I Saw Her from Here / I Saw Here from Her **1/2

Christian Kjellvander
2007 Startracks
Recorded at Mission Hall Studios in Sebbarp Sweden

Performers:
Christian Kjellvander - Vocals, Guitars, piano, banjo
organs, percussion and mellotron.
Andreas Ejnarsson - Bass, backing vocals, piano synths
Per Nordmark - Drums and Percussion
Goran Kajfes - Trumpets
Tias Carlson - Guitar, banjo, backing vocals
Karla - Therese Kjellvander - Vocals, piano, mandolin
Daniel Frank - Guitars and backing vocals
Dan England - pedal steel

Mr. Kjellvander is the artist who made one of my all time favorite CDs, Songs from a Two Room Chapel. It had a slight Americana sound with some great and emotional vocals and an instinct for putting together a great pop hook. It is a near master piece if not a total master piece. So I have been waiting for more of his work to come from Sweden (his home). His next CD was called Faya and while pretty, it is a little too slow. It's more of a folk album. So finally in 2007 comes this one. I was a little reluctant to buy it because I was disappointed by Faya. My first impression was a relief. Some of his characteristic pop sound had come back as well as continuing the mellower folkier stuff. I thought that this was a step in the right direction. But after a few more listen (I try to preview casually a CD at least three times before sitting down seriously to review it) I realized that there were moments that sounded like an out right attempt to get commercial notoriety. He is better known in Sweden than here in the States, so there may be some pressure on him over there to do so.


Poppies and Peonies ***1/2 - This is typical of what I was expecting from him. It's a nice catchy song. It does start with some electronics similar to some of David Kitt's work. There's a nice guitar solo in the center of the piece. It's about love that can not be. At the end he finds a girl that needs him as well as she needs him and they are together like poppies and peonies (Do those two flowers usually go together?)




When the Mourning Comes *** - This starts with a banjo and is more countryish. So there is just the banjo and his voice. Then a little bass and a female backing vocal comes in. And it continues to build with some acoustic guitar. Overall, nicely put together. The lyrics are just another love song, saying that he'll be there. There is a feeling of travel, perhaps to meet his gal or perhaps they are drifting together. "Empathy and sympathy are sisters, are drifters like we." Also, "We can drive until daylight than I'll rest." This traveling might be some kind of metaphor for their relationship, even though he gets tired, "We can drive until daybreak, than I'll rest". He determined to be with her. It's more imagery than a story. A little horn comes in the latter part of the song which is nice.


Somewhere Else *** - It starts with a little acoustic guitar and his voice. It has a somber feeling to it. There is some sonic distortion that gently floats over the voice and the guitar. It's a very pretty and haunting song. The lyrics are darker too. "Too afraid to make mistakes and bleed". The song ends with a statement about death. "And I'm not afraid to die, the misconception swells, / but when I die won't be the first time I wish that I was somewhere else." Hence the title.


Two Souls **1/2 - This is a much more upbeat song. It's all very nice, but it sounds like an attempt at commercialism. But it's also hard to argue with his great voice and his songwriting. It only really annoys me in one short section at the end of the chorus. There are also some nice horns. In the middle there is a short flurry of guitar flash. They seem to be driving in this song - perhaps I smell a motif? His two souls are opposites. On will love her and the other one will cause her hurt. Perhaps the metaphor is too facile.



Bird Black Sky *** - It has a menacing name and it starts off with a menacing droning sound. The vocal is added and stays slow and steady. Then it picks up a little. A promising start.The chorus is much more upbeat with a some choppy piano playing. The drone continues to float across the whole song. This also mentions love but there is a kind of foreboding. "do you hear the bells ring? / Do you feel the sky blackening?"

Sons of the Coast **1/2 - This also has a slow start. It starts with a guitar and a keyboard. As the song progresses nothing much really happens. It picks up again and then gets softer. I think I like the softer part, which has a real subtle trumpet playing. The chorus is not very interesting, but has some nice female backing vocals. It's a pretty song with some nice touches but a tad ephemeral. The ending has a nice guitar / trumpet interplay, but doesn't last long enough. The song starts talking about evil men. He or they (there appears to be a brother) are not evil but ghosts.

While the Birches Weep ***1/2 - I like the title of the song. A muted tribal drumming starts the song. The voice sings along with the drumming along with some other songs. Some nice strings come in. I'm always a sucker for strings. The lyrics are difficult as usual. There seems to be a death as there are angels "trying to grab a hold of you" and that he buries her in the yard. The song builds up to a nice ending.

The Road ** - This is a more rocking song, and definitely less subtle that other songs. While his vocal stylings are nice to listen to, this is one of those songs that seem to be trying to get commercial interest. It has a more conventional structure. Not a bad song, but nothing special. The song is about being out on the road. Of course that's probably a metaphor. It might have more to do with escaping and living one's life. "It's easy living for today".

No Heaven **1/2 - This starts out slow. It starts out with a keyboard drone and then a struming guitar and vocals. Though slow, its a fairly haunting song. There's some melancholic imagary here: "Keep crying, it cleanses the soul"."'There's no heaven, only new highways and lonely men'".

Need Not Worry **1/2 - It starts with some bird songs and a minimal acoustic guitar and some static. I haven't really mentioned this much, but this is an example of the light electronics being used on the CD. This is another slow one. It's pretty but there in not enough movement for my taste, at least at first. Whoa! The last third of the song has a lambaste of piano and drum that slams through the song. It's a nice touch. Would have liked to see it last longer. The lyrics are quite difficult this time. There's a bird in the Russian winter. "A pocket knife beat in her chest / hearts may race and out pours sadness / As words spilled warm from her breast." So the bird's heart is a pocket knife and and the spilling warm words might be her song or perhaps her blood. Is she dying? The second half seems to be longing for days of youth and innocence. "Back before we became some body's mistress, / back when we were our father's princess."

Closer listenings always make me enjoy the a musical piece more, though I will not change my initial rating of two and a half stars. If I averaged the rankings, the CD would be closer to three stars. But there are moments that are too slow and there are moments when the artist seems to be "selling out", and the songs, while being pretty good for commercial music, are still too weak.

And now for some videos off his best CD - Songs from a Two Room Chapel. Compare them and see if you don't agree to the superiority of the music.

Shalimar the Clown ***

Author - Salman Rushdie
2005 Random House
pages - 398

This is the third book I've read by Rushdie. Previously, I read Fury and Houron and the Sea of Stories. It's interesting, because my conception of what Rushdie is about has continuously changed. First I read Fury. It started out as a modern book with modern problems, characters etc. Then one of the characters had started a doll business in which an entire universe had been created for the doll characters and large portion of the book was spent describing this fantasy world of the dolls. I loved Fury, but that fantastical portion made me rate the book slightly lower. I preferred the profane portions and less so the mythological portions. Houron is one long fairytale so it is pure mythology. So my view of Mr. Rushdie is someone who has love for Indian mythology. He seems most interested in that element of his writing.

This last book, Shalimar the Clown is also a mix of modernism and mythology. He has some American characters setting and behaviors, but in the portion of the book that is set in Kashmir, he spends much time telling the tales of Kashmirian tales and mythology.

So the book is separated in five chapters each main character getting at least one chapter, and one character gets two. It's an interesting way to present the material, though the other characters are certainly included in chapters besides their own, since they do have relationships with each other. There is:

India / Kashmira - She gets two chapters. She's the daughter of The Ambassador Max Ophuls(see below) and Boonyi (also see below).

Boonyi - She's the wife of Shalimar and the mistress of Max Ophuls.

Shalimar - The husband of Boonyi and the assassin of Max Ophuls.

Max Ophuls - Father to India / Kashmira

And yes it is a little complicated so at this point I should summarize the events in the story.

It starts out with the death of Max Ophuls who is assasined, and India, his daughter, witnesses it. So most of the story is told in the past. Then Rushdie talks about Boonyi and her lover/husband Shalimar back in Kashmir. Their village's main source of income is acting, so there is lots of opportunities for Rushdie to tell old folktales since the village performs these tales. I should say at this point that because ALL the myths and stories are completely foreign to me (Literally and figuratively) they tend to be hard to follow.

Then we find out Max's tale. He is a survivor of Nazi occupied France and eventually becomes Ambassador for the United States. On one of his diplomatic trips, he visits Kashmir and becomes smitten with Boonyi (he is married at this time). Boonyi has dreams of escaping her provincial town even though she is married to Shalimar and leaves her village to become Max's mistress. She gets pregnant and has Kasmira /India. Ophuls and his wife dispose of her and take her baby whose father is Max. Boonyi goes back to her village disgraced and she is considered dead to everyone.

Shalimar, Boonyi's husband is outraged. He avenges to kill her, but before that can happen, he learns to become an assassin by fighting with the Muslim militia during the conflict in Kashmir. A large section of this book does talk about the conflict in Kashmir. I don't think Rushdie ever takes sides. If he does, then it's with the people of Kashmir. He tells of atrocities on the Indian side, who are supposedly protecting the Kashmir people and atrocities of the Muslim side, who are backed by Pakistan. The people of Kashmir are both Muslim and Hindi (not sure of that) and they have always been able to live in peace. But during the confrontation, they begin to take sides. This section also gets a little complicated and hard to follow, but I was able to glean some basic knowledge about the situation there.

The last section of the book takes place after the killing of Ophuls. It's basically how India / Kashmira deals with her fathers death.

I think I have already mentioned some of the problems I had with this book. I say "I" because perhaps they may not be not problems for anyone else but me. The large quantities of folklore as well as some of the discussion about the conflict in Kashmir were too frequently incomprehensible. Now I like history, so normally a discussion about Kashmir would be interesting. But this history is told in a more unorganized and haphazard way. I'm not saying that's bad because this is fiction and it is not a history book. I would expect that it is more effective, in the author's opinion, to give the information when it is necessary to forward or relate it to the plot. But over all, I enjoyed this book immensely.

Thank You for Smoking ***

Seen on DVD
Based on Christopher Buckley's 1994 novel.
Adapted screenplay and director - Jason Reitman
With: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy
Sam Elliott, Maria Bello, David Koechner



This is a fairly old film (sorry, the date is not accessible at the moment), so it's no surprise to anyone who might be reading this that it is a good film. This is not new news!

It's not laugh out loud funny, but I could not contain my smirking and grinning through out the whole time. Basically, it's about a fast talking representative for the tobacco industry and the absurd and outrageous thing he says and gets away with.

Well, he has a son, who he takes under his wings and teaches him the trade so to speak. (interesting enough, in an interview on this same DVD, the son plays a much more minor role in the book. It's a Hollywood addition.) Having a son gets at the conscious of Eckhart's character (the spin man) but in ways that might be unexpected. I liked that, because it doesn't follow the audiences expectations. You would expect that Eckhart's character would come around and see the evil of his ways. That doesn't happen - exactly.

In Eckhart's defense of the tobacco industry, I was expecting something so tongue in cheek, that the opposite of what Eckhart said would be the lesson for the audience. But it's not so cut and dry. Definitely, that happens, but there are also some pretty sincere arguments for what he is doing and why - not too many, but it's not a pure lambaste on the tobacco industry.

So to anyone who is reading this, I know that you probably already heard all the buzz on this film when it originally came out. This writing will just be a friendly reminder to go see it if you haven't had a chance. It's by the same director as Juno, so it would be interesting to compare.