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1absurdeist
Music is an undeniably huge component in Steve Erickson's writing.
My first contact with just how huge a role music has played in Erickson's writing life is documented thoroughly and fantastically here by Alex Austin in a post from an old interview we had with him a couple years back, in which he recalls teaming with Steve Erickson for a concert review column in a local magazine on the burgeoning punk rock scene in Los Angeles around 1980.
Probably no coincidence then that in his first published novel, Days Between Stations (1985), there's an important scene early on at a club, the Blue Isosceles, one of the few downtown L.A. establishments that has back up generators and a manager willing to use them to combat the rampant citywide blackouts occurring with alarming regularity throughout the shaken city, in which the female lead singer of the punk rock band, gets pulverized with broken bottle shards by the disgruntled mob tired of the encroaching sand dunes, tired of that all pervasive sense of doom invading their lives from every direction, yet drawn like moths to the only gig left in town with lights, looking to let off some violent steam.
In Leap Year: A Political Journey** (1989), the book I just jumped into tonight, Erickson mentions the music wall in his MacArthur Park apartment "five minutes west of Downtown and about ten minutes east of Hollywood," where only his Van Morrison, Mott the Hoople, and box set of Frank Sinatra records "aren't immune" from getting the heave-ho once that spare wall in his apartment fills to the point that something has to go. Not even Bob Dylan is immune under such space restrictions. Or Miles Davis.
Based on thea's comment about the music references in These Dreams of You and having scanned enough of the reviews to know the book is replete with more music, I think once I get my hands on the book it'd be fun to maybe itemize or at least select some of the references for further review ....
** Marketed as a political journey, I'm finding Leap Year to be as much an early and very funny autobiography mixed with a confabulation of characters we'll meet again four years later in Arc d'X, as a book strictly about politics and the 1988 U.S. presidential campaigns.
My first contact with just how huge a role music has played in Erickson's writing life is documented thoroughly and fantastically here by Alex Austin in a post from an old interview we had with him a couple years back, in which he recalls teaming with Steve Erickson for a concert review column in a local magazine on the burgeoning punk rock scene in Los Angeles around 1980.
Probably no coincidence then that in his first published novel, Days Between Stations (1985), there's an important scene early on at a club, the Blue Isosceles, one of the few downtown L.A. establishments that has back up generators and a manager willing to use them to combat the rampant citywide blackouts occurring with alarming regularity throughout the shaken city, in which the female lead singer of the punk rock band, gets pulverized with broken bottle shards by the disgruntled mob tired of the encroaching sand dunes, tired of that all pervasive sense of doom invading their lives from every direction, yet drawn like moths to the only gig left in town with lights, looking to let off some violent steam.
In Leap Year: A Political Journey** (1989), the book I just jumped into tonight, Erickson mentions the music wall in his MacArthur Park apartment "five minutes west of Downtown and about ten minutes east of Hollywood," where only his Van Morrison, Mott the Hoople, and box set of Frank Sinatra records "aren't immune" from getting the heave-ho once that spare wall in his apartment fills to the point that something has to go. Not even Bob Dylan is immune under such space restrictions. Or Miles Davis.
Based on thea's comment about the music references in These Dreams of You and having scanned enough of the reviews to know the book is replete with more music, I think once I get my hands on the book it'd be fun to maybe itemize or at least select some of the references for further review ....
** Marketed as a political journey, I'm finding Leap Year to be as much an early and very funny autobiography mixed with a confabulation of characters we'll meet again four years later in Arc d'X, as a book strictly about politics and the 1988 U.S. presidential campaigns.
2absurdeist
In a lengthy personal essay from '93 (some of the material adapted from Leap Year: A Political Journey), Erickson speaks in depth on more of his musical influences and author influences, including writers he'd been compared to that he'd never before read, including Angela Carter and J.G. Ballard:
http://www.steveerickson.org/articles/arceye.html
some highlights from the article:
Bob Dylan is the single most important writer of my generation. His records Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and The Basement Tapes are great American novels, mystic journeys through American frontier towns and women’s bedrooms, and I don’t mean just the words of these records, I mean the sound of them....
My novel Days Between Stations was rejected by four agents and twelve publishers before it was published by Poseidon Press three years after I wrote it.
...William Faulkner ... taught me how reality ticks not to the clock of time but the clock of memory.... (boldness mine).
When pressed to explain my work, I invariably wind up answering in terms of what it isn’t.... and he goes on and elaborates how his work is not surreal, not postmodern, not experimental, not science fiction, not fantastic ... before revealing what he thinks it is.
http://www.steveerickson.org/articles/arceye.html
some highlights from the article:
Bob Dylan is the single most important writer of my generation. His records Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde and The Basement Tapes are great American novels, mystic journeys through American frontier towns and women’s bedrooms, and I don’t mean just the words of these records, I mean the sound of them....
My novel Days Between Stations was rejected by four agents and twelve publishers before it was published by Poseidon Press three years after I wrote it.
...William Faulkner ... taught me how reality ticks not to the clock of time but the clock of memory.... (boldness mine).
When pressed to explain my work, I invariably wind up answering in terms of what it isn’t.... and he goes on and elaborates how his work is not surreal, not postmodern, not experimental, not science fiction, not fantastic ... before revealing what he thinks it is.
3absurdeist
Erickson said his novels are not surreal. Maybe so. But there's something beyond real going on in his books when it comes to sound. Toward the end of Rubicon Beach, a character describes "the sound of the light" and "the music of dreams". Both are recurrent images in Erickson's first two novels, creative variations of which have remained and evolved throughout his later works.
"I know your music," a father informs his son late in Rubicon Beach, the "music" emanating out of the earth -- some hum or din beyond ordinary senses heard only by the son. Many of Erickson's character's report sounds nobody else hears. I'm getting the feeling, the more I read Steve Erickson, that this extrasensory sound perception isn't just the product of his imagination.
"I know your music," a father informs his son late in Rubicon Beach, the "music" emanating out of the earth -- some hum or din beyond ordinary senses heard only by the son. Many of Erickson's character's report sounds nobody else hears. I'm getting the feeling, the more I read Steve Erickson, that this extrasensory sound perception isn't just the product of his imagination.
4theaelizabet
I don't have a lot of time right now... but the acknowledgement of music and a character's personal music, which emanates from them, is found throughout These Dreams of You.
5urania1
David Bowie, Iggy Pop are the two main musical characters. Not a David Bowie or Iggy Pop fan. Other musicians are mentioned although they don't figure as characters.
6Jesse_wiedinmyer
Not a David Bowie or Iggy Pop fan.
urania1
7theaelizabet
Spoilerish, I suppose:
... she hears "Tezeta" rise mournfully in the distance like an answer. She has no idea what the answer is. The walls of the passages resonate with distant chants, the thunder of gathering storms, and Viv feels the past and future yearn for each other. Though she's almost certain the song she hears isn't just in her head, now she hears things in the Ethiopia memory-blues that she never heard the first time, lying in the hotel bed with Sheba beside her.
The song is ravenous for memory, and Viv hears in it everything that's happened to her and her family since that first time she came, the struggle of everything since Sheba came to live with them, the whispers between her and Zan in the night that somehow everything will be all right even as it becomes harder to understand how that can possibly be true. Lost here in these passageways Viv has a realization bordering on a small epiphany: It's the memory of how quiet Sheba was and those first nights lying on the hotel bed beside Viv wreathed by "Tezeta," and how it wasn't until Sheba got back home that her own small body began to broadcast its music, as though a secret word was spoken that turned her up.
Yeah, Erickson is really into music.
... she hears "Tezeta" rise mournfully in the distance like an answer. She has no idea what the answer is. The walls of the passages resonate with distant chants, the thunder of gathering storms, and Viv feels the past and future yearn for each other. Though she's almost certain the song she hears isn't just in her head, now she hears things in the Ethiopia memory-blues that she never heard the first time, lying in the hotel bed with Sheba beside her.
The song is ravenous for memory, and Viv hears in it everything that's happened to her and her family since that first time she came, the struggle of everything since Sheba came to live with them, the whispers between her and Zan in the night that somehow everything will be all right even as it becomes harder to understand how that can possibly be true. Lost here in these passageways Viv has a realization bordering on a small epiphany: It's the memory of how quiet Sheba was and those first nights lying on the hotel bed beside Viv wreathed by "Tezeta," and how it wasn't until Sheba got back home that her own small body began to broadcast its music, as though a secret word was spoken that turned her up.
Yeah, Erickson is really into music.
8Jesse_wiedinmyer
People often get lost in passageways in Erickson, don't they?
9theaelizabet
In the case of These Dreams of You that's certainly so, metaphorically and otherwise.
10Jesse_wiedinmyer
It's a recurring trope. Cities and areas that are alive and shift more quickly than the mind can adjust. Streets that disappear and reappear. Landscapes that are alive.
11absurdeist
That's a great quote from the new one, thea. He's gotten more intricate with these concepts deeper into his career. I'm still waiting (broken record) for his new one to arrive.
10> Cities and areas that are alive and shift more quickly than the mind can adjust.
That's so it and explains why it is so easy to get lost in the light and the sound and the images that line the passageways of his labyrinths.
Your mentioning the streets that disappear and reappear, also brings to mind the doors and windows that relocate inexplicably inside certain houses from day to day, and even the instance of the window in the second part of Rubicon Beach that moves outside and hangs above the sidewalk and curb.
10> Cities and areas that are alive and shift more quickly than the mind can adjust.
That's so it and explains why it is so easy to get lost in the light and the sound and the images that line the passageways of his labyrinths.
Your mentioning the streets that disappear and reappear, also brings to mind the doors and windows that relocate inexplicably inside certain houses from day to day, and even the instance of the window in the second part of Rubicon Beach that moves outside and hangs above the sidewalk and curb.
12Jesse_wiedinmyer
I wonder if Erickson has ever been to the Winchester House?
13absurdeist
Could be. I'm certain Danielewski has.
15absurdeist
I guess you're not Jesse's girl! Har.
The more I research all that Erickson has written in general and on music in particular that hasn't been collected, the more I wish he would collect his articles, particularly what he's written on music.
Neil Young on a Good Day, from 2000.
The melodrama of Neil Young's early life reached critical mass in November 1978 with the birth of his second son -- by his wife, Pegi -- and the subsequent realization that, like Young's first son, Zeke, by the actress Carrie Snodgrass, Ben had cerebral palsy.
Zeke's case is mild (he is 27 and works as a sound engineer on a number of his father's projects), but Ben is a quadriplegic. Young would later recount walking out of the hospital and ''looking at the sky, looking for a sign, wondering: What did I do? There must be something wrong with me.''
I remember wondering the same thing with my special needs kid once upon a time ....
The more I research all that Erickson has written in general and on music in particular that hasn't been collected, the more I wish he would collect his articles, particularly what he's written on music.
Neil Young on a Good Day, from 2000.
The melodrama of Neil Young's early life reached critical mass in November 1978 with the birth of his second son -- by his wife, Pegi -- and the subsequent realization that, like Young's first son, Zeke, by the actress Carrie Snodgrass, Ben had cerebral palsy.
Zeke's case is mild (he is 27 and works as a sound engineer on a number of his father's projects), but Ben is a quadriplegic. Young would later recount walking out of the hospital and ''looking at the sky, looking for a sign, wondering: What did I do? There must be something wrong with me.''
I remember wondering the same thing with my special needs kid once upon a time ....
16urania1
Zeke's case is mild (he is 27 and works as a sound engineer on a number of his father's projects), but Ben is a quadriplegic. Young would later recount walking out of the hospital and ''looking at the sky, looking for a sign, wondering: What did I do? There must be something wrong with me.''
I remember wondering the same thing with my special needs kid once upon a time ....
You both sound like Zan in These Dreams of You.
I remember wondering the same thing with my special needs kid once upon a time ....
You both sound like Zan in These Dreams of You.
17Jesse_wiedinmyer
You mind if I ask about your kid, EF? What's the deal?
18Jesse_wiedinmyer
You know (at least I hope I'm getting this right) that Erickson was a film critic for a good chunk of time, right?
19absurdeist
16> I am a Zan Fan. A Zan Buddhist. That man speaks Truth. Much more on him later ...
17> Not at all. DS & autism. Severe. What Neal Young expressed walking out of the hospital in that Erickson piece, I remember groping with vividly myself around the time of her birth. Hadn't thought about that dark aspect of the experience since, until reading about Neal's confrontation with it, which, even as a long time fan of his, somehow never knew about him before. Erickson has a knack, and not just in his fiction, but in whatever he reports on -- music, movies, politics -- of drawing people out, evoking strong reactions, strong emotions. Powerful stuff, his writing. More of why I'm so increasingly drawn to him. His ideas and content aren't just dry theory, but full of blood and passion and guts.
And yeah, Erickson I think, still is an occasional film critic. I think he was more so earlier on.
17> Not at all. DS & autism. Severe. What Neal Young expressed walking out of the hospital in that Erickson piece, I remember groping with vividly myself around the time of her birth. Hadn't thought about that dark aspect of the experience since, until reading about Neal's confrontation with it, which, even as a long time fan of his, somehow never knew about him before. Erickson has a knack, and not just in his fiction, but in whatever he reports on -- music, movies, politics -- of drawing people out, evoking strong reactions, strong emotions. Powerful stuff, his writing. More of why I'm so increasingly drawn to him. His ideas and content aren't just dry theory, but full of blood and passion and guts.
And yeah, Erickson I think, still is an occasional film critic. I think he was more so earlier on.
20Jesse_wiedinmyer
Well, as someone who's probably on the spectrum myself, can I take a moment to push a couple of my favorite causes? You on FaceBook?
21absurdeist
Not on FB. My wife is. But push away anyway if you want. I can peek over her shoulder into her account if I need to.
23absurdeist
Nice.
I thought Erickson's depictions, or rather Zan's, of Bowie, in the little I've read so far, were priceless.
I thought Erickson's depictions, or rather Zan's, of Bowie, in the little I've read so far, were priceless.
24urania1
I liked the Bowie descriptions as well. I did some research on Bowie. Erickson appears to have the facts and dates correct. I did wonder a bit about the character Bowie whom Erickson creates. The character Bowie, for all his flaws, strikes me as rather idealized in this novel.
25Jesse_wiedinmyer
I'll lead with this, Enrique...
26absurdeist
What a disturbing article. Thanks for that, Jesse. Strange that we're talking about it, because the mood of the piece mirrors that in These Dreams of You, the book I'm reading presently. There's fear and there's anger, in both. The anger of Sheba, a four year old, especially, in the book, echoes that of the blogger, for obviously drastically different reasons, but both aimed at parents. I hope you get a chance to read Erickson's latest.
I couldn't agree w/the writer of the article more regarding what she said about parenting being a lottery, or championing your kids no matter what, no excuses, you chose to be a parent so deal w/it, and yet in dealing with it how it can be excruciatingly challenging in a culture that's conditioned to devalue and dismiss such kids, and how that dismissal can isolate such parents, and how then that isolation contributes to such shocking tragedies. You wish a mother like that could've found some support or solace somewhere.
I couldn't agree w/the writer of the article more regarding what she said about parenting being a lottery, or championing your kids no matter what, no excuses, you chose to be a parent so deal w/it, and yet in dealing with it how it can be excruciatingly challenging in a culture that's conditioned to devalue and dismiss such kids, and how that dismissal can isolate such parents, and how then that isolation contributes to such shocking tragedies. You wish a mother like that could've found some support or solace somewhere.
27Jesse_wiedinmyer
Well, there's a growing movement arguing that autistics themselves should be having a larger voice in the conversation.
28absurdeist
AutismSpeaks.
Indeed there is. They've got a walk scheduled at the Rose Bowl on April 21st. We'll probably be there.
Which means ... afterwards ... just down the street from the Rose Bowl ... Vroman's!!! Steve Erickson was there just last September:
http://penusa.org/ten-years-later-discussion-anniversary-911
Indeed there is. They've got a walk scheduled at the Rose Bowl on April 21st. We'll probably be there.
Which means ... afterwards ... just down the street from the Rose Bowl ... Vroman's!!! Steve Erickson was there just last September:
http://penusa.org/ten-years-later-discussion-anniversary-911
29Jesse_wiedinmyer
AutismSpeaks isn't very popular within the community.
30urania1
>29 Jesse_wiedinmyer: Why not? Obviously, I haven't read much on this topic.
31absurdeist
Meant to put up a link earlier: The autism discussion is continuing here.
Music Playlist for These Dreams of You. Not sure if it's a complete playlist ....
Music Playlist for These Dreams of You. Not sure if it's a complete playlist ....
32urania1
>25 Jesse_wiedinmyer:,
I have a friend with a grown son (in his 30s) adopted when he was little maybe two or three years old. The child had behavioral detachment disorder. Growing up he was in therapy, stints in psychiatric wards, everything. At 18 he tried to kill his parents and sister. More intensive therapy in a psychiatric setting. Although he has improved over the years, he really can't hold down a job for more than six months at a time, manage his money, etc. Incredibly hard for his parents.
I have a friend with a grown son (in his 30s) adopted when he was little maybe two or three years old. The child had behavioral detachment disorder. Growing up he was in therapy, stints in psychiatric wards, everything. At 18 he tried to kill his parents and sister. More intensive therapy in a psychiatric setting. Although he has improved over the years, he really can't hold down a job for more than six months at a time, manage his money, etc. Incredibly hard for his parents.
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