03.31.03


rainer maria, long knives drawn. as tom predicted, an excellent driving album - provided that you plan to be in the car for about thirty minutes. the final track is slow and lovely - a post-script to liz phair's "divorce song" - but it won't set you down in a vivacious place. i get the impression that caithlin de marrais is / has been cohabitating with someone for a long time; this album recalls the fatal fifth year we used to rap about at the spca, the year when a couple decides if they like what's ossified. excellent lyrics, then (excepting "the imperatives" - "monastery / ...our pockets empty" doesn't work for me). more importantly, caithlin has one of the most unique vocal styles i've encountered in indie rock - an impressive range, and wacky inflection. marry it, marry it, marry it.


from deirdre bair's samuel beckett biography:
Once when [Beckett's mother] saw a tinker beating a pathetic half-starved donkey, she abandoned her usual reticence and upbraided him vehemently in the middle of a crowded public road. When the tinker paid no attention to her curses and imprecations, she bought the donkey on the spot, took him home and kept him for years.


The donkey, named Kisch by her sons, was supposed to stay on the part of the grounds that was wild and wooded. May loved Kisch dearly and sent to nearby Bray for the finest trappings from a shop that specialized in elaborate harnesses and expensive equipment. However, Kisch, who was both independent and stupid, grew stubborn as he grew old and refused to stay where May wanted him, preferring the succulent morsels in her garden instead. After several forays into her prize strawberry bushes, she tearfully gave him to a mountain man in nearby Wicklow. Poor Kisch came to a bad end when he wandered into a turnip patch and ate so many that he quite literally blew up when his stomach burst.

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