Matt Rees's Blog - Posts Tagged "jasmine-schwartz"

The only thing as evocative as a good noir crime novel is music. So, I thought, how about making an album of music about crime fiction? That’s what I’ve done and I’m unveiling it here.

The project's called Poisonville, after the mispronounced location of Dashiell Hammett’s first novel “Red Harvest.” (The place was really called Personville, but Hammett’s Op learns that people call it Poisonville for a reason.)

You can listen to the songs free on my website. I hope you’ll share them. I’ve found it inspiring to work on these songs. You’ll see the styles vary from industrial to rock to funk to the sound of hoboes in a speakeasy, as well as my impersonations of Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed.

Here’s the idea behind Poisonville: I’ve been in bands for many years, playing various instruments. But I have a newish baby and I don’t want to stay out late performing, because I need all the sleep I can get! So I created a studio – I call it Big Pink Oboe Studio. Not because I play the oboe. The pink oboe is an old Spike Milligan euphemism for an excitable part of the male anatomy. I also revived my old stage persona: when I was in an alternative band in New York in the 1990s, I was Napoleon Blownapart. (The band was Money Shot, which those of you with any knowledge of porno parlance will understand and also gives you and idea of the sort of gig we used to do.) The name gets me into the right head for music.

And so into the studio I went, writing songs about my own books and songs about books I love (by Hammett and Chandler). I perform most of the instruments, with a little help from The Talented David Brinn (which is the stage name of my pal David Brinn, in case you’re wondering) and The Lovely Jasmine Schwartz (which is the name in her passport, you should know.)

I’ve also written songs with a couple of crime authors: Jasmine Schwartz, whose fabulous Neurotic Detective series will be out in a few months, and Helen Fitzgerald, the Australian writer of the sexiest crime novels around. You can hear these writers reading a line or two from their books during the course of the songs.

Jasmine and Helen both wrote lyrics about their books, which I set to music. I’m intending to do the same thing with some other favorite writers of mine in the coming months. If you think there are crime writers I ought to get on board (because they’ve written books that’d work well in a musical setting), let me know.

You’ve probably stolen music on the web, even if the music wasn’t about crime. Poisonville’s crime fiction music is your chance to listen free – without being a criminal.

The only thing as evocative as a good noir crime novel is music. So, I thought, how about making an album of music about crime fiction? That’s what I’ve done and I unveil it here. The project’s called Poisonville, after the mispronounced location of Dashiell Hammett’s first novel “Red Harvest.” (The place was really called Personville, but Hammett’s Op learns that people call it Poisonville for a reason.) You can listen to the songs free on my website. Share them. I found it inspiring to work on these songs. You’ll see the styles vary from industrial to rock to funk to the sound of hoboes in a speakeasy, as well as my impersonations of Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed.

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I hok you no chainik when I recommend you read "Farbissen" and "Fakakt," the great new crime novels of Jasmine Schwartz. Jasmine is an important and hilarious new voice in crime fiction -- and that's no shmontses! Her first two novels "Farbissen: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Money" and "Fakakt: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Sex" use Yiddish words for their titles. When you read the stories of Melissa Morris, a neurotic and fashion-obsessed New Yorker, you'll see why... And we'll be finding out here, too, as Jasmine is going to be doing an interview with us in a couple of days, taking a break from her troubles with a father who's remarrying, the musings of her "future ex-husband," and her ongoing struggle to enter the top 1 percent of US taxpayers, as you'll see from her blog.

My guest blogger today is superhot crime novel phenom Jasmine Schwartz. Jasmine is the author of Farbissen: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Money and Fakakt: Melissa Morris and the Meaning of Sex, which have been called "Bridget Jones with guns and dead bodies." Today she brings her incisive wit to bear on the original Superman comics:

Yesterday was my future ex-husband's birthday. Hooray for him. I say that with all the fake enthusiasm I can muster.

I tussled with a few Russian mistresses to get the last Tonino Lamborghini cigar lighter, but I admit that the best gift was given to him by his brother -- an original Superman comic book. Have you read it lately? I almost cried. Everything that's wrong with the world is exposed within its poorly illustrated pages. Screw Batman. This is the real deal.

They'd never publish this little gem today. A few details about the original you probably wished you didn't know:

Lois Lane is an Unreconstructed, Superficial Bitch
Lois is unabashedly mean and insensitive. She avoids the gutless Clark Kent and calls him a "spineless, unbearable coward." Hear, hear, sister. Kent can't even get a sentence out without stuttering and has to beg his way into tabloid journalism. Modern versions of this story have Lois being nice to him, and turn Kent into a funny, sympathetic character. But Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster -- the original writers -- weren't afraid to hate this powerless, simpering hack. Tell it like it is, Jewish boys. Tell it like it is.

Superman is a Misogynist and a Bully
Kidnapping and drugging an innocent football player, beating up the governor's butler who's only trying to do his job, leading a party of wealthy people down a mine shaft to be buried alive -- there's nothing this man of steel won't do to prove a vague point. If there's a simple way to achieve justice, Superman is sure to ignore it and hatch an ill-conceived and convoluted plan instead.

The Plot Makes No Sense
Does Superman teach the bad guy a lesson? He sure does. It only takes him about a year or so to force the corrupt Senator Barrows to name Emil Norvell, kidnap Norvell, force him to set sail on a steamer, save him from his own henchmen, force him to enlist in an army, join the same army himself, kidnap the opposing generals, and then allow Norvell to return home unscathed. Who needs bloated, bureaucratic government when Superman is around?

And so we come to the question: Why did we dumb down Superman? Why betray the original vision of this erratic prick and make him into a feeble, soft-minded moderate? Now he's dafter than a fattening donut, more banal than a supermarket olive, and able to keep mall children in a red-cape jam.