vainberg’s relationship to his penis, and thereby, his father. I gather that part of the parody of Western culture is that Americans are heavily in denial and choose not to accept some of the things that have happened to them, but this is ridiculous. It’s not absurd, and it’s not parody. It’s shameful. To go to the point where Vainberg returns to Russia and rebuilds his therapist’s office exactly as the New York office looks isn’t funny, it’s disturbing. What’s more, Shteyngart never fully returns to Vainberg’s abuse, and Vainberg never deals with it. This is just here to show that Vainberg is a sensationally screwed-up individual, and that’s that. While it’s definitely a good sign for a writer to leave a reader perturbed, I’m not sure whether this section toes the line or crosses it.

At any rate, Vainberg finds himself trapped in Russia after he is denied a visa to return to America (His mobster father allegedly killed an Oklahoma businessman). However, he still wants to leave the country, so he goes to a small country between Iran and Russia called Absurdistan, where he plans to buy Belgian citizenship.

Ordinarily, “Absurdistan” is a satirical term used to describe a country in which absurdity is the norm, especially in government. It was originally used when referring to the countries birthed from the collapse of the USSR. Here, Shteyngart makes Absurdistan an actual country that quite obviously fits its definition. Here, two native groups are warring, but for a reason no one can remember. One powerful member from one side even offers Vainberg a position as Minister of Multiculturalism, even though they have no idea what that means (Of course, Vainberg doesn’t exactly either, as throughout the novel he derides whatever ethnic group he comes across.). Most importantly in an Eastern country, Absurdistan also apparently has oil. Halliburton (pronounced “Golly Burton” there because of accents) is there to drill it. However, a pretty major problem comes to light (I can save one part of the book for readers, yes?), and matters became even worse in Absurdistan.

So after all of this, as a reader, I’m not entirely sure what to think. Shteyngart picks on the entire world, including himself. He inserts himself as a minor character, the slimy Jerry Shteynfarb, an author and professor who impregnates his students. At times, it feels like he is picking on Vainberg, especially for his size. It then becomes difficult to sympathize when a character when the author doesn’t appear to sympathize with him. Through Vainberg, Shteyngart also picks on stupid American policies and our greed for oil. Shteyngart makes Eastern countries come across as crooks under the guise of looking out for its people. He also points out how ridiculous any country can be over the process of giving and receiving aid while underhandedly trying to sell and obtain oil. I’m sure that Shetyngart isn’t asking people to look at themselves in the mirror and change or any of that kind of crap, as the goal of parody as a genre is to point out the ridiculousness of something. And Absurdistan certainly has.

Perhaps you can see why I can’t stop thinking about this novel. On one hand, I’m absolutely angered by the audacity of Shteyngart for writing some of the things he did. On the other hand, it’s pretty remarkable. Regardless of any inevitable decision about the work, that ambiguous notion is certainly a sign of a good writer.

Buy Absurdistan from Random House

You’ve heard three things about the New Pornographers in concert. Let me first preface this by telling you that the New Pornographers are one of my absolute favorite bands at this moment, and I’m guessing they will be for awhile. The only thing that disappoints me about the band is that based entirely on their name, I can’t play them in my middle school music classroom to give the kids an insight into high-end, exceedingly well-arranged pop music. Sure there’s a couple of F-bombs in the songs, too, but anyway.

There are three things you’ve heard about the NPs in concert. Or at least, three things I’d heard from others about seeing them in concert, and why it’s not always a good idea.

1. Neko Case and Dan Behar will not be with the band. And that sucks.
2. The songs sound just like they do on the record. Always.
3. Their set lists draw exclusively from Twin Cinema. And that sucks.

Well. I’m here to dispel at least one of these myths. Well, only one, really, and to discuss the other two.

Before we get into this, let me just get one thing straight – we had it damn good, because this was the first EVER New Pornographers show in Florida. So that dispels myth #4 – the anti-Floridian bias held by most other Canadian indie rockers (Arcade Fire, you’re going down next!). Granted, it was on the eve of a big and fairly influential music festival down here, and definitely the largest indigenous non-touring Florida festival. So maybe they had a good reason to come.

Firstly, #1 was correct. I have one good friend who would have only come to the show had Neko Case been there. And while she was replaced for the show by a completely competent imitator in Kathryn Calder, who is actually a full band member and also apparently Carl Newman’s niece (what the fuck!?), competence just doesn’t do Neko Case justice. Ms. Case is absolutely irreplaceable, and one would have thought for the show immediately before the band headlines the entire Langerado Festival in South Florida, over Trey Anastasio and other jam band heavyweights, that she and Behar would have showed up.

But no. I haven’t stayed too connected, so I’m not sure if she made it down for Langerado, but I keep hearing how she’ll refuse to play Florida. Look, Neko. We love you. We adore you. You belt better than anyone else in indie rock today, and even my mom says you have a clarity in your voice that’s so rare. And she hates everyone. We would gladly pay lots of money to hear you sing, and buy lots of overpriced merch so you could have a nice trip home. So please, next time, come sing for us. We promise we’ll make it worth your while.

Behar was missed as well, but Mr. Newman (Carl obviously, not Randy) covered his vocals on the Behar tracks that they played. Set list spoiler? Hardly.

Secondly, in the opinions of some, #2 was also correct. They didn’t veer much at all from the record. Sometimes, this can be a good thing. Sometimes, you just want to hear something you’ve jammed out to on your stupid little iPod played with the energy of a live concert. You want to see it in person. You want to know the person singing or playing on that song is not a studio fake (Tilly, anyone? Well, all except for the amazing tap-dancer…). And if that’s what you wanted, that’s what the New Pornographers delivered. Of course, it didn’t sound exactly like it did on the album, because the studio work on the band’s albums is so tightly woven and expertly produced, it can’t be reproduced live. But hell, they sure gave it a shot.

Part of me thinks, though, that everyone in the band is such a fantastic musician that they have a hard time letting go. Some ironic kid in the crowd (oddly enough, because it was a slightly older audience than most Orlando indie rock shows) shouted “Eye of the Tiger” as a request. Jerk. But just like I’d seen at Billy Joel a few weeks ago, the ironic cover gets a response. And partly because the NPs absolutely fucking nailed it. They weren’t messing around with their instruments like a bunch of teenagers. Drummer Kurt Dahle reproduced the exact drum beat, and almost spot on vocals, which even if he dropped a few words, he caught the melody note for note. Guitars filled in, making it seem as if everyone was running up the steps of some Philadelphia courthouse. Strange.

I guess the question I beg is that when your songs are intricate, based on very complex arrangements, and “require a lot of arithmetic”, as Carl Newman said before they counted off and played “The Jessica Numbers”, it’s hard to shake the structure. One beautiful exception to this was an amazing rendition of “Streets of Fire”, opened with quick, gentle guitar strumming, leading up to even more of a climax than we hear on the record. Nice.

So two NP myths proven correct. Damnit. I loved the show! What can I do to prove the naysayers wrong?!

That’s right! How could I have forgotten? The set list was fucking awesome! They played nearly equal parts Mass Romantic, Electric Version, and Twin Cinema. Yes! I knew we were headed into happy places when the second song we heard, after a lovely opening of “Sing Me Spanish Techno” was followed by “From Blown Speakers.” Yes!! Score! And of course, as is expected once you’ve listened to Electric Version one too many times, they followed it up with “The Laws Have Changed.” We win! We win!

Of course, the less affected elder crowd didn’t pogo like me, unless they were doing so very drunkenly. And yeah, some of the shine wore off in the midst. The bassist kept bending over to pick things up in the middle of songs. It seemed the band was holding back just a little bit.

But after two tremendous applauses, whistles and cheers, and ending the encore with “Letter from an Occupant” (on which Calder particularly shined), I’m okay with saying I’ll take whatever these kickass indie rockers are willing to give.

Today, Van Halen, R.E.M., Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five, Patti Smith, and the Ronettes are being inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. That’s a damn good group if I may say so myself, but accompanying that group is an atrocious list of the Definitive 200 albums every music fan should own. This list is the most pandering crap I’ve ever read, even worse than most Rolling Stones lists.

We’ll make this quick. The flaws with this list are obvious and endless, as we knew they would be. As a devoted VH1 Classic fan (and I will say that sometimes I watch it to berate it as much as I do to see the videos, although seeing The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” followed immediately by the video [!!] for Dinosaur Jr.’s cover of “Just Like Heaven” is pretty amazing), I saw the ad for this online list.

And then lists of retailers where you could get these records. You know, like Every Single FYE in Existence.

You know where you won’t find a lot of these albums? In the collection’s of people with taste. Yeah, there’s a lot of Beatles albums. Yeah, enough Rolling Stones and some Dylan to satisfy the clamoring masses.

But not one, not two, but THREE Dixie Chicks albums!?!? Are you kidding me!? Aren’t the five Grammys enough!? There are more Dixie Chicks albums than Nirvana albums!?? For serious!? You have got to be kidding me. What’s worse, she’s joined by Faith Hill and, for the love of God and all that is holy, Shania Twain. In all profundity, who has this Canadian born pop tart sheathed only by a steel geetar enough to call herself country been sleeping with!? What is wrong here? Three Dixie Chicks albums, Shania and Faith, and only one Johnny Cash album?!

It’s not that I don’t like the Dixie Chicks, actually. They’re essentially the real thing in country music. The joke back in 2003 was, “Oh, look at those girls who are trashing the President. Too bad their music sucks.” But the fact is that they’re truly talented. I remember hearing them sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl before their anti-Bush shitstorm hit, and it was one of the more beautiful renditions I’ve ever heard. Their close harmonies and instrumental prowess separate them from the Faiths and the Shanias, that’s for damn sure.

But three albums of the 200 most essential ever?! Not to be too very derivative of Wayne’s World, but No Way! Not even one deserves a place on the list. Sorry. So they’ve criticized Bush. They’ve now joined the pantheon of talented musicians (not all of whom make great albums, necessarily) who do the same. Are we forgetting the Vote for Change tour, and those gigantic spreads in Rolling Stone in 2004? Just because you say something bad about Bush before a concert does not make you Bob Dylan! That song about Earl who had to die is not exactly comparable to the songwriting of Joe Strummer.

And that’s just part of it. As I’ve said before on other lists (we won’t even go back to the videos), but these lists reflect the time in which they were written more than any sort of “For All Time” mentality. In 20 years, critics will be embarrassed for praising Linkin Park (if they’re not already now). We will remember NWA’s Straight Outta Compton a whole lot more than R. Kelly’s R. But those two albums are given equal footing on this list.

If you want a list of important recordings, go to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. Those I would consider essential recordings. And they even share a few with this Hall of Fame list. The most interesting part of the NRR is the post-1980 recordings, some of which include Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet (It Takes a Nation… is on the Hall’s list), Nirvana’s Nevermind (also on the Hall’s list), Paul Simon’s Graceland (on the Hall’s list), the single of Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five’s “The Message” (nowhere to be found on the Hall’s list, despite the Grandmaster’s induction this year), and Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation (not even close to the Hall’s list). Because as we all know, according to Cleveland’s list, Def Leppard is more influential and entertaining than John Coltrane, and AC/DC is more important than Miles Davis.

Not to mention others that the NRR list includes, and Hall of Fame’s doesn’t: The Crickets, Cole Porter, Charles Mingus, Patsy Cline, Muddy Waters, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Frank Zappa, The Wailers…many of them inductees of the Hall, but left off of their Definitive 200 list. I could go on. But I choose not to.

So what have we learned today, O Faithful Readers of Retrolowfi? The government knows more when it comes to preserving music than an organization whose outright purpose is to commemorate and preserve such music. God help us.

Lester Bangs is doing somersaults in his grave.

This year’s inductees and how they’re selected.

The laughable, corporately sponsored, “Definitive 200” list.

National Recording Registry – Full List /// 2006 Inductees (announced March 6th, 2007)

It’s not Britney Spears that I’m concerned with. I couldn’t care much less for the welfare of Ms. Spears. Her kids, I feel bad about. And I can even appreciate Kevin Federline’s self-deprecating sensibilities, as seen in that Super Bowl ad he did. Hur hur.

What bothers the shit out of me is the way in which people react to what she does. Now that the woman’s shaved her head, she belongs in an insane asylum, apparently. She’s lost it, she can’t handle the pressure, she can’t take care of her kids, she must be on drugs, etc. But let’s remind ourselves of Spears’s track record…

Claiming incessantly that she’s “saving herself for marriage” as a teenager, when she first charted on the pure sex appeal of her videos? That’s not strange or bizarre.

Insisting upon insisting that her boobs are real, while the actual proportion of them fluctuates inconsistently with her weight? Hardly suspect.

Marrying her childhood sweetheart, who happens to share a namesake with a Seinfeld cast member, for a mere 55 hours before getting it annulled? Totally not a warning sign.

Courting, marrying, and carrying the child of a one Mr. Federline, while his other baby’s momma got left in the dust? A mere day’s work in the life of CeleBritney.

Not flipping shits after seeing that sculpture of her giving birth on a bearskin rug? Acceptable?

The interview with Matt Lauer, where she’s so pregnant she’s about to pop at any second, and she’s cryin’ like any other trailer trash girl when the local Wal-Mart has run out of lipstick and Krispy Kreme?! A significant show of stability.

Then with two kids, instead of buckling down and providing for them like most single mothers have to do, going out and partying it up with Paris Hilton? No red flags to be found!

Accusations of drugs and drinking and stepping into gas station bathrooms without shoes and all of that? Whateva! I do what I want!

But then all of a sudden – OH MY GOD SHE SHAVED HER HEAD! SHE’S CRUMBLED UNDER THE PRESSURE OF STARDOM! SHE DID IT WITH CLIPPERS, BY HERSELF! POOR BRITNEY, SHE’S LOST IT!

This might come off as some sort of feminist rant, but so be it. A woman who was formerly considered attractive (and look back at her Oops! phase press photos. It seems that we have forgotten that at one point in time, she actually was pretty cute) rids herself of a superficial feature and everyone flips the fuck out. Sinead O’Connor staked her reputation on being bald. Natalie Portman took the plunge, albeit for a movie role, but she looked just as freakin’ hott bald as she ever had. Maybe angry Irish women and Harvard grads can get away with it, those granola eatin’ bitches. But Lousiana born common street trash, raised up to be America’s Sweetheart and a total sex kitten simultaneously? How dare she consider shearing off her locks! Even respectable news stations have put this story up second only to Iraq. Hell, I’m talking about it, so something must be wrong.

But it’s not with Britney herself. She’s always been off her rocker. I can tell, being from a small, semi-rural hometown, that she’s pretty consistent with the welfare moms back where I come from. Truly, if Ms. Spears track record tells us nothing new about her, it tells us a lot about our culture, and the point to which we’ve lost our damn minds.

I’m sad to say that I’ve grown up with Britney Spears culture, but just a little bit to the more PFA side of say, an Avril Lavigne. As much as I wore all black on certain days, dated guys with mohawks (years before you saw them on six year olds and frat boys), and rejected her music and everything she represented when I was a teenager, I try to put myself in her shoes now. Britney is only a year older than me, and I can’t imagine my life, divorced (twice!), two kids, in and out of rehab, in addition to being on every news channel 24/7. Maybe she shamelessly puts herself up to it, so I can’t feel very sorry for her, but honestly. What’s the first thing you learn upon becoming a parent, or a teacher, as I am currently in training for? If kids act out, they want attention, be it good or bad. If you stop giving them that attention, that audience, they will eventually calm down.

What? That means that if we stop paying attention to her, she’ll just go away? Maybe. We can only hope. But at the same time, many people say that a nation deserves the leaders it elects. I personally hope to God that’s not true. I surely think, however, that we deserve the celebrities we put up on a pedestal.

This might as well be an “In Defense Of” feature, were it not an actual review.

So yeah, I paid $86 bucks for a floor seat to see Billy Joel last weekend. Wanna ask me why? Wanna also ask me why it was actually worth it? I’ll tell you exactly why.

We’ll start with a comparison. A friend of mine goes ballroom dancing whenever she possibly can, usually with her family, and she has done this for many, many years. She has suffered great teasing and misunderstanding as a result.

Another friend and I recently asked the dancing friend how long she had actually been dancing. She replied almost instantly, “In vitro.” I thought, wow, that’s a long time to be doing anything.

But now that I think of it, I have been listening to Billy Joel that long. Born on Long Island, surrounded by an entire family and an entire culture of Long Island, it’s near impossible to recall hearing music other than The Stranger before the age of two. My father even grew up in the same town as Mr. Joel, only a few years apart.

And when I was a teen, some of my friends down here in Florida thought it was a little weird to like Billy Joel so much. I still remember buying River of Dreams from Target when I was oh, 12? I would put the title track on self-spliced mix tapes, much to the puzzlement of my friends. Owning that record didn’t make you a lot of friends in the late nineties (but who are we kidding – it still doesn’t today!).

But I don’t care. I don’t care if you call him cheesy, commercial, overly sentimental. He’s at times all three of these things. At last week’s show, he said of his song “The Entertainer” that it was not autobiographical, but about people who do the same sort of gigs that he does. The song tells the potentially tired tale of a musical celebrity who’s well aware of his limited marketability. Overdone, maybe, but not in the mid 70s, when this song came out. And he even said about his own work, “It’s kind of a silly gig.”

But silly Saturday’s show may have been (and it got damn silly toward the middle), Billy Joel is indeed a consummate performer. Tossing around microphone stands onstage, sitting behind rotating pianos and kicking out his stool out behind him, playing guitar and running around the arena stage, entertaining people in the awful seats behind the stage, joking about his high car insurance rates, and belting out tunes just as well as he did when he had a full head of hair, he proved himself to be a contender for the recently vacated throne of the Hardest Working Man in Showbiz. Just to witness the fact that he can still sing all of those falsetto notes at his age, after his career, is worth the price of admission alone.

Naysayers may still say that “his show doesn’t change, year after year.” Okay, pretty true. The set list from when I saw him in Tampa last year to Orlando’s show didn’t shake up too much. He had the audience vote on whether he would play “Vienna” or “Summer Highland Falls.” At that point, my mom turned to me and almost cried, telling me that my father used to sing those famous words, “Sadness or euphoria” when he was a young man.

I told you. This man’s songs are ingrained into whatever pathetic excuse for culture I have in my life.

The set list last year was better, especially for hardcore fans. This time around, we got “All about Soul” instead of “All for Leyna,” “She’s Always a Woman” instead of “Stilletto,” and “An Innocent Man” instead of “Goodnight Saigon.” Considering the tense political climate surrounding the war in Iraq, maybe it was smart to leave a song about camaraderie in times of war off of the setlist. But overall, we heard more hits than hidden tracks, which could be said to be a bit disappointing.

The most egregious omission, however, was leaving off “Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel).” You could argue that this song is little else but sentimental schmaltz, but the simplicity in its descending thirds belies the true power of its words. This is a melody for all times, and we were all sad to miss it.

But in return, we got a hell of a stage show. My much improved seats may have accounted for a difference in perspective this time around, but it really seemed as though he had more energy this time around. And we even got a surprise in there, albeit a bizarre one. About two-thirds of the way through the show, Billy put on his geetar, which would have predictably ushered into a roaring version of “We Didn’t’ Start the Fire.” Instead Billy introduced one of his roadies in his own version of American Idol, and told us the roadie would be singing a “religious” song. Mr. Joel then introduced “Chainsaw,” a middle aged, paunch bellied guy in a black shirt and shorts, who promptly started screaming out “Highway to Hell” above the band screaming along. It was completely and utterly bizarre, especially considering the crowd reaction. There were literally thousands of (mostly drunk) middle-agers, spouses in hand, throwing up the metal salute and shouting back one of the most boring anthemic choruses ever written. It was a near-Fellini moment. The best I can come up with was that Joel really owed his buddy Chainsaw a favor.

The worst part about the Chainsaw interlude was that “We Didn’t Start the Fire” followed immediately. My party and I naturally feel that this song rocks far more than anything AC/DC ever put out, but unfortunately, we were the only ones in the whole place who knew all of the lyrics. Any excuse to scream out “AIDS, CRACK, BERNIE GOETZ!” in staccato syllables is a good one. Still, the New York Chainsaw Massacre stole some the thunder out of “Fire.”

Maybe the most bizarre thing about the whole display, however, was that it didn’t spoil the whole show. It was a strange reprieve for Joel and his exceedingly skilled band, but one that they recovered from well. Maybe that’s something only the best of back-up bands can do, with several accomplished percussionists, a shredding guitarists, and a bevy of multi-instrumentalists. And in any musical arena, I’d be hard-pressed to find a saxophonist with a tone as distinct as Richie Cannata.

And yeah, I may have paid for an encore that ended the exact same way as the concert last year – “Only the Good Die Young,” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” and an arena full of swaying audience members singing “Piano Man,” a song about which Joel himself has said, “There’s really not much to it. Piano players at bars will play it when I walk in, and then realize that it’s just pretty repetitive.”

But bizarro-world stage antics and song-writing self-deprecation aside, this show could have impressed even the most casual fan. He played nearly all of his hits, even more than the year before, but kicked up his showmanship in return. Maybe it’s because of the loss of James Brown. Maybe it’s just because he wants to continue to inject life into these old favorites. Maybe it’s because he wanted to make sure everyone got their money’s worth. God knows he kept coming up with reasons why every seat in the house was the best at various points throughout the concert.

But the biggest thing on my mind during the show was a revelation that Billy Joel makes folk music. He tells the stories of a culture, of a place and its features and its people, and uses that culture’s musical idioms in his work. He has become the spokesman for millions of people from Long Island, who at this point make up at least half the population of Florida, and a quarter of the population of other states. And for those of us who have grown up with him, he continues to be an amazing ambassador of where we’re from.

So yeah. To me, it was worth it. Not to mention my secret formula – if it cost $250 to see him and Elton ten years ago, and I paid less than half of that for a ticket, and even less than that considering inflation, I got a great deal.

Thus, if you’ve grown up with the Piano Man, like me or my mom or anyone else from Long Island (my bets are five out of any ten people you ask who are from New York), go see him. It’s well worth the cost, even repeatedly.